I was nine when I saw the Nightlight Man. My world had been growing a lot that year. Not even a year before I had been playing with plastic horses and making piles of pillows that I pretended were dragons that soared through the clouds with me on their back. This year things were changing. I remember getting into music videos and learning their dances, and feeling more conscious of my social standing with my classmates. I remember feeling so grownup the first time my mom asked me to watch Amy, my little sister for five minutes while she put away clothes in her room. She was only four, and I think after my stuffed elephant she was my favorite thing. I loved her chubby cheeks, and chasing her around the house, her laughing like a hyena in these big breathless guffaws of joy. We would cuddle together and I would read her my favorite stories from when I was her age. Harold and the Purple Crayon was the one she liked best, and I never got tired of reading it to her. We even shared a bedroom, which I remember my mom asking me if I was sure I didn’t want my own room, but I loved Amy. She was my whole world. I was nine the last time I saw my sister.
The Nightlight Man was a little scary at first. He would come in the night. Never right after we went to bed, but any time I woke up in the night to go to the bathroom he would be there, dancing in the glow of the nightlight. The first time I saw him I didn’t know whether to be scared or not. He didn’t have a face that I could see, but if he did have a face something about him made me feel like he would have been making funny faces. He wore weird clothing that bounced around him in wild abandon as he danced. He was also really little, which I think made me feel like he was safe, though I didn’t feel safe enough to ever go close to him. The first time I walked up to the Nightlight Man I went almost all the way up to him when all of a sudden I had this horrible sense of dread in my tummy. It stopped me in my tracks, and even when the Nightlight Man turned towards me and beckoned while he danced his wild and zany dance, I couldn’t move any further forward. When I backed up a couple steps the fear went away and my curiosity returned. I would watch him dance, and he would beckon to me, but I wouldn’t go to him because any time I tried to go up to him the scary feeling would hurt my tummy and I wouldn’t go any closer. But every time I moved away the fear would go away, and I would almost forget about it.
For two weeks this happened. I would wake up needing to go to the bathroom, and see the Nightlight Man dancing, a tiny whirling dervish with bouncy jerking steps. After going pee I would sit on the floor as close as I could, my arms wrapped around my legs, watching the dance. I didn’t realize at first, but every night that I woke up and saw him, I was able to get a little closer without feeling that scary feeling. When I finally did notice how much closer I was to him I got really excited. I could almost reach out and touch him, but not quite. I think the Nightlight Man felt my excitement, because his dance was even more feverish, and the thrill of it held me until I must have fallen asleep watching him because I woke up the next morning laying in the same spot.
My mom had been getting worried about me. She didn’t believe me when I told her about the Nightlight Man, and got mad and told me to stop making up stories about imaginary things. I remember getting so mad at her and running off to my room. Amy found me, crying angrily in my bed and even though she didn’t really understand what was going on, she hugged me and cuddled with me while I calmed down. That was the last day we spent together.
That night I was determined to prove that the Nightlight Man was real. I drank two cups of water when I brushed my teeth to make sure I would wake up, and then my plan was to wake up my parents and show them the little dancing man that I had been watching for the last two weeks. And I did wake up, full bladder and full of determination. The moment I opened my eyes I could see that the Nightlight Man was there, casting his tiny shadow as he whirled under the nightlight plugged into the wall. You know, I remember that night so vividly, but I don’t think I could tell you what the nightlight looked like. My focus was totally consumed with the activity underneath it.
I went to the bathroom, and was about to go to my parents’ room to wake them when a horrible thought hit me. What if the Nightlight Man was gone? My mom would be mad if I woke her up and the little man she said was imaginary wasn’t there. I didn’t want to risk it, so I decided to peek into Amy’s and my room to make sure he was still there. That’s when I saw her. Amy had woke up, and climbed out of bed. She had seen the Nightlight Man and gone over to him. He was on the floor still, dancing and beckoning for her. She reached out to take his tiny outstretched hand, and he reached back and grabbed her second finger. The moment he did I felt a cold rush of fear flood my body like nothing I had ever felt before, and I screamed in sheer terror. Amy looked at me, her joy-filled smile turning to a confused expression when the Nightlight Man suddenly changed. In one moment he became so big that he filled the room in a way that didn’t seem possible. He didn’t touch the ceiling, but he seemed bigger than the room or the house, or even the sky. He had Amy in his arms, and she started screaming. The Nightlight Man had stopped dancing, and I could see that he didn’t have a face at all, but it no longer looked like it would have funny faces, but terrifying horrors that I didn’t want to see. He turned his faceless head down to Amy, who was shrieking and flailing, trying to get away from his grasp, but nothing seemed to work. And then the mouth formed and opened, with too many teeth, sharp and dripping and I was screaming and Amy was screaming and the huge mouth closed over her tiny body and then
And then she was gone. The Nightlight Man was gone. My parents rushed into the room to find me screaming in terror in the still, gentle yellow light of the nightlight, and my sister gone without a trace. They tried to get something out of me, but I was hysterical and could only repeat the words “the Nightlight Man” over and over again. Police were called, a search and investigation was conducted, but Amy was never found. I knew she wouldn’t be, but my parents were so sure she was still alive. They never believed me when I was finally able to tell them what happened. I was sent to therapists who told me that I had experienced something traumatic and had made up a fantasy to protect my mind from the horrible reality. But I knew. I always knew what I saw. I figured out that I needed to say what they told me happened though, because my parents were getting really worried and I accidentally saw an email that my therapist had written to my parents recommending that I be medicated. I didn’t want to take the pills, so I started to agree with the therapists and my parents that I must have imagined it. And I have said that ever since. It’s been 25 years since the night the Nightlight Man took my sister, and I never told anyone else about it until now.
But now I have to tell someone. I need help. Because you see, Kira, my oldest daughter, just told me over breakfast about the little man that dances in the glow of the nightlight in her and Stacy’s room.