Darkmouth

For Maeve, my partner
in this adventure

T
he town of Darkmouth appears on few maps because very few people want to find it. When it is marked on one, its location is always wrong. It'll be a bit north of where it's supposed to be, or a bit south. A little left or a little right. A bit off.

Always.

Which means that visitors to Darkmouth invariably arrive having taken a wrong turn, soon convinced they'll reach only a dead end. They drive through a canopy of trees, whose branches reach from either side to clasp ever tighter overhead, becoming thicker with every mile until the dappled light is choked off and the road is dark even on the brightest of days. Then, just as the wood is almost scraping the paint from their car and it seems that the road itself is going to be suffocated, the visitors travel through a short tunnel and emerge onto a roundabout filled with blossoming flowers
and featuring a sign that reads:

The next line has been updated by hand a couple of times:

On a wall lining the road there is large, striking graffiti. It says only this:

Except the last
S
forms a serpent, with mouth wide and teeth jagged. Visitors peer at it and wonder,
Is that a . . . ? Could it be a . . . ?

Yes, that snake really
is
swallowing a child.

The travelers—by now a bit desperate in their search—have finally reached Darkmouth. Their next thought is this:
Let's get out of here
.

So they go right around the roundabout and head back the way they came. Which is a shame, because if they were to stay they would realize that Darkmouth is actually quite a nice little place. It has a colorful little ice-cream shop on the harbor, benches dotted along the beach, picnic tables and jungle gyms for the kids.

And no one has been eaten by a monster for some time.

In fact, they aren't really monsters at all. They might
look
monstrous, and the locals might refer to them as monsters, but, strictly speaking, they are Legends. Myths. Fables. They once shared the earth with humans, only to grow envious, then so violent that a war raged through the world's Blighted Villages for centuries.

Darkmouth is the last of these Blighted Villages. And Legends show up only occasionally.

This morning just happens to be one of those occasions.