Children’s book: evil wish-granting balloons (soul-stealing)

I read this book about ten years ago. I think it was written for fairly young children, maybe close to age 8 or 9. If I remember correctly it was written in the form of a chapter book, mainly told through words and not pictures. I remember there being a boy and his father, and potentially another friend of the boy who was a young girl. The boy would watch his father disappear into the woods at night, and I think the father appeared to get sicker and more unresponsive as the story went on. The main gist of the ending was that the boy followed the father to a secret underground or maybe cave-like place in the woods where there was a man or potentially creature-like being who offered to grant wishes in return for blowing up balloons. I think these balloons sucked some sort of life out of the people who blew into them in return for benefits/wishes. The boy may have popped the balloons at the end of the story in an attempt to free the souls/life stuck inside of them. I also remember that the balloons were golden, however I fear this may be a false memory or caused by some sort of Mandela effect from coming across the book « The Wishing Balloons » so often over the course of trying to find this book. Any help in identifying this book would be greatly appreciated!

Juniper Berry by M. P. Kozlowsky.