Music Welcome to snoozecast. The podcast is designed to help you fall asleep. Find a sense snoozecast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share it with a friend. This episode is brought to you by a sheltered bay. Tonight, as part of our spooky sleep story series, we'll read our unlikely adapted version of alternate Blackwoods, a haunted island from the empty house and other ghost stories, published in 1906. In this story, our narrator has left alone for a few weeks at an island lodge in the middle of a lake in Canada, where he thinks he will focus on his studies, but soon begins to see and hear strange things. Tune in every Wednesday this month for sleep stories of the darker variety, lightly adapted and read it in a way to evoke a mood of spookiness without actually causing a fright.

Catch up on previous years by finding our free podcast, Snewscast presents Spooky Stories. Or if you are a premium subscriber, look forward Snewscast Plus or Snewscast Plus deluxe spooky stories instead to listen and free.

Let's get cozy.

Close your eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now take a few deep breaths. The following events occurred on a small island of isolated position in a large Canadian lake, to whose cool waters, the inhabitants of Montreal and Toronto, flee for rest and recreation in the hot months. It is only to be regretted that events of such peculiar interest to the genuine student of the physical should be entirely uncooperated. Such unfortunately, however, is the case. Our own party of nearly 20 had returned to Montreal that very day, and I was left in solitary possession for a week or two longer in order to accomplish some important reading for the law which I had foolishly neglected during the summer. It was late in September, and the big trout and masconage were stirring themselves in the depths of the lake, and beginning to slowly move up to the surface waters, as the North winds and early frosts lowered their temperature. Already the maples were crimson and gold, and the wild laughter of the loons echoed in sheltered bays that never knew their strange cry in the summer. With a whole island to oneself, a two-story cottage, a canoe, and only the chipmunks, and the farmers' weekly visit with eggs and bread to disturb one, the opportunities for hard reading might be very great. It all depends. The rest of the party had gone off with jovial warnings to beware of the mythical mysterious canoers who supposedly paddled the lake when it is covered in mist or snow. They also admonished me not to stay late enough to succumb to the frost that thinks nothing of forty below zero. Only after they had gone did I consider how there were no other islands within six or seven miles. And though the mainland forests lay a couple of miles behind me, they stretched for a very great distance, unbroken by any signs of human habitation. But, though the island was completely deserted and silent, the rocks and trees that had echoed human laughter and voices almost every hour of the day for two months could not fail to retain some memories of it at all. And I was not surprised to fancy I heard a shout or a cry as I passed from rock to rock. more than once to imagine that I heard my own name called aloud. In the cottage, there were six tiny little bedrooms divided from one another by plain unvarnished partitions of pine, of wooden bedstead, a mattress, and a chair stood in each room, but I only found two mirrors, and one of these was broken. The boards creaked a good deal as I moved about, and the signs of occupation were so recent that I could hardly believe I was alone. I have expected to find someone left behind, still trying to crowd into a box more than it would hold. The door of one room was stiff and refused for a moment to open, and it required very little persuasion to imagine someone was holding the handle on the inside, and that when it opened I should meet a pair of eyes. A thorough search of the floor led me to select as my own sleeping quarters a little room with a balcony over the veranda roof. The room was very small, but the bed was large and had the best mattress of the mall. It was situated directly over the sitting room where I where I should live and do my reading. While the miniature window looked out to the rising sun, with the exception of a narrow path which led from the front door and veranda through the trees to the boat landing, the island was densely covered with maples, hemlocks, and cedars. The trees gathered and round the cottage so closely that the slightest wind made the branches scrape the roof and tap the wooden walls. A few moments after sunset, the darkness became impenetrable, and ten yards beyond the glare of the lamps

that shone through the sitting-room windows of which there were four, you could not see an inch before your nose, nor move a step without running up against a tree. rest of that day, I spent moving my belongings from my tent to the sitting room, taking stock of the contents of the larder and chopping enough wood for the stove to last me for a week. After that, just before sunset, I went round the island a couple of times in my canoe for precaution's sake. I had never dreamed of doing this before, but when a man is alone, he does things that never occurred to him when he is one of a large party. How lonely the island seemed when I landed again. The sun was down, and twilight is unknown in these northern regions. The darkness comes up at once. The canoe safely pulled up and turned over on her face. I groped my way up the little narrow pathway to the veranda. The six lamps were soon burning merrily in the front room, but in the kitchen, where I dined, the shadows were gloomy, and the lamp light was inadequate, so that the stars could be seen peeping through the cracks between the rafters. I turned in early that night, though it was calm, and there was no wind, the creaking of my bedstead, and the musical gurgle of the water over the rocks, below were not the only sounds that reached my ears. As I lay awake, the emptiness of the house grew upon me. The corridors and vacant rooms seemed to echo innumerable footsteps, shuffling the rustle of skirts and a constant undertone of whispering. When sleep at length overtook me, the breathings and noises, however, passed gently to mingle with the voices of my dreams. A week passed by, and the reading progressed favorably. On the tenth day of my solitude, a strange thing happened. I awoke after a good night's sleep to find myself possessed with a market distaste for my room. The air seemed stuffy, absurd as it seems, this feeling clung to me, obstinately, while dressing, and more than once I caught myself shivering. The more I tried to laugh it away, the more real it became. And when at last I was dressed, and went out into the passage, and downstairs into the kitchen, it was worth feelings of relief.

While cooking my breakfast, I carefully recalled every night spent in the room, in the hope that I might in some way connect the way I felt with some incident that had occurred in it. But the only thing I could recall was one stormy night when I suddenly awoke and heard the boards creaking so loudly in the corridor that I was convinced there were people in the house. So certain was I of this that I had descended the stairs, only to find the doors and windows securely fastened. This was certainly not sufficient to account for the strength of my feelings. The morning hours I spent in steady reading, and when I broke off in the middle of the day for a swim and luncheon. Going upstairs to get a book, I again experienced an aversion to entering the room. The result of it was that, instead of reading, I spent the afternoon on the water, paddling, and fishing. And when I got home about sundown, brought with me half a dozen delicious black bass for the supper table and the larder. As sleep was an important matter to me at this time, I had decided that if my aversion to the room was so strongly marked on my return, as it had been before, I would move my bed down into the sitting-room and sleep there. This was, I argued, in no sense a concession to an absurd fancy, but simply a precaution to ensure a good night's sleep. I could not be sleepy when trying to get through all of my reading. I accordingly moved my bed downstairs into a corner of the sitting room facing the door, and was more over, uncommonly glad

when the operation was completed. And the door of the bedroom closed finally upon the shadows,

and the silence that shared the room with them.

The croaking stroke of the kitchen clock sounded the hour of eight as I finished washing up my few dishes and closing the kitchen door behind me, passed into the front room. All the lamps were lit and the reflectors which I had polished up the day, through a blaze of light into the room. Outside the night was still and warm, not a breath of air was stirring. The waves were silent, the trees motionless, and heavy clouds hung, hung like an oppressive curtain over the heavens. The darkness seemed to have rolled up with unusual swiftness, and not the faintest glow of color remained to show where the sun had set. There was present in the atmosphere that ominous and overwhelming silence which so often precedes storms. I sat down to my books with my brain unusually clear, and in my heart the pleasant satisfaction of knowing that five black bass were lying in the ice house, and that tomorrow the old farmer would arrive with fresh bread and eggs. I was soon absorbed in my books. As the night wore on, the silence deepened. Even the chipmunks were still, and the boards of the floor and walls ceased creaking. I read on steadily till, from the gloomy shadows of the kitchen, came the whore's sound of the clock striking nine. How loud the strokes sounded, they were like blows of a big hammer. I closed one book and opened another, feeling that I was just warming up to my work. This, however, did not last long. I presently found that I was reading the same paragraphs over twice, simple paragraphs that did not require such effort. Then I noticed that my mind began to wander to other things, and the effort to recall my thoughts became harder with each digression. Concentration was growing momentarily more difficult. Presently, I discovered that I had turned over two pages instead of one, and had not noticed my mistake until I was well down the page. This was becoming serious. What was the disturbing influence? It could not be physical fatigue. On the contrary, my mind was unusually alert and in a more receptive condition than usual. I made a new and determined effort to read, and for a short time succeeded in giving my whole attention to my subject. and a very few moments again. I found myself leaning back in my chair, staring vacantly into space. Something was evidently at work. There was something I had neglected to do. Perhaps the kitchen door and windows were not fassant. I accordingly went to sea and found that they were. The fire perhaps needed attention. I went in to sea and found that it was all right. I looked at the lamps, went upstairs into every bedroom, in turn, and then went round the house, and even into the ice house. Nothing was wrong. Everything was in its right place.

Yet something was a miss. This conviction grew stronger and stronger within me. When I at length settled down to my books again and tried to read, I became aware for the first time that the room seemed growing cold. Yet The day had been oppressively warm and evening had brought no relief. The six big lamps moreover gave out heat enough to warm the room pleasantly, but a chilliness that perhaps crept up from the lake made itself felt in the room and caused me to get up to close the glass door, opening onto the veranda. For a brief moment, I stood looking out at the shaft of light that fell from the windows, and shown some little distance down the pathway, and out for a few feet into the lake. As I looked, I saw a canoe glide into the pathway of light, and immediately crossing it pass out of sight again into the darkness. It was perhaps a hundred feet from the shore, and it moved swiftly. I was surprised that it could knew should pass the island at that same of night. For all the summer visitors from the other side of the lake had gone home weeks before, the island was a long way out of any line of water traffic. My reading from this moment did not make very good progress. For somehow, the picture of that canoe gliding so dimly and swiftly across the narrow track of light on the black waters, silhouetted itself against the background of my mind with singular vividness. It kept coming between my eyes in the printed page. The more I thought about it, the more surprised I became. It was a larger build than any I had seen during the past summer months and was more like the old native canoes with the high-curving vows and stern and wide beam. The more I tried to read, the less success attended my efforts. And finally, I closed my books and went out on the veranda to walk up and down a bit and shake the chilliness out of my bones. The night was perfectly still and as dark as imaginable, I stumbled down the path to the little landing wharf where the water made the very faintest of gurgling under the timbers. The sound of a big tree falling in the mainland forest, far across the lake, stirred echoes in the heavy air. No other sound disturbed the stillness, that rained supreme. As I stood upon the wharf in the broad splash of light that followed me from the sitting-room windows. I saw another canoe cross the pathway of uncertain light upon the water and disappear at once into the impenetrable gloom that lay beyond. This time I saw more distinctly than before. It was like the former canoe. A big birch bark. With stern and broad beam. It was battled by two men. I could see this very plainly. And though the second canoe was much near the island, then the first, I wondered if they had gotten lost on their way back to wherever their own remote camp was. I was wondering in my mind what could possibly bring anybody down to this part of the lake at such an hour of the night when a third canoe of precisely similar build passed silently round the edge of the dwarf. This time the canoe was very much nearer shore and it suddenly flashed into my mind that the three canoes were in reality one and the same, and that only one canoe was circling the island. My imagination immediately sought relief in all manner of other solutions to the problem, which indeed came readily enough to my mind, but did not succeed in recommending themselves to my reason. Meanwhile, by a sort of instinct, I stepped back out of the bright light in which I had hitherto been standing and waited in the deep shadow of a rock to see if the canoe would again make its appearance. Here I could see, without being seen, and the precaution seemed a wise one. less than five minutes the canoe as as I had anticipated, made its fourth appearance. This time it was not twenty yards from the warmth, and I saw that the canoeers meant to land. I recognized the two men as those who had passed before. It was unquestionably the same canoe. There could be no longer any doubt that for some purpose of their own the men had been going round and round the island for some time, waiting for an opportunity to lay at. I strained my eyes to follow them in the darkness, but the night had completely swallowed them up, and not even the faintest swish of the paddles reached my ears as the paddlers plied their long and powerful strokes.

The canoe would be round again in a few moments, and this time it was possible that they might land. It was well to be prepared. Once they left the light, traveling back into the darkness, perhaps for one more loop around the island, I set my plan to leave post-aste, and hurriedly traveled back to the cabin. Inside, I grabbed my necessaries without much thought. Scribble the quick note to the farmer, saying I had left early. And went down back to the bank, hoping to not see them yet. Thankfully, the lake was still dark.

I turned my canoe upright,

hopped in,

getting my feet a little wet,

and hug the shoreline closely,

where it was darkest. I was about 200 yards out when I saw them finally beach up by the rock near the dock. in the heavenly beach, up by the rock near the dock. In a solemn manner, they walked abreast, up to the cabin very slowly. I continued to battle, knowing that I could easily make it to the other side of the lake, and safely land there and find my way home quickly. I battled ever so silently and swiftly, not stopping until I reached the safety of the other shore. The only thing I heard during my entire journey being the loud knocking from the two men on the front of the cabin door as it reverberated across the lake. It wasn't until I was nearly halfway through the woods until I no longer heard the sound, but even as it ceased, I didn't stop running until I made it back to town. into the safety and comfort.