Campfire Story: Seaweed

In the early 1900s two sisters traveling home from Cape Cod found themselves stranded when their car broke down. They were out of luck for it was a stormy night and it began to rain.

Seeing an old house nearby they made their way through the mud and weeds and tugged on the door pull. Since no one answered they looked through a broken window and saw a library. It was covered with dust and neglect.

They tried the front door again and found with a brisk push it opened. With no other choice the sisters decided they would stay in the house until the morning when they could find someone to tow their car.

They risked the mud and rain to retrieve some blankets and snacks from their car and settled in for the night.

Awakened suddenly several hours later by an loud noise that appeared to be coming from the once grand fireplace in the room they were startled to see a bedraggled sailor--he appeared to be a captain-- whose clothes were dripping wet.

He stood near the fireplace and appeared to be drying himself by a non-existent fire. It was dark in the room but the sailor was glowing brightly.

The braver of the two sisters called out, “Who is there?”

The captain then muttered something they could not hear and disappeared. Deciding they must have imaged it the sisters went back to sleep.

The next morning they found a pool of salt water and wet seaweed by the fireplace. But there were no footprints in the dust that had settled on the ground except their own.

The sisters hurried out of the old house. They managed to flag down a passing motorist and get a ride into the nearest town. Curious they asked about the abandoned house. They were told no one had lived there for years.

The son who would have inherited it was lost at sea and the family had moved away because they claimed strange things happened in the house at night.

Before they left the house that morning the braver sister had tucked the seaweed they found into her pocket.

Months later at a dinner party the sisters told a museum curator about their mysterious encounter. To the surprise of the one sister the other mentioned she still had the seaweed.

The curator arranged to test it for them. After several days they received a message from this man. It simply said that the seaweed they had found in the house was a rare type that only was found on dead bodies.