“The Haunted Island” is a different kind of Northern by Algernon Blackwood. It’s not set in the far north or in a fishing vessel off the Grand Banks. This one takes place in one of the nicest locations possible, a vacationing island in the Muskoka region of Ontario. During Blackwood’s time in 1898, he visited an island in this region for a summer holiday and was enchanted. The story actually takes place in September after all the tourists have left. Autumn is coming in and the island holds another kind of rustic beauty with red, gold and yellow leaves, good fishing and time for reading. The narrator is on the island to get caught up on his reading for a legal degree.
The first quarter of the story is spent on describing this wonderful holiday, with its eerie moments of occupation, when the narrator could swear he heard voices or felt others in the lonely abode. He has chosen for his bedroom the best in the house, with a large comfortable bed. He keeps it until one day he gets a weird feeling of disgust and alarm. He vacates the room, not so much out of supernatural fear, as not wishing to sleep poorly and lose a day’s reading progress. He takes the parlour just below the room as his new sleeping spot.
If you’d like to read the rest, please check out Monster 2: From the Pages of Dark Worlds Quarterly.
Great review. I will track this one down