But sometimes there was an odor that she couldn't identify... and that made her uneasy... what was happening out there... hidden by the rank dampness that covered everything. Was something strange going on... or was it her imagination again?
Suddenly, she remembered the old lady from her first visit to the store... the one she had seen standing beside the door... the same one the clerk had said didn't exist.
"Newcomers disappear... you are not safe here... you should leave," the woman had mumbled, "He will be back... soon... very soon... to continue his nasty business."
She had paused and and asked, "Are you talking to me?"
The old woman seemed not to have heard her. Perhaps she had a hearing problem. "Don't eat the sauerkraut. You will fall under his power."
She looked back... to ask the old woman what she was taking about... but she was gone.
Inside the store, she asked the clerk about her... but the owner replied, insisting there was no such person out there. The clerk, however, said that others had seen her. "And they all heard the same warning... shortly before they disappeared."
The owner insisted there was no old woman. "Those people simply left because they could not handle the isolation of living around here."
She asked what they were talking about and the owner said it was nothing more than an old fable... but the clerk lowered her voice... and proceeded to tell her... the legend of the 'Seaweed Man.'
"People say he's been around here for many years," the clerk said.
"No one has actually seen him," the owner said.
"He has been seen on the beach, gathering the seaweed," the clerk said.
"The owner laughed. "Probably just a farmer collecting seaweed to fertilize his fields."
"Not at night!" The clerk shook her head."Farmers work in daylight, not in the darkness."
"Maybe some don't have time during the day," the owner said. "I know I wouldn't have time during the day. Most working people don't, so they have to go at night."
"You're wrong, only the Seaweed man goes there at night," the clerk said.
"Excuse me!"
Both the owner and the clerk turned to look at her. "Can you please tell me what this is all about? Who is the Seaweed Man? And who is the old lady, because I assure you, she was very real?"
The clerk went back to stocking shelves as the owner picked up the story.
"He was an old man with hardly anything to call his own. When the seaweed washed up on the beach, he would collect as much as he could, always at night, boil it, and preserve it in pickle juice. It is said that pickled seaweed and a little wild game now and then was all he lived on."
"That's why he was called the Seaweed Man," she said. "Now, who is the old lady?"
The owner shook his head slowly. "I don't know who or what you saw, but the old lady whom you say you saw, died about fifty years ago."
"So, are you saying I saw a ghost? I don't believe in ghosts. Besides, she doesn't know me, so why would she warn me of something?"
