The White Gown at Crooked Creek

The morning Aunt Margaret died, the fog was thick as curdled milk, and the chickens refused to leave their coop. She had been failing for weeks, her breath rattling like dry seed pods in a gourd, and we all knew it was only a matter of time. But knowing didn’t make it easier, especially for my cousin, Delia, who had been her caretaker for the last three months. Delia had that hollow, haunted look you get when you’re the one holding the dying person’s hand, watching them slip away, inch by inch.

It was on the fourth morning after the funeral that I saw it. I was driving Delia’s old, rusted pickup down the gravel road that runs alongside Crooked Creek, headed toward the highway that would take us into town for supplies. The fog was still heavy, clinging to the pines that lined the property, and the air smelled of damp earth and cold ash. Delia was beside me, quiet, staring out the window at nothing. We hadn’t spoken much since the service; grief had made us strangers to each other, even though we’d been like sisters growing up.

We were about halfway to the main road, the engine groaning in low gear, when I caught a flash of white out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head, and there, emerging from the treeline, was a woman. She was tall, and her hair was long and black, but I couldn’t see her face clearly because it was partially obscured by a veil of fog. She wore a long, flowing white gown, the kind you’d see in old photographs, the hem dragging through the dead leaves. She walked with a strange, uneven gait, as if one leg were shorter than the other, and she was headed straight for the center of the road, right into our path.

I slammed on the brakes, the truck skidding on the loose gravel, and Delia cried out, grabbing the dashboard. But when we stopped, there was nothing there. The road was empty, and the fog swirled lazily as if mocking us. Delia was shaking, asking what the hell I was doing, but I couldn’t answer. I just pointed to the spot where I’d seen her, but there was nothing. ‘Didn’t you see her?’ I asked. Delia looked at me with wide, frightened eyes and shook her head. ‘See who?’ she said.

We drove on, but the feeling of wrongness lingered. The fog seemed to press in on us, and every shadow between the pines looked like a figure. Delia started to talk, telling me about the last days with Aunt Margaret, how she would sometimes talk to people who weren’t there, how she’d whisper a name over and over, a man’s name that no one recognized. And then she said something that chilled me even more: ‘She always wore that white gown. The one with the lace trim. She was buried in it.’

I pulled over, my hands trembling on the wheel. I looked at Delia, and I could see she was thinking the same thing: if I had seen Aunt Margaret, it wasn’t her ghost in the usual sense. It was her, wearing her burial gown, walking toward us like she was trying to get our attention. Delia started to cry, and I reached over to hold her, but as I did, I saw something in the rearview mirror. A figure, standing at the edge of the road, just behind the truck. It was the same woman, but now she was closer, and I could see her face. It was Aunt Margaret, but her eyes were pure white, like the fog, and her mouth was open in a silent scream.

I didn’t tell Delia. I just put the truck in gear and drove. The rest of the way to town was a blur, and we didn’t speak again. But when we got back to the house late that afternoon, we found the front door open, and Aunt Margaret’s rocking chair, which had been placed in the corner of the living room, was gently rocking back and forth as if someone had just stood up. There was a faint smell of lavender, the same sachet she used to keep in her dresser drawer.

We never spoke of what I saw that morning, but Delia told me later that she had dreamed of that woman, the one in white, standing at the foot of her bed, pointing toward the creek. When we finally sold the property and moved away, I kept the memory buried, but sometimes, in the early morning fog, I still see her, walking toward the center of the road, waiting for someone to stop.