the woman in the green dress

One summer evening as the sun was setting, my grandmother was washing dishes after a family dinner when she heard their dogs barking up a storm in the backyard. Our grandparents had the essential 1950’s Los Angeles house with the kitchen facing the backyard, with a perfectly placed window just above the sink that got the best breeze, especially on a Mar Vista summer evening like this one. She’d usually just ignored the dogs barking, but this time their barks seemed different. My grandmother said they seemed scared! She looked up from the dishes to see a huge black dog in her backyard. The biggest dog she had ever seen! The dog was just standing in the yard, staring with curiosity at her petrified dogs. She froze. She was worried it was going to hurt them or her! Then the dog turned around and jumped over the fence onto the street like it had been called. The fence was a stone wall was give or take 6 feet tall and this “dog” leaped over the fence like it was jumping over a log in its path. Basically, like it was nothing. From my grandparent's kitchen you could actually see some of the street over the fence. That’s when my Grandmother saw the woman in the green dress. The black dog that had just jumped their fence joined her, as well as, another huge dog other the woman’s other side. She said the thing that stood out about this woman, was the fact she was wearing an old-style gown, like someone in the 1800s might wear…mind you, it was 1960 (or something I can’t remember now).

My grandmother told me once when I lived with her that the woman had turned to her and pulled a single finger over her lips to tell my grandmother to stay quiet. Then the trio walked away and eventually disappeared out of sight.

This is one of my favorite stories my grandmother would tell me. I always love a good ghost story!

Amateur writer & photographer. Professional mama and flower child. View all posts by julia

Published

Originally published at http://cheesincrackers.com on July 6, 2020.