Once upon a time, a woman was driving alone, thinking about chickens, when she very nearly ran her car right into Something.
When she used the rear view mirror to investigate, she saw only a very pale young girl in a very white dress standing just off the side of the road.
She must be looking for a ride, the woman figured, and backed up to pick the girl up.
For a few miles, they made some attempt at conversation, but the girl gave short answers, and vague ones. Finally, the woman, just managing not to ask her why she was so pale and wouldn’t she like a tan, thought to ask her just where her home actually was.
The girl explained that it was on the hill, just past the graveyard, and then the woman Knew.
And so, despite the girl’s protests that the house was on the hill, and not in the graveyard itself, the woman left her at the entrance to the graveyard, and was too creeped out to watch her make her way back “home”, or, indeed, give her back the sweater she had left on the passenger seat.
But in the light of the next day, things seemed less scary, so she made her way back to the graveyard, thinking to lay the sweater down by the ghost girl’s grave. However, after realizing she did not know the girl’s name or date of birth, she decided instead to take the sweater to her parents.
Two people opened the door, and as she expressed sorrow for their loss, and tried to explain the otherwordly way in which she’d gotten the sweater, she thought she could see the girl behind them, scowling and trying to say something.
The couple mostly looked confused, and eventually, the girl declared that she was giving up, and was going to go back inside and watch TV. Still, the woman felt confident that she had done a Good Thing, and even so, resolved not to pick up hitchhikers without tans ever again.
The End.
Source: The Pretty Girl in the Road, American folktale.
