North Carolina Ghosts & Legends

The Lovely Apparition

The LovelyApparition Beautiful Lydia haunts the highway pleading for help, and no mortal man can help her ... though many have tried There are few men who do not hold within them some experience which time cannot erase. For some men that experience is a woman. Andfor Burke Hardisonitwill always be Lydia. Nor is he the only man who has encountered her. Since 1923 this young lady has appeared from time to time at herfavorite spot. Men who have tried to help her have all told the same story afterwards. The story has been one of complete bewilderment and mystery. Burke Hardison met Lydia late one rainy night in the early spring of1924. He was on his way back from Raleigh to his home in High Point. The evening had been spent with friends made during his college years at State. And it must have been almost two o'clock as he neared the little community ofJamestown. All around him the countryside slumbered under a billowing blanket of fog. Even the most obvious landmarks had silentlyvanished and there was an air ofunreality about 56 High Point the misty world through which he drove. Along with this air ofunreality came the feeling that all other life had ceased to exist save himself. For miles there had been no other cars, but his eyes still strained as he peered through the mist for tail lights ahead. Infront ofhim loomed the Highway 70 underpass. For a moment the fog seemed to clear. He was no longer alone. At the mouth of the underpass stood the slight, graceful figure ofa girl. Dressed in a white evening gown, she flung her arm upward signaling desperately for him to stop. Even before he pulled to the side ofthe road, he knew she must be in some terrible distress. He opened the door of the car as she came toward him. "Please, will you help me get to High Point?" pleaded a soft, tear-laden voice. "I'm on my way there now, and I'll be glad to help you," replied Burke. A gust offog entered the car as the girl slid in beside him. He could see the pale blur of a lovely face surrounded by a halo ofdark hair. And the diaphanous cloud of her white dress rested on the seat. After she had given him the address ofa street he was vaguely familiar with, they drove in silence. Nearing High Point he felt that he must find out more about her and began to question her. Her name was Lydia and ifthere was more than that it faded into the fog. Her words seemed almost detached and so faint that he could hear them above the sound ofthe motor only with the greatest effort. She seemed deeply distressed at the late hour and afraid her mother would be worried about her. Gradually he gathered that she had been to a dance that evening in Raleigh. But what had happened and how she came to be standing alone in the fog at the underpass, she either could not or would not tell him. The Lovely Apparition 57 At times she failed to answer him at all. "Why do you question me?" she finally asked. "Nothing is important now but that I'm going home." So nothing more was said. He found the street she had given him and there stood the house on the cornerjust as she had described it. Well, he would not bother her further. 58 High Point Openinghis door, he got out and walked around to the other side ofthe car. Then he held the door open for his young passenger. But as he stared into the blackness of the car's interior he gasped in amazement. The car was empty-his companion gone. Nor was there a sign of any living being near it. The only movement was that ofthe fog as it swirled in front ofhis headlights. For a moment he stood as ifdazed, with his hand still on the door. Then such a coldchill sweptoverhimthat he slammedthe car door and pulled his coat close around him. Perhaps she had slipped into the house without his seeing her. He knew that he must find out. It was several minutes before his knock was answered and then it was not Lydia who opened the door. But the resemblance was there in the face of the old lady who confronted...