When I was 18, paying my way through collage, I worked part time in a local antique shop. The lady who owned it had a lot of old painting hanging throughout the shop to give it an old fashioned feel. There was one painting in particular that stood out to me. It was a painting of a large tree with a couple sitting underneath sharing a picnic. The woman in the picture was wearing a yellow dress and was looking directly at the man while holding out a champaign flute, as if to say “Cheers”. The man was wearing a white shirt and cream colored pants and was leaning with his back against the tree. I knew the painting well because I saw it every other day. One afternoon I was in the shop doing my usual job requirements, dusting off shelves and seeing to customers, I glanced at the painting and noticed that the woman had vanished like she’d never been there. I asked the owner if she had swapped the painting with a similar one. She said no and asked me why, I told her about the woman in yellow. She looked at me like I was raving mad and said there was never a woman in the painting. I thought she was pulling my leg but all the staff said the same thing. To this day I don’t have a logical explanation as to why I saw the woman in the painting but it gives me the creeps whenever I think of it.
By Jess
