Page 110 of Night Songs

“Black Gum Tree” played in my head, telling of the tragic death of the cursed woman’s mother. It wasn’t just a story—it wasreal.

“I wanted to raise Ernestine as my own, but the wife wouldn’t let me…” The old man trailed off, and his gaze went unfocused.

“Dad?” Enoch prompted.

“Hey, um, E, fetch me that box under the bed.”

Enoch heaved himself up and retrieved an old-fashioned blue hatbox from a back room. Hasil opened it and pulled out a small yellow blanket and held it out to me. I took it and studied the embroidery in one corner. It spelled out “Lulabelle” in pink thread with simple blue flowers stitched around the letters.

“What is this?”

He smiled. “Aileen made it for her baby when she was pregnant. Wanted to name her Lulabelle.”

“Did Ernestine know?”

His smile faded. “I told the Arwoods when they took ’er, but they didn’t listen. I didn’t see ’er much ’cause the Arwoods weren’t real keen on me, but at church one time, I told her ’bout the name.” He pulled out a small photograph and gazed at it before handing it to me.

The image’s black and white had faded to gray and yellow tones, but I could make out a young girl with a feral expression posing in a dress a few sizes too big. Those same dark branching lines peeked out of the low neckline.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing at them.

Hasil squinted at the photo. “She had a birthmark that went clear from her belly button to her neck that looked just like a tree. I saw it when they pulled her out at the hospital. Craziest thing I’d ever seen.” He shook his head. “It was part of why my wife wouldn’t take her in.”

Her mark was a tree, and mine was a branch.

I handed him the blanket and the photo, and he put them back in the box and gave me the whole thing. “You should have this.” His eyes paled and watered, but I couldn’t tell if it was emotion or just old age.

“What happened with the uncle who raised her? The sheriff mentioned an incident,” I asked.

He scowled. “I don’t rightly know ’cause I only heard the rumors, but they said her aunt found him near dead on the kitchen floor and Ernestine gone. I saw ’im in church a few weeks after, and he looked like a daggum monster.”

He sucked his teeth, and I interjected, “In the cave church?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “As a matter of fact, yes. We held services in a cave back then; thought it brought us closer to the land. A little wacky, but it made worship feel more ancient-like. They stopped doing it years ago.” He cast his eyes around as if he’d lost his train of thought.

“You were saying about her uncle…”

“Oh, yes, he told people he’d been thrown from his horse, but we all knew the truth. I thought about tryin’ to find ’er, but I figured she left for a reason, and she was better for it.” The old man’s face sagged. “I should have looked out for her. I promised Aileen I would. But I was a coward…” He trailed off, and his head drooped to the side.

Enoch turned to his father. “Dad, why don’t you take a nap? I’ll entertain these ladies.”

The old man nodded distantly and shuffled into a back room without another word.

We sat in silence for a beat, just looking at each other. Then I said, “Enoch, is there anything else you can tell us?”

Enoch put a finger up, then made a show of cocking his ear toward his father’s room. Soon, we heard a low snoring coming from inside, and he leaned back in his chair. “I do, actually.” He lowered his voice. “When Ernestine showed up in ’82, she didn’t look good. Real thin, and like she hadn’t slept in a week. Dad told her the same thing he told you. They tried to stop the curse; it didn’t work. But later, when he was out of the room, I told her that wasn’t the whole story.” He took a deep breath.

“Growing up, Dad didn’t tell me about the curse, but I heard about it from other kids. It’s sorta like a ghost story in town—everyone knows it. Dad never said anything, but he must have been relieved he didn’t have any daughters. Just me and my two brothers.

“Years ago, Dad got real drunk on Christmas Eve. He went out to the porch to sober up, and I sat with him. He started talking about his mother—his only memory of her was one Christmas Eve when it started snowing. He and Aileen went out with her into the backyard and tried to catch snowflakes with their tongues. He started crying a little bit, and I didn’t say anything. I don’t think I’d ever seen him cry.

“Then he started talking about the day Aileen died. He kept saying he found her hanging from the tree, and I asked him what he meant. He said she was hanging from a rope. I was confused because I knew she’d been hit by a truck. He said no, she hung herself in the tree and he found her. He could barely say the words. He said he climbed up and cut her down. She was still warm, and he could feel a heartbeat when he checked her, so he ran with her over his shoulder to his car and took her to the hospital, and they cut Ernestine out, like he usually tells the story.

“I didn’t know what to say to him. I couldn’t believe he’d kept this secret all those years. I asked him why he lied and told everyone the truck story, and he said people out here don’t like it when someone takes their own life, especially back then. It woulda been real bad for our family, and for Ernestine growing up. Her daddy’s sister might not have taken her in.

“Then at Aileen’s funeral, an old friend of his mother’s told him his mother hadn’t fallen from that bridge. She’d jumped.

“You have to understand that back in the day, people thought mental illness was a sign of devil possession, or something supernatural. Not sure how’d you diagnose it, exactly, but my guess is that the family curse is a mental illness of some kind, passed down through the genes.”