Page 92 of Night Songs

And not one named the town she’d grown up in. Only “a little mountain holler” or “near Pigeon Forge” or endless variations of the same evasive answer.

If I was going to find out more about the curse, I needed to know where it came from.

But how could I do that if I didn’t even know my mother’s real name?

Judging from my search results, and from her comment about her “real birthday,” I suspected that she’d changed her identity when she first came to Nashville.

So I combed through the records of every town in the mountains, someof them unnamed or unincorporated, as if they existed in a dimension separate from the rest of the world. I searched birth records for a baby girl with a deceased mother, or with a birth date of July 25, the date of Belle’s death, but I found none. I searched adoption records for a girl taken in by an aunt and uncle, but there were few adoption records to begin with—there were honestly very few records at all, considering how many people must have lived and died in that region over the decades. It was clear that recordkeeping, at least back then, had not been a common practice.

If I couldn’t find it online, I would need to consult the only people she had bared herself to—the people who must know her secrets.

A week later, I booked a trip to Nashville under the guise of Christmas shopping to see Hess and the girls. On the way to the airport, I felt a little funny driving over the flat, dusty roads, as if I wasn’t quite connected to the ground. At the bar near the gate, I ordered sweet potato fries and a beer, attempting to center myself. I had always found planes comforting—I liked giving myself over to the journey, cozy in my small compartment, watching the saddest movies I could find and letting the sorrow flow freely.

But as I got in line to board, my heart beat faster and my cheeks flushed. When I tried to take a step forward, I couldn’t feel my feet against the carpet. Somehow, I made it to my seat in first class, and for a moment, I was swept along in the tide of activity as the attendant helped stow my bag and asked if I would like a drink. I ordered a tequila on the rocks with lime and hoped that would be enough to calm my nerves.

But as I sat there waiting for it, studying the interior of the cabin, I imagined the flight attendant shutting and sealing the door, us lifting into the air. I saw the cabin suddenly plummeting, luggage flying, oxygen masks hanging like loose eyeballs above the seats as the passengers screamed. Me sitting there in a state of panic, irrevocably trapped. Us crashing into the parched terrain and dying in a blaze against the red rock.

Blood pulsed in my face, and I struggled to breathe, convinced they weren’t pumping enough oxygen into the cabin. As the final passengers stepped on to the plane, I stood up, grabbed my bag, and asked to leave.

On the drive back home, my hands shook against the steering wheel. I took an overpass arcing above four layers of highway, and I felt myself leave my body and float up toward the ceiling, no longer in control of the wheel or the pedals, like one of those nightmares where you’re riding in the backseat, and you realize no one is driving the car. I imagined careening into the van in front of me, shooting through the glass of my windshield, landing splayed on the asphalt.

I took the first exit, pulled over on the side of the road, and called Micah, pretending that the car had broken down. He picked me up, and we had it towed to the shop nearby. When he asked me why I hadn’t gotten on the plane, I told him I wasn’t feeling well.

I pretended to be sick in bed for the next week and called the girls instead.

“What was my mother’s real name?” I asked Hess after we’d indulged in the usual small talk.

“What do you mean? You know Lulabelle was her real name.”

“No, I mean like herrealname. The one she was born with.”

Hess was quiet for a moment. “Honey, as far as I know, your mother was born Lulabelle Powers.” She paused. “Why do you ask?”

I could hear the suspicion in her voice, and I remembered the cover story I’d crafted. “I’m researching Belle’s life. A little side project. There’s hardly anything real about her out there,” I explained lightheartedly. “And I realized I know almost nothing about her family, and I’ve had a hard time tracking anything down in the public records. I thought she might have gone by a different name at one point.”

Hess exhaled. “Oh, okay. That sounds interesting. But like I said, I’m pretty sure she was born Lulabelle Powers. Maybe they didn’t keep consistent records back then. It was a long time ago.”

“What was the name of the town where she grew up?”

“I don’t think it was a separate town—I think it was part of Pigeon Forge or whatever county that is. I’m sure you’ll find something if you search in that area.”

I couldn’t tell if she was lying or she truly didn’t know.

“I’m also having some trouble withThe Cursed Womanpiece of her story. She didn’t give many interviews about that album, so I don’t have a lot to go on in terms of her inspiration. I know you aren’t the biggest fan of that one, but did she ever talk to you about it, or…?”

Hess was quiet again. “Rhea, you know I wasn’t around for that, so I can’t help you there.”

“I know, but I thought maybe later she told you—”

“No. She didn’t.” There was a rare edge to her voice, and I decided it wasn’t worth pushing harder.

“Okay, that’s fine, thanks for answering my questions.”

There was a beat of silence. “Honey, do you need me to come there? That bug you have sounds nasty.” I had told her I was too sick to fly. “I could be on a plane in a few hours.”

“Aren’t you recording right now?”

“Yes, but I could take a break. I know you’ve been struggling.”