Chapter 12 Lights
Lights
Lydia Brown
You have to believe in magic to write for Appalachian Folklore.
It’s an unwritten rule. The stories tell readers about supernatural happenings witnessed in Appalachia.
About old-timey traditions that need to be preserved.
About the ways of the forest that blend Christian beliefs with paganism and Native American practices.
Foxfire glows green in these forests, as do luminescent mushrooms named bitter oyster and dripping bonnets.
And there are elusive blue ghost fireflies that appear in mating season in a few places only in western North Carolina.
The stories within the pages of Folklore marvel at the unexplainable and the mystery of Appalachia.
I’m the occasional contributor who comes up with an idea the editor likes, and he gives me permission and a deadline.
I’ve not managed my time well for this requested assignment, and it’s too late to mail my draft, so I hand-deliver it to Rudy at his unpretentious, bustling office in Asheville.
Paperwork and photographs are piled high on his scarred desk.
The wide table in the middle holds sequential pages ready for review.
The whole scene is ordered chaos repeated every thirty days.
I’m only partly pleased with today’s story because of what’s missing—Birdie Rocas and her perplexing world. But I made my deadline.
“Look forward to reading your article, Lydia,” Rudy says, removing his reading glasses. He holds out his ink-stained fingers to add my paperwork to the pile awaiting his red pen.
I nod to Rudy but don’t make excuses. Instead, I say, “Do you remember the article about lights north of Burnsville?”
“I do.” He scratches his scraggly beard.
“Got a lotta mail bout that story. Specially from witnesses who had seen them. It’s a hard line between those who believe those lights are supernatural and those who don’t.
The town officials like to point to electricity coming to remote areas or headlights winking through trees on back roads, but these lights go way back before electricity or even cars. Why’d you ask?”
“I saw something when I was researching my story. I wanted to read the article to compare. I’ll check archives.”
“If you uncover something more, let me know.” Rudy slips on his reading glasses, back into editor mode. “We might do a follow-up article. Everybody loves a mystery that keeps expanding. We could include new stories the first article generated.”
I climb the narrow stairs to the second floor and find the cramped room where back issues are stacked by date on shelves.
There’s a small desk and chair for researchers.
I can’t remember what the cover looks like, but it won’t take long to begin a year ago and go back from there.
I check the index and resist rereading my favorite articles about a revered maker of banjos and fiddles, and how mountain foods get their odd names—like red-eye gravy, which doesn’t contain red eyes, and leather britches, which would flummox anyone outside a ten-county range.
In ten minutes, I’ve flipped through thirty back issues when I find what I’m looking for.
The article is titled “Mysterious Lights in Yancey County.” I’m surprised to see that the writer is Professor Terrence Covey, retired history professor from UNC Asheville.
Now owner of Books and Beans, and my landlord and friend.
I reread the five-page article, study the photos, and take notes.
Professor Covey has presented both sides of the story, and he quotes the mayor of Burnsville giving fair warning that the lights aren’t a mystery at all but rather harmless flashes, nothing but trouble leading people to a dangerous pastime.
Folks got no business heading up into hollers at night, sticking their noses in where they don’t belong. We won’t take kindly to trespassers, and neither will landowners. They protect their own. It’s best to stay away.
This was the mayor’s way of warding off liability. Those winding roads that spin off from the town square are treacherous on a good day with only slow local traffic. A curious crowd on a mission after dark is another threat entirely.
In rebuttal, Professor Covey spoke with six witnesses who described white lights high in the trees.
The interview with an elderly man living with his granddaughter was the most convincing.
He said the bobbing lights date back to before the Civil War.
Long before electricity and cars and modern thingamajigs.
He remembers his great-granddaddy talking about those lights.
Nowhere does anyone report danger or injury inflicted by the orbs.
They are a benign occurrence that at worst are baffling and at best are beautiful.
I wonder if Birdie ever wrote about the lights in her books.
That could put a historic slant on the phenomenon, and it could give me a reason to see her again.
But she isn’t a woman to be coerced or sweet-talked.
She could see through my fabricated ruse.
Though she could read my thoughts last Saturday and knows my eagerness to befriend her, I must tread lightly.
Of all my virtues, patience is my weakest.