Night Songs

by Alli Dyer

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

In this haunting family saga, a young woman must delve into her country star mother’s music to break a curse that has plagued the women in her family for generations—before her time runs out.

On the morning of Rhea’s eighteenth birthday, she makes a shocking discovery—her mother was the famed singer of some of country music’s most iconic tunes, the legendary Lulabelle “Belle” Powers, and she’s just inherited her massive estate. Eager to know more about this woman she barely remembers, Rhea travels to Nashville to retrace her mother’s footsteps. But as she gets to know Belle’s closest friends and learns more of her story, she can’t help but think something is being kept from her.

It isn’t until years later that her mother’s best friend Hess reveals the truth – her mother believed all the women in her family were cursed to die at thirty-three—Belle’s exact age when she passed away in a mysterious plane crash. Hess dismisses the curse as pure superstition, but Rhea feels something sinister stalking her, her own life beginning to mirror her mother’s as she gets closer to her thirty-third birthday. Desperate for answers, Rhea delves deeper into her mother’s music, uncovering Belle’s last unpublished album Night Songs, which leads her back to her roots in ways she never could have imagined.

Alternating between Rhea’s journey and Lulabelle’s untold rise to country queen, Night Songs is an electric story of inheritance and resilience, love and freedom, and the power of music to connect across generations.

Release date: August 11, 2026

Publisher: Atria Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Chapter 1 1 rhea
1995

Shelli and I sat at the edge of a rocky cliff with our legs dangling over a vast unknown. She passed me the bottle of grape Mad Dog we stole from the 7-Eleven, and I took a sip. It tasted like poisoned Halloween candy, its red glowing radioactive in the falling light.

I handed it back, and she poured some out into the still, dark waters of the quarry below. “I offer this wine to the gods, in celebration of Rhea’s birth.” She smiled and took another swig. “Happy Birthday.” She pressed play on the boom box, and “Fade into You” by Mazzy Star wafted into the air.

I wouldn’t turn eighteen until the next day, but I never celebrated on my birthday. Always the night before, and usually alone or with a friend like Shelli. I didn’t want a cake or presents or to be the center of a hot, whirring celebration.

All I wanted was one moment where I would look out and feel a connection to the world that was soft and hopeful. I would know it by a sound in my throat, like a cross between a grunt and a sigh. It hadn’t happened yet, but I was sure it would come. I could feel its potential in the air like downy oxygen.

The trees rustled behind us, and two boys from our high school emerged carrying a twelve-pack of Icehouse like they’d slain a bear. I had seen them before, watching from the shadows at parties as I hooked up with their more confident friends.

I grabbed the bottle from Shelli and took a large gulp.

They watched us now as they set down the beer and each took a can. One of them, Rick, had a trace of dark hair on his upper lip, and he approached first, with doughy Steve trailing behind him.

“What’s up?” Rick asked, putting a bit of asshole into his voice.

I held up the bottle in explanation, and we turned wordlessly back to our celebration.

“Lesbos,” Steve murmured behind us. It was the only way he could explain why we hadn’t been waiting for them. Why we were content to be here alone with no one watching us.

Shelli whispered, “Let’s go.”

“No,” I whispered back.

Rick cracked his beer and gestured toward the water. “Bet you never jumped before.”

“Bet you haven’t either,” I answered without thinking.

He snickered. “We’ve done it a bunch of times.”

I turned back and looked him in the eyes. They were gooey and pink like they’d smoked in the front seat of his grandma’s Nissan Stanza.

“Okay, let’s see it,” I said.

He glanced at Steve and shook his head. “Naw. I just wanna get hammered.” He took a lusty sip of beer, and a bit of it dribbled down his acne-studded chin. I couldn’t imagine a more repulsive creature.

I peered over the edge. It was clear all the way down, with no outcroppings to catch on. The water was famous for its depth; a few kids had tried to swim to the bottom, but they’d never found it.

I stood up, pried my Chucks off at the heels, and tucked my socks inside. My feet were soft and pale, like new babies against the smooth, sunbaked stone. I walked up to the very tip of the ledge where it jutted out over the water like a prehistoric diving board.

“There’s no way,” Rick mocked.

It was my favorite time of day, just before the sun set, when the light was almost purple. The California air was so hot and dry it smelled like dust. Thick yellow-wooded pine extended for miles in the distance, and birds dove and emerged from the treetops like they were pollinating them.

I felt the soft grunt in my throat, and I knew this was the moment.

I took a few steps back, then I ran toward the ledge and jumped.

The air was slick against my body, the trees rushing up to meet me.

I entered the water like a needle sliding into a vein.

I let my body sink down until I hit a cold, silent place. Then I opened my eyes, and there was only murky dark blue, like I’d discovered a sliver of night below the water. I floated there, unmoving, just a chunk of debris.

Something smooth thumped powerfully against my ankle, and I jerked, the sudden hot movement sucking down my oxygen.

I kicked against the water and propelled myself upward, my lungs screaming and my head pulsing. I broke through the surface gasping and barely able to tread water. It seemed darker out, as if I’d been down there for hours. My limbs were nearly numb as I pulled myself up on the far bank and lay there for a while, allowing my body to return to itself.

I scanned the ledge above, and I was surprised that no one peered over. I hadn’t heard a single cheer or scream. The skin on my arms prickled where it had come back to life, and I shot to my feet and moved toward the trail that led back to the ledge. My wet jean shorts rubbed against my thighs and the rocks cut into my bare feet, but the pain quickly receded as I ran up the steep incline.

When I got to the ledge, it was empty save for the twelve-pack and the bottle of Mad Dog on its side, dribbling red onto the rock. I heard murmurs in the trees, and I followed them to a cleared spot where Steve had Shelli pinned to the ground with one meaty knee. Rick stood above them with his fingers hooked in the waistband of his pants.

I charged at Rick, knocking his body down hard against the earth. We tussled, and he turned over and straddled me.

“I thought you said they were sluts,” Steve said to Rick.

“I know she is,” Rick answered, sneering down at me.

I struggled against him, but I couldn’t throw off his weight. I was trapped and utterly helpless, and the claustrophobic panic I sometimes felt rose up like a toxic gas. All I wanted was for it to stop.

My body took over, and my head smashed into his, his nose bursting into a mass of lurid blood. He rolled off me clutching his face, and I crawled toward Steve, who immediately stood up and raised his hands in surrender. Shelli remained on the ground, unmoving.

I pulled her up to standing, but when I let go, her legs went limp beneath her. I crouched down and threw her tiny body over my shoulder.

As I trudged through the woods to Shelli’s car, my heart slowed, and my creature instincts bristled, then receded back to their hiding place. I was a girl once more.

In my bedroom, Shelli cleaned the blood from my face with shaking hands while I inhaled In-N-Out.

“Are you okay?” I asked gently.

She nodded feebly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Nothing really happened. I was just scared.”

“I would have been scared, too.”

“No. You would have fought back.”

I didn’t know how to tell her that it wasn’t me who had attacked Rick. It was this creature inside me that I couldn’t control.

She picked up a bag of frozen pizza bagels and pressed it to my bruised temple. Then she wrapped an ACE bandage around my head and secured it in place. “Okay, you’re all set.” I looked in the mirror at the ridiculous wrap, and we both giggled.

We got into bed, and Shelli dropped off almost immediately. The clock next to me read 11:30 with its grains of demonic rice. I lay there perfectly still, listening to the white noise of Shelli’s breathing, waiting for my body to shut down.

But I knew there would be no sleep tonight.

Birthdays filled me with dread. They always had, and back then, I had no idea why. When I was little, I thought it was the flu. But as I got older and noticed the sickness always dissipated the next day, I began to think of it as a premonition of the year’s coming misery.

My room in that house never shook off its guest-room origins, even though I’d lived in it since I was seven. The pastel plaid bedspread and matching curtains, the white wicker furniture, and the fake flowers sprouting from their gray-pink vase all felt temporary, like I was living on the set of a sitcom that was about to get canceled. The only distinctive feature was the gold cross on the left wall, which was more like the set of Carrie. My aunt Lorraine’s attempt to passively exorcize whatever evil lay at the center of me.

I absently traced the long purple birthmark that stretched across my collarbone like a scab that wouldn’t heal. People at school gossiped that it was one sliver of an enormous tattoo or a scar from whatever killed my parents.

For me it was like a brand, marking me as the property of some distant, mysterious place, separate from everyone else.

My father died before I was born, and then my mother died when I was five. I was sent to live with my father’s parents, who croaked just two years later, and then passed along to my father’s sister, Lorraine, and her husband, Carl. I was like a pestilence, sowing death wherever I went. My aunt and uncle had only survived out of sheer awfulness, preserved by their meanness like cucumbers in vinegar.

They almost never talked about my parents, except to say that my father had been a good, God-fearing man until he met my mother, a “white-trash drug addict” who was apparently the devil incarnate. They didn’t call her by her name, only her with a curving condemnation to the letters.

I didn’t have any concrete memories of my mother—only a few glimmers. Some nights I would dream of being held against a warm chest, and I would feel this comfort that was almost muscular in strength, but I could never see a face. When I woke, I would be filled with this intense yearning to be touched, and I’d wish I hadn’t dreamt it at all, that it was better not to know how it felt to be loved like that.

But I much preferred this dream to the nightmare I sometimes had, of squatting with my small child’s body in a tight, dark space, desperate to escape, a feeling of intense, claustrophobic panic suffusing my every cell. I would wake with sweat rolling down my chest, and while it was a relief to be in my room where I could move around freely, I never quite shook the feeling of being trapped.

In lieu of a clear mental image or any physical picture of my mother, I had conjured many versions of her in my mind. But there were two main ones: a soft, fiercely loving woman like Sally Field in Forrest Gump, and a cold, thin-armed, tragically beautiful dope fiend like Kelly Lynch in Drugstore Cowboy.

Sometimes I wondered if the creature inside me, the one that filled my head with strange thoughts and impulses that didn’t feel like my own, was some remnant of the early years I’d spent with my mother before she died. Some remnant of her need.

When morning broke, Shelli snuck out the window for her own bed, and I curled in a ball like a grub and prayed to the universe for the day to pass quickly.

But as much as I wanted to wallow, I knew that if I continued to lay there, at some point my uncle Carl would poke his head in and say “Feeling lazy today, are we?” hoping to catch me in my underwear. I used to lean a chair against my door in lieu of an actual lock, but that had been prohibited for the sake of “fire safety.”

I dressed and walked downstairs, passing the new oil painting hanging above the mantel. It showed my cousin Dinah posing with her lustrous chestnut horse Cocoa Puff. Their manes shone equally in the play of light.

The painting looked out of place in my aunt and uncle’s modest suburban house, as did the other dissonant luxuries they owned, like Carl’s yellow Porsche, or Lorraine’s tanning bed, which she kept in the living room for lack of space. I didn’t know how they could afford these things, given Carl managed a Chili’s and Lorraine worked part-time for their church, but I assumed it was something pathetic like tax evasion. Carl liked to pretend he was a red-blooded male, but at his core he was too meek to do anything truly risky.

In the kitchen, they were already eating their breakfast with Dinah. Five tiny purebred dogs surrounded them, breathing poorly, their beady eyes trained on the bacon between my aunt’s fingers. As I moved about the kitchen pouring a cup of coffee and adding cream, my uncle watched me with a similar expression.

“Rhea, you’re looking very mature this morning,” he said.

My body suddenly felt enormous and fleshy, and impossible to hide. I glanced at my aunt to see if she was listening, but she was busy cooing to one of the dogs and feeding him bits of burned fat. When I tried to make eye contact with Dinah, she looked away.

I had learned it was better not to engage Carl. If I told him to eat shit, he’d treat me like an alley cat that needed to be tamed. He liked to watch my skin flush. It was part of the game.

I kept my face blank and leaned against the counter with my cup, preferring the physical distance. But then he continued to gaze at me from head to toe, and I moved to the table, hiding my bottom half from view.

“Happy birthday, Rhea,” he leered. “It’s a big one this year. Eighteen.”

God, I was going to be sick.

Lorraine looked up from the dog and smiled wanly. “Oh right, yes, happy birthday. Dinah?”

“Happy birthday,” she said, staring down at her breakfast.

“Thanks.” I cringed internally, praying that was the end of it.

The doorbell rang, and we all looked sharply toward the door.

“Are you expecting someone?” Carl asked Lorraine.

“No.” She glanced at me and Dinah, and we both shrugged.

Carl grunted and went to the window that offered a view of the front stoop. He gestured at Lorraine, who joined him, and they whispered fiercely to each other before Carl muttered he wouldn’t hide in his own home and opened the door.

A man in a well-tailored suit carrying a briefcase stood in the doorway, elegantly silhouetted against the suburban sunshine.

“Mr. Blau, we weren’t expecting you.”

“Good morning, Mr. Keller. I apologize for the intrusion, but it could not be avoided. I have made many attempts to get in touch with Miss Larsen via phone and mail, but they have all been unsuccessful.” His speech was polished and polite with a slight twang.

Lorraine stepped between them and lowered her voice. “We’ve been trying to get in touch with you. Have you gotten any of our messages?”

His mouth flattened into a thin line. “Yes, I have.” He didn’t elaborate. “May I come in? I’d like to speak with Miss Larsen.”

Carl stepped in front of the doorway. “No, you may not. As her legal guardians, we’re not comfortable with you speaking to our daughter.”

Carl liked to invoke their “guardianship” when it suited him, as if they were my fierce, loving protectors. Never mind that after eleven years, they still hadn’t adopted me.

“Am I mistaken that today is Miss Larsen’s eighteenth birthday? She is no longer a minor, sir, and therefore, no longer under your jurisdiction.”

I had never seen anyone talk to Carl this way. I was stunned, and incredibly confused.

Mr. Blau craned his neck around my flustered relatives and made eye contact with me. “Miss Larsen, if your aunt and uncle aren’t comfortable with me coming inside, would you care to join me on the front lawn?”

“No! No. You can come in,” Carl blustered, and Lorraine ushered the man past the door before the neighbors could witness any more. They moved to sit on the couch in the living room, but Mr. Blau stopped them. “This will be a private meeting between Miss Larsen and I.”

Carl swore under his breath and Lorraine scowled, but they begrudgingly trudged upstairs to their room, gesturing for Dinah to follow.

Mr. Blau trained his gaze toward the ceiling, and I watched it catch on the oil painting of Dinah and her horse. He studied it curiously until we heard two doors shut upstairs, then he took a seat and folded his hands in his lap. “Miss Larsen. My name is Anthony Blau, and I am your mother’s estate lawyer. Now that you are eighteen—” He paused awkwardly. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

My stomach turned at the words, and I urged him to go on.

“As I was saying, now that you are eighteen, you may assume control of your mother’s estate as indicated in her will.” He opened his briefcase and laid out a few papers on the coffee table.

From the picture Lorraine had painted, I’d always imagined my mother dying penniless in a dirty motel room, and my father’s family being forced to take me in out of Christian guilt. I wondered what kind of “estate” she could have left behind.

He continued, “These documents describe the full contents of the estate, which includes a financial portfolio of various stocks, bonds, mutual funds, retirement accounts, and a few real estate holdings in Nashville. We’ve also set aside some cash that you can access right away—”

My mouth went dry. “What… what is this?”

“This is your mother’s estate.” He gestured at the papers. “Which is now being passed to you.”

“How… how much is it worth?”

He pursed his lips. “If you liquidated right now—of course you’d pay some hefty fees, but if you wanted to take the hit…” He paused, calculating. “I’d say you’d have about ten million in cash. Of course it’s worth more than that if you allow it to continue to grow.” He glanced up at me for a response, but I was having a hard time breathing. “Pardon my rambling. Do you understand the basic concept, or is there something I can explain a bit better at this juncture?”

“No, I don’t understand. Where did this all come from? How did she have so much money?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Well, as you know, she was quite successful when she was alive, especially in the five years before her death. She was shrewd with her money, and she set it up well for you. It has grown immensely over the years.”

“What do you mean, ‘she was successful’? Doing what?”

He paused, collecting himself. “You don’t know who your mother was?”

Shame prickled in my cheeks. “I mean… I know her name was Lulabelle, and she was from Tennessee. That’s where I was born.” I also knew she was a junkie who basically killed my father, but that didn’t feel right to mention.

He scowled, and his eyes flicked back toward the ceiling. “Your mother’s name was Lulabelle, yes, but she was more commonly known, at least by the public, as Belle. Belle Powers.”

“The country singer?”

“Yes.”

The image of a woman with towering blonde hair and garish makeup entered my mind like a fever dream. My heart beat in my temples. “Is this a prank or something? I don’t understand.”

His mouth settled into a flat line. “Rhea, I don’t know what your aunt and uncle told you, but Belle Powers was, without a doubt, your mother.”

“I think you have the wrong person…”

He shook his head. “You and I met once before, when you were smaller. Before she died.”

“But I was just a baby then. How would you even know it was me?”

Without looking down at my chest, he said, “I would know that birthmark anywhere.”

Heat spread across my collarbone, where part of the mark poked out above my tank top.

“Wait—so did she die of an overdose?”

He looked taken aback. “What on earth? Is that what they told you?”

I nodded, and his shock resolved back into a scowl. “I can’t believe…” He paused, collecting himself. “No. Your mother died in a plane crash. It actually happened a few hours from here, off the coast of Santa Barbara.”

I felt a bit woozy, like my body was dissolving and pooling into the polyester of the couch. My entire existence was a lie. “And my father? Who was he? How did he die?”

Mr. Blau swallowed uncomfortably. “Your father was a notable songwriter—wrote a few songs for big acts, I believe.” He smiled slightly, then went solemn again. “But he did in fact die of an overdose, I’m sorry to say.”

So maybe my life wasn’t a total lie. He’d OD’d. But not her. Her death had been some romantic tragedy. Not of weakness and negligence, but cruel fate.

And they had both been artists. Creative, glittering geniuses, and not worthless druggies fallen from grace. It struck me that I finally had something of real value, parents who were special and luminous.

And in the next moment, I’d already lost it—they were both gone.

“I know this is a lot to process,” Mr. Blau said, reaching across the table and resting a gentle hand on mine. When I didn’t respond, he sat back and crossed his arms over his lap. “What are your summer plans?”

I tried to remember who I’d been before this conversation. “I’m going to work full-time at the conference center.” I’d cater-waited there for the last four years, and I hated every minute of it. Running around in the fake tuxedo uniform, scrubbing ranch dressing from my nail beds, fending off drunk firemen at their annual gala.

“Do you enjoy that?”

“No.”

He smirked. “Well, then. What do you think about coming to Nashville for the summer? I have paperwork I need you to sign, and we could take more time to go over estate business. You can be as involved as you want, of course, but it might be good for you to get a sense of it.”

I considered this. “Do I have family in Nashville?”

He sighed. “No, not exactly. I was led to believe that Belle had a few relatives where she grew up in rural Tennessee, but they’ve all passed.”

“Oh… okay.” Not that I was eager to meet more relatives after my track record, but perhaps her people would have been different. Maybe we would have understood each other in a way I never had with my dad’s family. “What do you mean by ‘not exactly’?”

“Well, she considered her friends as family more than the people she came from. And there are quite a few still living in Nashville. Do you remember any of them?”

“No, I… I don’t even remember her.”

He looked disappointed then, and something like sadness passed over his face before he shook it off. “That’s a shame, but it’s no matter.”

I had the keen sense of missing something important, but there was that child’s barrier still in the way, cutting me off from the dim, smoky layer of the world inhabited by adults.

“What was she like?” I asked suddenly, realizing this was, above all, what I yearned to know.

He smiled. “I wish I had known her better, but what I did see was… unexpected. She was never just one thing. I…” He exhaled. “I’m not very good at articulating this—I’m more of a numbers guy. It’s why I like representing artists like your mother. What they do is magical to me.”

I tried to conjure an image of her from these words, but all I could see were flashes of the Belle Powers I’d seen pictures of in magazines and throwback music videos. The enormous blonde wig, the heavy makeup and hot-pink lipstick, the flashy, sequined outfits. It was all shimmer and costume with no human beneath it.

“If you’d like to know more about her, coming to Nashville is a great start. I think the only way to truly know someone is to see where they spent their life.”

I had never considered going to Nashville—it was only a rhinestone-studded word that I put on forms when asked for my place of birth. My limited sense of the South came from movies like Steel Magnolias or Fried Green Tomatoes, and from its bloody history. None of these were specific to Nashville.

But perhaps it was where I’d find her and the mysterious place I’d sprung from.

“Okay, I’d like to go. When do we leave?”

He chuckled. “Eager, are we? Well, my flight is a few hours from now, but I can delay a night or two for you to get your affairs in order.”

“No, I’m good. I just need a couple minutes to pack.”

He raised his eyebrows. “All right, then. I’ll wait in the car outside while you ready yourself.” He got up, and I followed him to the door. He put a hand on the knob, then turned back.

“In case you weren’t aware, we send a sizable amount of money to your aunt and uncle every month to cover your living expenses.” He looked pointedly at the oil painting of Dinah and her horse. “They’ve made attempts to gain access to your inheritance in the last few months, but I’ve put them off. As of today, the payments to them will end. Now that you control the estate, you can decide how it’s distributed.” He nodded politely, and then he was gone.

Carl and Lorraine were down the stairs before the door shut. “What did he say?” Lorraine hissed.

I was speechless for a moment, like those scenes in movies when a bomb goes off nearby and a person stumbles around with blood leaking from their ears.

I had never entirely believed my aunt and uncle about my parents. They were pathological liars, and even when they told the truth, I often questioned their version of reality.

But this level of deception was… unforgivable.

My bewilderment receded, replaced by the creature-like rage I’d felt when I saw the boys standing over Shelli’s body. “Everything you told me about my mother was a lie.” I clenched my fists and let it fill me up. “You had no right to keep this from me.”

Lorraine looked stricken, then narrowed her eyes. “I am your guardian—I have every right.”

“Not anymore.” I charged up the stairs and into my room, barely feeling the carpet under my feet. I slammed the door behind me and wedged the chair under the knob. The door shook as Lorraine and Carl pounded on its wood.

I yanked open my backpack and frantically stuffed clothes in from the dresser. Then I tossed in my makeup case, my Discman, and my soccer cleats.

For a moment, I panicked at having to fit my entire life into this small bag, but then I looked at all my cheap, worn-out crap, and I thought, Fuck it. I had money now. I could buy whatever I needed.

I had one foot out the window when Lorraine and Carl barged in, pulling me back into the room. Lorraine stuck her finger in my face, her cheeks red. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Nashville. And I’m taking my mother’s money with me.”

Carl blanched. “Now hold on a minute—”

“Mr. Blau told me he’s been sending you money every month.”

“Well, of course. For your upkeep. It’s not exactly cheap raising a teenager,” Lorraine said, feigning innocence.

I stared at her in disbelief. She couldn’t really believe I was that stupid. “Then you won’t mind if I leave,” I said as I tried to get around them, but Carl blocked the door.

“Don’t you think we deserve a little compensation for raising you all these years?” Lorraine asked. “We could have left you on the street, but we took you in and treated you like our own.”

For my entire childhood, she’d made me feel like I was the only thing keeping them from a perfect life. It’s why I’d stayed out of sight, kept quiet, worked since I was fourteen—all to alleviate the weight of my existence. “Are you kidding? All you’ve ever done was lie to me.”

“I was protecting you from the truth. From that trash who killed my poor brother.”

I stared at her smug, pinched face and imagined ripping her eyes from their sockets.

“I thought if you didn’t know, then maybe you wouldn’t be like her,” she continued, lowering her voice. “But that was naive. I see her in you. The way you look at my husband.” She moved closer and whispered even more softly, “The devil’s in you. I