By Nancy Stancill
When I first heard of the terrible devastation in the North Carolina mountains, I was shocked and sad.
Like many North Carolinians, I had a long and emotional relationship with that beautiful region.
Much of my latest book, Deadly Secrets, is set in those mountains. In the mystery, North Carolina is split in two in a legal secession to benefit an evangelical mega-church minister. He names the mountainous counties Westcarolina and becomes its governor. He and a ruthless lieutenant government start changing it to suit their beliefs and bring in more money.
Annie Price, my investigative reporter protagonist, moves from Texas to Charlotte to cover Westcarolina. The new governor lives in a 12-bedroom mansion in Blowing Rock. She lived in nearby East Tennessee growing up and hasn’t seen the mountains in years. Here’s a description of her first look as an adult:
“She knew she was looking at the Blue Ridge Mountains. Their blue haze, a reflection of the blue-green fir and balsam forests that grew there, was distinctive. Leisurely drivers flocked to the gorgeous Blue Ridge Parkway in autumn to see red, yellow and orange fall colors. In the spring and summer, tourists could look forward to the healthy foliage sprinkled with wildflowers. Annie thought the mountains were equally beautiful when covered by snow, with just the tops of some trees sticking out…She sighed with pleasure—how she’d missed this.”
The tourists that flocked to the mountains won’t be there this fall—or possibly for a long time. Roads are badly damaged, and many hotels and restaurants won’t be open, likely for many months. How will the region’s fragile economy recover without tourism?
When I was a young girl, we’d travel through the mountains to see relatives and back again to our home in East Tennessee. Many of those return trips would be late at night, in the fog on winding roads. I’d hold my breath sometimes, wondering if our car would plunge off the mountains. Sometimes I’d be carsick, an ailment made worse by my dad’s intermittent smoking. In those days, the dangers of second-hand smoke weren’t known. I just knew that I felt sick when he smoked. But in the mornings, the mountains seemed glorious to me.
I moved to Charlotte in 1993, close enough to my longtime UNC-Chapel Hill friends to plan at least one mountain weekend a year. Our favorite places for renting a large cottage for the eight of us were West Jefferson and Black Mountain. The major requirement was a back porch with a mountain view. We’d hike, walk around the towns, eat at interesting restaurants, and just sit on the porch and talk. Last year, three of my siblings and husbands rented a place near Boone in the fall.
The most traumatic time I had in the mountains was when my father died. His funeral was in Suffolk, Va. where they lived. Then the family began a pilgrimage to Elizabethton, Tennessee where he’d be buried. It was a long, terrible trip. He died in 1995, a few days before Christmas and it was snowing, cold and dark. When we reached Happy Valley cemetery (a misnomer if I ever heard one) a tent was set up and the minister gave some last words. I didn’t want to leave him there, even though he was in a plot next to my grandmother, grandfather, great-grandmother and great-great grandmother.
I asked my mother gently if she’d go back with us for Christmas, and she said, “I don’t know what I want, Nancy.” She went across the mountains with the three of us to Charlotte, where we had an empty holiday. Some neighbors on our cul-de-sac left food, so we didn’t have to cook. Our 14-year-old son had cried for a long time when we told him about his beloved grandfather, so I remember trying to be cheerful for him.
The mountains, especially around Boone, Blowing Rock and Asheville hold happy memories for me and the one that was indescribably sad.
I’m happy that my Westcarolina book is newly published, but the timing seems off. I write for the love of good stories and to pay homage to the places that formed me. I never expect to make much money.
Because I love the mountains and they mean so much to me, I’m donating half my proceeds from Deadly Secrets to one of the fine organizations helping its people. I could do no less.