Living in Japan might not be as bad as Noel had first thought. She had figured that living in a country that spoke a different language would be the worst! Her aunt had tried to teach her some Japanese, but the words kept getting mixed up in her mouth. And that’s not even to mention the writing. Noel couldn’t make heads or tails of the weird symbols; they didn’t even look like writing to her. She didn’t understand why the Japanese had to have such a different set of writing when the normal alphabet was sufficient enough. 

As the three of them exited the plane—mercifully for the last time—Noel had promised herself that she wouldn’t try to speak to any of the locals until she had learned enough of the language. And yet, as they waited in line to get their passports stamped. She could swear that the stamper was speaking English. 

Noel was excited for a moment. Maybe she didn’t have to learn another language! When she voiced this thought to her aunt, Jillian just smirked. "Sorry to disappoint you, Noel," she said, "but she’s only speaking English to greet the American passengers. Most of the people in Japan only speak Japanese." Noel deflated at this, dropping her gaze to the floor and squeezing Danny’s hand. Guess she would have to resign herself to learning the language.

And yet, as they walked through the airport and waited for their luggage at the baggage claim, Noel listened to the chatter around her. Sure enough, everyone spoke English, even the people she was sure were Japanese. However, she stayed silent about this observation in case her aunt chastised her about this, too.

But as they loaded up their luggage in a taxicab and began to drive off—with the taxi driver on the wrong side of the car, by the way. What was up with that?—she was surprised to hear that he spoke English too! He and her Aunt were discussing Jillian’s address or something, but it was all in English! What was going on? Was Jillian playing some kind of joke on her? She wouldn’t put it past her. It was too much of a coincidence that a random cab driver would be American too, but he had no accent that she could hear. Noel couldn’t keep her mouth shut any longer.

"Umm… Excuse me, sir?" she said, trying her best to control the shaking in her voice.

The driver only glanced at her through the rear-view mirror, but Aunt Jillian’s head turned to look at her so fast that Noel thought she could hear her neck pop, though she was too focused on the driver to care.

"Yes, miss?" 

"Where are you from?"

The driver looked a little confused at Noel’s question, but he smiled and answered politely.

"Why I’m from here, miss, born and raised in Tokyo, though I'm from Kita if you want me to be more specific. Why do you ask?"

Noel didn’t understand what "Kita" was. Maybe they spoke English there?

"My aunt told me that people here spoke another language," she said, with a relieved smile, "but since you’re speaking English, I’m pretty she was just trying to scare me!"

The driver turned his head to look at Noel, his brow furrowed in confusion. Then he looked at Jillian.

"What are you talking about? Lady, is your kid alright?"

Huh? Did she say something wrong? She looked over at her Aunt, who was looking at her as if Noel had sprouted a third eye. She tried to speak for several seconds, but all that came out was a gurgling moan.

Noel was confused, but her thoughts were interrupted by the diver slamming on the breaks, followed by several honks.

"Sorry, everyone," he said as he turned back to look at the road ahead, though he continued to glance at Noel several times through the mirror.

Jillian was still struggling to find words, her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. Finally, she managed a weak "I thought you had trouble with the language…." It seemed that her aunt didn’t want a reply because she turned to face the front of the car, staring a thousand miles ahead.

Noel didn’t understand what was going on. Why was everyone so shocked? Wasn’t everyone speaking English? Or was—

She felt a tug on her long brown hair. She turned to look at her brother, who had a similar but not as severe look of confusion as their aunt.

"What’s wrong, Danny?" she asked. Danny shook his head, glancing at their flabbergasted aunt. Noel understood this to mean that he wanted to talk, but not so Jillian could hear. She leaned over so Danny could whisper in her ear.

"Why were you talking so funny?"

"Huh?" Noel said, straightening up to look at him, "What do you mean?"

Danny shook his head again, tugging on her hair once more. Restraining herself from rolling her eyes, Noel leaned back towards Danny.

"You were talking funny, like Aunt Jillian and that man," he whispered.

"They weren’t talking funny," Noel whispered back, "they were speaking Eng—they were talking like you and me."

Once again, Danny shook his head. "Nu-uh, I know cuz I couldn’t understand them, just like you."

Noel sat back, chewing her lip. She had no idea what he meant by that. Unless…

Icy cold ran down her spine. Oh no. Not here too! She thought she had escaped it, her family’s legacy. There were many reasons why Aunt Jillian hadn’t spoken to her sister in twenty years. For one, she had run away from home with Papa, who was seven years older, at the age of fifteen. For another, she had run away with a member of the Miller family, who were rumored to be freaks, cursed because they were devil worshipers or something equally ridiculous.

While the devil-worshiping rumor was false—as far as Noel knew—there was one nugget of truth amongst all the lies about their family: they were cursed. And they weren’t cursed with bad luck, hauntings, or anything as simple as that. The Miller curse was far, far stranger than that. 

The only way Noel could describe what the curse did was that it made things weird. And not in the usual sense of the word, if that were possible.

It all started for Noel when she was six years old. When she and Papa were playing catch. One second, she was in front of her family’s trailer, the next, she was in the middle of town, with no idea how she had gotten there. And it wasn’t like she had blacked out or anything. It had literally been one second from the time she had thrown the ball to Papa to when she ended up in the town plaza. Of course, six-year-old Noel had been terrified out of her mind! She had ended up missing for three hours while her parents searched desperately for her. Luckily, she had been quickly rescued by a friend of her dad’s, who had helped her find them. That was the first instance of the curse’s power.

Of course, that was not the only incident of strange happenings. They were pretty frequent. Like some kind of divine prank, a new scenario would hound Noel until the end of the day, though only a few ever got to the level of weirdness as that first one. Still, waiting for each was equally as terrifying.

When she was eight, random objects kept attacking her out of nowhere, even falling from the sky, though miraculously, they never hurt her, not even the heavy ones. When she was ten, she made a portrait of Thomas Jefferson come to life, who recited the Declaration of Independence, word for word, then went back to being a picture again. She considered the small instances a good day. But the more significant the events were, the worse they got. Not just for her but for everyone around her.

The worst of all of them was when she was twelve. For a single day, her life had been narrated. Noel’s own disembodied voice had narrated everything she did that day, which everyone around her could hear, though they thought that it was just Noel talking to herself. The worst of the worst part, though, was that the disembodied voice had ended up telling the entire class, including Grant Fucil, about Noel’s crush on him.

Just like all of Davenfield, Grant knew about Noel's reputation. So, when he heard Noel's "confession," he sneered and said, "A weirdo like you? Never in a million years!"

Noel had run home crying. All her papa could do was hug her. There was no "everything's going to be alright" or "I’ll take care of it," like he always said. He was silent as she cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.

"Why is this happening to us, Papa?" she had asked.

He shook his head. "That’s just how it’s been, baby, for forever and ever—every other generation. My mama and her brother had it. Their grandparents had it, and their grandparents had it before them. And so do you. And I suppose Danny too, one day."

"But it’s not fair!" she yelled, "why us?"

Her father just shrugged, "Maybe God thought it was funny or something, I don’t know. And I know it’s not fair, but there’s nothin’ you can do to stop it, Noel. It just is how it is."

"But—"

"Listen, my Uncle Clef used to tell me how he got through it."

"By drinking?"

Papa chuckled at that, but it was more a sad laugh than amused. "Yeah, besides that, though. He told me to just ignore it, take it on the chin, and it’ll go away eventually. That’s all you can do, Noel: Just hope that tomorrow is better. That’s how you can fight this."

Noel had tried to heed her great uncle’s advice, but that disembodied voice still haunted her nightmares. Noel was always worried about what could top such a horrifying experience. And they never stopped, even after her parent’s death. Each day filled her with fear, waiting for the next one to come. It had been a week since the last attack, ever since she left home. She had hoped that leaving town meant leaving the curse behind, but she had been wrong. Whatever the curse was, it had followed thousands of miles from home in a strange, new land.

Trying to get her mind off her family, especially Papa, Noel turned her attention towards the scenery outside the taxi window. She blinked several times just to make sure she was seeing things correctly. Tokyo is huge! She had seen skyscrapers when visiting Des Moines back home, but they were nothing compared to these. Not only did they seem taller, but the architecture on some of them was strange. More than a few buildings looked like they had other buildings stacked on top of them with how different each floor looked. There were signs for many kinds of shops; some Noel didn't understand. What the heck is a "Maid Cafe?" And wait, how did she just read that? Crap. Just ignore it, Noel, she told herself, like Uncle Clef said, just ignore it.

People were milling in and out of the buildings, tons of them, and not all from Japan, by the look of them. She focused on each of them, making a note of their clothes, hair, and accessories, anything to turn her thoughts away for just a few minutes.

Noel had to unglue herself from the taxi window when they reached Aunt Jillian’s surprisingly large house. After the agonizing journey here and the severe time zone switch, Noel was ready to take the longest sleep of her life. 

The two-story house was surrounded by a low wall connected by a gate. A small sign on the left read "Stillwater," which was Jillian’s last name. Or did it? Noel squinted at the sign as they got out of the cab. No, it was definitely the strange Japanese writing, but like the signs in the main city, she could read it for some reason. It made no sense, she had tried to read it back home but couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but now it was second nature. Did it have something to do with actually being in Japan?

Noel felt a headache coming on. A bad sign, so she stopped trying to make sense of it and instead helped her aunt pull the suitcases out of the cab’s trunk. She had already lost so many nights of sleep trying to understand.

She wanted a clean slate for her new life, even if the curse had followed her. Maybe this was the worst it got. It wouldn’t be so bad; this language thing might even be super-helpful. But still, it was like if she suddenly received cookies from someone who enjoyed slapping her in the face every day; it was hard to accept it as a gift. Sure, it might be an apology to make up for any wrong done to her, but it also might be another trick and a potentially dangerous one if she decided to eat them.

A door opened somewhere behind Noel. She turned to look at the neighboring house where an elderly man was coming out to greet them. He was thin and balding and looked to be about in his late seventies if Noel had to guess. He was also not much taller than Noel. He smiled as they approached, which made Noel nervous.

Not again, Noel moaned in her head. 

"Jill-chan! You’re finally back!" Noel couldn’t help it. She wanted to know. As the old man greeted her aunt, Noel listened closely, trying to distinguish the Japanese.

Jill-chan? Was that her aunt? What did chan mean?

"Kuboue-san… I don’t know what to say. Your kindness is too much," said Jillian, her voice quivering.

San? Noel shook her head; she didn’t understand what these strange words were. She decided that she would take her great uncle’s advice and just let it go; this was just a friendly conversation with the neighbors. That was all.

Or maybe not, Noel thought as she realized what her aunt had just said. She looked at Jillian, whose eyes were red with unshed tears as she stared in awe at the blocky grey house.  

"Come now. There’s no need to cry, Jill," Mr. Kuboue said with a smile, "your old apartment was far too small to take care of two children."

"But… I didn’t expect the house would be in Minato. Or this big!" 

Mr. Kuboue shook his head at her protests, "Nonsense, we’d thought it’d be a nice surprise for you; this house wasn’t selling anyway. And besides, the wife and I would prefer to have the three of you next to us! Here."

He held out his bony hand where a set of keys sat. Jillian stared at the keys for a moment, clearly wanting to refuse, but then she reached out and closed her fingers around the keys. 

"I’m sorry for all the trouble, Mr. Kuboue!" she said with a deep bow, "You’ve treated me so well over the years!"

"Of course, dear," he said, his dark, tilted eyes smiling fondly, "And the rent is still as agreed."

Noel could swear her aunt had ceased all brain function as she began to bow wildly. Whatever the rent was, it must have been good.

It was then that Noel noticed the old woman standing behind the embarrassed Mr. Kuboue. She was shorter than the old man, maybe even shorter than Noel without the large iron-grey bun on her head. Noel could see her thin face from behind his shoulder, staring at her and Danny intently. Noel guessed that this was Mr. Kuboue’s wife. 

Mrs. Kuboue smiled warmly when Noel met her gaze. Noel felt her face grow hot as she broke eye contact to stare down at her legs. Suddenly, she felt embarrassed at the baggy clothes she was wearing, not because she particularly liked baggy clothes. They were hand-me-downs, like everything they owned. She had always been a bit small for her age, so her clothes tended to look big on her.

Noel unconsciously began to pluck at the largest of the holes in her shorts.

"You must be Jill’s niece," Mrs. Kuboue said sweetly, stepping from behind her husband to stand in front of them, "She’s told us so much about you!"

"T-that’s right," Noel said nervously, squeezing her brother’s hand. Then she remembered what her aunt had told her when greeting an elder.

She bowed deeply, words spilling out of her mouth as fast as she could: "My name is Noel Miller, we'll be staying with our Aunt from now on, and it’s very nice to meet you!"

"Oh! And this is my brother, Danny," she added, gesturing down to Danny, who gave her the same look of confusion he had given her in the taxi, "please take care of us!"

She could feel more eyes on her. She looked over to the other two, who were watching her with wide eyes. 

"Such formal language," Mr. Kuboue said, "you taught her well, Jill-chan!"

Aunt Jillian had been frozen mid-bow when Noel started speaking, staring at Noel in utter bewilderment. She must be so confused, Noel thought. She hoped her aunt didn’t begin to hate her like she hated Papa. That would make things even more awkward than they were now. 

"You speak very well, Noel," said Mrs. Kuboue, "it's almost like Japanese is your first language."

 "Right, thank you," muttered Noel, her eyes shifting around, trying not to look at anything in particular.

"And what about you, little man?" asked Mr. Kuboue. Noel swore she could hear the old man creak as he crouched down to look Danny in the eye. "Are you a good talker too?" Danny hid his face in his sister's shorts. "Cute kid," he said, grinning up at Noel—she noticed he was missing a few teeth.

"Sorry, he’s a little shy around strangers," said Noel. "And I don’t think he really understands what’s going on."

"That’s alright," said Mrs. Kuboue, "I’m sure we’ll get to know each other very well." She paused. "Pardon me for being so bold, but I’d like for the both of you to think of me as your grandma, so if there’s anything you ever need, it’ll never be much trouble."

"Oh, well…" Noel wasn’t sure where this was coming from. Mrs. Kuboue seemed like a sweet old lady, but she was still a complete stranger. In Noel's mind, there was no possibility she could think of her in any other way. "I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Mrs. Kuboue."

Something changed in Mrs. Kuboue, she was still smiling, but for just a moment, Noel thought, her face stiffened, but she blinked, and the old woman’s thin face was soft and warm again. "Very well. But I’d like you to at least call me ‘Granny,’ if that’s okay?"

"Uh…" Noel didn’t want to be put on the spot like this, especially after such a long trip. She could already feel another headache coming on as a flash of frustration filled her head. Noel remained silent, trying to think of a way to politely decline Mrs. Kuboue’s request. As the seconds ticked by, Noel saw Mrs. Kuboue’s face stiffen again. Each moment that passed only served to harden the woman’s stare.

Luckily, Mr. Kuboue, who was still squatting on the ground, chose that moment to intervene. He stood up and placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder. "Now, now, Kiriko, it’s been a long day for them. Noel’s just probably a bit overwhelmed with all the new."

At her husband’s touch, Mrs. Kuboue’s shoulders had stiffened like a cat arching its back, but then they softened as she sighed and nodded. "Yes, you’re right, Koshi." Then to Noel, she said, "forgive me for being so pushy, dear. We’re just happy that you’ll both be living with us. Welcome to Tokyo." She finished with a bow. With a small wave, the Kuboues reentered their home. The three of them just stood there watching as the Kuboues disappeared behind their front door.

Noel had no idea what had just happened. Japan was weird.