Noel opened her eyes. For a moment, she had no idea where she was. But it all came crashing down on her as Noel became aware of how much pain she was in. Noel felt like she had run a mile after slamming into a brick wall. Every inch of her body ached. She stared into the sky, pitch black behind the light of the wharf lamps. Noel didn't even try to move. She just lay there, letting the reality of what had happened wash over her. 

The waves of the bay were the only sound she heard. But that ordinarily soothing sound did nothing to stop the thoughts filling her head. 

She had lost. And not only that, but she had also lost her friend. She couldn't save him. Couldn't keep her promise. And now…And now… All she felt was hollow.

 Something that had once been there inside her was now gone. She had no idea what it had been, but now that it was missing—Stolen. Stolen by Darris—it left a gaping hole behind. 

How could she have been so blind? Why couldn't she see what the curse had been doing? It had been planting seeds for months. There was no pretending now. No ignoring it. The curse had pushed her toward this confrontation with Darris or even some unknown horror beyond this night. Something that wouldn't have happened had she never agreed to leave her room, which wouldn't have happened if she hadn't taken Azrath in, and so on. One domino falling into the next. The language thing, moving to Tokyo, Aunt Jillian taking them in, and…and…

Noel had been in denial. Ever since that day, she knew, deep down, that the curse had killed her parents. 

That she had killed her parents. Just by being born.

But she couldn't face the truth. And now, she knew why they had died. She knew what the curse had planned all along. The weight of that truth was now crushing her. 

It's all my fault… All my fault…

She searched the skies, hoping to find a constellation in that inky void like she used to do with Papa.

He was someone who felt comfort in simple things. And since he was young, he had always been most comforted by the sky. Especially at night with a sky full of stars.

"Some people say that looking at all these stars makes them feel small." He had told her once as they lay on top of sleeping bags in the bed of his truck, staring up into the entire universe. "But to me, endless stars mean endless creativity. Look."

Noel felt his arm shift slightly from under her head as he used his other to point into the sky. The crescent moon was the only source of light for miles. Usually dim, but without Davenfield's light, it shone as bright as the sun. Noel could make out each muddy picture on his tattooed arm.

The work of an amateur, so her dad said. None of it meant anything to him except that he felt like getting them at the time. To Noel, each illustration represented a drifting heart. Someone without anchor or purpose.

It represented who her father had been—a man consumed by the despair of his own existence.

All his life, he had been looked down upon by the people of Davenfield. While he did not bear the curse itself, He bore its reputation upon his shoulders. And at times, that became too much for him, which is when he would find his escape by watching the sky. But that wasn't his only means of escape.

His uncle Clef, who raised him, had long given up on life and spent his days drinking his misery away. It wasn't long before Papa followed in his uncle's footsteps. And once alcohol had its hold on him, it never let him go.

Even after Papa got his life in order, his emotional well-being was forever tied to drinking. Much to his shame.

Papa was always one to suffer in silence, so he never complained, but Mama could tell his abstinence only caused him to suffer. She had seen him at his worst and knew how much he sacrificed for her. He refused any programs or meetings.

"I don't want to go blabbing my issues to a bunch of strangers. What do they know about me?"

Mama agonized over what to do. She could tell Papa was getting worse. Noel remembered seeing her cry when she thought no one could see her. But it was hard to hide in their tiny trailer.

Papa noticed, too. And so he agonized with her. 

And then, one day, they seemed to find a compromise.  Mama originally suggested he could indulge once a month as a mental reset.

However, Papa refused that too. worried that he would not have the strength to pull himself back. But after talking for days, they settled on the deal that he would only drink if he had someone he knew with him. He figured that if another person was there to witness him fail—even if it was a compromise, her dad still saw drinking as a failure—the shame would give him the strength to abstain again.

So, once a month, he and another person would drive out of town, so Papa could drink as much as he wanted. At first, Mama would go, then dad's friend Otto. Eventually, though, when Noel was nine, he thought it was time for her to go with him.

Mama was against it at first, but Papa was dead set on her going.

This was the real reason they were camping out in the prairie. And Noel knew it. She had heard their conversations. Saw the tears and anger. But at that moment, she focused on enjoying her time with Papa as he happily traced the constellations he created as a kid alone on the plains. He told her the stories he created to go along with them.

For her part, Noel was excited to show off her knowledge of the "real" constellations that she had learned in anticipation of that day. To her surprise, Papa dismissed them.

"There are lots of ways to read the stars, baby. It'd be one thing if Taurus looked like a bull, but it's only someone's interpretation."

Noel protested. They were the right constellations!

"And what makes them right? Because enough people say so? There are plenty of people who see different shapes in the constellation." He looked up at the sky, at infinity, "Listen, Noel. You have your truth, and I have mine. Just because more people agree with yours doesn't make you right. Not everyone can see that the sky is blue."

 Noel didn't quite understand what he meant by that, but she let him have his truth, albeit reluctantly.

Then the time came for him to start drinking. He kept his distance from Noel as he leaned close to the truck's cab and took a deep swig from his pint beer can. Every time Noel looked back at him, Papa seemed to shrink into the shadows of the truck, ashamed that his daughter was seeing him at his weakest. At some point, he had pulled out a pack of cigarettes and was slowly going through them as he drank.

"I'm sorry, Noel," he said. His voice was not slurred, but his eyes were unfocused in the glow of his lit cigarette. "I'm sorry you have to see me like this. But I want you to see what addiction can do to someone." He paused to look down at the can in his hand. "Your mom thought you were too young to know. And maybe she's right. But I was only eight when I first drank. And it's never left me."

The shame on his face broke Noel's heart, especially when he refused to meet her gaze.

"I know it's harsh for you to see me like this. But you need to know that I'm not as strong a person as you think I am. I don't want you to make the same stupid mistakes I did."

"No! That's not true, Papa. You are strong!"

Her dad finally looked at her, eyes wet with tears, "I'm not. If I were strong, I wouldn't have to come back to this. I'd be able to break free from my addiction."

"Papa…"

He dropped his half-finished cigarette into his beer can and proceeded to drink from it. He was silent for a moment, then said, "Look at me, Noel. I don't even have the strength to quit. Look at what I am."

Noel got to her knees and shuffled herself close enough to his grab cheeks with her small hands so he couldn't turn away from her. His usual smell was masked by the stink of the cigarettes mixed with beer. It stung her nose to be close to her dad, but she didn't move away.

"I am looking."

At that moment, Noel felt like she truly understood her father, the kind of a man he was. He was a deeply flawed man, and he knew that. Instead of trying to overcome his addiction, he chose to live with it in moderation. To control it in his own way. He claimed to be a weak man, but that was not Noel's truth.

 A weak man would never admit his faults or his mistakes. A weak man would want to be seen as infallible. A strong man puts others before himself as her father did every other day. Brian Miller had been a weak man. But he fought to rid himself of that weakness, and he refused to hide his struggle from them when that fight was too much. He never pretended to be perfect. That's what made him stronger than anyone she knew. 

Her Papa put a hand over Noel's and didn't say anything. He pressed his forehead to hers. She pressed back.

After that night, Noel was always the one to go with him whenever his strength failed him. She would always be there for her Papa, just like he was always there for her.

 Her Papa was her hero, no matter what he told her. He was strong. And whenever Noel looked at the endless array of stars that could only be seen in a world without light, she was reminded of her Papa's strength. It kept her going, even after he was gone.

Noel raised a hand to the sky—like she remembered Papa doing—and tried to trace the stars as he did. But not a single star shone through the darkness as she desperately searched for strength.

The eternal light of Tokyo hid them from her sight.

She thought that she could be strong like her dad. That she could endure what life threw at her as he did. But she had been wrong. Her dad was strong, and all she had done so far was borrow his strength. But now…

Her fingers trembled as her arm and the lamps around her blurred from the tears that filled her eyes. She let her arm fall over her face to block the void the sky had become and let the tears fall, her body shaking as she lay there, sobbing.

In the end, she was the one who was weak.