Chapter 7 - PROLOGUE 7/7- The star goes off

The starry night was cut off by the strident cry of an energetic baby, and Nam Joo's heartfelt sobs.

The final conversation she had had with that strange woman Myung Hee was just carved in her mind. They were lying in the same bed, the only one in Myung Hee's house, the two babies between them. Jeong Geun had left briefly to bring the truck closer, for now that his wife had had the baby, all four of them were to go to the hospital. Nam Joo had split feelings right now: joy for her baby's birth, and sadness because she didn't have much hope about Myung Hee, and it hurt her heart. If she had not told her husband, they might have been in the hospital now, and the woman could be saved.

"Your daughter is very special ... She has something different…" the faint and hoarse voice of the other woman was barely heard.

Nam Joo swallowed hard, for she felt that this meant far more than the words said. She turned around with a smile, but looking at the woman made her heart ache as if she were the one to carry that thorn in her chest. And all the events of the day still did not make sense. She knew that she just experienced and survived something supernatural and evil, but what?

"I hope our daughters become good friends," Nam Joo did not know what to say to the woman who seemed to lose the gleam in her gaze with each choked breath, then spoke that, and it was true.

"Can you... look after my Eun Ha?"

Nam Joo nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Yes, I will take care of Eun Ha." At that moment, her words mirrored her heart.

This drew a smile from Myung Hee, who nodded, and made an effort to take Nam Joo's hand, laid it on the head of Nam Joo's newborn baby, and put her own over:

"Then since you promised it, the star will grant her the desires of your heart. Just wish it aloud."

Nam Joo's hand hurt by the thorn's wound touched her baby's forehead, and she shivered from pain. She felt so overwhelmed from what she just passed through, that she felt a knot in her throat, and could not speak. Myung Hee noticed it, and taking the human's hand on hers, looked at the palm, staring at the wound for a moment, and the fairy's gaze grew sad:

"I think you cannot do it, as you're so hurt in your heart… I am so sorry for your baby.... But... I KNOW. She will be strong, and beautiful, and talented…"

Why her mind was filled with only pessimistic thoughts about every word said with effort by the woman with pale eyes? Why being beautiful could be an obstacle, and a danger; why being strong could be misunderstood, why being a smart woman could be a burden? What good is talent, if ... 'What was happening to me?'

"She would be lucky if she couldn't exist in a world where things like this exists," Nam Joo uttered, with a bitter feeling, while looking at the little face of her asleep baby.

The newborn human hiccuped just after her mom's ominous words, and the fairy shushed Nam Joo:

"What are you doing, you crazy woman? This is your daughter,... she deserves to live. Don't ever again say it!"

But Nam Joo just felt the pain in her palm, where the thorn spiked her deep, and her voice came out panned. "What are you saying, witch? That monster will come again, will chase us again, will eat the babies!"

"No… because… This girl, your daughter... She will indeed have all a woman can wish... but one thing. This is the word of a star. Your early wishes for your daughter will come true, regardless of you. In exchange, you will take good care of her and of my baby daughter Eun Ha.

Nam Joo tried to speak, but with a movement, Myung Hee demanded her to remain silent. It as clear that the fairy was struggling to utter her final blessings:

"She will grow untouched by any supernatural harm. This monster will never be able to do any harm to your daughter. I promise you. Once she keeps my last forces into her, nothing but… " the fairy shifted her gaze to a picture beside the bed, where her departed husband was smiling, and uttered the condition of her ritualistic speech, "…but a broken heart will make her kneel."

"What are you?"

"I am a fading star… And what is rest of me is going to be part of a nova…"

"Huh?"

And, when the time comes,... this human baby..." she leaned next of the human baby's face, and tenderly blowed in her nose, with great intention. This time, Nam Joo couldn't see anything supernatural, but she felt goosebumps all over. She just knew what she was witnessing right now. The baby awoke, but remained calm, her glazed eyes seemed not to focus on anything. Myung Hee reclined again, seeming very tired and very worn out:

"…this human baby will take back all the stars this monster stole. This is not a coincidence you came today. It's not a coincidence you were able to see what is not seen by human eyes. It's her… It's her destiny, to do great things."

Myung Hee smiled, but she coughed blood with her last words. Her hand dropped, lifeless, and her eyes went out. Nam Joo was startled by the speed and intensity of how life faded away, like a light that is turn off.

...

This was the memory that had stayed in Nam Joo's heart, even when Jeong Geun told her that nothing she had witnessed and lived was real. That woman, Myung Jee, had died out of heart problems, aggravated by pregnancy, starvation and possibly, a psychotic episode that made her to try suicide after giving birth.

"Nam Joo", her husband had said, looking through the glass in front of the hospital nursery, where the two girls were in cribs side by side. "I'm sorry to say, it's impossible to keep both. I'd be irresponsible with this other girl and with our daughter if I agree with this idea. Plus, I heard of someone who can care after this baby better than we could."

Nam Joo was tired of crying, tired of insisting that what she had experienced was real; that Myung Hee was a supernatural being and that ghostly shadows attacked both in the orchard. She had noticed the social workers whispering about postpartum depression, and realized that her husband was starting to believe in it.

It was heartbreaking that he didn't believe her,and that he insisted on turn off the lights when she needed to keep them on.

When she looked at her own daughter, Ye Rim, she knew the fairy was right, for from the moment the little baby had left her w.o.m.b, something seemed to have gone out of her forever. She used to stare at the palm of her hand and the resulting scar with melancholy and a strange feeling of emptiness.

"Do you think I'm crazy, Jeong Geun? Do you think I can hurt the babies? Do you think I don't want to protect them, with my life, as did that woman?" she choked on her crying, because it hurt so much having to ask him that.

Jeong Geun hugged her.

"I cannot agree with you just to please you, Nam Joo. I didn't see anything you told me. I feel sorry for what happened, I feel sorry for this baby, but you don't need to protect anyone from evil shadows.I promise. I'm worried about you, too."

But he sort of conceded, talking to the social workers that the couple would work it out together. The four of them returned home, the little house that Nam Joo one day thought of expanding with a porch and a swing to see the stars with her husband and daughter.

But Nam Joo, despite being with the two girls and loving them equally, did not feel safe unless with all the lights on, all the time.

Her scattered mood, filled with unexplained melancholy, and the obsessive attitude toward the children filled her husband with worry. Jeong Geun carefully watched every action of his wife, fearing for the worst. As the winter drew near, the days shortening, Nam Joo became even tenser and distressed, showing by many of her actions that her mind still believed in the things she had told about the fairy who faced the shadows, flashing as she was struck by a monster made of fear, and that the children were special.

It was Christmas week, things have reached their climax.

Nam Joo placed some blinkers around the girls' cradle, and exhausted, fell asleep. One of the little lamps, in contact with the fabric, caused a small fire, but Jeong Geu, which was arriving from work earlier, managed to control.

They had a violent arguing. Desperate to bring his wife into normalcy, Jeung Geun forcefully locked his wife in the dark garage for the rest of the night. He just imagined that making her face her fear of the dark once for all would do the trick.

In the morning, with a regretful heart, Jeong Geun opened the garage door. Nam Joo was there with the babies, looking apathetic. She finally was seemingly to recognize reality_ and that there were no monsters in the dark.

On Christmas Eve, Mrs. Shin came to fetch Eun Ha from the Nams and take her to another foster family.