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Chihiro is ten when she takes her parents back from the pigpens of Yubaaba’s bathhouse. All three of them move into the blue house at the end of the street and from the windows of her bedroom she has the town at her feet, cozily nested in the woods. When she opens it, it’s like the forest is reaching in.
The new school is fine. The other kids are shy around her, but her teacher praises how mature she is. Chihiro basks in the compliment like any ten years old would. Walking home is still her favorite part of the day. It’s uphill all the way, and her parents don’t want her on the twisty road with no sidewalks. So she walks through the woods, and never lose her footing. She bows at every shrines she sees, and sometimes, someone she can’t really see bow back. One of her friends doesn’t go to the same school; she lives with her grand-mother and hides when adults are around.
Chihiro is twelve when the knitted hair tie snaps in her hand as she puts it in her hair. She’s inconsolable, and screams when her dad tell her she can have twenty other ties just as pretty the next time they go shopping. Her parents don’t understand why, but after she’s send to her room, her mother comes up and sit next to her on the bed to ask. Chihiro stare at the frayed cord in her hands, unable, and unwilling, to explain. Her mother hugs her and tell her she can recycle it into something else, if it’s that important. Chihiro turns into into a bracelet and never take it off again. The next day, she go to her friend’s house but find it empty. A neighbor notice her and ask what’s she doing here; the old lady is at the hospital. He doesn’t know where her friend is and seem pretty confused when she insists. She returns home slowly, worried.
A week later, there are movers at the house. Chihiro runs there and finds her friend in the garden. She’s curled on herself, back turned to the street. Her feet and hands are filthy and she’s crying.
« What happened? »
The little girl look up, her eyes red, so red, and her nails are sharp. She hisses at Chihiro, fangs peeking out of her mouth.
« Obāsan is dead. Now go away! »
She swips at her and Chihiro almost topple back.
« Wait! Let me help! »
« I don’t want your help! »
One of the mover comes out where they are and calls out.
« Hey! You shouldn’t be here! »
She turns to him, bracing herself to plead their cause.
« I’m sorry but my friend is upset-»
« What friend? »
Chihiro looks back as the man comes closer. The garden behind her is empty, save for a centipede scurrying away.
« Look, » say the mover, bending down so he does not loom above her, « I can’t let you stay here. Do you want me to tell the family about you? »
She swallows thickly and shake her head. He walks her back to the road. Chihiro runs downhill, not knowing why until she finds the big, gnarled tree standing next to a dirt road with all the little shrines clustered around his roots. She stops in front of it, breathing hard, and looks into the woods. The wind picks up behind her, pulling at her clothes like a dozen little fingers. She turns around and go home.
Laying in her bed that night, Chihiro retrace in her mind’s eye the steps beyond the tree, to the crumbling red entrance. She thinks about losing your way home and can’t seem to fall asleep.
Chihiro looks for her friend. The house stay empty, the backyard grows thick with weeds. She comes back with her mother’s garden gloves and starts pulling. After a few hours, she catches something in the corner of her eye.
« What are you doing? »
Her friend is still filthy and her eyes are still red. But she looks very small and very lost.
« I’m cleaning up your garden. »
The little yokai sits down with her back against the house and watch her work. It takes a week, but she pulls all the weeds. Her friend’s eyes clear up gradually, and when Chihiro is done with the weeds the only dirt on her is from the garden.
« Thank you. »
« You’re my friend. »
Chihiro takes off the gloves and stretches, feeling accomplished. When she looks over to where her friend was, she’s gone; but there’s a bottle of cold soda beaded with condensation waiting where she sat. She picks it up and walks out, slowly. There’s a small shrine she passes by often that seems pretty neglected recently, and she already have the gloves anyways.
Chihiro brushes off the dirt and pull the wilted weeds around it, then go home to get something appropriate as a offering. She washes her hands and face before walking back to make her offering and sit downs for a bit, opening her soda. Upon tasting it, decide it’s her favorite flavor now. No one shows up to take the little rice cake, but that’s alright. She knows some people are shy. Chihiro keeps the garden tidy until a new family moves in, and the little shrine she keeps going after that.
On her thirteen birthday she wait after the end of her party to bring a slice of her cake to it. A little figure with a smooth stone for head clamber out of the shadows inside of the shrine and take a dainty bite of out the offering.
« This, » the little spirit says softly, « tastes like a special occasion. »
« Mh mh. It’s my birthday today. »
« Ah! Well. I have a gift you you, then. » Chihiro bows and thank them. The stone-faced spirit finish their cake and waves their arms to tell her to follow. She carefully steps over the shrine and shivers when the trees cover the sun above her head. Her guide seem to shine softly as she follows it, into a small clearing cut in half by a stream. She knees and washes her hands and face before crossing, earning a nod from the spirit. Once they are both on the other side, the spirit tells her to wait and disappears in the bushes. There’s a familiar gust of wind and Chihiro almost runs into the forest, a smile creeping on her face.
Haku walks into the clearing and she launch herself at him, calling his name loud enough the scare the birds of the nearby trees into flight. There’s still the lingering smell of the bath house in his clothes, mixed with the scent of a forgotten river. He gently wraps his arms around her as she straighten up. He is the same and yet slightly different, as if changing with her. His eyes are still a deep green.
« You kept your promise. »
« With your help. »
Chihiro laughs a bit, her heart fluttering. She leans against him.
« We’re on your side of the river, right? »
« Yes. » he lifts a hand to gently cup her face. « I don’t have a home on the other side anymore. »
Chihiro put her hand on his and sigh.
« I remember. »
She looks up to the sky, already darkening as the afternoon fades into the evening. Her face turns serious when she stare back at him.
« This better not be the last time we see each over. »
Haku laughs and hug her closer before letting go, grabbing her hands in his.
« I promise. »
« Good. »
Chihiro hesitates for a moment, and look over her shoulders with a soft sigh.
« I need to go, don’t I? »
Haku nods, his smile fading. With another moment of hesitation, Chihiro kisses his cheek before letting go of his hands and crossing the little stream again. She doesn’t look back until she’s out of the woods, but she cries all the way. She’s silent this evening, and her parents joke about growing up.
She keeps the shrine tidy. It takes a few weeks before she talks with the little stone-head spirit again. They were very tired. She thanks them again.
They tell her about other shrines. Chihiro looks for them and starts cleaning them too. She has less time for her school friends but she makes others just as strange. The woods get a bit lighter. Foxes start to wink at her from the bushes. Birds drop little pieces of ribbons on her path. She learns how to make the rice cakes instead of buying them.
She sees Haku again. They sit together by the stream and she lay her head on his shoulder.
« How did Yubaaba take it? When you told her you were leaving? »
« She wasn’t happy to learn I had my name back, but she couldn’t do much about it. »
Chihiro twist a little to look at him with a spark of savage joy in her guts.
« Did you tell her it was me who gave it back? »
Haku chuckles and hold her a bit tighter.
« I didn’t want to make her that angry. »
« She can’t do anything to me. »
His face becomes serious as he turns toward her.
« Yubaaba can walk freely where she please. » he touches lightly the bracelet she made with her knitted hair tie. « You are protected, but your parents aren’t. »
A cold shiver runs down her back and her face falls.
« She wouldn’t dare! »
Haku takes her hands; his fingers are cool and strong.
« You worked for her. You know how she is. »
Chihiro dread turns to anger like a flash of phosphorus.
« She’s a sad, angry old woman and I’m not scared of her!! I am not!! » She gets up and paces, tears welling in her eyes as she raves. « I won’t let her takes things from me again, I won’t let her! »
She whirls around and stares at Haku, still sitting next to the stream, his eyes wide in surprise, his expression almost wary.
« I don’t want that either. I… We need to be careful. »
She comes back to him and sits again, leaning against him.
« I am careful. I didn’t go back to the bath house, » She sighs softly, the fight draining out of her, « I miss my friends. »
Haku wraps his arm around her again, laying his cheek on the top of her head.
« Zeniiba underestimated you. I think we all did. »
« You didn’t . »
She sounds so sure, he can’t help but tease.
« Didn’t I? »
Chihiro looks up at him with a playful smile.
« You thought I could hold my breath long enough to cross the bridge, and we saw how that turned out. »
Haku laughs.
« You did very well after that. » he pauses and looks off in the distance. « You saved my life. »
She straighten up to stare at him intensely, her whole face transformed by her conviction.
« And I would do it again. »
His face soften, almost glow with something that makes her stomach flutter.
« I know. »
She blushes and look down to the stream, tongue-tied by feelings she isn’t quite sure how to handle yet. After a few stuttering heartbeats, she decides to go back to easier topics.
« How are they doing? My friends?»
« No Face is pretty happy. Zeniiba makes him work hard, but he’s staying willingly. »
Chihiro open her mouth then close it without saying anything, but it’s not hard for Haku to guess what was her next question.
« As far as I know everyone else is okay. I can’t see any of them often, since I’m not welcome at the bath house anymore. »
Chihiro grumbles.
« Yubaaba is losing a client. »
He laughs, dropping back and laying down on the grass.
« It’s not like I could pay the entry fee. »
She lay down next to him,looking up at the sky. The blue is fading at the edge, right over the trees. She sights softly. She’s gotten very good at estimating how much time there is left until sunset lately. Chihiro rolls on her side, sticking her elbow on the soft ground to hold up her head.
“What are you doing, now that you’re free of that old hag?”
Haku looks at her with a small, almost sly smile.
“Nothing very different from what you are doing.”
“You are not going to school.” She states flatly. His smile creeps wider, then he gets serious.
“I am helping, like you do.”
“Oh.”
He lift his hand to trace the shape of her cheek with the tip of his fingers. Neither of them like to say goodbye, but both of them know she can’t stay. The little stream starts oh so slowly swelling, lapping at their feet in a cold reminder. Chihiro gets up and lend a hand to Haku. He’s lighter than he should, and she hugs him fiercely before hopping over the water and walking out of the forest, teary-eyed and full of unfocused anger. It’s all so unfair. As she crosses the busier part of the town,she catches a glimpse of light hair in a bun above a large blue dress and freezes. After a few seconds she starts running, searching for that glimpse, until she find herself at the edge of the town out of breath and shaking. When she finally go home, she wonders if it was really one of the witch twins. And if it was, what was she doing here, on this side of the water? Could they have heard her earlier that day?
That night all she can hear is her parents’ snoring. They sound almost like pigs. It scares her more that it should.
In the cold light of day, Chihiro decides that if Yubaaba wants to be on her side of the river, it’s fine. She beat the witch once and she’ll do it as many time as it takes.
She doesn’t see the witch again.
She’s also busier by the day. She’s going to start evening classes, and there’s so many spirits asking for her help now. Little shrines to fix, to clean, to leave offerings to. Stray cats to feed, fox kits to lead back to their mother, little tired birds to lift back into trees. She’s leaning over homework one night, slowly falling asleep, when she hears the tingling of bells. When she looks down out her windows, there’s a dancing processing of cats in front of her house. She thinks she recognizes some of them, but the fey lights they carry makes them shifts and stretch into impossible shapes. They leave a lacquered box and keep on dancing. Chihiro creeps down the stairs and go pick it up, giving her thanks to the night wind to carry. There’s sweets in the box, small, carefully shaped and decorated. She eats them one at the time, when she feel too tired to go on. She always wakes up rested.
She still hops back and forth over the little stream as often as she can, even if it’s not as often as she likes. Her parents say she grow s like a weed, untamed and stubborn, but she sees herself changing in Haku eyes, taller and stronger and loved. He encourages her to do something she’s passionate about, evne if that means leaving the town.
When she goes to university, she assumes there will always been littles shrines and spirits around.
There isn’t. There are lots of tall buildings made of cement and steel, and a lot of late nights with ready-made bento and her courseworks for compagny. Chihiro feels suffocated, only kept alive by the little potted plant that shares her room. She takes the train back home for the holidays and barely sees her parents before running out to the wood.
She can’t find the clearing. The spirits hide from her and the woods close up in front of her. The next day she comes back with her mother gardening gloves and a bag full of offerings. She cleans and give and pray but no one comes. It happens again the next day, and the day after that.
It takes a whole week for her to snap. She wakes up early and runs down to the strangely big tree right by the road, barely stopping before going down the dirt road toward the old, crumbling red building. She is stopped a few paces aways from the smiling stone sculpture by a old, slinky fox. The animal stares her down with big, yellows eyes. Chihiro recognizes his half-bitten ear and the naked scar on his hind leg; he has been a fixture in the woods around her house before she left. The fox sits down in the middle of the road, and talks.
« Let’s not do something hasty now. »
Chihiro crosses her arms.
« Well no one was talking to me. »
« You left. »
« I had too! I wanted to study ecology. »
The fox humfs and yaws.
« Is that supposed to mean something to me? »
« Yes! Yes it does! » she starts pacing and gesturing, « I’m only one person you know! We need global changes for things to get better! »
« Well, you made thing better. Then you stopped. »
Chihiro stares at him, flabbergasted.
« What I am trying to explain is... » she takes a deep breath, « what I was doing was like picking all of you up and putting you on higher and higher ground to escape a flooding river. I left to find a way to stop that flood. »
The fox flicks his tail. It has twice the shadow it should.
« Are you? »
She sighs.
« Not yet. I have a lot to learn. »
« I see. »
They look at each-over. The fox gets up and stretches before walking to stand by her side.
« We are not crossing all the way over. »
« Thank you. »
He sneeze and push her leg a little. Chihiro walks into the building with him. It’s colder than she remember, the tunnel smells a bit mildewy. They reach the waiting room with the stained glass windows. She doesn’t stop until the fox grabs her pant legs in the doorway leading into the sea of grass.
« I say no crossing all the way. » he scolds.
Chihiro looks down toward him.
« I thought the river was the crossing point. »
« But we reached the river. »
She looks back out the gently to the gently rolling grass and over toward the shape of the streets around the bath house.
« How will he know I’m back if I don’t cross? »
The fox growls.
« Well find another way. If you walk that river, she will know. »
« I’m not scared of her. »
The fox stares in disbelief.
« Then you are dumber than you look. »
« I bested her once, » Chihiro snaps, aggravated, « I can do it again. »
« I am not taking that chance with you. »
She opens her mouth to tell him to leave, then, but stops before the words can come out. She crouch down instead, to be on the same level as the scared fox.
« I need to see Haku. If I can’t go through the usual way, I don’t know anywhere else to go. »
He whines and shakes his head, licking his chops nervously.
« I’ll see what I can do. But not through here. »
Chihiro stands up and stretch, turning away from the open doorway.
« I only have a week left to see him, and I intend to do so, you understand? »
The fox snorts and starts toward the tunnel.
« Quite. »
They get out, and he walks her almost all the way home, as if to prevent her from doing something foolish. She makes conversation, frustrated but happy to have found one of her friends again. She hopes they will all understand, now that the word is out. But she doesn’t have much time, and if she has to defy the witch again to see Haku, she will.
The shrines are lovely and clean again. Her rices cakes are quite frankly much better. She feels like it shouldn’t be that way, yet she can’t help but hope it will be enough. The fox doesn’t come back. The last day of her vacation, Chihiro tries to run back to the red building, but she can’t reach it. The road is barred by living, breathings bodies of deers, tanukis, wild boars and badgers; copper pheasants and clouds of butterflies. Cats run around her legs, making her stumble. Her heart breaks and ignites.
“FINE! Fine! I won’t go, I won’t come back! I’ll never come back here! I’ll find my own way!”
She leaves and cry on the train, so hard she can’t breath. She can’t seem to focus on her coursework. The need to see Haku again is eating at her, consuming her every thought. She keeps dreaming of floating in him, looking up from underneath the surface and seeing the sun dance.
Something clicks.
She’s focused again, fueled by that need rather than drowning in it. She manages to give herself a free day and hop on a train again. She doesn’t recognize the neighbourhood but something feels right. Chihiro starts wandering, letting herself get lost and her thoughts float. Her mind seems to expand and reach out, spiraling out of her. She walks and walks and let herself be pulled by her searching spirit until it touches something familiar and she find the cold mouth of a tunnel. The walls around it are crumbling and worn, with a fading pattern that seem to move when she watch it out of the corner of her eye. Chihiro smiles and walks in. It’s dark and damp, and as she advances the floor becomes more and more irregular, asphalt ceding to dirt and stones. The air loses its damp cement smell, turning to something closer to a river shore’s; it keeps her going. She swears she can feel a faint resistance when she finally crosses over. Light starts to filter in, guiding her out. She steps into a small, open air sitting area with low benches nested among thick bushes. Chihiro walks past them to find an platform and very familiar train tracks. This time there’s no water to almost cover them, and she can see them stretch away into the horizon; She wonders, briefly, how far aways she is to Zeniba’s house. Perhaps she could ask Haku if he fancies a slice of cake. After all, they didn’t have time for him to come in the last time. She also wonder, idly, how it would be to board the train again and stay until the end of the line. Something in her guts tells her she may very well discovers it, in time, but before she can think about it too much, she hears someone walk up behind her and forget all about it as he gently grabs her hand. She turns around and smiles. He looks quite different now; tall and wiry, his face sharp yet delicate.
“I knew you’d find your own way.”
Chihiro eyes’ widen and she almost want to shake him.
“Did you tell them to stop me?!”
He lift up his hands in surrender.
“No! I promise I didn’t. I want to see you. I trusted you would come back.”
She sigh and wrap her arms around his neck.
“Good. Because you’re not getting rid of me now.”
He slides his arms around her waist with a smile so soft it makes her heart aches in a way she never want to stop.
“I would never dare.”