Chihiro and Haku, Melissa Nichols [readnow TXT] 📗

back tightly, needing the kind of support he was giving her that no one else could provide.

 

After a while, they separated from their hug and just enjoyed being together again. They continued to talk and catching up in the eight years they had been apart. But it soon sank it that Chihiro was really back in the spirit world, and all of her friends were waiting to see her. She got restless and Haku figured out why. So, they checked out of the hotel and they walked to the bathhouse.

Chapter Seven

 Chihiro woke up the next morning –er, evening- thinking she was back home and her alarm was going off. Automatically she reached out with a clenched fist to pound the thing into silence. Her fist met only air. The pass of her fist over where when she had expected to meet something solid was enough to shock her into full awareness. “Oh. Silly me. There’s no alarm clocks here. But then what’s making that noise?” She looked around. This wasn’t the room she shared with the other girls! Where was she? And then she saw Haku on the sofa and smiled. She was in Haku’s apartment. As she watched, Haku woke up and snapped his fingers. Immediately, the blaring noise silenced. “Good evening, Haku.”

“Evening, Chihiro.” He yawned as he sat up and ran a hand through his black hair. “Sorry I fell asleep on you this morning.”

“Its alright. You had a rough first day. Besides, I liked you falling asleep on me. Its been my experience that only those who trusted me with their lives fell asleep on my shoulder, and that hasn’t been very many. So, it was quite exhilarating for you to fall asleep on my shoulder.”

“Oh, okay.” She stretched and got out of bed, smoothing the covers back into place. “What time is it?”

“There’s no real sense of time here. Just the placement of the moon and sun. Right now, everyone will be waking up soon, but I left you enough time for you to shower if you’d like.” He gestured to the pair of curtains that framed a doorway. She assumed that doorway led to the bathroom.“Thanks but maybe tomorrow morning will be better, after the work day. I always sleep better when I’m clean.”

“Alright, but the offers always open. I’ll go shower then. If you need anything, just speak what you want into that pipe.” He pointed to an old-fashioned pipe that was used in old times to let people of the same house but on different levels to communicate easily. “And it’ll come out the slot next to it.”

“That’s cool!” She went over to the pipe and poked around it a bit. Haku watched her and chuckled. She seemed like an exuberant, curious puppy and it made him smile. “And if you need to talk to me, just tap on the wall three times. The water in here will silence itself so I can hear you.”

“Another spell?”

“Yep. I was sick once and Yubaba refused to let me work for a full week after all of my symptoms disappeared. That means I had a lot of time on my hands so I enchanted just about everything in my apartment at least three times for different purposes.”

“Is there really that much magic in this world?”

“Oh yes. Every spirit is able to use magic, though their talents vary greatly. Some have small amounts, able to do only the most menial of enchantments. Most have a larger amount and can handle more difficult enchantments. But only the old ones, connected to the human world, have the most magic and can do almost anything. Being a river spirit, I’m one of them, but even I can’t do everything. What I can’t do, only three spirits excel at. Life, Death and Knowledge are their names. But among us spirits, there are some who believe that power lies in knowledge of magic, the language and the gestures of magic. They devote their lives to learning everything they can, and then passing all of that on. For many, that means an apprentice. For others, its writing a book for future generations to learn from. These are wizards and scholars, respectably.”

“Is there power in knowledge?”

“I personally believe so, but it’s also a spirit exclusive, like an eternal life. I haven’t met a human who can do magic. But, even the most powerful of creatures has to know about magic and the many intricacies of life to control that power. For beginners, that means learning the language and the gestures, the ranking of the spirits according to magical aptitude, and many other things before they can fully control their magic.”

“What happens if one has magic but they don’t use it?”

“It explodes. In some cases, the magic could turn a simple spell, like watering a flower, into a catastrophe, like the drowning of a village. In others, if it is ignored, the magic builds and builds until the spirit themselves explode. To keep this from happening, spirits are taught the fundamentals of magic from the time their children. They learn the language and the most used gestures so they can cast any easy spell they wish, but they don’t learn enough to do any damage to anyone without more learning, which they have to seek on their own.”

“But if all spirits can do magic, then why not enchant the bath house? Surely it’d make everyone’s lives a lot easier.”

“They would be capable of just that if they knew their names. And even though I know my name again, I wouldn’t use my magic to lessen my workload for the simple reason that we are all here to work. Without that work, we’d all be sitting around twindling our thumbs, bored silly, and the guests wouldn’t have as much of a good time as they would expect to for the prices they’re paying for top quality service and hospitality.”

“That makes sense. Wait, but why does the spirit world have magic but the human world doesn’t?”

“The human world does have magic, Chihiro. The humans just can’t harness it. And lately, they can’t even sense it. Places of magic were beautiful, like the oceans, a meadow, lakes, forests, volcanoes. All of those places were born of magic. But, long ago, the humans and the spirits occupied the same world and lived together. One human scholar and one spirit scholar were working on a project, the subject of which has been lost with time, and the two had radical differences in opinion. The human believed the key to life was to work without magic, to rely on one’s own body to do the daily tasks and overcome obstacles. The spirit believed that life was about using everything one had to work with to better one’s standing in life. Since the humans had always been magic-less, they all banded together to support the human scholar, while the spirits rallied behind the spirit scholar. The two created their own societies, each occupying half of the planet. After a terrible clash, the most powerful spirits came together and created the barrier we have today in an effort to keep anymore fighting from breaking out. But, magic is so essential to life that it was present even in the human world. But its weakening. The humans are destroying their half of the planet, sucking the magic out of the very essence of the earth. This, in turn, affects us. Every generation, spirits are born with weaker powers than their parents. As in my case, spirits connected to the human world are losing that connection and thus a vast amount of their power. Even the spirits of Life, Death and Knowledge are weakening. Life is weakening because she used only magic to create life. With less magic, she can’t do as much as she used to. The spirit of Death is slowly dying himself, the humans who die of pollution-caused illnesses polluting his very soul. And every generation we lose a bit more knowledge of magic, which affects the spirit of Knowledge.”

“Oh my god. And the humans have no idea of what they’re doing?”

“They are completely in the dark. Millenia have passed and humans live for so little time that nothing from the old times was remembered. Even now, humans can’t remember before the pollution and destruction how beautiful the land was, how clean the air and the water, how perfectly balanced life was.”

“And then they became greedy and destroyed the land to build new towns to bring in more income.”

“Or, back then, the case was food but, yes.”

“Oh dear.”

“Sen! Sen, can you hear me?” A voice rang out through the pipe on the wall. Chihiro rushed over to it. “Yes, Rin, I’m here. Sorry to worry you. I feel asleep on Haku’s shoulder and he took me up to his apartment.”

“Thank goodness. I was worried.”

“I’m alright. Is there something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. I just thought you should know that it’s time to get to work. We need every worker before opening.”

“Right. I’ll be right down.” She turned to Haku and hugged him. “Sorry, I have to go. Thanks for…well, everything. I’ll see you later?”

“Of course. But, Chihiro, listen to me. Now that everyone knows you’ll be staying, the bath house isn’t as safe as it was. There are some spirits who hate humans enough to kill. If you are in danger, or need anything urgent from me, just call my name three times, and I’ll come straight away. But, be careful. The spell can only be used in emergencies because it instills such a feeling of urgency in me and the only thing that can get that reaction from me is you. When I’m not around, stick close to Rin, but try not to be with anyone else by yourself. Spirits have eternal lives and so many have been around long enough to remember the humans. This means they’ve had more years than you can count to perfect acting, lying, anything. Don’t trust anyone but me, Rin, Granny and Boh.”

“I understand. I’ll be careful.”

“Alright then. You’d best get to work. The bath house will be opening soon.” He nodded and hugged her again before Chihiro dashed out of the apartment and down the stairs to the elevator.

Once she had caught up with her department, Chihiro searched for Rin, Haku’s warning fresh in her mind. She looked at spirits with a frantic eye, paranoid that someone would jump out and grab her. But after growing through puberty, she had learned how to hide her emotions so she was able to find Rin with a level head, hoping no one could see how terrified she was.With Rin by her side, Chihiro completed her evening prep work and ate breakfast. Once the bath house opened, however, they were separated. Chihiro was working in one of the tubs while Rin was hostessing again.Today, it was Chihiro’s job to help another worker relax the spirit with a long soak in the tub. Since she was the assistant, she had only to fetch water tokens and help scrub the bath after each guest. The other worker figured she would be most useful sitting in a corner, learning about a job she’d have to take on one day.Because of this, the night went by very