There was one day in Chihiro's life that stood out amongst the others, like a tiger might stand out in a group of housecats. It was, in the lightest of terms, an unusual and inexplicable day. Chihiro, only ten years old at the time, had traversed the ruins of an old and abandoned theme park in the backwoods of a rural town, her parents alongside her. Her family was moving in to the new town and was behind the movers, but just barely. In order to beat the movers to the new house, her father chose to try another route in an attempt to make better time.
The obscure route they followed took them down a path littered with shrines and idols, tributes to the supposed gods of the mountains. It was a rugged, world-weary path; the grasses and trees endeavored to claim back the land, seemingly without care to the world outside. It carried with it an overwhelming musk: a rare mixture of mystery and foreboding that thickened the air and made it hard to breathe.
The car began to shake and jumble with the rocky path below. Chihiro remembered making eye contact with a small frog-like statuette as they drove past, sequestered in the trees and jeering at the passing travelers. By this time the car was shaking so violently that Chihiro was jostled about on her seat.
"Honey, honey, honey, ahh! —Slow down, you're going to kill us!" her mother had cried.
Unrelenting, her father pushed on, until a physical block—another frog-like statue—barred their way. "What's that?" he exclaimed. He pressed hard on the brakes and at last he brought the car to a stop, just in time to avoid a collision with the figure.
They ventured outside the car, and it was here that her overly curious father led the way inside an old plaster building, and Chihiro remembered apprehensively hanging off of her mother's arm. Something was off about the place; she knew from the way the wind had beguiled them inside.
The hollow sound of their footsteps and the clunking of metal somewhere deep within the walls were all strongly ingrained on her memory. The stained-glass windows lazily drew in the sunlight, and the dust danced in its glow. Chihiro remembered above all the bizarre mixture of feelings that the whole event had left her with. She felt vulnerable, uneasy and cautious, as she felt inexplicably drawn to something unknown. Something she might confront; something monumental and likewise inevitable. She remembered the suffocating impulse she had to fight to turn on her heels and run out of the building.
To her relief, they had exited the building safely and emerged out into a vast prairie. Cumulus clouds polka-dotted the sky, nearly brushing the meadow below them. The green grass had spread from the exterior of the park and had grown in every direction inside it, and swayed steadily in the breeze like a metronome. It smelled fresh and inviting.
"I knew it," her father had said, his college education speaking. "It's an abandoned theme park."
Chihiro's anxiety had been spirited away, for only a moment, and replaced with a sense of awe and wonder. She clambered over the rocks of a dried up river, following behind her parents who were far more adventurous than she.
"Wait a minute!" she'd griped. She still felt miserable and cranky. She wanted to go home—to her real home, not their new house. She was, however, somewhat grateful for the distraction.
A set of stairs appeared out of the grass, and her father happily ascended them. Chihiro had followed close behind, observing the faded technicolour buildings that surrounded the area, all restaurants at first glance. Tall, creaky and decayed they sat, waiting only to be pulled apart by time.
But that was it: she couldn't remember any more. It wasn't fuzzy, or blurry, or even partly there. There was a chunk of her life missing, and she couldn't remember why or how. The next thing she could recall was her heavy footsteps dragging along the hard floor of the old plaster building, and heading in the direction of the entrance. She still felt uneasy at the time, but she knew that something within her was immensely different.
When they arrived on the other side, Chihiro felt the desperate urge to look back. She paused and gazed back into the dark tunnel, as if searching for what she had lost.
The new home was not theirs anymore. Chihiro knew that only her missing memories provided an explanation to the mystery: they arrived at the house not an hour, or even a day late—it had been three months. Search parties and investigative police work had all been employed in order to find them, and not a single clue had been uncovered.
"It's like you were spirited away," her grandmother had told her, "There wasn't a trace of you left on earth. And then one day you just popped up out of nowhere, three months gone by and yet you acted as if a singled day hadn't passed."
It was a mystery, all right. For the next few years various journalists and supernaturalists had interviewed them, but all they could provide was an inexplicable account.
No one could find the path they said they followed; nor could they find a historic record of an old amusement park in the area. With the passing of a decade most had forgotten, and by the passing of nearly a century everyone but Chihiro had.
At eighty-six Chihiro had been diagnosed with cancer, and had spent the last few months of her life in a hospital bed. Her family, now consisting of three children and two grandchildren, came to visit her daily. They talked about life and love, and of the memories of the past that they shared together.
It was a warm summer day, a Tuesday, when the humidity was stagnating the room. A nurse came to the room and offered to open the window.
"Yes, please." Chihiro said.
"No visitors today?" the nurse asked sweetly.
"No," Chihiro replied, her throat dry despite the humidity. "My son's on a business trip, and my daughters are busy today."
"That's a shame," she said. "It's such a nice day. It'd be nice to go for a walk."
The thought of a walk tired Chihiro. She glanced out the window and saw a bird sitting on a branch and cleaning its wings.
"I think I'd like a nap," she said.
"I'll leave you alone, then." The nurse replied, and quietly left the room.
Chihiro closed her eyes. Her eyelids felt like heavy weights, and it was hard to lift them. She listened to the sound of her own deep breathing, and compared its worn out rhythm to the vivacious bird outside.
She felt a tickle at her wrist, and lifted her arm to see. Her favourite hair band that she'd had since she was ten refracted the light and speckled it across the wall. Chihiro shut her eyes and took a deep breath.
"It's you," Chihiro suddenly whispered into the air, the breeze from the window soft and silky on her old skin. "Kohaku," she sighed as if relieved. "It is you, isn't it?"
She felt a hand slip into hers in response. It was a youthful hand, firm and healthy. She felt her own grip tighten desperately. All at once she had everything placed back in her mind, like the last piece to a puzzle. The dam burst and the faces of people and places flickered by.
"I'd forgotten, Kohaku," she said calmly after a moment of reflection, regret in her tone. "I'd forgotten about Lin and Yubaba… Komaji too."
Hot tears swelled behind her closed eyes.
"But how could I have forgotten about you, Kohaku? How could I forget."
"I told you not to look back, didn't I?" he said. His voice was calm and serene like a river.
"I wanted to look back," her voice cracked, "I wanted to see you, even if it were just one last time. How could I know if you would keep your promise? I wanted to be with you."
"You couldn't be with me, Chihiro. Not then. I became the past, and the past was behind you. You didn't need to look back on it anymore. Not until now."
Chihiro forced her eyes open. The young man that she could now see through half-shut eyes breathed outwardly, calm like a ripple-less pond. He bent over her bed, his dark hair falling over his eyes.
"Look at the life you have lived, Chihiro. Only because you did not look back."
Chihiro envisioned her children, her husband, and her parents. Countless recollections appeared and disappeared like smoke; tiny moments in time preserved only by her memories. She felt tears escape her eyes.
"I loved them," she said. "And every moment with them was more dear to me than anyone will ever know. But I loved you, too."
Chihiro looked up, but the man would not look her way.
"I love you, Kohaku." She breathed.
With this the young man finally lifted his eyes, and she met his gaze at last. The sharp eyes that she had known so well had aged as she had, but only a quarter of the time had passed for him. His bright green eyes danced wildly with reflected sunlight, but their still-youthful appearance was deceitful. His eyes were far wiser and all knowing than any mortal's.
"Chihiro," he whispered, his voice becoming steadily more faint to her ears. "I have watched over you your whole life. Your laughter and your tears. Your joys, your frustrations, and your hopes. Never was there a moment in your life that passed that was not a moment that made me love you all the more,"
One last tear cascaded down Chihiro's weathered cheek.
"I love you," he said.
Chihiro could feel herself yielding to the embrace of death. With the remaining moments of her life she experienced two final sensations: she felt the brush of a soft kiss on her forehead and was given one last assurance:
"We will meet again sometime, I promise."
Author's Note:
Thank you for reading! Some people may not be happy with this epilogue but this is always the type of ending I envisioned to Spirited Away. At the end of the film, I interpreted that Chihiro had forgotten everything, which is why she clings to her mother's arm and appears uneasy once they've gone back to the human world. The English version has an extra at the end:
Father: "A new home and a new school? It's a bit scary."
Chihiro: "I think I can handle it."
There is no such dialogue in the Japanese version, implying that she has forgotten. The hair band is a way to let the viewer know that the spirit world is still existent; she wasn't dreaming in other words. Despite forgetting, though, she has grown internally more than she realizes.