PART ONE


Oh, and while the king was looking down


Five Years and Two Months After the Bath House.

"You're nearly fourteen, so I'm gonna be honest. You ought to be able to understand now that sometimes things just don't work out. Like your father and I."

My mother's fingers tightened on the steering wheel, her knuckles whitening underneath the red glow of the stop light. Deep crevices lined her face, dark spots shadowing underneath her eyes. She looked around at me, leftover anger still hovering behind her frown. "But things will be fine, Chihiro." She pressed, looking back to the road and pressing her foot down on the gas as green light washed up the front of the car, "We're just going to stay at grandma and grandpa's for a while until I can find my own place back in the country."

So that was it in a nutshell, plain and simple. We weren't going back home.

"This is pretty exciting though." She continued, fighting passed a yawn, "Going back to where we used to live." Her face suddenly brightened and she tossed a hasty glance my way again, "Maybe you can see some of your old friends, go back to your old school for a semester? Would you like that?"

Well as long as we're being honest. "I'd like to see the river again."

The car bumped down the road, the engine whirling noisily and the radio faintly whispering music into our silence. I watched the wide, green highway signs flash by above our car, one by one, signifying a distance traveled further and further from home and my father.

"They built apartment buildings over that old river years before we even moved. We'd be having a picnic in a parking lot if we went." My mother finally replied, gently maneuvering the steering wheel to the right, rolling through our exit and towards the city. Seeming to rethink what she said, she added, "But I suppose we could always take a look to see if there's anything left."

A web of fog rolled up the window when I sighed and pressed my forehead against the chilly glass, "Yeah, that'd be nice."


The jester stole his thorny crown.


We pulled into a trim neighborhood with spotless streetlights, thick hedges, and bleach white sidewalks that I could've swore glowed in the dark. The cars that weren't parked inside the garages looked as if they'd never been driven anywhere except on top of polished pavement, and the houses themselves looked like the sort of thing you'd buy at the supermarket for Barbie.

My grandfather on my father's side had been a simple man. He worked his whole life not because he needed the money, but because he didn't know what else to do with himself besides decent, hard work. My mother's parents, on the other hand, retired when they were both around fifty, feeling no need to work anymore than they had to. They saved their money and bought the most decent house in the most upper class neighborhood they could afford. To be honest, my only still-living grandparents were yuppie idiots.

The car whined to a halt along the edge of a black driveway in front of a large, light blue house with a single, glowing window draped with yellow curtains. I pulled up the lock on my door and reached for the handle, eager to stretch my aching legs.

"Please don't go in empty handed, Chihiro. We have plenty to carry in, in the trunk, and you know your grandparents won't be able to help."

I hadn't been planning on it. I walked around the car, popping open the trunk and throwing a large duffel bag over my shoulder. I heard the front door of my grandparents' house swing open, and began to grab more so I wouldn't have to go on inside.

"Yuuko, you didn't call when you got off the exit like you said you would!"

"Where's Chihiro, Hun?"

I heard the sound of my mother walking around the car, her healed shoes clicking against the pavement as she called over her shoulder, "She's back here, grabbing some stuff." She appeared around the side of the car, her brown eyes flicking over to where I stood, instantly looking slightly alarmed, "Are you trying to break you back?"

"Would it keep me from staying here?" I grumbled quietly, handing my mother the lighter bags. She gave me a hardened look before slamming shut the trunk, and walking back around the car with me reluctantly following at her heels.

"Oh, Chihiro," My grandma was hobbling down the stairs before I could say 'life alert', her frail arms out-stretched and her tight face grappled back into a squinty-eyed smile, "look how big you are! Oh, but really, dear, you should do something different with your hair; you've been wearing it up like that since you were a toddler." Her boney hands latched over my arms, yanking me with unexpected strength against her torso.

She smelled like baby powder and her clothes were so stiff I felt my skin mold around them, rather than the vice versa. Her hair was white and whispy, drenched with the thick odor of cigar smoke, and the way her voice rasped as she ranted on about my meager appearance reminded me keenly of another older woman.

I found myself, as I was led inside and into the kitchen where dinner waited, thinking for the first time in years, about Yubaba.


The courtroom was adjourned;


There was more.

I just couldn't remember, for the life of me. There were souls with real names, real voices, real lives. There was smoke, or was it steam? There were lights that danced and blinked deep reds and purples, and a bridge. A wide, but short, wooden bridge connecting the smoky-or steamy-building with the rows and rows of counters with ghosts lingering behind them. There was a boat and gorgeous, green grass; there was an endless sea with a train plowing through it. But there were also names and faces that I couldn't recall. There was a force hiding inside that mysterious building that also wound through the arteries in my heart.

But I couldn't remember. For the life of me I couldn't think of any name, besides one, and it came with no face or voice. It was just a name, somehow deeply vocalized into the pits of my brain.

But who on earth was Sen?


No verdict was returned.


A/N: i decided to go in a different direction with these few opening chapters in PART ONE, so yeah. This first chapter is completely different. Dont be lazy. REVIEW ME. critisisms [slaughtered the spelling of that] are alwaaaaaaaaays welcome.