Point of return.
Chapter two: Promises and more promises
-Chihiro, you really promised that creature a new name?
-Yes, I did, as far as I understand it this only takes a more complex estimation of the meaning and qualities, but a less power.
-Wait Chihiro, You dare to think this is just some kind of crossword puzzle?
-No, the legend says that the written or carved word can come to life; the most difficult will be to make them accept the new name and their own energy to live with it. This is where You and Granny Zeniba come into play.
-It is nice You have planed it all, but just how you imagine the process?
-It is my house already... We will speak tomorrow, where are you staying by the way?
-I inhabit a well to the south-east.
-You mean there is no other spirit?
-For your information, no human construction has its own spirit. Still shrines and some bathhouses are the exceptions. Spirits dwelling in human possessions usually are less healthy, because get less prayers and other stuff...
-But why?
-Humans are ignorant, that they don't belong to themselves as well as things they make, it sometimes is a way around.
-You are genius... till tomorrow!
Chihiro entered her house but forgot the usual greetings, when overheard her parents discussing some interesting issues.
-See? I told you she is in love... (a female voice stated)
-Told us not a bit, when they met? Teachers say she avoids boys completely, not even a single glance. And her strange visits to the shrines and abandoned cemeteries after school?
-Teachers say she is constantly preoccupied with other meters.
-But at the arts and drawing she excels far beyond her age, when they gave fantasy assignment girl draw bathhouse of the spirits, details were so curate no one imagined she had not copied it from an existent drawing.
-Yes, but after the lesson she confessed to the sensei, that she had been at he place.
-What?
-Worked on a volunteer bases, got some good friends.
-Who?
-She never said...
-I can imagine...
-But have you noticed, she is not as clumsy as she used to, sometimes it looks even graceful in a strange way.
-Not only, she seems to have a kind of strange life understanding, she holds words unheard more valuable, than words spoken, no one sometimes understands a single though of hers.
-Do you think she would want to work as a shrine maiden?
-It would be strange if she did not want to, I have heard people speak in the local shop she has been seen cleaning up forgotten shrines with only a few minute interval in different parts of area, but no one has an idea of how she crosses up to 25 miles in five minutes for example.
-What do you mean?
-Two electricians at the grocery discussed sightings of Chihiro-spirit maiden as they call her. One said she was spotted at the forest in Tonkawa, we got lost remember? Other clamed she was seen walking by the forgotten Tiniku palace shrine town, even mentioned exact time. Girl always disappears in the dust cloud. But the best was some old lady saying, Chihiro appeared with a cloud of paper birds from thin air...
-I am sure we must speak about this all; people stare at me in the work...
-Yes, but I get vegetables cheaper from some elder man. He says that pure spirits must take pure food to do good.
-You mean we have been eating Eco-food all this time?
-Yep..
That moment Chihiro's mom noticed her tiptoeing behind father's back. With a hidden sight of horror she watched as her klutz of a daughter stepped in the bucket on the water... ON THE WATER! Ou yea! The trick was, Chihiro's leg did not sink. Now she shifted all her weight to make next step, not noticing wrongness of the situation. The woman waited for the girl to trip, but in the place of that, her next step ended in thin air and her child for some second based on nothing she could see...
-Dear? what are you gawking at?
-Nothing... I just think our girl will tell us everything when we will be ready to listen. But obviously, not now... We will start small, first let's get to know who the flower-candy giver is, o...ok?
-Ok, but if she keeps that kid in shadows longer than this evening, her bottom will be on fire.
-Or on water...
-What?
-Just thinking…
By that time Chihiro had already made to her room for change of clothes. Her father was already leaving for his own business, when his wife with questionable amount of brain stepped onto the previously mentioned bucked of water, but was flat on her portrait the next moment.
-Why did you do that for?
Questioned person just raised her facade and with an idiot's grin countered…
-How did she do it…? (In her thoughts)
Later at the diner table the first question from the only man was:
-So, who is the superhuman mighty enough to capture my Chihiro's heart?
-… (aka -You don't want to know.)
-Cut it out dear, we saw the presents.
-Gulp… (aka- I said you do not want to know and I do not want you to know. I MEAN IT!)
-Dear, do we have any truth serum on hands besides, … a belt?
-His name is Haku…