I am so terrible sorry for not updating earlier, but my modem crashed and I had a major long chapter for one of my other fic's. Well, now please don't beg me to start writing major long chapters for this, I'm currently doing my very best. Hope this will suit all of your long waits and next time I'll try to update faster.

Shitza

Chapter 20 Lin's Memories

Lin sighed... she was tired of always being on the run, yet she knew quitting would mean nothing, still she would be followed for she knew that Yubaba would punish her, even if so to death. There was no turning back. Besides, she had to help Chihiro and Haku, they were her best friends. She couldn't remember ever having a closer friend, her days of young was forgotten once she had signed that contract with Yubaba. It was still signed and she begged the higher powers of this world they would help her to be free. She had been that witch's slave long enough.

-Memory -

A young girl, about ten years old walked out from the huge office of her new mistress, Yubaba off the Bathhouse. She had no memories how she even had gotten there or where she had come from. She didn't remember her old name, just knew one that sounded like hers, but was it? She wasn't sure anymore.

She looked at her clothes, she was wearing a red kimono, looking very pretty. Just then it changed into a workers cloth, right in front of her eyes. She felt tears sting in the back of her head. Why? Why?

-End Memory-

Even if it had been long ago the memory still hurt. She was 574 years old now, she surely looked much younger, but she was a spirit, or had been once. She knew that or else she would have since long been dead. Whatever magic she had owned it still protected her. She wondered, she always wondered what Yubaba had done to her.

A well dwelled secret as it was. The stars shined brightly above. She looked at Chihiro and Kohaku, riding together hand in hand. She wondered where Xing was, she then found he was riding behind keeping the cast clear. She felt grateful but would have needed his good advices right now.

Instead she tried to find happier memories in her past, but... were there any?

-Memory-

The young Lin sat in a corner, a bit from the other women. She had been sitting there the whole evening, not dared to move. They were so big, so much older. She was afraid.

The women pointed at her, some giggled while other laughed wildly. A big fat worker went over to her.

"What are you doing there, go to sleep!"

Lin crawled away to her bed, trembling in fright.

'Mum, dad, why did you abandon me?' she thought as she very slowly went to sleep.

-End Memory-

Had she really had parents, once. She couldn't remember anything about having some. She had been left for hell for so long, been the slave worker. Only a hundred and two years ago all that had turned.

-Memory-

Yubaba was down in the lobby inspecting the workers. They all had been places that would surely fit them. Some workers, even if you saw no bigger difference on them, stood higher then others. Lin stood as low as you can and was always the one to feed the pigs and such things. Just in her thoughts Yubaba came over to her. She tried not to look to shocked as she nodded and continued to scrub the floor. She knew she couldn't look Yubaba in the eyes or she would have seen her from inside, see how frightened she really was.

Yubaba then started to laugh softly. "She's the one I'm looking for" she said shortly. A group of workers looked shocked, but obeyed orders and then took her to the Mistress Office.

The workers showed her inside and then scooted off, too afraid to stay and look the witch in the eyes. Lin trembled, she too was afraid, and she kept her eyes on the floor, not daring to look up.

-End Memory-

She had been to afraid then, she had been young, so young. At the Bathhouse it was many jobs, some more important and higher then others. She had been one of those who did all dirty work, feeding the pigs, cleaning the big tub and so on. Then, Yubaba had made her become an original worker, helping the cleaners. Before Yubaba had left, even before Chihiro had arrived she had become the Headworker of a small team, but it hadn't stopped her from still doing those things she hated. Mostly she had made others do it.

-Memory-

It was about a year before Chihiro would arrive stumbling in to the Bathhouse. Lin walked up to the Bathhouse, she was freezing cold, and she had just arrived from her daily chores for an Earth Spirit that had preferred to stay outside the village. None of the workers had understood why, and none of them except her had dreaded to go near him. Yubaba had looked them in their eyes in that way everyone hated. She had sighed said she could do it, which she regretted right now.

She was also dragging a sack full of earth, a gift from the Spirit. First it had looked like gold, but then it had crumbled up into nothing. The Spirit had told her it was made by a special kind of creature called Konshi, or what he now had called it. He had talked so quickly she hadn't been able to hear all of it.

Back at the House, she wondered if she even would go thinking she didn't have any real gold in her sack. So, she thought of sending someone else. She saw one of the younger workers, one from her own team, walk towards her.

"Inikko" she said. The young girl turned, trembling. She looked up at Lin, who had to be about a feet longer, in height.

"Yes, mam!" she said.

"I want you to take this sack to Yubaba, it contains the payouts from the earth Spirit that slept in the dung outside the village. I'm pretty busy now, so please do this for me."

The girl took the sack and ran off. Lin waited before she too walked after, yet she walked as quiet as she could, not wanting to be either seen or heard.

Lin came to the door, just as she heard some kind of explosion coming from the room. She hesitated but went in. It was a terrible sight, papers lay everywhere and as for the girl, she had been thrown down into a hole in the floor, (Shitza: you all remember that weird place Yubaba threw Haku in, it is the same).

Lin bowed and went to clean up the mess. Yubaba sat by her desk, looking like a rumbling cloud, so Lin didn't do more then clean and then disappear. She was too afraid of what that might happen, if she did something stupid.

-End Memory-

Then Chihiro had come, and nothing at the bathhouse had remained as it had been. That little girl had changed all traditions and when she had left nothing had remained of the old days. Then Yubaba had destroyed everything and almost everyone had fled. For those who still remained they did their best to survive. Xing and Deko had joined them, and they had waited for so long until Chihiro had come back, to help, to finish their suffer and pain.

Lin stayed, lost in memories, unaware that they had finally arrived by the Livia Lake, in Miroku Valley.

To Reviewers:

LadyRainStarDragon: Inspiration is back, but my Internet is weird,. But that won't keep me from updating. Only irritating thing is that I can't continue reading your story, so I'm hoping our modem, or whatever it is that keeps doing these things will behave. Thanks for all those nice words, I am so sorry for all delays.

Winter –iel –o burzum: Oh, hope you liked this, it was slightly longer then last. Thanks for reviewing.

Velf: Well, I won't be off killing him yet will I, maybe later, but not for at least two or three chapters. (ducks angry readers) Hope you liked this chapter, I will go and read yours, but this stupid modem has been down all weekend.

End Notes: my stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid modem is down and with bad luck I'll probably only be able to update at school. Anyway, I really hope it starts working again, I'm getting worried.

Shitza