A/N: I know this is a dumb little piece of fluff, but PLEASE read it anyway! I spent three days on it. And it is my first fanfict, so PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE no flaming if any of y'all actually read it, which I hope y'all will! Please?

Disclaimer: I do not own the bathhouse, any of the spirits, (except for Tantou) Yubaba, Kamaji, Lin, Haku (or Kohaku for all you purists out there. Haku is easier to type), Chihiro, the dustbunnies (but I wish I did), or any of Miyazaki's other characters or places. Or things. The title (or most of it) belongs to Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees. I do, however, own Koiso, Ikuyo, Fumi, and the aforementioned Tantou.

Chapter 1: Spirited Away

The car rattled down the bumpy road. Inside it, sat the two girls of this story, completely unaware of the adventure that was jus

"Will you please stop leaning over my shoulder?" Ikuyo glared at her sister, who was watching her write. "It makes me nervous."

Koiso slouched back in her seat, wrinkling her nose at her sister. "If watching you write makes you so nervous you-"

"Koiso, Ikuyo, leave it." Their mother snapped in the same voice she used on her dogs and coworkers when they were misbehaving.

Ikuyo felt her face heat up, and looked out the window; Koiso did the same, but without the blushing.

"Wait! Stop, Mum!" Ikuyo sat straight up in her seat.

"What is it?" her mother stopped the car, and looked at her.

"No, no, back up some!" Koiso craned her neck to look back.

Backing up slowly, their mum pulled up in front of the old red building.

"This is incredible…" Koiso breathed. "I'm going to go in." she announced, climbing out of the car. "Does anyone else want to?"

Both her sister and her mother gazed at her blankly. Cricket, cricket.

"Come on!" the girl glanced back at the mouth of the entrance. "The wind's blowing me in." she observed, and took a few steps back.

Finally she just glared. "Fine then. I don't need any of you!" she ran to the entrance, and disappeared inside.

"I love it when she gets so comically miserable like that." the girl's mother shook her head.

"Yeah, but I should probably go and make sure she doesn't get into any trouble." Ikuyo stepped out of the car. It'll probably only take a couple minutes; it's probably only some abandoned amusement park."

Jeez, is it black in here. Koiso thought. No wonder this place isn't used anymore.

She emerged into an open building, dusty, with windows screening the light, making it golden. This is incredible!

Catching a glimpse of the world outside, she walked out. "This is even better than incredible! I never knew that was there!" she said aloud. (Actually, she only said this out loud because I got sick of bolding and un-bolding)

"What?"

Koiso spun around. "Hah! I knew you couldn't resist coming along!"

"I could, I just didn't want you to get lost, with those navigational skills of yours." Ikuyo started walking down into the valley.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Koiso ran after her.

"I want to see this." her sister kept walking.

"But…but…but like you said, Mum might get nervous! The sun's going down!"

"Koiso, you were the one who wanted to come here in the first place."

"Yeah…" Koiso followed. "So why do I have a bad feeling about this?"

The abandoned village's twists and turns brought Ikuyo to a single building that was not abandoned. A bathhouse. She looked at it for a minute, until her sister collided with her.

"Do you hear that?" Koiso looked distracted. "I could have sworn I heard a train."

She continued forward, onto the bridge, her head tilted down to hear the noise, until she heard another one. Running footsteps.

Her head jerked back up. A boy was running towards them.

"Go back!" he hissed at them. "You have to cross the river before dark!"

"It's pretty late for that now, isn't it?" Koiso pointed at the bathhouse. "Look, they're even lighting the lamps."

"Why does this never work?" he implored of the sky. "Listen. Eat…these." he pulled a few berries off a bush growing next to the bridge. Then run down to the train tracks, then to the boiler room. You'll see a man there; he's Kamaji, the boiler master. You have to ask him for work. He'll do anything in his power to resist you, but you have to keep pestering him until he gives in."

"And why should we do this?" Koiso was not so easily taken in.

"Because."

"And why should we trust you?"

"Fine. If you don't trust me just go." the boy turned and started walking back to the bathhouse.

"Fine. Be that way." Koiso turned and started running through the village.

Ikuyo flushed. "Sorry about her."

The boy turned around. "Don't worry. It's just denial."

"I suppose you get a lot of that around here."

"No, actually. The last human to come here was six years ago."

"Human? Aren't you…" Ikuyo's words trailed off.

"No, of course not." he smiled crookedly. "I'm a spirit."

"This is bad. This is very bad." Koiso paced along the river. So maybe that weird kid wasn't lying. This is…annoying. She had never been this wrong before.She looked at the berries that she still held in her hand. Well, if he was right about the river… She popped them in her mouth, and stared across the water at the bright lights on the other side. Mom is probably freaking out about this. Blech.

She turned and started running back through the abandoned carnival town again. It wasn't deserted. A train of spirits made their way through the town. There was one that looked like a huge, seven-foot tall radish, another was a small cat. Koiso took her chance and ran across to where she heard the train.

Climbing down the stair to the tracks, her foot slipped and she crashed down the steps into a stack of barrels. The resulting crash made many of the windows open above her, and workers peer out. Koiso stayed still under her mound of barrels, careful not to let anyone see her. When the people had closed their windows again, she crawled out from underneath, and closed the distance to the boiler-room. Pushing open the door, she stepped inside.

The first thing she noticed were the living soot-balls, lugging chunks of coal as large as their bodies. The second thing…

"Aaaaah!" Koiso leapt back, causing the object of her fright to look up at her.

"Another one?"

"Aaaaaaah!"

"What's the matter, can't you talk?"

Gulp. Koiso's back pressed against the door of the boiler room. Some of the dustbunnies stopped what they were doing and stared at her.

"I suppose you'll be wanting work just like Chihiro did. Hmn." he sighed through his nose. "Sorry, there is none. My dustbunnies do all the work I need done, and are very efficient. But still…"

Koiso squeaked. "But you have to give me work."

"What's that? Speak up, I can't hear you."

"I need work. I need to work here."

"Oh, very well."

Another door opened, and a woman entered.

"Lin?" Kamaji turned to look at her. Koiso slumped down a little farther against the door.

"Yes Kamaji?" she reached into a basket and withdrew a handful of candy stars. Tossing them to the dustbunnies, she caught sight of Koiso's shoes. Her gaze slowly traveled up…

"NO! No, Kamaji, but I am not getting involved with another of these humans."

"I'm not asking you to."

"You never ask, Kamaji, it just always turns out that way!" Lin spun around and marched out the door. In a few seconds, she returned. "Well, girl? Take off your shoes and come with me."

Kamaji smiled at Koiso, who stood uncertainly next to where the dustbunnies worked. "The dustbunnies will take care of your shoes. Don't worry."

Koiso slipped off her shoes, and followed Lin. Also following Lin was a comment made by Kamaji just as the door closed.

"Got out of the wrong side of the bed, didn't you, Lin?"

She sighed, and smiled, both at once, and went over to the elevator, Koiso following like a lonely dog.

The doors of the elevator creaked open. Inside was a glowing study, filled with light and warmth. Koiso stepped out, looking around.

"Yubaba?" she called, looking around.

Suddenly a woman in a long black cape swept into the room. "Yes, who…oh. Another one."

"I beg your pardon." Koiso stood up straighter.

"Another human. The last one just left a few minutes ago. Iku, I believe her name is…"

"You mean Ikuyo?" Koiso swallowed hard.

"No. I didn't say what her name was, just what her name is. I suppose you want to work here or something like that?"

"No, I just came to enjoy the view." Koiso said sarcastically.

"Apparently." Yubaba glared at her. Shoving a piece of paper at her, she urged: "Put your X mark right here."

Koiso looked at it. It already bore the name of her sister. Signing it, she handed the paper back to Yubaba.

She examined it. "X?"

"You said to put my X mark there." Koiso shrugged.

"No, put your John Hancock, your siggy…"

Koiso sighed. "Ah. I see what you mean." taking the paper once again, she spent about five minutes working on it before Yubaba snatched it back.

"How long is your name any-" she gasped when she saw what was written on the paper. It was a very life-like caricature of one of America's most famous founding fathers. (Guess who's on the Sam Adams bottle! I'll give you a hint: not Sam Adams.)

"Your name, girl."

"Well, you couldn't' have been more direct about it, could you?" Koiso signed the paper.

Yubaba inspected it. "Wonderful. And you are…Koi."

A single character blew off the paper and into Koiso's face. She nodded.

"Good girl. You may help Lin. Now get to work."

"I told Kamaji I didn't want to bring you to Yubaba. She always makes me show all the new people the ropes. What's your name again? Koi?" Lin looked around the bottom of the bath she was cleaning.

Koi nodded.

"I don't suppose you know why Yubaba named you after goldfish?" without waiting for an answer, Lin continued. "I suppose you've met Haku?"

"Who's that?"

"Oh, he's a dragon spirit. I suppose you've heard of Chihiro?"

"No. Just in passing."

Lin scrubbed harder. "She was the last human to come here, six years ago because her parents were turned into pigs. Yubaba called her Sen, and we worked together." she said proudly. "Anyway, she did several things here, like freeing a river spirit from pollution, and got rid of a pesky No-Face. She and Haku loved each other…" she sighed. "And then Chihiro went home. Haku got extremely depressed, and decided he would age like a human being from then on. I asked him what he's going to do when he's three hundred, but…" without pausing to take a breath, she continued, "Could you go and get an herbal bath token?"

Koi jumped up and trotted out of the room, nearly running over a cat spirit.

"Well do you mind?" the cat sat firmly on her foot. "Apologize immediately. It's not nice to run spirits over, Koi."

"I'm…I'm sorry…Er, what's your name?"

"Tantou." the cat sighed, and got off her foot. "I suppose I'll have to deal with clumsy spirits now that I'm here.

"I beg your pardon!" Koi snapped.

"Good. I pardon you." Tantou lazily walked away.

Lin straightened up, a smudge of algae on her nose. "That is the last time I ever wash a tub that an algae spirit used."

"Here, Iku. Wash these too."

Iku, formerly Ikuyo, grimaced, and took a huge silver platter and bowl. She rolled up her sleeves as best she could, and scrubbed the silver until it shone.

"Having some trouble there, Iku?" Fumi, the dish dryer, asked sympathetically, her eyes twinkling.

"What do you think?" she asked furiously, shoving the platter at her.

"Oh, poor baby. You missed a spot." Fumi looked at the gleaming mirror of the platter, and preened.

"Where!" Iku's head snapped up.

"There." Fumi splashed Iku's face with soapsuds.

"Oooh…yoooou…" Iku turned bright red, then laughed and splashed Fumi back.

"You have to admit, you walked right into that." Fumi splashed her again, and soon they had carpeted themselves and the floor around them with the bubbles.

Haku stared out his window, at the stars flecked across the glowing sky. Those humans had brought back memories of Chihiro, and now he couldn't live without seeing her again. He was going to find some way to bring her back to the spirit world…the only question was how.

A/N: Not really a cliffie, but next chapter there with be one about the identity of an oblong round object. It's not what you think! Anyway, hope this was a nice bit of fluff for all you people who like this sort of thing.

Thanx for reading (ok, now review!)

Foxglove

A/N: Yup, chapter 2 is up now. I need more Japanese names…what would one call a water spirit?

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Miyazaki's great characters, he is far smarter than I am, and I am glad he actually lets me use them in my little fanfict.

Chapter 2: Chihiro