Thank you for the lovely reviews, and thank you cgflower for giving me the incentive to write this chapter as fast as I could. Everyone say thank you to cgflower! As for the title of this chapter. This chapter is both the reappearance of Haku, and also the reappearance of Chihiro in the spirit world. It is intentionally ambiguous.

River of Amber

Chapter 2: The Reappearance

I wonder why it is that I'm the only human who doesn't want to go through here, Chihiro thought to herself. The tunnel and train station were exactly as she'd remembered them, only now there were three other girls shouting and exclaiming over everything. Chihiro followed them in a daze, trying to think of some way to get them to turn back. The sun would be setting soon.

A few minutes after entering the town, Chihiro realized that she couldn't hear her friends' voices any more.

"Rumiko! Hitomi! Riei!" she called. No reply. She sniffed the air. No tempting scent of enchanted food, so they couldn't have turned into pigs.

Unless they were already pigs and the food had disappeared.

Chihiro fought the panic rising in her chest as she tried to think logically where the three girls could be. Maybe they'd gone exploring. That had been the original plan, after all. Chihiro could see the smoke beginning to rise from the bathhouse. Maybe they'd gone there.

"I hope they didn't get turned into pigs," she said aloud. "Riei's my best friend." Shadows began to appear in the restaurants as the sun slowly sank to the horizon.

Suddenly Chihiro felt something grab her shoulders. "Boo!" someone shouted. The victim jumped at least a foot and spun around. Riei stood in front of her, grinning.

"Chihiro, you're so jumpy," Riei said. "What's wrong?"

"W-where—?"

"Where are the others? They went into the bathhouse. We couldn't find you, so we figured I should stay behind in case you showed up."

"The bathhouse?"

Riei giggled. "You know, the big red building over there."

Chihiro nodded slowly.

"Some kid came out and said that we were welcome to come in, but we had to sign a contract saying that we wouldn't cause trouble. At least, that's what he said it said, because whoever wrote the contract—cuz it was handwritten—had really horrible handwriting, and we couldn't read it at all. I didn't sign mine yet, cuz I wanted to wait for you, but Hitomi and Rumiko signed theirs, and the kanji of their names sort of shifted around on the paper and some of the characters floated up into the sky! It was really freaky! Then they followed the kid inside, and I stood here waiting for you." Riei looked thoughtful for a moment. "They looked different after the characters disappeared. Almost like they were sick or something."

Chihiro shut her eyes tightly, then opened them, hoping that everything would disappear and she'd be in her room, but it didn't work.

"I think I'm going to be sick," she said. "Wait a second, you said that a kid met you out here? What did he look like?"

Riei smiled. "He was really cute, in a strange, old fashioned kind of way. His hair and eyes were green, and he was wearing these really weird clothes, like you see in old paintings from the Heian period."

Haku! Chihiro thought. But I thought I freed him by giving back his name.

"Chihiro, are you okay?" Riei asked, concerned. "Who's Haku?" Chihiro blushed. She hadn't realized that she'd said his name aloud.

"Someone I met—a long time ago," she said evasively.

Riei raised an eyebrow. "Might he be—a romantic interest?"

"N-no!" Chihiro stuttered. "He's just a friend! Besides, Hitomi and Rumiko are in trouble. We have to go help them."

Riei nodded, a knowing smile on her face. "So, how do we get in? That weird kid—Hachu or whatever his name is—isn't here."

"First rule of this world," Chihiro began. "Is never, ever sign anything. Yubaba, she's a witch who runs the bathhouse, she steals your name by making you sign a contract."

"Chihiro, you do know that witches aren't real, right?"

"They are here. See, this place isn't in the real world where school and parents are. It's in the spirit world, and it's a very dangerous place for humans. We need to save Hitomi and Rumiko, and get out of here."

"But what about Hachu?"

"Him too. And his name's Haku, not Hachu."

"Whatever," Riei said with a dismissive wave. "So, how do we get in without signing one of those contracts?"

"I'm not sure. But I'll think of something." Chihiro thought. "We'll have to hide our scents. Spirits have very good noses, and humans smell bad to them."

"So, what, we'll have to try to smell good?"

Chihiro smiled as a thought came to her. "No, we'll have to smell worse."