Chapter two: The Hope that Grows in the Garden of Doubt 11/28/2011

Disclaimer: Don't own any part of Spirited Away or it's Characters, but that won't stop me from trying.

Introduction notes: Hello fanfic readers!

Hope that this chapter is sufficient, seeing as how I felt guilty for not having it up as a thanksgiving treat. (p.s. I literally said I was thankful for all the people (i.e. you the readers) for reviewing and helping me improve my stories! At the table!) So I stayed up till 3:00 a.m. today and it's a Monday to finish it! Please enjoy!

-SF Geronimo

P.P.S. Happy late-thanksgiving!

previously:

"Haku! I'm coming!" I shouted into the blinding light that greeted me at the edge of the tunnel, the air immediately felt colder and it pricked my skin with icy nips. I felt a huge grin spread across my face as I made my way up to the top of the hill where I could see everything I ever remembered. Where I could see the spirit world.

"It's gone" I whispered, scared and shocked at what I saw. I felt my heart freeze over, shattering like a mirror reflecting the sadness within itself. My high hopes suddenly fell, crashing into disappointment. Nothing had changed since yesterday or the day before that, what I saw was not the spirit world.

"No! where is everything? Where are all the buildings? And the spirits? And the Bathhouse?" I felt my tears begin to race again, free to flow as thickly and strongly as the pleased because I felt that this was the right time for it. The freezing wind bit my cheeks and froze my tears mid-race, I squinted through the icy blast hoping that if I looked hard enough maybe the scenery would change. Another chilling gust collided with my face, causing it to sting and burn with the shock of a new thought, that this was reality, cold, and merciless. I realized that I had been ditched, abandoned and left with broken promises.

"I've got to get out of here!" I screamed, whipping around away from the freezing wind that pursued me. This place held to many memories, to many fond thoughts and promises that broke my heart every time I tried to make them come true. And now I ran, I ran away from my past and from the pains it gave me. I decided to run to the river, and even though my heart was broken I still hoped he might be there.

"I hope your happy Haku! I hope you're happy with what you've done to me!" I screamed at the water trickling over the rocks, though I felt like I was screaming it at him. I had run back to the Kohaku river, hoping-pleading-expecting Haku to be there waiting there for me in his elegant dragon form. Waiting to fulfill his promise, waiting to tell me his was sorry. But no, all I got was the distressing sound of tears dripping into the running stream, re-uniting with its friends. Why did life have to be so cruel? Even the water get's to return home in the end, while I am still stuck here.

"Home isn't here, not anymore its not." I said, sniffling and wiping my nose with the back of my sleeved arm. It was true, though I may live in this world, in that little house a few blocks down, that didn't mean it was my home. It will never be my home, my home is where the spirits are, where the spirits roam, where the spirits live is where I should but I don't.

"You haven't come for me Haku!" I shouted, into the blackness again." How do I know that you ever will? How do I know that your word was true! Huh Haku! How do I know that everything you ever told me, wasn't a lie!" I practically screamed the last bit, and soon after I found myself holding guilt where my heart was. I don't know why I felt guilty about calling him a liar, in fact how was I supposed to know they weren't all liars?

"And if Haku was lying, " I said, sadness replacing anger once again in my heart and voice, "Then maybe everyone else was too. Maybe you all were, Yubabba, Zeniba, Boh, Yu-Bird, Lin, Foreman, and-" my voice trailed off, he couldn't have lied to me, in fact he couldn't even talk. "No, not you too no-face, you couldn't have. But…" I whispered, my voice shaking and cracking making it sound like I was some small child who had just witnessed her parents having a really bad argument for the first time.

"If you all lied to me, then everything I ever had from that stupid world is too! every memory! Every promise! Even this hairband is a lie! This lie is what causes me the pain!" I screamed again now, violently tearing the magenta band out of my hair taking a good chunk of my unmanageable mane with it and chucking them into the river. "I hate it! I hate all of you! Especially you Haku!" I wailed out into the river, barely audible among my forlorn sobs. Despite the crazy assortment of emotions that ricocheted of every corner of my wounded heart, one thing was for sure. The thing I knew was that I hadn't meant a word of what I had just said, that it was all my own little lie.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" I asked cautiously, slowly pushing the heavy door open knowing the reply would be no. I had decided even the river brought to much sadness for me to bear at the moment, and ran away from it too. I had originally walked to my apartment but found that the lack of sound ringing through the lonely building only caused me to feel the greater burden of a heavy-hearted soul.

"Hey guys, can I stay here tonight?" I asked, only the soft sound of shuffling hay and heavy grate of iron on cobblestones answered me. Yet, that answer filled the lonely feeling in my heart then, I knew it meant that some of my closest friends were coming to greet me. The horses were my silent therapists, the best kind in my opinion. They had saved me from becoming a total social outcast five and a half years ago after I returned from the spirit world.

"You know, you guys have always been there for me. I wish Kohaku could learn a lesson from you." I whispered, stroking the mane of the dapple-grey gelding. He lifted his head up, acknowledging my words and encouraging me to go on. "I don't know what I would have done without you, I would've been lost." I whimpered, talking about one specific horse in general. "I miss him Apollo. I miss Angel, and I miss Haku." Tears ran steadily down my cheeks and I buried my face in his furry neck, but even the warm comfort of his beating pulse couldn't satisfy the gnawing hunger in my chest that longed for one that abandoned me in another world, and one who left me for another world.

"But I don't miss those people, I hate them!" I screamed, lifting my head up wearily from his neck. I squinted hard through my puffy eyes at the oak panels that covered the ceiling, looking into nothingness. I remembered how I even stumbled across this place to begin with, it was two months after we got back from the spirit world and everything had settled except for me. I had become mute, and despite numerous attempts to figure out what had caused this I still stayed silent. On the first day of school my parents took a wrong turn and we ended up here, the long bumpy drive up was filled with the sound of my parents arguing.

"That damn place changed everyone Apollo! I'm starting to really believe that it wasn't such a good things I stumbled across it, but maybe it really was for the better." I said, rubbing Apollo on his forehead, making sure he knew I wasn't angry with him. I remembered that when my mom had finally managed to shout loud enough to make my dad stop and ask for directions it was here, at a random stable situated on the edge of the dark forest. I desperately wanted to escape the fighting I wandered off to the pastures, and there he was- my guardian angel. His coat was the purest white and his mane floated like gossamer in the wind. And I spoke what I thought he was, "Tenshi" I called him, and from then on for five years until my fifteenth birthday we were an unstoppable pair. Sweet memories swirled around my head, filling it with a thin cloud of happiness and coaxing me to sleep. And to that I happily obliged.

(Dream)

"Chihiro! I finally found you!" the whole place was doused in a thick fog that limited my vision, making the voice unrecognizable to anyone else but me.

"Haku? Haku!" I shouted back through the haze, now able to see a black figure silhouetted against it.

"Chihiro! I can't! Help me! I can't get to you!" I saw him now, his details were fuzzy but I knew it was Haku. I rushed to him, trying to reach him and secretly scolding myself for ever thinking he had lied to me.

"Ouch!" I yelped, clumsily banging into some invisible wall. On closer inspection I could see Haku pressed up against it, leaning as hard as he could trying to make it move. "Haku! Why can't I get through?" I yelled, hearing my voice become more and more distant.

"Chihiro! Something is wrong here! This world, I think it's dying!" suddenly the words of the dream that had haunted me every day since my little trip found me again. I tried as hard as I could not to let history repeat itself, but despite my efforts the conversation continued on.

"How can I stop it?" I yelled, suddenly the whole world gave a big lurch, hurtling me into blackness. "HAKU!" I yelled after his quickly disappearing form, he seemed to be yelling something back to me but the darkness seemed to fill my ears like cotton and I couldn't understand anything.

"Ouch, I thought things weren't supposed to hurt in the dream realm." I muttered, rubbing my head when I landed in the new dream. I looked around, emerald green grass fluttered in the wind like a vast ocean, going on endlessly around me. Suddenly a forest line appeared at the back of a small hill that I found myself to be sitting at the bottom of. I looked hard at a new figure emerging from the forest, no two figures.

"Who are you?" I called out, my voice echoed in the absence of other noise. I looked hard at the new figures, on was a man, and was it Howl? No he wasn't real, it looked like the nice man that had used- MAGIC! Why didn't I think of this before! He was from the spirit world, he was from my home! And beside him strode an enormous black, Friesian. They shared their amber colored eyes and both seemed to have hair that floated elusively like smoke. The horse was like the exact opposite of Angel, yet not evil.

"Chihiro" I heard the voice call, I recognized it to be that of the strangers and came to the conclusion that he had definitely been a spirit.

"Chihiro, come with me my friend, my sister-" and at that they were engulfed in a cloud of smoke and blackness, but I could see the boy riding the horse in the cloud. The Friesian seemed to have wings now but before I could even begin to understand what the heck was going on, the ground disappeared and I fell into blackness- again.

(dream ends)

"Ah!" I screamed, my whole body felt confused and my senses were numbed. I grabbed my head and squeezed it tightly hoping to stop the illusion of a spinning world that my brain conjured up.

"Ugh. This happens to me way too often." I grumbled, finally able to see the world somewhat clearly without the urge to vomit. I glanced around and remembered I was still in the barn, and if that wasn't good enough I knew I wasn't in the house because I felt like fire and ice at the same time. The freezing morning air seeped through my skin, causing the sweat that ran down the back of my neck to freeze in its tracks.

"Why isn't my hair in a ponytail for crying out loud! I'm all gross and sweaty back there now." I said, partially whining and asking around at the same time. I reached back and wiped the back of my neck the best I could, slowly getting irritated due to the excess of hair that was falling on my burning neck.

"Darn it! Where is my hairband?" I said, just annoyed at first thinking it probably fell loose during the night. I got on my hands and knees, clumsily feeling around for any elastic hairband-like material that was surely strewn somewhere on the barn floor.

"Where is it? Where is it!" I felt the panic in my voice rise to a clearly audible level, I was in full-fledged panic mode as I searched for the only physical remainder of the spirit world I had left. Suddenly, my body froze and I felt the memories of last night flood into my conscious mind.

"Oh no!" Before I knew it I was out the door, sprinting madly toward the Kohaku River. Of course, I hadn't even thought about riding one of the horses there in my desperation.

"Oh no! it's got to be here somewhere! Please say it's still here! Please!" I said, talking to myself knowing if I ever did make it back to the spirit world I wouldn't live long until Zeniba wrung my neck for tossing her hair band into Haku's river.

"Dammit! I'm going to be in so much trouble when Zeniba finds out!" I somehow managed among my petty whimpers, even though I had declared last night was everything was a lie. I waded into the middle of the river which seemed to have risen at least a foot and looked clearer now than yesterday. I madly scrambled among the rocks, searching for my little magenta hair band. But it was nowhere to be found, the river had probably carried it away last night when the current had risen.

"Well I definitely can't go back now." I said, half joking, half scared out my shorts. I waded out of the icy river and plopped myself down on the grass, shivering madly and feeling my own water drip down my cheeks. That hairband was all I had left of the Spirit world, what the hell had possessed me to throw I away? Oh yes, that's right. Doubt, damn you doubt! I began to throw a mini temper tantrum, fiercely kicking and pulling out the grass by its roots. I had just started the sobbing stage when a noise cut through the wind that buffeted my ears, the voice sounded as clear as it would've been had they been standing right next to me. I froze and realized this wasn't a human voice, it was the call of a horse.

"What the-" I sputtered, managing to shakily stand up and turn around. I drew a short breath and brought my hands up to my mouth. Because there, standing at the top of the hill that shadowed the river, and me was the black horse.

"Oh My Spirits!"