Spirited away

Chapter 1

Three days... three days are nothing, and an eternity. So what about five years?

Five years are a straight line without any bumps, a line with no end in sight. Behind, there are only similar days, left to pile up and merge. I walk along this long avenue, briskly, without stopping, rarely looking back, in good company... if I dare say :
Hinami's cheeks are red. She's out of breath, her eyes shining with mischief.

- I won! You're paying the takoyaki tomorrow!

I don't answer, out of energy. We've raced to the top of the elevation, I can now look down at the town cuddling to the mountain side, at the bottom of the stairs. What a climb. Her proposal caught me off guard, and before I could retort, this cheat was already about twenty steps ahead. Her challenges always worked to her advantage. It's her opportunistic and prankster side, but I like her too much to hold it against her.

- Is this what you call a shortcut?

- I assure you it's better than going the way round, look: we're going down this side. To go to school, I used to come up here, then down to the station where we arrived this morning. Everybody takes the road now. Nobody uses this passage any more. It's disappearing, slowly. You can't even notice it from the village...

I take a good look at the panorama, which the surrounding vegetation devours for the most part. However, we can still make out the peak that rises on our right, and the shallow valley that cuts into its sides. The village of Hinami lies against the foothills on one side. On the other, I know that the railway and the county road share the banks of the river. We are on an island of nature, wedged between the marks of our civilisation. The steep slopes, the heights that reach for the sky, are the elevated corners of the country that still breathe, that the tarmac has not yet had the audacity to invade. I notice:

- The stairs are in bad shape.

- The Chinjusha is no longer being looked after. My grandmother was the last one who found the courage to come up here to clean the little god's altar.

She walks towards the wooden hut in question with restrained impatience. The boards are worm-eaten, tiles are missing, the walls are sagging and the pillars supporting the structure are being swallowed by the weeds. This small temple has been forgotten, people no longer come to pray there, they no longer worship its tutelary kami. The lack of nursing makes it mysterious. Men abandoned it. The temple is sinking into the shadows of the grove, echoes their whispers. It becomes disembodied, metamorphoses. This place is calm, serene, far from the tumult of the streets, the hustle and bustle of the cities. The house lets live pass by, breathes in silence, does not care about the years that numb it and take it away from our memories.

- Hinami?

- Hmmm?

- Did you come here often?

- With my grandmother, yes. This was our sanctuary, our secret garden, a garden full of attentive ears. The village's chinjugami sleeps here, when we come to see him, he peers at us and listens to our thoughts, to pass them on to those we miss the most.

Her eyes scatter around as much as she talks. Hinami seems to be looking for something. She then gives up and closes her eyes in resignation. She claps her hands three times before joining them and bowing.

- Chinjugami-sama, it's been a long time since I last came to see you. Obaa-san left almost two years ago now. She was always worried about me, asking me if I was eating my meals properly, if I had enough of everything. She still worries I think, so if you could tell her... I'm doing well at school, I eat well, laugh a lot, also cry, sometimes. I like the orphanage. Well, it's not fun every day, and I had to do a lot of efforts of good conduct to be allowed to come here today. Because, as you know, Obaa-san, I'm not very sensible. I'm too talkative, too restless, too assertive, too stubborn, reckless, a bit silly... Always too much. It's rare for our supervisors to not have something to say about me… but I'm never alone. I have good friends, Chihiro never leaves my side. So don't worry, Obaa-san, and keep looking after me, just a little bit, please.