Spirited Away II: Return to the Spirit Realm

Chapter 20

"So, how did it go?" queried the Lady in a friendly fashion, nodding at a spare seat next to her.

"Perfectly!" Zeniba replied with a wide, radiant smile before making herself comfortable on the said chair. "Saying it appropriately, Lin - a certain friend of my granddaughter's - was quite keen at accepting the offer. The boiler man of the bathhouse - I should add, also my granddaughter's good friend - will be helping out, too."

"But they won't tell?" demanded the Lady.

Zeniba shook her head wholeheartedly. "Most definitely not, Your Highness. I could easily determine their faithful auras and, just for safety's sake, I put a spell that will oblige them to honor the secret."

"Did they start already?"

"Will be starting today," came the reply. "My dear friend - he is a no-face, Your Highness, but a very loyal and reliable friend nonetheless - will be delivering the supplies and instructions. Oh, I almost forgot to mention - I put another one of my spells that will alert me at the faintest hint of trouble."

"If anything does go wrong, I want to be alerted immediately. The last thing we can afford is a new disaster, frankly."

"Very well, Your Highness."

"Is there anything else on the matter that you can tell me of?"

Zeniba's forehead wrinkled into a thoughtful frown. "I do not believe so, Your Highness."

"Thank you for your efforts," the spirit queen said, smiling. Her eyes flickered to a few books lying on the mahogany surface of her desk and Zeniba was certain that the brilliant azure hue of the Lady's orbs darkened.

"Your Highness...?"

The Lady sighed and gingerly picked up a large book from her desk. "We have to do it now, Zeniba, we have to," she said gravely, looking from the various volumes on the desk back to the elder witch.

Zeniba paled. "Are those about...?"

"Yes." The Lady put the book down and massaged her temples before returning her gaze back to Zeniba. At any other time, she would have been embarrassed for acting so openly in someone's presence, but now she just did not care.

"We have to find out now. There is no time to loose," she continued. "If there is no other way to defeat the villain, then the necessary transformation must be taken place and at once. That is not mentioning that certain time will be required for the transformation, too."

Zeniba nodded in somber agreement. "Are these all the articles we'll need?" she asked, looking down at the books on the desk.

"No; I have more. We'll start with those."

The soft, gray evening darkened into a black, starry night as - for the most part, very discouraging - hours passed by. Several times the Lady rose from her chair with a frown and a sigh, abruptly left the study with a haste, "I'll come back shortly", and return with her arms full of different volumes and scrolls. The research, then, would start anew until all the books on the desk have been studied and the Lady was obliged to rise and retrieve more articles.

"This is the last lot, I believe," sighed the spirit queen as she - for the fifth time already, Zeniba counted - placed a stack of books on the desk beside a heap of already read ones. "Did you find anything?"

Zeniba looked up sorrowfully. "Yes, I have, but I am afraid it is not what you were hoping for."

The Lady, abruptly turning quite pale, sat down on the chair. "Tell me."

"It's right - here!" Zeniba planted a firm finger to the center of a book's page. "It says, 'Currently, there is no way of extracting the Dark Spirit's power and, it is widely believed, that the only way to destroy the Dark Spirit is through death. How to kill the Dark Spirit is an unidentified matter save for a myth that says, "Only mortal hands can cut its life."'"