The Other World

Chapter 17 - Dried Worm Salts

Part 4 - I Believe

If you haven't forgotten me,

I believe that we can meet again someday

- Reprise l. 13-14

Chapter 17 – Dried Worm Salts

The steam was hung heavy in the air, simultaneously fragrant and bitter, like tea. Puffs of it obscured the wooden corners of the room from Chihiro's view as she lowered herself into the green-tinged water.

"Yuck, what's in this water?"

Chihiro froze. That was her voice, the same voice that was in the home videos her parents had of her when she was little.

"Dried worm salts. It's supposed to be good for you."

The other voice was that of a woman, maybe a little older than Chihiro was now. The now familiar pain was back, nagging at the back of her mind like an itch.

Chihiro closed her eyes and tried to relax. She breathed in deeply, trying to take in the smell, and let the pain wash over her in a wave. The sound of rushing water bubbled up from the depths of her memory. She heard it, in her mind, though the detached part of her consciousness knew that the bath water was still. Soft murmurs of conversation floated through the damp air all around.

"Yank it again when the bath is full. It'll stop," the woman continued. "...You can let go of the rope now. I'll go get us some breakfast."

The silhouette of the woman appeared faintly against the darkness of Chihiro's eyelids. She was tall, with long hair tied back loosely, and she was wearing some sort of smock over her short pants and bare feet.

"Okay!" young Chihiro called.

Briefly, she could feel the rough surface of the rope against her palms and her feet balanced on some sort of ledge. The pain in her head flared up in protest. Chihiro gritted her teeth and gripped the pain, pulling it toward her. She slid down further into the water, and as her head went under she almost expected to feel a deluge of water slamming into her from above... and then the pain pushed the feeling away. Who was that woman? Chihiro thought. And what was that place? Where might she be now?

And that little girl who spoke so boldly, where did she go?

Chihiro reached for the scale sitting on the pile of clothes on the wooden stool.

---

Lin sat on the ledge in the boiler room, feeding candies one by one to the sootballs gathered round her. A small pile of items that the spirits had left sat on the floor next to her. The rest of the bathhouse was asleep. Everyone had gone home to their human families to prepare for the morning.

Kamaji put down his mortar and pestle for the night. The fire was slowly dying. He gathered his strength – it had been decades since he had last done this – and slowly, his human skin melted away and reshaped itself into a grey, hairy, exoskeleton. His head and torso moved closer together and grew rounded. His dark glasses fell away, revealing eight red-grey eyes.

The large spider spirit reached into its underbelly with its front claws and produced a glistening strand of silk. It climbed up the wall of herb cabinets to the ceiling and attached the end of the silk to a corner, and proceeded to the opposite corner, trailing the silk. It did this eight times, and then with the foundation laid, began to spin an enormous web that covered the ceiling.

The only source of light in the room was the flickering of the leftover coals in the boiler. Their red light was dim and shadows obscured the edges of the cavernous room. Lin could only hear the occasional clicking of the spider's claws on the walls as Kamaji skittered across the ceiling.