Entering the World of Spirits

Bedtime Stories

Stories. Magical witches who turned humans into pigs, girls in pink workers uniforms, dragons. Stories I heard every night before I fell asleep, about a world I could only dream of seeing. So I did. I dreamed of grass tall enough to tickle my ankles, stones in the riverbed, wind tugging at my hands as if it were a person begging me to stay on the other side. When I woke they would be gone, leaving me waiting until the next time I closed my eyes. Stories. That's all they had ever been to me, but not all they could be.

My mother's name was Chihiro Ogino, an author and mother at age 24. Now she was 37, 17 years after I had been born. We never talked much about my father, but whoever he was deserved the worst for leaving her. Leaving us. I had grown up in the house my mother had spent the majority of her later years, her childhood hadn't been here. I liked it though; the clear water glinting from the sunlight, grass whispering in the small breeze, few neighbors. It was pleasant.

"Kaharu, do you want to read to yourself tonight?" I was old enough that I should have said yes, should have wanted the independence. But I gleefully shook my head no, climbing into bed.

"I like it best when you read it, it sounds so nostalgic." It felt more real when it came from her lips instead of mine.

"Alright, well I don't remember where we left off. I'll start over, is that alright?" I nodded. We had read the same book every night for 17 years, it didn't matter where we started I had it memorized by now. I closed my eyes as she began to read, imagining the colors and sounds. What a place.

"Chihiro?" I opened my eyes, shooting a questioning glance at the left of what was supposed to be my bed. Instead I saw clumps of green. I shot up and searched for the voice. They had been asking for my mother.

"Mom?" I Managed shakily.

"I'm not your mother." It was a boy, with black hair to his shoulders. It seemed impossible for such an absence of color to be so light. "Don't you remember me?"

I shook my head. "How do you know my mom's name?" I must have been dreaming, his physical appearance seemed as familiar as the words that ran off the pages in my mother's book. "Haku..?"

He smiled at me, pained. "You're not Chihiro Are you."

I shook my head slowly. "That's my mother's name."

I watched him take a step back, almost planting himself into the ground as he fell. I started to stand when I felt a presence at my shoulder. "Kaharu. Wake up. Honey wake up."

I shook the hand off of me and looked up at my mother's smiling face.

"Good Morning, sweetie. I know it's early but I made breakfast for you." A yawn slipped past my teeth and I stretched my limbs. They felt as light as the air that surrounded them. I recalled my strange dream as I headed down to the kitchen, I had never dreamt in such detail before.

The cold of the hardwood beneath my feet remained a burden as I stepped to my seat at the kitchen table. It wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't joyful either.

"I'm going to be leaving soon for a book signing this afternoon, surprisingly a lot of people still love my book."

I laughed and raised an eyebrow at her mockingly. "Really?" Dripping with sarcasm I added, "I never would have guessed."

We both sarcastically laughed at each other before she kissed the top of my head and slipped out the front door. It was like this most days; quiet. I didn't mind.

Examining the meal set out before me, all dreams forgotten, I divulged in eggs and bacon. The only thing catching my attention was the smell of food. I hadn't realized until that moment but I was starving, dinner last night felt so distant.

~Time Skip~

I tapped my shoes on after finishing breakfast and a well deserved shower. It was time I payed a visit to the site that inspired my mother's writing. I carefully made my way down the small pathway so as not to trip and roll down the hill. Various gusts of wind made the trip especially tricky, but I made it with only one loose footing and a thousand tiny heart attacks.

Once I had hopped down to the entryway, I stood in awe of the textures and once beautiful colors. It must have been ancient. One foot stepped inside the cavernous tunnel. Then two. Then I was walking further down the corridor until I had reached a small room with windows letting in sunlight from the outside world. It wasn't anything magnificent but the feeling sent chills down my spine. On the opposite end from where I stood was a door, no larger than any normal door. It seemed almost out of place in the dusty, old room. It seemed..too used, too worn. Like it hadn't been that long ago that someone's hand had been on the handle.

I stepped closer, Inching myself further from the safety of the dark tunnel. It was contradictory, that the tunnel felt safer than a harmless door. But I had been reading the same story every night before I slept, every dreams consisted of wind and spirits, every waking hour I spent drawing the people and scenes from the previous nights adventure. I hadn't come down here for fear that I would trick myself into believing something that wasn't real. I wanted so desperately for it to be real that I hadn't been able to force myself to come here. This place that had inspired the stories I loved, the dreams that made it possible for me to sleep at night.

With one hand on the knob, and another on my throbbing heart, I swung the door open. The gust of wind that greeted me almost swept my off my feet, but it wasn't pushing me away. It was pulling me in. In that second of complete awe, I knew, I felt, I saw. The spirit world had to exist, because I felt it all around me. In the breeze, the soft tufts of grass stretching for my legs, the calming illusion of peace. This time I wasn't dreaming.