I am in the process of improving some of the beginning chapters. Keep an eye out for updates ^.^

Enjoy!

And I would like to thank a reader for catching a typo.

Chihiro was a believer.

Her friends goggled at the drawings of fantastical creatures that were tacked to her walls with pride, giggled at her reluctance to eat, or even touch pork, and scoffed at the polite way she always denied the tentative requests of those pitiful boys at school. Her parents pondered on the sudden change in their daughter that had occurred six years ago after they moved to the small blue house by the woods, but decided not to question their good luck, although it annoyed Mrs. Ogino that she had to cook separate meals for her husband, an avid pork fancier, and her daughter.

"Cannibal," Chihiro had once muttered through gritted teeth during dinner one night as Mr. Ogino shoveled stewed pork into his bulging cheeks between compliments to his wife. When the bewildered parents had asked her what she had said, the girl stared at her rice bowl long and hard with a resigned air before replying.

"I can't eat it all."

Mrs. Ogino, the parent with the better sense of hearing, was sure she had heard something different, but was glad to take the bowl and spoon some grains back into the cooker as Mr. Ogino shrugged his massive shoulders and bent back over his food.

They were, on the whole, proud parents who could display her report cards to relatives, crisp red ink gracing clean marks on the stiff white printer paper. Mrs. Ogino carefully dusted all her daughter's trophies from swimming and track, sports she had taken up also after their move, every weekend with care. She made friends easily with her charming smile and upbeat, but determined chocolate brown eyes. Mother and father agreed that they couldn't have asked for a better daughter, even if she did have her share of quirks.

And the quirks, truth be told, were many, though most insignificant enough for her friends and family to turn a blind eye. First, it was her infatuation with the color green, the white scaled dragons, the way she always answered her teachers with a "Yes, Ma'am! or "Yes, Sir!" Then there were her daily trips after school to the woods that bordered their establishment, which no matter how long they thought, Mr. and Mrs. Ogino couldn't make out the reason for the visits that they didn't deny her of. Fresh air was fresh air, even though they couldn't see what was so fascinating.

Chihiro trusted, and she had faith, but time had tested that faith, and that time was six years. Six years of wanderings that only ended with disappointment, six years of lying in bed at night when her Biology and Math books were tucked away in her bag for the morning, replaying those last moments in her head to the point of pure torture.

Will we ever meet again?

Sure we will.

Promise?

Promise. Now go, and don't look back.

Those nights, she stared at the whitewashed ceiling of her bedroom for a few moments before turning on her side and burying her face in the covers fighting a mental battle. Had she looked back? Somehow, in her sub consciousness, had she turned her head around? Maybe that was the reason why he hadn't come. And in the end, she always decided that she just wasn't searching hard enough for that crumbling brick archway.

Tomorrow would be another day. The sixteen year old girl would pull her cascade of silky hair back into a hasty ponytail with that sparkly purple band, splash cold water on her eyes that had filled out to generous orbs of liquid brown fringed by dark lashes, and don the bland gray uniform that settled nicely to her slender form which had gained curves in the right places over the years before throwing her bag over her shoulder.

Heading out the door, she would crane her neck around to cast a glance at the inviting green undergrowth and peeling trees. Sometimes, when she thought no one was looking, she brought a hand up to her eyes as if to block the sun. The back of her hand would betray marks of moisture as it settled by her side.

Tomorrow would be another day. And the next. And the next. A day, a week, a month, a year, it didn't matter to her.

Chihiro was a believer.

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