The mahjong tile is white and unmarked and its name is Haku. Chihiro cleans up the rest of the tiles from the dining table, which she needs to lay out the maps for her school project, but she leaves the white tile behind. She brushes her finger over it lightly, feeling the shape of it. It's smooth, dry and a little cold.

Haku. The name tugs at her memory. She thinks of white scales and green mane, a river and an endless ocean and the night sky, but the images don't resolve into anything meaningful.

She won't be able to concentrate like this. Chihiro leaves the maps rolled up on the side of the table and hesitates, her hand a short distance above the tile. She wants to pick it up and put it in her pocket, carry it with her, but instead she puts it back in the box with the rest of the tiles.

"I'm going out for a walk," she calls, walking to the door and tying the laces on her sneakers quickly.

She waits for her mother's distant acknowledgement before leaving, closing and locking the door carefully behind her.

Chihiro walks down the hill towards the river. The days are starting to turn cold and the water is really too chilly for it, but she removes her shoes and lets her feet dangle in the water.

The water swishes around her feet, and not for the first time she thinks of the spirits that live in the water, long serpentine bodies swirling around her toes and brushing up against the arch of her foot.

"I think I knew a river spirit once," she tells the river. "A dragon." Chihiro closes her eyes and tries to recapture the memory. It slips and slides away from her, just out of reach. "Haku." She shakes her head. "No, that's not right, that's only half a name."

She waits, but the rest of the name doesn't come to her. She sighs in frustration. "Do you have a name?" she asks the river. "A real name, not 'North River'." Chihiro watches the water make its lazy way along the channel carved by the river for a moment, waiting for a reply that never comes.

She sees a plastic bag tangled in some tree roots on the other side of the riverbank and wishes she could reach it to fish it out. "I hope the town doesn't dump too much garbage in you."

Her feet are growing numb. The water seems to cling to her toes as she pulls her feet out and stamps on the riverbank a few times to get the worst of the wetness off. She lets her hand trail in the water a moment, like she's waving the river goodbye.

"I'm home," she calls when she reaches the house, toeing off her shoes in the entrance hall and walking to her bedroom without waiting for any reply. She flops onto her bed and lies back with her hands behind her head and her eyes closed. As she lies still, she feels the world slip away beneath her and she feels like she's floating, flying, dropping through the air towards the ground, wind rushing through her hair--

"Chihiro," her mother calls. "Chihiro, are you here? Come help me with dinner."

Chihiro comes crashing back to earth. She blinks and sits up, rubbing at her eyes. Had she fallen asleep?

"Chihiro," her mother repeats.

"Coming," Chihiro calls, rolling off the bed.

Her mother puts her to work chopping up vegetables, asking her about school and not listening to Chihiro's answer, preoccupied with her own tasks.

"Did we ever visit a bathhouse?" asks Chihiro. "On a cliff by the sea?"

Her mother gives her an incredulous look. "When would we have done something like that?" she asks.

Chihiro shrugs. "Some time. I thought I remembered it happening. Maybe it was a dream?"

Her mother shrugs without interest. "Finish chopping the leeks and take over stirring this, will you?"

The memory is fading. Perhaps it really was a dream.

It's a wrench, but she lets the rhythm of every day life take her again. She finishes her homework, sleeps, makes it through another long day at school, and then finally it's the weekend.

Weekend mornings mean laundry, but at least she gets to spend some time outside. She lets the breeze play with her hair, even though it gets in her mouth and she has to toss it out of her eyes to see what she's doing.

A flash of brown by the fence catches her eye. Chihiro pauses while hanging the sheets on the line to air out to look closer. A small creature with a long body is crawling out from under the fence.

The creature watches her with bright eyes. Somebody's escaped ferret, perhaps? "Hey," she says gently. "Where did you come from?"

The ferret makes a strange gesture with its paw and runs alongside the fence. It pauses when it reaches the corner of the house, looking back at Chihiro.

"I'm not going to feed you," she tells it firmly.

The ferret continues to stare at her. Its beady black eyes glimmer with something that looks like intelligence.

She wonders if she should be trying to catch it; take it back to its owner. The thought makes her skin crawl. She takes a hesitant step towards the ferret.

The ferret dashes along the fence towards the road. Visions of bloody roadkill in her head, Chihiro runs after it.

The ferret is waiting at the front gate, still watching her.

Chihiro huffs loudly. "You scared me," she tells the ferret. "Stay still, won't you? The cars won't stop for you if you go out on the road."

She takes a few more steps towards the ferret and it scampers away under the front gate.

Chihiro runs for the gate and looks out. The ferret is waiting for her at the corner.

"Are you-- Are you leading me somewhere?" Could she really be being manipulated by a ferret? Chihiro feels a little contrary streak encouraging her to just leave the animal be.

The ferret is still watching her. It seems impatient somehow.

Chihiro feels a little guilty, visions of old television shows filled with heroic animals and small children in danger dancing in her mind. "Oh, all right."

The ferret lets her get within a few footsteps of it before it starts moving again. Chihiro almost has to run to keep up with it.

It leads her down the hillside to an overgrown path through the woods. "Hey, slow down!" Chihiro calls as she catches her foot on a tree-root in the sudden gloom of the forest.

The trees grow closely together here and the path is rough with disuse. Occasionally, a shaft of light illuminates an old, gnarled tree or a forgotten sculpture.

She almost loses the ferret around a sharp bend and Chihiro starts running, not wanting to lose her only companion in this gloomy place. It seems to take forever, her lungs burning with the exertion and her side aching with the beginnings of a stitch.

When she finally bursts into bright sunlight again, the ferret is waiting by a short, moss-covered statue. Behind it, a tunnel stretches into darkness. Chihiro takes a moment to catch her breath, resting her palms on her thighs and panting desperately.

Under her feet, there is stone paving, moss and grass peeking out from between each stone. She gasps for a few more breaths, then looks up.

"I've been here before," says Chihiro, looking up at the tiled roof of the building. "But it looked different then." Where she remembers mossy green overgrowth and stonework, the building in front of her is covered in flaking red plaster. She thinks she recalls overgrown grass instead of the paving beneath her.

Something about it makes her uneasy. The statue seems to grin at her knowingly.

Chihiro shakes her head rapidly. "It's just a statue," she tells herself. "It's only stone." She braces herself and steps towards it.

The ferret waits for her to almost catch up before dashing into the tunnel.

Chihiro huffs in frustration. "Do I have to?" she calls after it. "It's dark in there!"

The ferret makes no response. Around her, the wind picks up and starts whistling into the tunnel, twigs and leaves brushing past her ankles. She sighs and takes a deep breath before dashing into the tunnel.

She runs through a long, dark stretch of tunnel before stumbling into a large, dusty hall outfitted with wooden benches. "Hello?" she calls softly. "Ferret, are you here?" Even at low volume her voice seems impossibly loud and she trails off, the end of her sentence barely more than a whisper.

The room is completely still. Stained glass windows illuminate the dust motes in the air with coloured shafts of light. She watches them dance for a moment, steeling her courage to walk outside.

Her footsteps seems to echo as she walks towards the doorway.

When she steps out into sunlight again, she is greeted by a loud voice.

"Honestly, Sen, you're so slow. I was starting to think you'd never follow me." Chihiro shades her eyes with her hand. A tall, thin-faced lady is leaning against the wall of the building.

The voice dislodges a name from the wall of her memory. "Lin?" And Chihiro is Sen. Was Sen.

The woman breaks into a wide grin. "You remember! He told me you probably wouldn't."

"Lin is a ferret?"

Lin rolls her eyes. "Oh come on, don't humans know anything? I'm a weasel! Weasel!"

Chihiro stares at her in confusion.

"Follow the path up the hill," says Lin. "He's waiting there. I'll join you a little later, okay? Once you've had the chance to catch up." She winks at Chihiro.

Chihiro turns to look at the path. It winds its way through more old statues before finally disappearing behind a hill. The grass grows tall here and it seems to be slowly reclaiming the dilapidated buildings that dot the landscape. The wind picks up again and she shivers.

She takes a few steps along the path before turning back to Lin. "Where does the path go? Who is waiting?"

"Just follow the path!" Lin is munching on something thin and black.

Bemused, Chihiro climbs the hill. When she looks behind her, she can't see any sign of her town, although she can't have travelled so far away. She wonders how she'll get home again.

When she turns back to the path, she sees a figure waiting ahead, standing by a lantern on some steps across a rocky stream. As she gets closer, she can see that it's a boy.

Chihiro starts running. "Haku!" she calls.

The figure visibly starts and turns to look at her.

Chihiro trips and stumbles her way up the hill, her eyes fixed on the boy. The rocky stream does not take well to her rush and she slips, her left foot plunging into into icy water. She yelps.

She shakes her foot out, trying to balance on one leg with her shoe sodden and heavy. The boy has moved to crouch elegantly on the edge of the stream, holding out his hand. Somehow, she manages to hop over the last few rocks and take it.

The boy pulls her onto the steps and envelops her in a warm hug, murmuring Chihiro's name into her neck.

"Haku, Haku, it's you, isn't it?" Chihiro pulls back so she can look him in the eyes. "You're Haku, right?"

Haku says her name again, in varying tones of wonder. "Chihiro. You remember?"

"A little. It was all in bits and pieces, but it's starting to come together now."

"You told the river my name. It told me you were starting to remember." He brushes his thumb across her cheek, and she realises she's been crying.

"You didn't tell me I was going to forget." It comes out accusing in spite of herself.

He just smiles at her. "I know. But I'm very glad you remembered."

And the river had told him about her. "Why send Lin? Why not come yourself?" She takes a step back and looks him up and down. He seems a little older, like her. Taller, with slightly longer hair.

Haku shakes his head in apology, making his hair brush his cheeks softly. "My magic isn't strong enough yet. I can only be a dragon in your world."

"You're a beautiful dragon," she tells him, remembering. "But it wouldn't be practical."

"I'm studying with Zeniba." Haku's eyes are shining. "One day, I promise, I'll be able to take human form in your world. I'll come for you."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"But what if I forget again?"

Haku's eyes cloud over. "You won't remember." He puts a finger over her lips to stave off her protest. "You won't forget either. And you'll know me when you see me, I promise."

She smiles weakly. "That's a lot of promises."

"Some promises take a long time to come true. But they will, I swear."

Chihiro nods in grudging acceptance. "How long can I stay here? With you?"

"We have until nightfall. After that you won't be able to leave without more powerful magic than I possess."

"Why can't I stay? All there is for me at home is college entrance exams." She makes a face.

"It's your home. You belong there." He is staring at her with those intense, dark eyes. "I... I don't have a home any more. I don't want to take you from yours."

"If I could I'd make them knock down all those buildings and restore your river," she tells him fiercely.

Haku laughs. "If it's you, maybe it can even be done."

Chihiro leans forward, and at first she just means to bump their foreheads together, to rub noses and smile and pull away, but something changes along the way and she ends up gently pressing their lips together.

She pulls away a few seconds later, her cheeks flaming, but with something wild and giddy inside her wanting to do it again. Haku is surprised - she can read it in the set of his shoulders and the minute widening of his eyes - but not, she thinks, disapproving.

"Chihiro," he says wonderingly, and she wishes she could pronounce his name with such elegance. He gently cups the side of her face in his hand and she feels a little shiver run down her spine.

Haku inclines his head towards her and she meets him halfway in another kiss.

This time it seems to last for hours, warm and soft and all-encompassing. When they pull apart for breath, Haku envelops her in his arms and they just stand there. She rests her head on Haku's shoulder and feels the steady beat of his heart against her breast.

Slowly, the rest of the world begins to encroach again. Her shoulders are starting to feel very hot under the bright sunlight, but the breeze is making her ankle cold around her soaked sock.

Chihiro raises her head again and looks around. The sun is high in the sky. In the distance, further up the hill she can see buildings, and somewhere beyond them she knows there is a bridge and a bathhouse. If she breathes deeply she can make out the memory of boiler smoke in the breeze.

She steps back from Haku and her shoe squelches underneath her. Chihiro wrinkles her nose in distaste.

"Allow me," says Haku, kneeling at her feet. He holds his hand over his shoe and murmurs something to it. She sees something sparkle in the air before a puddle of water forms on the stone beneath her foot. Her sock is dry.

"Thank you," she says, as Haku stands again. He shakes his head in dismissal.

She tugs on Haku's sleeve. "Come on."

Haku blinks at her, bemused. "Come where?"

"I'm going to find Lin. And then we're going to find Kamaji, and then you're going to fly me to Zeniba's."

"Zeniba's?" he protests. He seems utterly bewildered. "But we have to be back by nightfall."

Chihiro starts to walk. "You'd better hurry, then." She turns back to smile brightly at him.

When he falls into step beside her, she clasps his hand tightly in hers and doesn't let go.