It was dark when she finally wandered back to the big blue house. There was a police car just outside the house. Chihiro groaned.

"What do you think they would do?" She thought, "give you up for lost and get on with their lives? It's only been two weeks." Hastily she concocted a story to tell. It was not very good but she hoped it would be enough to get rid of the police. She walked up the steps and knocked on the door.

The door tore open and Chihiro thought she had actually been struck; the force of her mother grabbing her was that great.

"Oh, Chihiro! My little baby!" Chihiro had never had so many kisses. Her father just stood there.

"I thought you were never coming back." He said wiping his eyes.

"Where have you been!" demanded her mother. "No word or contact, you just vanished. Did anyone hurt you?"

"Please Mrs Ogino!" A smart police detective in his late forties stepped forward. "Let your daughter sit down and tell us everything."

Chihiro was ushered into the sitting room. She sat on the sofa with her mother still clinging to her. Her father seemed convinced that she needed to get checked out at a hospital, despite her protests. In the end, she told him she was thirsty and he scuttled away to the kitchen. She haltingly told the detective a story about Linca and herself meeting two Chinese boys in Kyoto. They had seemed nice enough, but they must have spiked their drinks because they woke up in a squalid little flat. The boys threatened to keep them, prisoner, until they agreed to marry them.

"We were well treated." She stressed. "But we refused to give into them; which was quite silly of us I think. We tried to explain that Linca was not Japanese and so marriage to her would not gain them citizenship. They thought we were lying and gave us no food for two days." The story sounded false and weak to her own ears, but the detective was writing it all down.

"Anyway, one night we were left with only one of them. He got a bit drunk. Linca attacked him and kicked him until he stopped moving." She shuddered at the imagined memory. "We got the keys off him and ran. We thought they were following us so we got the first bus we could find. In the end, we agreed to keep going just to be sure. I came back here and Linca was on the first plane going anywhere near Russia. I don't know if she will ever come back."

"My poor girl!" Whispered her Father from the kitchen door. He had forgotten what he had gone in there for.

The detective asked a few more questions she gave bogus descriptions and hotel addresses. Her story would hold no water, she knew that, but she was not intending to stay long enough for the police to discover that.

"Miss Ogino, you have a history of mental illness, are you sure this is not some symptom of that? You must understand this is a very wild story."

"Are you accusing my daughter of lying?" Growled her father. The detective stood.

"I must cover every eventuality Mr Ogino." He turned to Chihiro.

"Come down the station in a day or two. We will have checked the facts and you may have remembered more." He frowned. "Don't leave this address, Miss Ogino, we will need to contact you."

"Of course not Detective." She lied, "and thank you." Her father showed him to the door.

For the next two hour,s her parents fussed around her. Every possible want was provided for. They asked her no more about her absence as if frightened she would get upset. She went to bed that night feeling lonely, and VERY guilty. She fumbled with her pendant. Like her hair sticks and hair ti,e it was always with her. Its weight around her neck was reassuring but also a reminder of what she must do.

"I'm their only child, how can I do this to them?" She thought, "But it is my life and I don't belong here anymore. Perhaps I was born in the wrong world or something, only to realise my true home when I stumbled upon it. I love them both but they never understood me, even before my adventures." She sighed and looked at her reflection in the tiny obsidian mirror.

"I'll tell them tomorrow," she whispered to it.

Chihiro decided to dedicate the next day to her parents. It was a lovely summer's day, warm but with a cool breeze. She helped her mother in the garden. Yuuko chatted away to her; the only mention she gave of Chihiro's adventure was...

"We are so glad your back." She said that several times. After getting thoroughly dirty in the garden, Chihiro went to help her father tinker in the garage. He had a classic motorcycle that he had been fixing up for years. Chihiro helped de-grease its engine, (second time she had that year.) In contrast to her mother, her father said nothing to her, except when she was handing him a spark plug he mumbled...

"They did not hurt you did they?" Chihiro nearly did not hear the question but understood what her father was getting at.

"N,o they did not." He grunted and said nothing else.

Dinner time came around and Chihiro decided it was now or never. So sitting with her parents she toyed with her food. How to start? She put down her chopsticks and sighed. The pendant seemed to grow a little warmer, it was quite reassuring.

"I have something to tell you both." She announced. They both looked at her.

"Good start," she thought.

"I knew it!" Gasped her father, "those monsters got you pregnant!" Chihiro shook her head.

"No Dad, there were no monsters." She sighed. "Well technically there were, but why confuse them?" She thought. She touched the pendant under her top and continued. "I'm afraid I've lied to you both." Her parents looked at each other.

"I was not kidnapped by Chinese men in Kyoto. That was just a very bad story to get rid of the police." Her father seemed to be choking and her mother put her hands to her face.

"What have you done?"

"I have not done anything Mum." She retorted. "Oh well," she thought, "so much for the gentle approach." "I went to the spirit world. I was there for two weeks, Linca led me there and as it turns out she was not human and stayed behind. I came back to see you both and to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Whispered her mother.

"I'm going back; I want to live there...permanently." She looked at her parent's stunned faces. "And once I go back I won't be able to come back here. I intend to leave tomorrow." Her father shook his head.

"We thought you were past all this," he said.

"No," she replied "I lied to you about that too, and to myself. I never stopped believing in that place. Not really, and I never took the medication you gave me either. It was clear you would never believe me so why should I tell you the truth."

"But Chihiro this is all some huge fantasy of yours, you can't possibly expect us to..."

"I know you don't believe me." She said calmly cutting off her father. "And that's part of the problem. You were supposed to; do you know how angry I was at the both of you? You put me through four years of therapy I did not need. You hung on every word that evil woman said, while she tried to screw with my head and brainwash the truth from me." She was icily calm, she suspected the pendants influence, it was almost hot against her chest. "I realised however it was not your fault, after all, you are only human." "If only they believed me. They would find that quite funny." She told herself. It was time for the last piece of good news she had for her parents. "If you don't believe me, you will be unable to cross the border and visit. I am never returning to this world, I won't be able to. The first time we crossed the border we were ignorant. Those who don't believe, who reject the existence of this world all together will never be allowed to see it. That would include me.

Her parents were silent for some minutes.

"You really believe all this don't you?" Asked her mother.

"I don't just believe, it's a fact." She replied. Her father just grunted. "I have no way to prove this to you." She said as she stood. "But please have some faith in me." She walked up to her room and pretended to go in it by to closing the door, making it click shut loudly. She sat on the stairs to listen to her parent's talk.

"I thought she was past all this, she got to university I thought she was well." Said her Father.

"I suspected something." whispered her mother. "She used to stare at the sky on starlit nights from her room. I watched her; it was like she was in another world. Her eyes were so filled with longing. I never asked her about it, I was afraid of the answers I would get."

"We know what we have to do; we thought it would never come to this but..."

"She is happy," interrupted her mother. "Can't we just let her be? She has had this fantasy since she was ten; she is unlikely to give it up now."

"She is leaving tomorrow!" Her father hissed. "We can't afford to indulge her, it's serious now."

Chihiro shook her head and went to her room. She should have known they would never understand. But she was surprised at her mother's efforts to try and see her point of view. She sat on the bed and fumbled with her pendant.

"I've told them," she said to it. "They did not believe me but it's done." She felt empty, like she was not a person anymore in this world.

"I'm coming back tomorrow."

If she had known what was going to happen she would have packed her things and headed for the border right then. Instead, she got into bed and fell asleep.

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