Part 10 (2/2)
Annja winced. She'd clearly struck a nerve with Joey. Teenaged boys only want to be men and she'd belittled that with her comment. ”Joey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insinuate that you were weak or anything.”
”No big deal.” But she could see that Joey was smarting from the comment.
Annja looked around. ”So what do we do now? I mean, Jenny's not here. And if we have any hope of finding her, we'll have to do it soon. I'm at a loss as to how we should proceed.” She looked at him closely. ”These are your woods. I'd be grateful for your advice.”
Joey smiled. ”Thanks.”
”Well?”
Joey nodded. ”Okay, we can try to search for her, but I don't know how much good it's going to do. Without a track, I'm not much use. I haven't really learned how to spirit track yet.”
”What's that?”
Joey shrugged. ”You'll think I'm being weird.”
Annja smiled. ”Did you see that sword earlier? What exactly was normal about that thing?”
”Not much.”
”Exactly.”
Joey sat down. ”Well, spirit tracking is when you try to tune in to the person's thoughts or spirit. You use that to guide you to them. My grandfather says it's one of the ultimate tests that a true scout can undertake. Learning how to do it, you can kinda tune in on them anywhere.”
”It's not limited by distance?”
”Nope. The process isn't one I'm really familiar with, though. I still need a lot of training before I can pull it off adequately.”
”What about your grandfather?” Annja asked.
Joey sighed. ”That guy can do anything.”
”Then maybe we should get him out here to help us.”
”Yeah, that would be the best thing to do, but my grandfather's not able to walk anymore. He wouldn't be able to come out here unless we drove him.”
Annja frowned. ”What happened to him?”
”He got hit by a car crossing the street. Paralyzed him from the waist down. He hasn't been the same since.”
A stiff breeze blew across the hill, chilling Annja. Jenny was somewhere in the woods, probably still in pretty bad shape, and there wasn't a thing they could do about it. All that seemed likely was that she had a cup of pine-needle tea and little else.
”This is not how I expected to be spending my trip,” Annja said.
Joey pointed to their left. ”My grandfather lives about four miles that way. If we hurry, we can reach his place in a little over an hour. But it's not an easy trek. And I'm a little worried that you might not make it.”
”I'm not waiting here for you,” Annja said. ”The last time I did that, Jenny vanished and I'm not taking the chance that whoever took her won't come back and get me, as well. That'd just make your job that much harder.”
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