Part 12 (2/2)

”Very well,” Dancing Deer said. ”Then I must ask you to sit still and allow me to track her.”

Joey sat down on the couch. ”I was the last to see her, Grandpa.”

Dancing Deer nodded. ”Come and kneel beside me for a moment.”

Annja watched as Joey got off the couch and knelt next to Dancing Deer's wheelchair. The old man placed one hand on Joey's head and then closed his eyes. Annja could see him muttering something under his breath and then it was over quickly.

Dancing Deer looked at Joey. ”Bring the sage, please.”

Joey ran from the room and Annja could hear him rummaging through drawers, presumably in the kitchen. When he returned, he had a large bundle of leaves in his hand. Annja recognized it as the sage Dancing Deer had requested.

”Light it and let it smolder, please.”

Joey leaned in close to the fire and let the bundle catch a kiss from one of the flames. The fire ate into the dried herbs and then Joey waved it to extinguish the flame. Smoke wafted into the room and Annja took a nice deep breath. The effect of the sage was relaxing.

Dancing Deer still had his eyes closed. ”Move it around the room until we are surrounded by its essence.”

Joey circled the room, letting the smoke hang in the air until it permeated everything. Finally he set the smoldering bundle in a small dish near the fire. Smoke continued to drift toward the ceiling.

Annja could feel her own eyelids getting heavy again. She desperately wanted to stay awake and watch Dancing Deer undertake the spirit track, but she wasn't sure that it was possible.

Dancing Deer looked to Joey again. ”I am ready.”

Joey glanced at Annja. ”You need to be absolutely quiet, okay?”

She nodded.

Dancing Deer's eyes closed again, and this time he started a low chant that seemed to rumble up from somewhere deep inside his chest. As she listened to it, Annja could feel herself being carried along. A drum joined in the chant and she realized that Joey must have been drumming along in time to it.

Dancing Deer continued to chant and the drumming kept pace the entire way. Annja could feel herself starting to fall fast asleep.

She had to stay awake!

The chanting and drumming continued and now a new voice joined in. Joey was chanting along with his grandfather. How on earth were they going to be able to find Jenny? Annja desperately wanted to ask them but Joey had warned her not to make any noise. Whatever they were doing, clearly Annja saying anything would disrupt the procedure.

She relaxed and breathed deeply, inhaling and exhaling as she felt herself get lighter and lighter. The smell of sweet sage in the room drifted in and out of her lungs, and seemed to seep into every one of her muscles, making them relax even further.

The more Annja relaxed, the deeper she seemed to sink into the chair and the lighter she felt. It was an odd sort of sensation. While she'd experimented with hypnosis before, this was nothing like it. She was relaxed and deeply in some sort of state, but she simultaneously felt like she could lift right out of her chair as if she had no weight whatsoever.

The drumming and chanting seemed farther away now, as if Annja was somehow removed from it in some respects. She turned her eyes inward and saw the sword hanging in the s.p.a.ce in her mind's eye where it always resided. She could reach out and touch it if she wanted. But somehow she knew her attention was needed elsewhere.

She looked outward and, in an instant, found herself drifting up and out of the chair toward the ceiling. Then she was carried through the house and out into the dark night again. She could hear the wind but felt none of its cold bite.

She turned toward the woods where she and Joey had come from and let herself float that way. She drifted down the trail quickly, her feet never touching the ground at all.

Annja kept breathing deeply. Somehow the sage smell still lingered in her nostrils. Somehow it still kept relaxing her, even while she was outside of the house.

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