Don't Stop Now [Finding My Path Sequel]

Chapter 7

"Lina," I said slowly. "Tell me you see the giant carrot with a face too."

Lina was close on my back, peering over my shoulder at the strange figure sitting in our room. It was a human sized carrot, staring blankly at a wall. It had little arms and legs, and sat on the floor.

"Maybe it's friendly?" Lina asked, clearly not buying it.

"What do we do?" I very rarely had to deal with spirits first hand. They were mostly banned from the city right after they entered our world. Ba Sing Se was clearly a different domain. This creature sat in our room like a paying customer.

As soon as I asked the question, the creature twisted it's carrot head towards us, as if it just realized we were here. It gave a small eep and raced out of the room, nearly banging into Lina.

"What. the. heck." was Lina's only response.

Lina and I were in agreement that we wanted to spend as little time as possible in the spirit infested room, so we set out early the next morning, armed with the picture of my mom.

We started out on the main road, asking shop keepers and random citizens.

"Excuse me--"

"Not interested."

"Can you help--"

"I need to get to work!"

"Do you know--"

"What are you, tax collectors?"

I'm sixteen, I thought bitterly. Everyone in the city seemed to have some strange fear of foreigners, and most people hardly glanced at us.

"Maybe we're asking the wrong people," Lina suggested. "In the city, people only care about their customers and themselves."

"So, we act like customers and people might listen?" It seemed worth a shot.

I was sure we had a hit the next time. A kid no older than nineteen was running a small clothing boutique. He looked generally bored, but nodded at us when we approached. "Can I help you?" he asked. He certainly looked like he belonged here, with bright green eyes and shaggy brown hair. His appearance screamed Earth Kingdom.

"Yes," I tried to sound as professional as possible. "I was wondering if you recognized this woman." I held us the drawing, and the boy studied carefully for a good few minutes.

I thought I just barely saw some recognition in his face when he looked away. "Sorry, nope. But I can get you some half off socks if that'll help."

"No, not really," I responded, leaving the store. I shook my head at Lina's questioning look.

"At least he looked. That's something."

We wasted the whole rest of the day like that. Less than half the people were willing to even look at the picture, and no one had any information what's so ever. Unless you count one old lady who insisted it was her daughter and then was half-dragged away by her actual daughter.

"What a waste," I grumbled, crashing down on my dirty motel bed. Dust flew out of the mattress.

"We knew this would be hard," Lina said in an attempt to encourage me. "But we've still a week."

"We weren't supposed to spend the whole week looking," I argued. "I was supposed to actually find her and meet her."

"Tomorrow's a new day," she reminded me before heading to sleep.