The Distance Between Lost and Found by Kathryn Holmes

don’t have to.”
    â€œI have to go too.” She does. Only a little.
    They walk to the edge of the clearing. Look out into the shadows.
    Rachel goes first. She picks her steps carefully. Hallelujah steps where Rachel stepped until the fire is just a flickering red through the trees behind them.
    â€œI’m going . . . over there,” Rachel says, gesturing vaguely. “I’ll call out. Let you know I’m not dead. And who knows—maybe someone else’ll hear us yelling too.”
    â€œOkay.” Hallelujah watches Rachel’s back as she moves away. Then she can’t see her at all.
    The trees surround her, and so she looks up. Turns in a circle. The stars blink down at her through the branches. If the trees are too close, are suffocating her, the sky looks too big, impossibly big.
    â€œI’m still alive!” Rachel calls from somewhere to Hallelujah’s right.
    â€œMe too!” she calls back, unzipping her jeans with her swollen, itchy fingers. The wind is ice against her bare skin. She moves fast. She’s dressed again in seconds.
    â€œHal?” Rachel is coming closer.
    â€œHere.” Hallelujah moves toward the voice, feeling with her feet to keep from having to put her raw palms against the bark of trunks and branches. She crosses her arms, tucking her hands into her armpits.
    It’s a mistake. Because when she trips over something she can’t see, she’s not ready. She stumbles forward, and her left foot catches on something, and her boot gets wedged, and her body lands but her foot stays put.
    She feels the ankle pop.
    She hits the ground hard.
    For a second, she’s just trying to breathe. Then she feels the sharp, hot stab of pain inside her ankle. It’s like there’s a knife in her hiking boot.
    She whimpers.
    Rachel appears. “Hal? You okay?”
    Hallelujah doesn’t move. She doesn’t want to make it worse. The pain shoots up her leg. “My ankle,” she says softly. Talking louder would make it hurt more.
    Rachel rushes to kneel next to Hallelujah. “Which foot?”
    â€œLeft.”
    Rachel gently runs her hands down Hallelujah’s leg, stopping when she reaches the wounded ankle. Hallelujah gasps at the pressure. “Okay,” Rachel says. “Um. Do you think you can walk on it?”
    â€œI don’t know. But it’s stuck.” And throbbing. And throbbing.
    â€œIf I lift the root, can you pull your foot out?”
    â€œI can try.” Hallelujah sits up carefully and inches closer to the root, letting her knee bend. She grasps her left thigh with both hands, ready to pull. “Go,” she says, gritting her teeth in anticipation.
    â€œOne, two . . . three!” Rachel groans as she pulls at the root. But it moves, loosens its grip on Hallelujah’s boot, and she pulls her leg, and she feels her ankle pop again and her foot is free. Hallelujah falls back onto her elbows.
    â€œI’ll help you up.” Rachel scrambles to her feet.
    Hallelujah blinks back tears. “I can’t,” she says.
    â€œCome on, Hal,” Rachel says. “I’ve got you.”
    So Hallelujah extends her hand.

11
    T HE HIKE BACK UP THE HILL IS GRUELING . H ALLELUJAH can barely breathe through the pain of each step. Rachel is panting from the effort of holding Hallelujah up. Still, when they get closer to the clearing, Rachel manages to call out: “Jonah! Help!”
    There’s a rustling noise up ahead. Twigs snapping. And then Jonah appears. His face is in shadow, but his voice is worried: “What happened?”
    â€œI turned my ankle,” Hallelujah says. “I’m okay.”
    â€œShe’s not okay,” Rachel gasps. “She can’t put weight on it. Can you carry her?”
    Jonah doesn’t hesitate. He wraps one arm around Hallelujah’s waist, and then he scoops up her legs with the other. In a single, fluid motion,