A little chirping noise distracts him, and he smiles when a tiny, brightly-colored bird hovers in front of him. “Hello, there,” he says gently. A drop of rain slams down from the sky and hits the bird in the head, and it chirps again, confused, and wavers in the air. Eli holds out a finger for it to perch, and then cups it in his hand. With his other hand, he makes it a little shade. It looks like Kivi used to in a stroller, all tucked in and safe, and he grins wanly at it. “We’re going to be fine,” he says. “We’re just a little lost.”

He squints around in the dim light. Is there a building somewhere between those trees? That tiny flash of white could be a house and civilization. Or it could be a steep drop at the edge of a mountain. He shakes his head and tries to focus on the first possibility.

The rain falls more steadily now, beating down on his head, and the bird in his hand huddles in closer to his palm. Eli strokes its back with his thumb and steps over a fallen tree.

He really is lost.

There’s a howl of wind, and it finally starts to pour. Eli is soaked in moments, his sweatshirt plastered to his shirt and his glasses fogged up and too wet to see through. The bird squeaks and flies away, vanishing into a tree trunk. Eli stumbles forward, tripping over a root protruding from the ground. He has a bad feeling about this.

After a few minutes of wandering through the woods, half blind, he finds a tree that is so wide and dense, only some of the rain can drip through the leaves. He sits down at its base and tries to wipe his glasses with the inside of his sweatshirt. But it’s been soaked through, and there’s still too much rain for them to dry. He lets out a little moan.

The woods have never felt so big and frightening. This is his home, and he has always been comfortable here. But today, a storm raging and no one beside him, Eli is afraid.

Eli glances down at his pants, and sees something slither across. He gasps — it’s a snake! He stops breathing and freezes, afraid that it’ll bite him if he moves. He watches it wide-eyed, heart hammering, as it moves across his thigh and then continues on across the base of the tree and behind Eli.

He jumps up, and cups his hands around his mouth. “Hello?” he shouts. “Help! Someone, please! Help!” He screams it as loudly as he can, until his throat is raw and hoarse and he’s been all but drowned out by the wind and rain.

He thinks again about Nellie. Is she facing the same fate as he? Hopefully, she made it home.

Their fight feels silly now. Why did he need to search for the clubhouse today? Why couldn’t he just have waited until Nellie was ready? They could’ve been home and safe and dry now. They could’ve been together.

Eli starts forward again. He’ll just… keep walking in one direction, he decides. Eventually, he’ll find his way out of the woods, even if it takes all night.

Through the torrent of rain, even the trees he’s just passed don’t look familiar when he starts moving again. The sky is almost black and the wind whips up dirt and leaves around Eli’s face. The animals have fallen quiet, tucked away into their secret little corners to escape the storm. Eli is completely on his own.

Sometimes, he thinks that he and Nellie can share each other’s thoughts, that there’s something that makes them think about exactly the same thing at the same time. Right now, he imagines sending Nellie a message, a thought that passes between them like a staticky comment through a walkie-talkie. Please send help. Over.

If Nellie made it home, she must have realized by now that Eli is missing. There might be search parties already out in the woods, Eli thinks, smiling faintly.

But then Eli’s heart drops. Maybe she doesn’t even know. Maybe she’d run up to her room to cry in private and has no idea Eli is still out there.

He shakes away that thought. He has to believe that someone is coming.

He murmurs a perek of Tehillim to himself, one of the few that he knows by heart, and then goes on to the next. He has to remember that he isn’t completely alone out here, not really, and that he’s going to be alright. All he can do is daven and walk, as far as he can, until he finds safety.

Or…

Until he finds something else.

Because right in front of him, rough and rushing from the rainfall, is the brook. The brook! That means that, if he follows it in one direction, he’ll be able to get to the lake. And if he follows it in the other direction, he might even find the treehouse.

He starts forward, hope making his heart leap in his chest, and gingerly begins walking on the large, slippery rocks, following them alongside the brook. This is perfect. He’ll find the treehouse, take shelter inside of it, and then he’ll figure out the way home from there. Then, he can talk things out with Nellie, and they’ll both be able to come back here — at last! — tomorrow, when the storm is over.

He’s going to be just fine—