Falling In by Frances O'Roark Dowell Read Free Book Online Page A

angrily at the acorn in its hands. Isabelle’s hands began to sweat. She shoved them in her pockets.
    “I didn’t mean to offend, miss,” Hen called breathlessly as she ran to catch up. “We’ll say no more about it.”
    “I’m thirsty,” Isabelle said. “Are you thirsty? Are we far from the creek?”
    Hen looked toward the woods, her head cocked. “I don’t hear the water, miss, but it can’t be more than half a mile in, I wouldn’t think. The creek twists and turns, but these woods aren’t wide, and its course runs through the middle.”
    The shade of the trees cooled Isabelle’s skin. Asshe followed Hen, she tried to calm down. No one was going to get killed, she repeated to herself, not if she had anything to do about it. She concentrated on her breathing, thought about the way her toes flattened against the soles of her boots as she walked, how her knees bent slightly, then straightened with every step, and her arms swung loosely from her shoulders. She could feel the air finding its way between her fingers, could feel her ears holding on to her head for dear life. Every part of her hung together just so. She’d never known this about herself before. It was, well, comforting.
    When a second later her foot got caught under a tree’s exposed roots and Isabelle went flying, it was, well, less comforting.
Just when you’re starting to get used to yourself,
Isabelle thought as she tumbled to the earth, small rocks and twigs making themselves at home in her palms, her ankle throbbing with sharp little bleats of pain.
    Hen was beside her in an instant, unlacing Isabelle’s red boot, pulling it from her foot. Her cool fingers felt the tender swelling. “I don’t think it’sbroken, miss, but it might be sprained. The creek’s not but a hundred yards away. You’d do well to soak your ankle in it, see if the swelling won’t go down.”
    Isabelle leaned against Hen as she hopped on one foot toward the edge of the creek. She lay back against the mossy bank, her eyes closed, and gingerly lowered her foot into the cold water.
    “You’ll need to wrap that before you put your weight on it again,” a voice announced from behind her. “Else you’ll stretch out farther what holds it together, and it won’t heal for an age and a half.”
    Hen was fast on her feet, scanning between the trees. “Who said that?” She leaned down to grab a large stick from the ground. “Ya best show yourself.”
    “You’ve nothing to be afraid of,” a woman’s voice said, and a second later, the woman herself stood in front of them, a basket dangling from her arm. “It’s my woods you’re in, so you are the trespassers here. But you’re welcome nevertheless.”
    She turned to Isabelle. “Shall I take a look, then?” She nodded toward Isabelle’s ankle. “I might be able to help.”
    Isabelle nodded. The woman had a pleasant face, lightly lined, crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes, which were blue, as in cornflower blue, as in the blue of a midsummer sky. When she leaned down to examine Isabelle, Isabelle could hear her knees crack, and thought of her mom, who seemed to crack and pop with every twist and turn of her body.
    The woman held Isabelle’s foot with one hand and with the other pushed it a little to the left, then a little to the right. Isabelle grimaced, and the woman raised her eyebrow. “That hurts, eh? I’d say you’ve got a mean sprain, but no worse. You shouldn’t put your weight on it for a day or two. I can put a plaster on it. Eucalyptus leaves, camphor. To help the healing.”
    Hen kneeled next to Isabelle. “I’ve heard eucalyptus will help with a sprain.”
    The woman looked at her. “You know about healing, do ya?”
    “Some,” Hen replied. “My uncle trained to be an apothecary, but he was killed in the Nine Years’ Warand never put his learning to use. He taught me some things before he left.”
    “’Twas a bad war, that,” the woman said, nodding. She stood and brushed dirt