Message in a Bottle. Kathryn Reiss

relief coursing through her. She carried the chicken to the coop, where Raymond waited, grinning now.

      “You’re a natural—for a city girl!” he said.

      She felt the sudden warmth of his approval and smiled back.

      After that, catching chickens seemed easy. Julie placed the last one in the chicken coop, latched the door, and went to join her mother and Aunt Nadine, sighing with satisfaction. There! The hens were safe. Still, feathers littered the barnyard as if there had been a terrible struggle, and Julie thought a feather would make a funny souvenir of her first day’s adventure at Gold Moon Ranch. Spotting an especially white one, she bent down to pick it up.

      It was not a feather at all. It was a bit of crumpled white paper, and when Julie unfolded it, she saw something familiar printed on one side—a rocket headed toward the sun.

      “Look, Mom, it’s a napkin from that cafe!”

      “May I see that?” A woman with blond braids strode over and took the napkin from Julie’s hand before Julie’s mother could reply. The woman studied the napkin intently. “I’d say this proves it.”

      “Proves what?” Julie stared at the woman in confusion.

      “Vicky’s got a theory,” Aunt Nadine explained, “that somebody’s trying to make us want to sell our land.”

      The woman named Vicky held up the napkin so others could see it. “Draw your own conclusions. But when I see a napkin from Coker’s restaurant, I can’t help but think he’s been sneaking around our property, causing trouble.”

      “We don’t know for sure it’s Eli Coker—other people sometimes go to his cafe,” said a young woman with a baby on her hip.

      “One of us might have left the gate to the chicken pen open by mistake,” said a black-bearded man with hair in dreadlocks. His eyes were tired.

      “Maybe we all just need to be more careful,” said a tall woman in a flowing red caftan.

      The group started back to the large building they called the Big House, but Aunt Nadine drew Julie and Mrs. Albright aside. “We’ll come soon,” Aunt Nadine told the others.

      The woman in the red caftan waved them away. “Don’t worry. Bonnie and I can handle dinner prep, and Dolores will be home from the cafe soon.” She smiled at Julie. “I’m Rose. My daughter will be glad of another girl at the ranch.”

      “Oh, you’re Dolores’s mom?” said Julie. “We met at the cafe!”

      “Yes, and that’s my husband, Allen.” She pointed to the man with the dark beard and dreadlocks, who was pulling Julie’s suitcase out of the station wagon. “He’ll bring your bags to Nadine’s cottage for you.”

      Julie and her mother followed Aunt Nadine and Raymond along the path to the cottages. First they stopped at the bathhouse, where Aunt Nadine showed them the toilets, which were nothing more than pits in the ground with seats over them. She demonstrated how to use a hand pump to draw water for washing. There were six long sinks, like metal troughs, and a few metal tubs. Julie stared at her face in the mirror. She washed her hands in cold water and shivered to think of taking a bath here. Then she saw there was a fireplace and large cauldron for heating the water. A warm bath seemed like a lot of work.

      Cottages lined both sides of the path, each built to the same simple plan, with a front porch and two windows. Aunt Nadine and Raymond led the way to the last cottage at the edge of the woods.

      Julie stepped into a small living room. There was a single bedroom beyond, and a ladder that Julie scrambled up to find a long sleeping loft with a bed on one side and a camp cot on the other. A rolled-up sleeping bag lay on top of the cot.

      Julie peered down over the edge of the loft.

      “You’ll be up there with Raymond,” Aunt Nadine called up to her. “Joyce, you’ll take my room.”

      “The couch is fine,” Mrs. Albright protested.

      “Nope—dibs on the couch!”

      Julie’s mother laughed. “We’ll flip a coin, just like in the old days!”

      “Heads I win, tails you lose?”

      “Oh, Nadine, I’ve missed you so much…”

      “And I’ve missed you,” her sister answered.

      Raymond spun away and slammed out onto the porch. Julie scrambled down the ladder and followed him outside. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

      He sank down onto the porch step and stared out at the woods. “I just wish Ma missed Pa as much as she says she’s missed your mom.” Through his shaggy dark hair, Julie could see his anguished expression. It was suddenly clear what he’d meant earlier when he’d wished his father could help round up the chickens.

      Julie sat next to him. “My parents are divorced, too,” she offered. “I used to wish they’d get back together, but now…well, I can see they’re happier as things are.”

      Raymond’s eyes were hard with misery. “Well, my parents are not divorced! And they’re not happy as they are! None of us is happy.” He jumped up when Aunt Nadine opened the screen door and their moms stepped out onto the porch.

      “Lemonade, anyone?” Aunt Nadine offered. “I’m sorry it’s not cold, but the only time we have ice is in the winter, when we can break icicles off the eaves.” She laughed, passing glasses to Julie, her mother, and Raymond. “But who wants cold lemonade in the winter?”

      Raymond scowled at his mother, but he accepted the glass and drank thirstily.

      Julie took a sip of her lemonade. She was thirsty too, and even warm it tasted delicious. Still, she couldn’t imagine not having ice when she wanted it, or lights, or hot showers. “Don’t you miss electricity?” she asked her aunt shyly. “Or running water?”

      “We use the pump to get water,” Aunt Nadine said, “and we heat it in our fireplace, and bathe in those tin tubs. We light lanterns when it’s dark. Living simply isn’t a problem.”

      Mrs. Albright set down her glass and looked at her sister kindly. “Well, then, what is the problem? We’re thrilled to be here, but we’re desperate to know why you need my help!”

      Aunt Nadine sat in one rocking chair and motioned to the other. “Sit down, and I’ll tell you our tale of woe.” She rocked back and forth for a moment. “Nothing’s gone right here for a long time. It’s been this way since the war.”

      “The war?” Julie frowned. The Vietnam War had ended three years ago. How could it still be causing problems in a commune in the mountains?

      “I’m afraid so.” Aunt Nadine rubbed her forehead wearily. “David—my husband who wouldn’t kill a fly!—enlisted in the army.” There was a catch in her voice. “He had his reasons, but he had some awfully good reasons not to go, too. He had Raymond. And me. And this community we built. There’s been trouble here ever since.”

      Raymond set his lemonade glass onto the step so hard, Julie was surprised the jar didn’t break. “I hate when you blame everything on Pa!”

      “It’s been difficult,” Aunt Nadine murmured.

      “I miss Pa!” Raymond said abruptly. He leaped off the porch and darted down the path, vanishing among the trees.

      Julie looked at her aunt in alarm, but Aunt Nadine shook her head. “He’ll be back,” she said. “He just misses David. But he doesn’t understand.”

      “I’m not sure I do, either,” Mrs. Albright said.

       “We were all against the war in Vietnam, so it shocked me when David joined up.” Aunt Nadine’s voice broke. “Then he was wounded and spent months in rehabilitation trying to walk again. He couldn’t do his work here on the ranch, so he took a part-time job at