Message in a Bottle. Kathryn Reiss

of times a week, but it’s never enough for Raymond. He just wants his pa living here at the ranch. But David needs a desk job now. And it’s hard to work out the problems between us when there are so many other problems to solve here.”

      “What kind of problems?” Mrs. Albright asked.

      “Well, the biggest problem at the ranch is money. With David away in Vietnam, a lot of our members started leaving, too. Now our numbers are really down. It’s been harder to get crops planted, harder to tend the animals. We don’t have extra fruit and vegetables to sell. We don’t have enough money to pay our property taxes. And if we can’t pay, we’ll be forced to sell the land.” She sighed. “Gloomy times!”

      “I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Albright.

      No wonder Raymond is miserable, thought Julie. Maybe it was because they were cousins, but it was almost as if she could feel his sadness herself.

      Aunt Nadine sipped her lemonade, then smiled. “Well, it’s not all gloom and doom! About three months ago, Vicky joined us. She used to be an accountant, and she’s full of plans. It was her idea to sell our honey and bread and fresh eggs to the restaurants in town. She said we could ask the shops to sell the sweaters we knit from our own sheep’s wool. Then it hit me: We’ll open our own shop!”

      Aunt Nadine stopped rocking and grabbed her sister’s hand. “Joyce, you wrote about how well your shop is doing. Will you help me open a shop like Gladrags?”

      Mrs. Albright smiled. “I’d be happy to.”

      “It will be so great to have something good happening here. All of us are desperate to find a way to stay. But we’ve had an awful run of luck. Everything we try comes to nothing. It’s almost as if…” her voice trailed off.

      “As if what?” asked Mrs. Albright.

      Aunt Nadine closed her eyes. “As if…we’re under a curse.”

      chapter 3

      Almost Heaven

      JULIE FROWNED. “WHAT kind of curse?”

      Aunt Nadine rubbed her temples for a long moment, then opened her eyes. She laughed lightly. “I’m just being silly. Things will look up now that your mom’s here to help.” She turned to her sister. “Let’s think up names for our new shop!”

      Julie stood up uncertainly. “Should I find Raymond?”

      “When he sinks into a mood, he usually wants me to leave him alone. But maybe you’ll cheer him up!” Aunt Nadine pointed down the path. “Check the barns. That’s where he’ll be.”

      Julie left the sisters and headed for the meadow. The grass was dappled with late-afternoon light that slanted through trees. The dirt path was as wide as a city sidewalk, smoothed by many feet over the years. Silence rang in Julie’s ears. She was so used to the noise of city life that the quiet was unsettling.

      “Raymond?” she called, stopping at a pen outside the first barn. Inside was a large brown and white cow.

      “Say hi to Mamie.” Raymond appeared suddenly at her side. His eyes were red-rimmed, but he was smiling now. “And to Buttercup, her calf. Everybody’s favorite baby!”

      Julie reached over the fence and rubbed the cow’s broad, soft head. Mamie nuzzled Julie’s hand, and the calf tottered over, tail swishing. Julie rubbed Buttercup, too.

      “The other cows are coming in for the night now.” Raymond pointed to the meadow, where a dozen cows were being urged toward the barn by two men who clapped their hands. “Let’s hurry, before they get here!” Grabbing Julie’s arm, Raymond tugged her through the wide barn door.

      In the shadowy light, Julie could see a rope swing hanging from the rafters. A leather belt was looped around its seat to serve as a handle. Raymond grabbed the belt, pulling the swing behind him as he climbed up a ladder to a loft at one end of the barn, and then—“Bombs away!” he yelled. He leaped off the platform and soared through the air. “This is what we do for fun in the country,” he called down to her.

      “Wow!” Julie laughed.

      When the swing came to rest and Raymond had jumped off, Julie grabbed the belt and scrambled up the ladder. She straddled the seat and pushed off. “Bombs away!” Her stomach swooped as the long rope sent her plunging down, down, into the barn and then up, up into the air again. Down and up, and down and up, until the swing gradually slowed and Raymond took the rope for another turn.

      Raymond seemed to have tossed away his cares while he rode the swing, but as the men reached the barn, he jumped off and ushered Julie out the side door. “We’ll have to help with milking if they see us!”

      Julie thought it would be fun to learn to milk a cow, but after stopping briefly to pat the sheep thronging against their pen, Raymond dashed into the second, smaller, barn. He showed her a spacious room with small tables, beanbag chairs, and low shelves of homemade wooden toys and rag dolls. “This is the playroom,” he said. “And here’s our schoolroom.” He opened another door into a room with one big window, a round battered wooden table, and a chalkboard. “There used to be about a dozen kids, but now there’s just me and Dolores—and babies too young for school. With Dolores working, she might not be back…” He sighed. “Then it’ll just be me.”

      “The only kid in the whole school?” Julie marveled. “Are you in sixth grade, like me?”

      Raymond shrugged. “We don’t really have grades. Or teachers even. I mean, all the grown-ups take turns being our teachers for a few hours each day.”

      Julie had a hard time imagining such a thing.

      “Come on,” Raymond said. “Next stop, our beehives. Empty of bees, though.”

      Julie frowned. “No bees?”

      “Nope. A couple of weeks ago the whole colony swarmed—that means they flew off. So now we won’t have honey to sell in our new shop until we get some new bees.”

      Julie followed Raymond out of the barn to the edge of the woods where wooden boxes were stacked. “What made the bees leave?” she asked.

      “No one knows. Loud noises…some kind of disturbance. Vicky thinks someone upset them on purpose, but I don’t know.” Raymond shrugged. “Pa can catch a swarm and lure them to the hives. I’ve seen him do it before! If he were here now, he’d be able to get us some new bees.”

      “Your dad sounds really talented with animals,” said Julie. “He trains chicks and catches bees! Pretty cool.”

      “Pa is one cool dude,” said Raymond, ducking his head so his shaggy hair hid his face. “I wish he’d move back. He practically built this place himself. He made everything work.” He sighed. “My mom used to call him a jack-of-all-trades because he could build anything and fix anything. But now he says he has nothing to offer us at the ranch—just because he can’t do the work he used to. He wants Ma to move into town, but she doesn’t want to. She blames him for going off to war—says it ruined everything. But I don’t blame him,” Raymond said. “He went to Vietnam because his twin brother was a soldier who went missing in action. Pa wanted to find him.”

      “Did he…find him?” Julie ventured to ask.

      “Yes—but his brother was dead.” Raymond kicked the dirt around the beehive boxes for a moment before going on. “And then my dad got wounded and came home, and nothing has been the same.”

      “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Julie didn’t know what else to say. Her cousin’s sadness made her own heart ache.

      “We had so much fun together,” Raymond said softly. “Ma, Pa, and me. Pa always made up games. Treasure hunts. Secret codes to solve. He used to give out silly prizes. Like once he made a headband for my mom, woven out of vines and flowers. He whittled me a whole zoo of wooden animals. And he used to call me funny nicknames—anything