Read The Threshold for Free Online Page B

was astounding. Even under the bedclothes she looked as slim as the new teacher. And all the blood appeared to have washed out of her face. “Why are you in bed? Are you sick?”
    “Callie!” Luella warned, and Uncle Henry laughed.
    The next day when Callie had changed out of her school dress and put on her everyday dress, Ma’am sent her over the hill with a bottle of tonic because Aunt Lilly needed “toning.” She also needed cheering, so Callie told her all about Miss Heisinger and the lady who’d left her book by the mill. The tonic seemed to work and Lilly soon sat up. “What’s in that stuff?”
    Callie took the bottle over to a window. “‘Wyeth’s Wine of Coca. Body and brain strengthener. Sustains. Refreshes. Nourishes. Never causes constipation.’” She turned the bottle over and squinted at the tiny print on the back label. “‘Extracted from the leaves of the mysterious tree deep in the South American jungle, Erythro … Erythroxylon Coca.’ Is that the same kind of coca that’s in Coca-Cola?”
    “I think so, but this tonic of Luella’s makes you feel even better.”
    “‘For many years past it has been thoroughly tested,’” Callie continued, “‘and eminent physicians urgently recommend its use in the treatment of anemia, impurity of the blood, consumption, asthma, nervous debility, biliousness, dyspepsia, loss of appetite, and obesity. Especially beneficial to the convalescent and languorous infant. Very palatable and agreeable to take. If you wish to accomplish double the amount of work or are forced to undergo an unusual amount of hardship, always keep a bottle of Wyeth’s Wine of Coca near you. Its sustaining powers are wonderful!’”
    Aunt Lilly’s hair tumbled across her shoulders. She looked delicate and pretty with the soft dark half-circles under her eyes. “Do you ever wonder, Callie, if all they say on them bottles is true?”
    “Ma’am says she doesn’t believe they could print it if it weren’t.” Callie helped herself to another piece of Mrs. Traub’s cake. “Aunt Lilly, couldn’t Jesus have put Bram on the schoolhouse steps? Then he’d be my real brother, wouldn’t he?”
    “Jesus? What’s he … Oh … uh, no, honey, Bram was seven or eight months old when he came to us and uh … then there was the note. Jesus doesn’t leave notes.” Lilly picked up her sleeping son. “I wanted to name this little fellow Brambaugh, but Henry insists we name him Henry. He’s up at the boardinghouse smoking cigars and playing poker with his friends. All new fathers do that, I’m told. Ladies do all the work, men congratulate themselves smoking cigars. And don’t look at me that way, Callie question box, I don’t know why either.”
    “Don’t you like men, Aunt Lilly?”
    “Take one of them pies home with you. We won’t be able to eat all this food in a month of Sundays.”
    One day after school Callie and Bram went berry-picking along Boomerang Road. They’d not gone far when Bram stopped to listen, shushing Callie and pulling her to the side of the wagon road as the sound of shod hooves clicking on pebbles drew nearer.
    “You promised we’d pick berries, Bram,” Callie whispered, feeling somehow deserted as she did so often when he opted for boy things. “You never catch one anyway.”
    He put his hand across her mouth and gave her a stern look. The riderless horse came down the road at a trot, empty stirrups swinging out and in, the reins tied to the saddle horn. The horse saw them of course, they always did. Callie could tell by the way it swerved to the other edge of the road as it passed. Bram handed her his bucket and she was tempted to clash it against hers to startle the animal clear to Telluride, but followed Bram quietly instead.
    They heard the horse chomping before they saw it browsing in a tiny roadside meadow. In winter rented horses headed straight back to the livery when their riders turned them loose, but in summer they’d stop to grab a