Demaris moved about the room stiffly, as if every muscle in her body were in rebellion. She took from a closet filled with drugs the big camphor bottle with its cutglass stopper, the little bottle labeled “tinc. lobelia,” and the box of goose grease.

She placed a chair at the side of the couch to hold the bottle. “Oh, take that old split-bottom cheer away!” exclaimed her mother. “Everything upsets on it so! Get one from the kitchen—the one that’s got cherries painted on the back of it. What makes you ac’ so? You know what cheer I want. You’d tantalize the soul out of a saint!”

Book Details