The Cats of Tanglewood Forest (11 page)

“You want to come in now?” John asked.

Lillian nodded.

J
ohn’s mother didn’t seem at all surprised to see Lillian the next morning. As John had said, she simply laid out another plate and asked her how she’d slept. Creek children—ranging in age from toddlers to John’s older brother Samuel, who was almost eighteen—filled the kitchen with a happy clamor.

“Are you
really
going to see Aunt Nancy?” Samuel asked. “On purpose?”

“Samuel!” his mother said.

He shrugged. “I’m just asking.”

All the Creek children stopped eating and stared wide-eyed at Lillian to see what she would say.

Lillian played self-consciously with the food on her plate, pushing scrambled eggs and bacon around with her fork. A big knot of fear was lodged in her stomach, and none of this was helping. She managed to take a bite of fry bread before she stood up from the table.

“I should go,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m not hungry, but thanks for breakfast, Mrs. Creek.”

“My pleasure, dear. I hope everything goes well with Aunt Nancy.”

Lillian hesitated. “Why’s everybody so scared of her?”

“Well, now. I have to admit she can be a trial from time to time, but she’s never hurt a body that didn’t deserve to be taken down a peg or two. Just be polite, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Easy to say, Lillian thought, when it’s not you going to see her.

She thanked John’s mother again and went outside. John had already pointed out to her Aunt Nancy’s cabin, which stood a little distance from the others. It was a pine-log structure with a cedar-shingle roof and a small porch out front. A pair of towering sprucy-pine stood tall on either side. Bundles of drying herbs hung from the porch rafters, and a big black cat the size of a bobcat lay at the top of the stairs, staring right at her the way all the cats seemed to these days, like it was anticipating something.

That made it no easier, but she started for the cabin with her knees knocking and her heart pounding. She stopped with a jump when she heard Davy shout her name.

“The Welches are up at the farm looking for you,” he yelled as he ran over from the path that led to Aunt’s farm.

“Did you say anything to them?”

He gave her a withering look. “They never even knew I was there.”

“What were they doing?”

“Looking around, calling your name.”

“Do you think they’ll come here?” she asked.

“Probably.”

“Well, thanks for letting me know.”

She squared her shoulders and started back toward Aunt Nancy’s cabin.

“You’re
really
going to just knock on her door?” Davy asked.

“Please, Davy,” Lillian said over her shoulder. “Let it be. I need to see her.”

Davy shrugged. “I’ll come by later and pick up the pieces,” he called after her.

Lillian didn’t bother to answer. As she approached the stairs the big cat stood and arched its back before turning and leaping onto the other end of the porch rail.

“Pleased to meet you, too,” Lillian said as she edged her way up the stairs. Rubbing her hands together, she took a deep breath, then knocked on the door. There was no response. Lillian turned to look at Davy, who stood right where she’d left him, hands in his pockets. She was about to knock on the door again when it jerked open and there stood Aunt Nancy, tall and formidable.

“It’s you,” Aunt Nancy said.

Lillian cleared her throat, but before she could speak Aunt Nancy went on: “I should have realized when I saw you at the funeral. What have you
done
?”

“I didn’t—I mean, I never—”

“There are always consequences,” Aunt Nancy said. “Why can’t anyone remember that?” Her gaze went past Lillian to where Davy was standing. “Do you need something from me, Davy Creek?”

“N-no, ma’am.”

“Then why are you standing there? If you’ve nothing to do, I can find you a few chores.”

“I think I hear my dad calling me,” Davy said.

He jogged away and Aunt Nancy returned her attention to Lillian.

“You’d better come inside,” she said.

That was the last thing Lillian wanted to do. She didn’t know what Aunt Nancy thought she’d done, but she knew it wasn’t good.

“Well?” Aunt Nancy said. “I don’t have all day to dawdle out here.”

Lillian went inside, each step more reluctant than the one before.

Aunt Nancy’s cabin was clean and tidy, as opposed to the happy chaos of the one where John lived. More herbs hung from the inside rafters, but as clean as the rest of the cabin was, there were masses of cobwebs up in the ceiling corners. Lillian pretty much loved anything that walked or flew or swam, including spiders, but those cobwebs gave her the creeps.

Aunt Nancy motioned her to a wooden-backed chair at the small kitchen table and sat down across from her. She folded her hands on the polished pine surface of the table and regarded Lillian with her dark gaze.

“Tell me what you did,” she said, “and maybe we can fix it.”

“Do—do you mean my running away from the Welches’?” Lillian tried.

“That depends. When was that?”

“Last night.”

Aunt Nancy shook her head. “No, things have been going wrong since long before that. Haven’t you felt it?”

Lillian could barely think. This wasn’t going well at all. She knew several things felt wrong, but they all had to do with losing Aunt and her old life. None of them seemed like anything
she’d
done.

“Well, it’s not your running away,” Aunt Nancy said without waiting for her reply. “But I trust my bones. I can sense that day by day the world is going someplace it shouldn’t, and as soon as I found you standing there on my porch, I could see that you’re smack dab in the middle of it all. So I’ll ask you again: What. Have. You. Done?”

Lillian felt a pang of guilt in the pit of her stomach. She must have done
something
, elsewise Aunt Nancy wouldn’t be pointing the finger at her. And what about the cats, always watching from a distance? What made them so wary of her?

Cats… her strange dream about the snakebite and the cats’ magic. Could it have something to do with that? No, surely a dream wouldn’t count, and
she didn’t want to make Aunt Nancy angry by mentioning anything so silly.

“I honestly didn’t do anything.”

“But maybe something happened close to you? It would have been around the beginning of the summer.”

“I can’t think of anything except for Aunt dying,” Lillian said. “After her funeral you said, ‘It doesn’t have to be this way.’ What did you mean?”

“I said those words?”

Lillian nodded. “That’s why I came to see you.”

“That’s strange,” Aunt Nancy told her. “I don’t remember that at all, and I remember everything. Unless…”

Her voice trailed off.

“Unless what?” Lillian asked.

“Sometimes the spirits speak through me,” Aunt Nancy explained, “but unfortunately, only those around me can hear what they have to say. I don’t even know it’s happened unless someone tells me.” She gave Lillian a rueful smile. “And since most folks avoid me, they don’t think to mention it.”

“The spirits,” Lillian repeated. “What would spirits want with
me
?”

“I don’t know. But now you see that, clearly, whatever’s going on has something to do with you.”

“There’s maybe one thing, but…”

“Stop playing coy and tell me what happened.”

“Well… would a dream count?” Lillian asked.

Aunt Nancy gave her a considering look.

“What kind of dream?”

“A strange one. Sort of like a fairy tale or a… premonition.”

“Tell me.”

“But it was just a dream.”

“Dreams can be potent,” Aunt Nancy said. “Tell me what you remember of it.”

“I remember everything,” Lillian said.

And she did, so it took a while to tell. She started with how she’d gone chasing after the deer, and finished up with the possum witch sending her back.

“So I guess I was sleeprunning,” she finished, “though I’ve never heard of such a thing before. But I woke up running, and the next thing I knew, I came to that same beech tree in its glade, but there weren’t any cats there. No snake, neither—not that I could see. That didn’t come until later, when… when
I found Aunt in the corn patch. But you see what I mean about it feeling like a premonition?”

Aunt Nancy nodded. But instead of commenting on the dream, she said, “I’ve heard there was a possum witch in these hills, but I didn’t know where.”

Lillian stared at her with wide eyes.

“You mean… Was it all
real
?”

“Now, how would I possibly know a thing like that?” Aunt Nancy asked.

“But if the possum witch is real…”

“Hard to tell. Every dream doesn’t spell out a piece of the future. I just meant it was curious, is all.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, you said you’d never heard tell of a possum witch, but there you were, dreaming of one all the same.”

“So what does it mean?”

Aunt Nancy shook her head. “It feels like there’s something from the long ago sticking its nose here in our business, but it comes from so far back that I can’t get a proper fix on it. Just sit quiet for a spell. Let me try to hear what this old spirit is telling me.”

Curious as she was, Lillian had been warned many times in her life that it was unwise to attract the attention of the spirits, so she looked anywhere but
directly at Aunt Nancy, who’d fallen into a trance. Lillian glanced all around the cabin, but her gaze kept going to those huge cobwebs, which made her shudder. What were they doing there?

Aunt Nancy made no sound, but her lips moved silently from time to time, as though in conversation. Finally, she opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on Lillian.

“You’ve been through a lot, child, but your trials are not over.”

Lillian took a big breath, then let it out. “I’m ready to do anything to make things go back to the way they were before Aunt died.”

Aunt Nancy nodded. “As I said, your trials are not over. The spirits say you need to go to the bear people. Maybe they can help you sort this dream out.”

Lillian didn’t like the sound of that. She’d come here hoping for a solution to her problems, not more mysteries.

“What? I thought the spirits said they could help me.”

“Do not disrespect me or the spirits, Lillian, or you will have more problems than you could ever bargain for. You must go to the bear people to find answers.”

“Are they another tribe—like the Kickaha?”

“Depends on what you mean by
tribe
. I think of them as a very old tribe, but they are not exactly people.”

“What do you mean, not exactly people?” Lillian asked.

“Only that they go back to what the first people call the long ago, when the world was new. People weren’t so settled into their shapes in those days.”

“Are they friendly?” Lillian asked.

“Their people and ours don’t really get along,” Aunt Nancy said. “A long time ago we hunted them for their fur and meat. But they may be friendly to you.”

“You
ate
them?”

“Not when they were people. Nobody living on the rez today has ever hunted them. But memories are long, especially among the old tribes. You’ll need to go to them on your own.”

“I don’t understand why the spirits said ‘It doesn’t have to be this way,’ and now you’re sending me all by myself to meet some long-lost enemy.”

“I told you not to question the advice of the spirits, young lady. One of the boys can take you to where the rez ends, but after that, yes, you’ll have to go alone.”

“What if they eat me?”

“They probably won’t.”

“Probably?”

Aunt Nancy nodded. “I suggest you approach them with respect.”

Lillian sighed. Why does everybody always assume I’m going to be rude? she thought.

“So I’m supposed to go see these bear people,” Lillian said, “and if they don’t eat me, they might help me.”

“No one’s making you go.”

“It looks like I don’t have any other choice,” said Lillian.

Aunt Nancy nodded. “You need to fix this thing, or it’s only going to get worse.” She stood up from the table, adding, “I’ll find someone to get you on your way.”