The Cats of Tanglewood Forest (20 page)

“This is interesting,” she said. “I don’t get many human visitors, and never one so young as you. Have you come for a potion, girl? Something to make some boy love you? Or maybe you’re looking for wealth or
power—a piece of magic that can take you out of these hollows and into the wide world beyond?”

Lillian shook her head. “I’m the kitten you met at the beginning of the summer.”

“I see. And the reason we met was?”

“I was a kitten. You turned me back into a girl.”

“That seems unlikely. I can’t stop the tales they tell of me, but the truth is I don’t have the kind of mojo something like that would take. And if I did find a way to do it, I’m fairly certain I’d remember it.”

Lillian shook her head. “I’m not saying this right. You didn’t so much change me from a kitten to a girl as send me back in time so that it didn’t happen in the first place—my being changed from a girl into a kitten, I mean. By the cats.”

“You’d think I’d remember that as well.”

“Well, it’s true.”

But even as she spoke the words Lillian realized that she hadn’t thought this through. When she’d gone back to that time before the snake bit her, not only had she not been bitten by the snake anymore, but so far as Old Mother Possum was concerned, Lillian had never met
her
before, either.

Old Mother Possum nodded. “I can see that you
believe what you’re telling me, but it’s not so clear for me.”

She studied Lillian again for so long that Lillian began to fidget. Old Mother Possum tapped her staff lightly on the ground and the bottles sang once more. The old woman listened intently, then appeared to come to a decision.

“My bottles sense some familiarity about you, otherwise I’d send you on your way. Come inside,” she said. “Let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this.”

Lillian gave the tree a dubious look. She didn’t see anything that looked like a window, never mind a door.

“You didn’t come inside the last time?” Old Mother Possum asked.

Lillian shook her head. She wasn’t one bit sure about this, but at least the possum witch was starting to believe her.

Old Mother Possum motioned toward the dead pine. “The trick,” she said, “is to simply walk forward and expect there to be a door to let you in.”

“Really?”

“Just do what I do.”

Lillian watched as the old woman walked forward.
Just when she was about to walk smack into the tree, she vanished.

Lillian stared at the tree. She didn’t think she could do that. But then she thought of Aunt, remembered her still, gray features the last time she’d seen her, lying in her coffin before they nailed the lid on. Straightening her shoulders, she took a breath and walked toward the tree.

There’s a door, there’s a door, there’s a door….

She flinched as she was about to walk into the tree, but then the tree wasn’t there and she stumbled forward. A bony hand caught her and helped her regain her balance. She blinked in the light, though it wasn’t bright, then looked around in wonder.

Where there should have been, at most, a hollow tree, was instead the interior of a cozy cottage with a stone floor and wooden walls. A small fire burned in a hearth with two chairs in front of it and a carpet under the chairs. There were candles on the mantel, and more on the wooden table in the center of the room. She spied a small bed in a corner with a chest at its foot. On the opposite wall, a cluttered counter ran the length of the room, filled with all kinds of
little jars and boxes and bottles. Drying herbs hung from the rafters above.

Lillian looked up. Why would there be rafters inside a tree? How could any of this even be real?

She turned back to where she’d come in. Framed by the doorway, she could still see the marsh out there.

“Is—is this magic?” she asked.

Her hostess smiled. “No, it’s simply my home.”

The old woman led Lillian to one of the chairs by the fire. “I was about to pour myself some tea when you came calling,” she said. “Would you like some?”

“Yes, please.”

Old Mother Possum fussed with a teapot, cups, saucers, and honey at the long counter. Taking some biscuits out of a small crock, she set them on a flowered plate.

“Would you mind?” she said, holding the plate out to Lillian.

Lillian got up and carried the plate over to a small table between their chairs. The biscuits smelled just like Aunt’s—heavenly.

The possum woman handed Lillian a cup of tea, then returned for her own. Picking up a small handloom, she made her way back to her own chair.
She took a sip of her tea and a bite of biscuit and smacked her lips in appreciation before setting both back on the saucer.

“Now, let’s see,” she said, holding the loom on her lap.

She bent down to examine the unfinished tapestry, and Lillian leaned closer to look at it as well. It appeared to be an endless flurry of leaves, eddying in a breeze so that they floated one over the other.
Lillian didn’t know much about weaving, but she didn’t need to in order to know that the workmanship was exquisite. Color and shading gave the leaves the appearance of having fallen onto the cloth, rather than being woven into it.

Old Mother Possum sifted through the loose wool that hung from the end of the loom, her thin fingers deftly separating one strand from the other until she finally pulled one free.

“Here we are,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Let’s see. A night early in the summer. A kitten in the marsh, spraying mud and water onto my bottles to make them sing. And then… ah, yes…”

“I don’t see anything,” Lillian said around a mouthful of biscuit. “What are you looking at?”

“Possibilities. All the things that
could
happen, depending on the choices we make.”

Her gaze lifted to capture Lillian’s.

“Things didn’t turn out so happily for you, did they?” the possum woman said.

Lillian shook her head. “Can you fix it?”

“By
fix it
, do you mean return things to when you were still a kitten asking for my help?”

“Please.”

“Of course I can.”

Lillian waited eagerly, but the old woman merely set the loom aside and picked up her tea once more.

“Um,” Lillian finally began.

“I’ll be needing some kind of payment,” Old Mother Possum said.

Stupid, stupid, Lillian thought. She was so stupid. Of course the possum witch would want some kind of payment.

“I don’t have anything,” she said. “Last time…”

Old Mother Possum’s eyebrows rose.

“Last time?” she prompted when Lillian didn’t go on.

“Last time you didn’t ask for anything.”

“Goodness. I must have been feeling generous that night.”

But then Lillian remembered the tincture bottle at the bottom of her food pouch. Pulling it out, she gave it to the possum witch.

“I have this,” she said.

Old Mother Possum smiled as she held the bottle up to the light.

“This will make a nice addition to my tree,” she
said, “but it’s such a small thing to trade for a big magic. Do you have anything else?”

“Maybe I could do something for you in trade?” Lillian tried.

The possum witch nodded. “Now, that’s a fine idea. Why don’t you tell me your story?”

“My story?”

“A story a body’s never heard before can be just as good as coin. Better, if it’s a good one.”

“But didn’t your loom tell you everything that happened?” Lillian asked.

“Stories are meant to be told,” Old Mother Possum responded, settling herself in her chair.

“I’m in kind of a hurry.”

Old Mother Possum smiled. “There’s no rush, dear. Whether I return you at this moment or in an hour, you’ll still go back to the exact same point in time. It’s just the way it works.”

Lillian fidgeted impatiently in her chair and turned her teacup around and around on its saucer. “But Aunt—”

“Will still be there. You’ll still be a kitten. Everything will be the way it was. So we have time for your story.”

“It’s not very interesting.”

“Really?”

“Well, big chunks of it aren’t.”

“So tell me the parts that are,” Old Mother Possum said. “Unless you have something else to trade?”

“Well, the worst part,” Lillian began, “was when I got back to the farm and found Aunt lying in the corn patch….”

Lillian had almost finished a second mug of tea before she came to the end of her story. She’d skimmed over some parts, and she hadn’t said why T.H. had stayed behind both times she’d come to Black Pine Hollow.

“So he’s out there in the marsh right now?” Old Mother Possum asked when Lillian was finished.

Lillian nodded slowly.

“Now, I’ve never known a shy fox. Nor one to pass up the chance for a free meal.”

“Oh, he’s just… um… you know…”

“In fact, I do. He thinks I’m mad at him for eating my husband.”

“You knew all along? And you’re not mad?”

“Why would I be? William was already dead. It’s the natural order of things, whether we go back into the earth or fill somebody’s stomach.”

“How did you know?”

Old Mother Possum smiled. “You do remember I’m a witch, don’t you? What you and your friend might have asked was, how could I
not
know?”

“I suppose. Well, T.H. will be happy to hear that.”

That made the possum woman laugh.

“Oh, he won’t believe you,” she said. “He’ll just think it’s some trick to get him to drop his guard so that I can catch him in a spell.”

“Why would he think that?”

“Because it’s how a fox’s mind works. He’s always sly himself, so naturally he expects the same of others.”

“I wouldn’t play a trick on him.”

“And maybe he even believes it,” Old Mother Possum said, then she stood up. “Well, this has been very nice, but it’s time you went back and the world gets itself all rearranged once more.”

“Will—will it hurt?”

“Did it hurt the last time?”

“No.”

“Then why should this be any different?” the possum witch asked.

Before Lillian could reply, Old Mother Possum snapped her fingers—

A
nd everything changed again.

One moment she was a girl, sitting in a chair by a fire, the next she was a kitten, standing outside in the marsh with the tall dead pine rearing up above her. The only thing that didn’t change was that Old Mother Possum was present in both places. But whereas a moment ago Lillian had looked down at the woman from her taller height, now she was looking up because she was a kitten again.

“Is—is everything back to normal?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing ever changed here,” the possum
witch told her. “I just let you have a look-see at one of the other paths that run alongside this world of ours. Other possibilities, if you will.”

Lillian looked at her, confusion plain in her kitten eyes.