The Cats of Tanglewood Forest (5 page)

“Hmm,” Annabelle said when Lillian was finished. “I like Jack Crow—he’s always full of gossip—but he’s a tricksy sort of a fellow. You’d do well to look closely
at anything he tells you, just to make sure his advice serves you and not somebody else.”

“You mean he was lying to me?”

“Can’t say. Old Mother Possum might be able to help you, but she’s a bit of a caution herself.”

“Jack Crow says she’s part witch.”

“She is that, and maybe something older, too. But I suppose it can’t hurt to talk to her—just saying you find her in a good mood.”

That sounded less promising than Lillian would have liked.

“What do you think I should do?” she asked.

“Hmm.”

“If you don’t mind telling me, that is.”

“I think you should be comfortable with who you are,” Annabelle finally said.

“But I’m a girl.”

“You
were
a girl. Now you’re a cat.”

“But—”

“The trouble with magic,” Annabelle said, “is that it never really lets go. If you work one magic to undo another, you might end up with a bigger problem than you had in the first place.”

“You mean, if I’m turned back into a girl, I’ll be dying again. Or already dead.”

“That, too. But I was thinking more of how everything we do wheels and spins through the world around us, leaving its mark on everything else.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Annabelle said. “It just means I wasn’t being clear. Let me put it another way. Maybe there’s a reason why the snake bit you, the cats changed you, and you’re no longer a girl. Maybe there’s something you can learn from being a cat instead of a little girl.”

“What kind of something?”

Annabelle gave a slow shake of her head. “It’s not my journey, so how could I even begin to guess?”

Finding answers was as elusive as finding fairies, Lillian thought.

“I’m sorry I can’t be of more help,” Annabelle said. “I always liked the little girl you were. Maybe you should go find Old Mother Possum. Maybe she can see a better way for you than I can.”

“I suppose,” Lillian said.

Annabelle gave another
hmm
—a long, slow one—and Lillian realized the cow had fallen asleep once more.

She thought of Jack Crow’s directions.

Just follow that split down into Black Pine Hollow—all the way to where the land goes marshy. Old Mother Possum’s got herself a den down there, under a big dead pine.

She supposed that was what she had to do: be brave and just go.

When she left the barn, she saw the bob of Aunt’s lantern, still searching through the meadow and the forest nearby. In a little while she’d probably go down the path to the Welches’ farm, and then they’d all be out looking for her. She wished she could assure Aunt that she was all right, but Lillian only had a cat’s voice, and Aunt didn’t know how to hear it. She could talk all she wanted, but Aunt would only hear the words as meows.

She turned to look the way she would have to go. The woods seemed very dark, and Jack Crow’s warning about dogs and foxes and coyotes rang in her ears. But there was no point in putting it off.

L
illian had never been in the forest at night before today, but it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. In fact, she decided as she walked through the tall grass behind the barn, it was rather nice. Magical, almost, from the fireflies dancing in the meadow below the orchard to the stars twinkling above. An owl’s cry from deeper in the woods sounded mysterious rather than spooky.

Lillian’s cat eyes had such good night vision that it was easy to see where she was going, and though the
night was filled with strange, scurrying sounds, her nose quickly identified each of them as harmless.

There, a row of small brown birds inside the shelter of a cedar, shifting in restless sleep.

There, a deer stepping delicately through the ferns—a doe, not the young stag she’d chased earlier today.

“Hello hello,” Lillian called out to the deer, but the doe was skittish and disappeared among the trees.

Reassured that things weren’t nearly as dangerous as her imagination could make them seem, Lillian walked in between the trees with a spring in her step and her tail held high. Her cat body gave her a grace and agility that she’d never before experienced. She bounded with ease over fallen branches and landed lightly on her paws.

The woods thrummed with the activity of nocturnal creatures. The scurrying of voles and mice tempted her to forget about Old Mother Possum and spend the night hunting and pouncing instead. But she remembered her goal and kept moving.

Lillian was deep into the forest when she felt the first pinprick of fear crawl up her spine. She thought she heard something following her. Every time she
stopped to listen—ears flat, body low to the ground—the echoing footfall she thought she’d heard wasn’t there, so onward she’d go. But the spring in her step was gone and the dark woods no longer felt like familiar territory or a safe place for a kitten to go journeying.

Jack Crow’s warnings returned to her. Why would she ever think that the forest at night would be safe? She should have waited until morning to set out.

At that moment, the wind changed direction. It came from behind her now, bringing the scent of—

She went up the nearest tree, her sharp nails propelling her along the rough bark to a branch six feet above the forest floor. Heart drumming in her little chest, she looked down at the fox that came sauntering out of the shadows—russet fur, black-tipped ears, and the plume of a tail with a white end that seemed to glow in the starlight. The fox sat on his haunches and looked up at her.

“Lordy, lordy,” he said. “I have never seen a kitten go up a tree that fast. Are you running on moonshine or what?”

Lillian could only look down from the safety of her branch and try to still the rapid beat of her heart.

“What’s the matter?” the fox asked when she didn’t answer. “Got your own tongue?”

He chuckled at his joke, but his gaze never left her. Lillian dug her claws deeper into the branch.

“Come on now, kitty,” he went on. “Why are you hiding up there?”

“I—I’m not a cat,” Lillian finally managed. “I’m a girl.”

“Sure you are.”

“It’s true.”

“Well, a girl wouldn’t be afraid of a little fox, would she? What do you think I’m going to do? Eat you?”

Lillian nodded.

“Well, Girl-in-a-Tree, I’ve got a belly full of field mice, so I’m not particularly inclined toward eating anything else just about now. But I do need to ask: What makes you think you’re safe up there, just saying I
was
inclined to have a little kitty snack?”

“F-foxes can’t climb trees.”

The fox grinned. “No, but we can jump.”

And just like that he was up in the air, his grinning face inches from hers until he dropped back down to the ground. Lillian scrambled up another couple of branches.

“Now, if I had nasty intentions,” the fox said, “I could have snatched you right then and there. But I didn’t, did I?”

Lillian gave a slow shake of her head.

“And do you know why?”

She shook her head again.

“I’m not looking for my supper,” he said. “But I’d be partial to a little conversation.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Because I’m bored.”

“I can talk from where I am,” Lillian said, trying to still the tremor in her voice. “I can hear you just fine, so I think you can hear me, too.”

“Can and do, but it’s giving me a crick in the neck having to look up at you like this.”

Better a crick in his neck, Lillian thought, than me in his stomach.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“T. H. Reynolds.”

“I’m Lillian. What does the
T.H.
stand for?”

“Truthful and Handsome. My mama always said that a child grows into his name, and I guess she was right, because just look at me.”

Lillian couldn’t suppress a giggle.

“What’s so funny?”

“Are you sure the
H
doesn’t stand for
humble
?” she asked.

He gave a disdainful sniff. “Very funny, but it’s not bragging if it’s true.”

Lillian didn’t know how much he could be trusted
to be truthful, but she had to admit he was a handsome fox.

“So where were you heading before you ran up that tree?” T.H. asked.

“Black Pine Hollow.”

T.H. cocked his head. “Not that it’s any of my business, but there’s only one reason anybody goes to Black Pine Hollow.”

“To see Old Mother Possum.”

“Oh, nobody just goes to
see
Old Mother Possum. They go there to ask her to work spells for them. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but playing around with her kind of mojo can be a perilous thing.”

Lillian nodded. “That’s what Annabelle said.”

“Who’s Annabelle?”

“Our cow, at my aunt’s farm.”

T.H. gave her a wide-eyed look. “Cats have their own
farms
now?”

“I told you, I’m not a cat.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re really a girl.” He stopped to think about that. “Which, I suppose,” he went on, “explains why you’re going to Black Pine Hollow. What it doesn’t explain is why your friend Annabelle is sending you there on your own.”

“She didn’t. She was just warning me to be careful—same as you. Jack Crow’s the one who told me about her first.”

“Jack Crow told you,” T.H. repeated.

“He told me to be polite and bring her a present. I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to visit a possum witch, but what am I supposed to do? I’m a girl, not a cat, but I can’t just be changed back, because then I’ll be a dead snakebit girl. I need someone to magic the change so that I’m a girl
and
alive.”

T.H. shook his head. “This sure isn’t boring, but I have to tell you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

So Lillian related the whole story, from when she started chasing the stag to where they were now.

“Now that is a tall, tall tale,” T.H. said.

“It’s true!”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. It’s just… you hear the stories, but you never expect to rub up against one your ownself.”

“It’s even less fun being stuck in the middle of one. But now you see why I have to go to Black Pine Hollow.”

“I do,” T.H. said. “And I’d like to come with you—oh,
don’t look at me like that. On my word of honor, I won’t try to eat you, or cause you any harm. I’m just curious how this will all turn out.”

Lillian sighed. She didn’t know what to do. Jack Crow told her not to trust hounds and foxes and coyotes. Annabelle told her not to trust Jack Crow. T.H. was telling her to trust him.

“You promise?” she asked.

Because she realized that if she went through the woods with a fox at her side, no one else was likely to bother her.

“I do, indeed.”

Uncertain, Lillian came down the tree, which was harder and less dignified than going up. She had to back down, claws digging deep into the bark. The last few feet she let herself go and landed with a small
thump
on the ground. Once there she held herself still, every nerve tense as she waited for the fox to pounce upon her. But T.H. kept his word.

She turned to look at him. He was
so
much bigger from this new perspective.

“Sometimes,” T.H. said, “Mama said the
T
in my name stands for
Trustworthy
, which is a lot like
Truthful.
I’m glad you gave me the chance to prove myself.”

“I’m not afraid,” Lillian told him.

“You should be—not of me,” he added at her look of alarm, “but of what that possum witch might do.”