The Cats of Tanglewood Forest (9 page)

Though the weight of the old woman’s gaze was heavy, it felt light compared to the weight of Aunt’s passing.
It had been hard for Lillian to look at Aunt laid out on the parlor table, hard when Samuel and John Creek lifted her into the coffin they’d built from scrap wood they’d found in the barn, harder still when they nailed shut the lid. Every bang of the hammer felt like a nail being punched into Lillian’s chest.

And now the preacher was reading from his Bible, and soon they’d cover the coffin with dirt and Aunt would be gone forever. Her heart was breaking and her mind was spinning. She couldn’t imagine what life was going to be like from here on out.

She couldn’t concentrate on what the preacher was saying because it just felt senseless and empty. But when the brief ceremony was over, she stood tall, just like Aunt would have wanted her to, and accepted the condolences of the neighbors before they left.

The Creeks melted away into the forest, all except for Aunt Nancy, who lifted her hand and beckoned to Lillian with a long, dark finger. Harlene and Earl were talking in earnest to the preacher about something to do with Lillian, but they didn’t even seem to think she should be part of the conversation. Relieved to get away, Lillian circled the grave and went to where Aunt Nancy stood.

The other figure was no longer there—if there ever had been anyone else standing behind Aunt Nancy. Perhaps she’d imagined it. Considering her dream—how real
it
had seemed—Lillian thought her imagination was much stronger than she wanted it to be.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Aunt Nancy said. “Your aunt was a good woman, and a good friend to my people. She will be missed.”

Lillian nodded. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”

Aunt Nancy’s dark gaze rested on her for a long moment, and then something shimmered in her eyes, as though she were mildly startled.

“You know it doesn’t have to be this way,” she said.

Her voice seemed different—like it was coming from far away.

“P-pardon me? I don’t understand,” Lillian said.

“I think you do.”

A hand fell on Lillian’s shoulder before she could ask Aunt Nancy what she meant. She turned to see Earl behind her.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I was just…” Lillian began, turning back to Aunt Nancy, but there was no one there now. Talking to
myself, she thought. “I was wondering why they all left so quickly,” she finished. “The Creeks, I mean.”

“You don’t ever want to try to figure them out,” Earl said. “It’ll just make your head hurt. They may have been your aunt’s friends, but they’ve always been a real strange bunch.”

“I guess….”

“Still, it was good of them to come by to pay their respects. And they’ve been a big help these past couple of days.”

Lillian nodded.

Earl squeezed her shoulder.

“Come on,” he said, steering her back toward the grave, where Harlene and the preacher waited. “We’re going home now.”

Home? Lillian thought. The Welches’ farm wasn’t her home. She glanced around, her heart filled with affection and sorrow. She was the last Kindred.
This
was her family home. But she let him lead her away.

As they followed the path back to the Welches’ farm, Lillian trailed after the others, holding her shoes in her hand. She paused at the edge of her little family graveyard and turned to look back to the edge of the woods where the Creeks had stood. Something
stirred in the undergrowth, and then Big Orange came out onto the grass. A half dozen other cats followed, with Black Nessie bringing up the rear. They sat in a ragged line, gazing in her direction. Lillian had the funny feeling that they were paying their respects, too.

She lifted a hand to them, but they didn’t move. They were like a line of solemn little statues.

“Lillian?” Earl called.

At the sound of his voice the cats vanished like ghosts back in among the trees.

“I’m coming,” she said.

As she followed the Welches and the preacher, she found herself thinking about what Aunt Nancy had said.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

What had she meant?

Lillian worried the words forward and back as they made their way down the hill.

L
illian’s first week at the Welch farm passed in a jumbled daze. All of Aunt’s livestock—Annabelle, Henry, and the chickens—had been moved there, adding to a busy routine of chores. At least they helped distract her from her sorrow.

Lillian fed the chickens, tossing a little extra feed to the wild birds, just as she always did. There were pigs to look after, a garden to hoe and weed, horses to groom, and, of course, cows to milk and feed. She still set aside saucers for the forest cats.

But none of the cats came anywhere close to her now,
even though some, like Big Orange and Black Nessie, had followed her down from Aunt’s. Naturally, the Welch farm cats were very shy of her—after all, they still had to get to know her. But strangely, the cats that she did know kept their distance as well. There were no more head butts from Big Orange, and Black Nessie didn’t weave in and out around her legs anymore.

Something had changed. No, everything had changed. And Lillian had never felt more alone in her life.

Harlene tried hard—too hard—to make Lillian feel welcome. Her constant hovering, fixing favorite meals, offering to sew her a new dress, all of it just made Lillian miss Aunt, the farm, and her independence even more. All she wanted was to be back home at Kindred farm.

At first, Harlene had objected to letting her go off on her own after chores, but Lillian pointed out that it was what she had always done, and Earl finally said, “Stop trying to coddle the girl. She’s not a prisoner.” So Harlene compromised, saying Lillian could leave, but only if she took the dogs along for safety.

Lillian agreed to Harlene’s rules—at least for now. She would have done anything to get back home, and anyway, Buddy and Mutt were good companions, always ready for a romp in the woods. More often than not she raced them all the way to the farm, just to feel the summer breeze in her hair and pretend for a moment that she was still a carefree little girl.

Sometimes she’d go to Aunt’s vegetable garden and hoe between the rows.

She’d drop off a biscuit at the base of the Apple Tree Man’s trunk, though she wasn’t sure anymore if she did it out of habit, or because it was something Aunt used to tease her about.

But she never went into the corn patch.

Often, she thought about what Aunt Nancy had told her.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The wild cats watched her, always keeping their distance, even when the dogs were off chasing squirrels. They seemed to be wary of something, but Lillian had no idea what it could be.

She’d remember her dream then—that circle of cats around the beech tree—or she’d think of how they’d come to pay their respects at Aunt’s funeral.

Those memories would make her begin to believe once again that the world was maybe a more mysterious place than a body might think.

Around the Welch farm, Harlene chattered and fussed, but Earl was all business. He didn’t ignore
Lillian, but he didn’t pander to her, either, for which she was grateful. Earl’s conversations focused mostly around practicalities.

“A farm doesn’t run by itself,” he liked to say before attending to whatever task was at hand. One day he’d make sure the paddock was sound. Another, he might fix the rockwork around the well.

Lillian considered that as she went about her own chores.

One afternoon when she returned to Aunt’s, she tried to look at the place with new eyes. She noted how the barn door sagged a little. Looking at the door and its hinges, she realized she didn’t have the first idea of how to fix the sag. It wasn’t a problem now, but come winter…

That night at the supper table she asked Earl if he’d teach her how to fix things around the farm. Earl smiled, but instead of answering straightaway, he looked over to Harlene.

“Well, you know, Lillian,” Harlene said, “that’s not something a lady needs to know.”

Lillian gave her a puzzled look. “I’m not a lady.”

“I know. You’re just a girl now. But you’re getting old enough that you need to start thinking about how you carry yourself. Just because your Aunt Fran had to run that whole place by her ownself doesn’t mean you have to as well.”

“But I
want
to. Aunt managed fine, and I can, too.”

“Dear girl, you have no idea what you’re saying. I don’t know that we can find a body to buy that old farm of yours, it being so far from town and all, but I think we should start asking around.”

“No!” Lillian blurted. Whatever was Harlene thinking?

But Harlene pressed on.

“In a few years you’ll be wanting to catch the eye of some fine young man, and there’s no meeting other people in these hills. You’ll need some learning on how to be a proper young lady, not some barefoot tomboy, so you’d best be going to school in the fall.”

“But I don’t want to sell the farm, and I don’t want go to school,” Lillian said.

The idea of courting was too embarrassing to even mention.

“Everybody needs some learning. You want your
aunt to be proud of you, don’t you, when she’s looking down at you from Heaven?”