Tapping the Dream Tree (54 page)

“Did you hear me roar like the Father of Cats?” Li'l Pater asked me.

“That was you?”

He nodded, then whapped his tail on the ground to make that
pit-a-pat
sound we'd heard after the panther's scream.

“Guess you saved the day,” I told him.

“Bet you're glad I came along now.”

“Better than glad,” I said and I meant it.

Both fairy courts were gone and we were alone in the meadow now, just Aunt Lillian and us Dillard girls, the Apple Tree Man and Li'l Pater. My sisters didn't know what to make of this pair of fairy people, but they were taking it in good stride. I guess with everything they'd already seen today, spending time with a little cat man and a fellow who looked more like a tree than a man was pretty tame. Heck, Grace and Ruth were already tussling in the grass with Li'l Pater like he was some long-lost friend of theirs, paying no mind to the rest of us.

But while I was grateful for the help the pair of them had given us, I was pretty much done with fairylands and the people in them. I went over to where the Apple Tree Man and Aunt Lillian were talking.

“I want to go home,” I told him. “I purely hate it here.”

“Of course,” the Apple Tree Man said. “But you know you've only seen the worst this place has to offer. There is far more laughter and glory in this land than could ever be represented by feuding fairy courts.”

What happened to how dangerous it was for ordinary folks to cross over here? I wondered. But I didn't press him on it. I got the sense he wasn't talking to me anyway, but to Aunt Lillian. I don't know why I didn't see this coming, but I knew as soon as she put her hand on his arm that she'd be staying.

“I won't be coming back,” she said.

“I guess I knew that,” I said, “but that don't make it any easier.”

“I know. But I've got a chance here …” She shot a girlish glance at the Apple Tree Man—like Adie at her worst—and I had to smile. “I guess I just need to take it.”

I didn't know what to say. It wasn't my place to steal this moment of happiness, but I was going to miss her something terrible.

“I've already made arrangements with my lawyer,” she went on. “I wanted everything to go to you. I was thinking of it as an inheritance, but now … I suppose it's a gift. You're the only one I know that will take care of all I hold dear. I just have to come back and stop by his office to sign it over to you to make it official.”

Now I really didn't know what to say.

“What?” Laurel asked. “You mean you're giving her that ramshackle old homestead?”

Bess elbowed her in the side.

“Sorry,” Laurel muttered.

But Aunt Lillian didn't take offense.

“The homestead,” she said. “Yes. But also the hills. I'm not sure how much land's involved. Something in the neighborhood of a hundred square miles, I reckon. The lawyer will know for sure.”

“You own all that land behind our farm?” Adie asked.

“No one owns the land,” Aunt Lillian told her. “But I guess I hold the paper on it.”

“But you…”

Aunt Lillian grinned. “Live plain and simple and poor as a churchmouse?”

“Something like that.”

“Maybe she doesn't have any money,” Elsie said, “but I'm guessing Lily McGlure has more than enough.”

“Who's Lily McGlure?” Laurel asked.

“Famous artist,” Adie told her. “Loads of money.”

I wondered how Adie'd come to know something like that, but it got explained pretty quick.

“I'm sorry,” Elsie was saying to Aunt Lillian. “I know we shouldn't have looked in that chest with all your paintings and sketchbooks, but we got scared when we couldn't find you or Janey. So then we got thinking about bodies and where you could hide them …”

“That's all right, girl,” Aunt Lillian said. “It's nothing I'm ashamed of. I just always kept my distance from being Lily McGlure on account of once folks know you got money, they come hounding you for it and you never do get no peace. Folks always knew me as Lily Kindred, living with her aunt, Em Kindred, though I was born Lillian McGlure. It was just plain happenstance that the McGlure name got used on my art at the first, but when I saw the advantage of it, well, I just left it that way.”

“You're a famous artist?” I asked. “When did that happen?

“Oh, a long time ago,” Aunt Lillian said. “I started in on drawing when I was younger than you and I guess I did pretty well because, after a time, I had me all these folks in Newford, and even further off, falling over themselves to buy what I was doing. Got me an agent and everything, selling both the originals as well as prints and the like. Aunt Em and me, well, we didn't need more than we had—and didn't want it neither. So first off, I bought all this land to keep it safe from the developers and the mining and logging companies and such, and then I had any other money coming my way put into a trust fund to take care of taxes and all.

“A body could get richer'n hell, selling off the land and using the money in that fund, I reckon.”

“I would never do that,” I told her.

She smiled. “I know. Why do you thinking I'm leaving it to you, girl? But you ever find you need some money, maybe to get you an education, or for one of your sisters, don't you be shy about selling off some of that old artwork of mine. And you'll find a treat or two, down at the bottom of that chest. I got me three color studies by Milo Johnson, any one of which'd fetch top dollar at an auction.”

Elsie's eyes went wide, but the rest of us didn't much know who she was talking about.

“Probably another famous artist,” Laurel said.

“Only the most famous to paint in these hills,” Elsie said, “after LilyMcGlure.”

“Now you're embarrassing me, girl,” Aunt Lillian said, but I could see she was pleased with the compliment all the same.

“Why did you stop painting?” Elsie asked.

Aunt Lillian shrugged. “I don't know. I got old and my fingers got stiff. And I said pretty much all I had to say with my paints, I reckon, though I've still been drawing in one of my sketchbooks from time to time. The thing is, you do a thing long enough, don't matter how much you love it, it can start to wear some and you want to turn to something else. Gets so you look at what could be the perfect picture and you just want to hold it in your head and appreciate it for what it is, ‘stead of trying to capture it on canvas.

“And then once Aunt Em died, I didn't really have the time no more.”

She turned to me.

“You remember this, girl,” she said. “You don't have to be no spinster to live out on that old homestead and do it right. Don't you be afraid to go into town from time to time, maybe find yourself a boyfriend.”

I just shrugged. That didn't seem even close to likely, but I didn't see no point in arguing the fact.

“There's just one more thing,” Aunt Lillian said. “I'm leaving you with a lot of benefits, I guess, though truth to tell, it just lets my heart rest easy knowing that everything I got's passing into such good and capable hands. But I've got to leave you with an unpaid debt as well.”

“What's that?”

“Well, that Father of Cats that Li'l Pater and the fairies were talking about—that's the same old black panther in those stories I told you ‘bout when I was a girl. You ‘member them?”

I gave a slow nod.

“Well then, I reckon you remember how I owe him. That debt's supposed to pass on to my children and their children after. But I never had me a child. I guess the closest I've come is you, so I'm asking you to take that on as well.”

“What… what's he going to ask me to do?”

I knew I couldn't say no to Aunt Lillian, but I was remembering how even those fierce bee fairies had seemed a little nervous when they thought the Father of Cats was taking an interest in their affairs. And if he scared
them
…

“I don't rightly know,” Aunt Lillian said. “But I told him I'd only do whatever it was if no one would be hurt by it.”

“The Father of Cats is an honorable being,” the Apple Tree Man said. “What he asks of you might be hard, but it won't be wrong.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I'll take on that debt for you, Aunt Lillian.” I turned to the Apple Tree Man, adding, “And I guess I owe you an apology just like I did Li'l Pater. I should have just trusted you.”

He smiled. “Nothing wrong with someone needing to earn your trust. I'm just happy it all worked out the way it did. You were very brave out there with the bee fairies.”

“I didn't feel brave. I just felt stupid.”

“Oh, I know,” Bess said. “And scared, too. I was sure they'd hear my knees knocking against each other from one end of the meadow to the other.”

I just looked at her for a long moment.

“But you and Laurel,” I finally said. “You're always doing stuff in front of people. Playing and singing and dancing.”

“Well, I get nervous doing that sometimes, too,” Bess said. “Laurel's the one that's not scared of anything.”

Laurel laughed. “What's the worst that can happen? You make a fool of yourself, but life goes on.”

“Except here we could've got ourselves shot like the queen did,” I said.

Laurel went quiet pretty fast.

“There's that,” she said.

I turned back to the Apple Tree Man.

“It's time we were going,” I said.

I'd told the truth before, about not wanting to be in this place. But right now I didn't want to go because it meant leaving Aunt Lillian behind. I figured I'd probably see her from time to time, but nothing was going to be the same anymore. I was happy to look after that place of hers for her, but I was thinking how that could be a lonely way to live, what with her being gone and all.

I guess she knew what I was thinking. She came up and put her arms around me and just held me for a time.

“You'll do fine, girl,” she said. “I don't expect nothing less from you.”

I held on tight to her for a moment longer, then we gathered up Grace and Ruth from across the meadow where they were still playing with Li'l Pater and we all made our way back to where the door into the Apple Tree Man's house opened out on this world.

I guess Root pretty much thought he'd died and gone to heaven when me and all my sisters came traipsing out of the Apple Tree Man's tree. He jumped up and barked and ran around in circles, not knowing who to greet first. But he finally settled on me, jumped up and put his paws on my stomach, looking at me like I was the best thing he could ever find in this world which, I suppose, from his point of view I was, seeing's how I'm the one that first found him and does most of the looking after for him. But he was a dog full of love, and after I'd fussed some with him, he went and visited everybody else, full of wet kisses, that tail of his wagging so hard you'd think it was going to come off.

“Well, some things don't change,” Adie said as she took Root's paws in her hands and pushed him away from her. “I swear that dog's got double his quota of loving enthusiasm.”

“He just missed us,” Ruth said, bending down and not minding Root's sloppy kisses all over her face.

Adie pulled her to her feet.

“Don't let him do that,” she said. “He's just putting germs all over your face.”

“Is that true?” Ruth asked Elsie, the Dillard expert in all things natural.

Elsie shrugged. “Probably.”

“Just think where that tongue of his has been,” Adie said.

“Yeah,” Laurel put in. “You forget what he uses to lick his butt?”

I guess we were pretty much home and settling right back into our usual sisterly ways.

“Anybody know what time it is?” Adie asked.

None of us had a watch, but I checked the position of the sun.

“Four,” I said. “Maybe four-thirty.”

“We should get a move on,” Adie said. “Mama's going to kill us and don't think for a minute she's going to buy the story of what really happened to us today.”

“I just need to get Henny back into the barn and feed the chickens,” I said.

“We can help,” Grace and Ruth said in the same breath.

“And we have to have one more look in that chest of Aunt Lillian's,” Elsie said.

Adie started to shake her head, but as soon as Elsie brought it up, we were all of us interested.

“What's another half hour,” Bess asked, “when we're already as late as we are?”

“Yeah,” Laurel said. “You've already had a peek at all of those pictures of hers.”

I don't suppose Adie had any real choice in the matter, not with all of us determined. Laurel and Elsie rounded up Henny and put her back into the barn, milking her and making sure that she had water and feed, while the younger twins and I saw to the chickens. We threw out extra feed for them, in case I was late getting back up tomorrow, and made sure Henny had plenty of water and food, too. Then we all trooped into the house and up the stairs to the second floor.

I guess with Aunt Lillian having been this famous artist I should have expected her work to be good, but I was still surprised when I got an actual look at all those drawings and paintings that filled the chest.

“They're not paintings,” Elsie explained, when Laurel wondered aloud why the wooden panels Aunt Lillian had used weren't hanging in some museum. “They're what you call studies, something you do in preparation of the real painting.”

Ruth picked one up and held it closer to her face. “They look like real paintings to me.”

“Sure do,” Grace said. “They look good enough to hang in a museum to me.” She turned to her twin. “Remember that school trip we took to the museum in Tyson? These pictures are better than half the stuff we saw in there.”