The Cats of Tanglewood Forest (17 page)

She’d been looking forward to coming to the barn all morning. The bears might be a cranky bunch, but now she was finally making some friends.

Rufus jumped down from a rafter onto some bales of hay. He watched Lillian fetch a stool and a bucket for the milk and began to lick his lips.

“This is
my
favorite part of the day,” he said.

Lillian grinned at him and began to milk the first cow, singing “Jimmy Crack Corn” and then “Camptown Races” as she’d promised. After a few more songs, she turned to Rufus.

“Yesterday Star said that cats see everything.”

He looked up, his whiskers white with milk.

“It’s true,” he told her. “That’s because we pay attention.”

Lillian wanted to ask him about the cats back home—what were
they
paying attention to when they looked at her?—but the cows wanted more songs, so
she sang to them while she finished milking. Then there were the chickens to see to—as gossipy a bunch as she’d ever heard—and the pigs to feed, always intent on filling their bellies.

She’d brought a honey and cheese sandwich for her breakfast and went and sat down on a bench outside the back door of the barn to eat it. The other cats had scattered after she’d given them their milk, but Rufus followed her outside.

“Do you want some?” she asked him.

“I wouldn’t say no to a bit of that cheese.”

But before he could take a bite he crouched down low, ears flat, gaze fixed on something that seemed to be moving toward them.

“Don’t move, Lillian,” he said in a soft voice. “There’s danger approaching.”

But saying “don’t move” to Lillian was like saying “move right now.” She had to turn. When she saw who it was slinking through the nearby brush, she smiled and gave a wave.

“Don’t run off,” she told Rufus.

“But that fox…”

“It’s all right. It’s only T.H. He’s a friend of mine.”

“You’re friends with a
fox
?”

“You really don’t have to worry. He would never eat a cat.” She called over to T.H., “You don’t eat cats, do you?”

T.H. trotted up to the barn.

“Not yet,” he said.

Lillian frowned at him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he went on. “That’s just the way my friend the Russian fox says no. He says
nyet
.”

Lillian pursed her lips. “Where would you meet a Russian fox?”

T.H. shrugged. “You go here and there and sooner or later you meet everyone.”

He sat beside Lillian and studied Rufus. “How do, Mr. Cat,” he said. “Don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure before today.”

Rufus gave the fox a suspicious look. “What does the
T.H.
stand for?” he asked.

“Truthful and Handsome. But don’t go blaming me for being full of myself or anything. My mama gave me that name. Said it was something to grow into.”

“You seem an unlikely pair to be friends.”

T.H. nodded. “And we were an even more unlikely pair when we first met. Apparently, back then Lillian was still a kitten.”

“A
kitten
?” Rufus said at the same time as Lillian said, “That was just a dream.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” T.H. said. “But I’ve been thinking on that. What if it wasn’t a dream?”

“But it has to have been. There were magical cats and talking cows and crows and…”

“Foxes?” T.H. asked with a lift of one brow. “Like me? You know a lot about me from one dream.”

“I don’t understand that part. I just know that I can understand you today because… well…”

“You drank some magical potion.”

Lillian nodded. “So you see, it’s not the same at all.”

“I think it’s exactly the same. The cats changed a snakebit girl into a kitten, and the kitten got the possum witch to make it all as though it had never happened. It’s all magic, Lillian. Doesn’t matter if you go at it frontward or back.”

“Is anyone going to tell me what you’re talking about?” Rufus said.

“Well, now, Mr. Cat,” T.H. said. “It’s as simple as catching a cedar waxwing who’s got himself drunk on fermented berries. You see a girl standing here, and I see a girl who used to be a kitten and who, before that, used to be a girl.”

He looked at the half-eaten sandwich in Lillian’s hand.

“Are you going to finish that?” he asked.

“I dreamed,” Lillian told Rufus, “that I got bit by a snake and I was going to die, except these cats saved me by turning me into a kitten. But then I couldn’t figure out how to be a girl again because, even if I did find some magic to make me a girl, I’d be a girl dying of a snakebite. So then I went to see Old Mother
Possum, and she… she turned everything back to before I got bit, and then…”

Lillian suddenly jumped to her feet and turned to T.H. “Do you know what this means?” she cried, then went on before he could answer. “If my dream
was
real, I can just go back to the possum witch and ask her to undo whatever it was that she did!”

“But if she’ll do it—and I’m not saying she will—you’ll be a kitten again.”

She nodded. “That’s not the point. If
I’m
the one that gets snakebit, then Aunt won’t. She’ll still be alive! I’d rather be a kitten forever if it means Aunt doesn’t have to die.”

“Are you saying
this
is all a dream?” Rufus asked. “Because it doesn’t feel like it to me.”

“Me, either,” T.H. said. “Interesting, isn’t it?”

“No,” the cat said. “It’s confusing. And more than just a little disturbing.”

“That’s it,” Lillian said. “I’m going back to Black Pine Hollow and Old Mother Possum. Now.”

“Hold on there,” T.H. said. “What’s the hurry? If you run off now, those bears will chase you down before you get as far as the berry patch.”

“Aunt doesn’t have to be dead,” Lillian said. “Don’t you understand? All those horrible things don’t have to have happened.”

“Yes, yes,” T.H. said. “That’s clear. But really, I’ve got to ask you again, what’s the hurry? However long it takes to get to Black Pine Hollow won’t matter. If you do manage to convince the possum witch to help you turn the clock back a second time—whether it’s today or a week from today—it will still be like no time has passed for anyone.”

“It’ll have passed for me,” Lillian said. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll wait until they’re all asleep before I sneak out.”

T.H. nodded. “That makes sense. Do you want some company on your journey?”

“You mean with you walking at my side instead of skulking around in the underbrush nearby?”

“You need to let that go. I didn’t know who you were then.”

“But you were still following me.”

He gave another nod. “Because I was curious. I saw all the cats watching you, and I felt some connection to you, but I didn’t know what it was. Now I do.”

Lillian was so giddy with the thought that she might truly be able to make it so that Aunt had never died that she decided to stop teasing him.

“I’d be happy for the company,” she said.

“Now about that other half of your sandwich,” T.H. said.

Lillian laughed and laid it on the bench. “Be my guest.”

“I’ll wait for you in the woods,” T.H. said, munching happily. “Where the path starts.”

Lillian nodded. “I’ll see you tonight.”

I
t was hard, hard, hard to go through the rest of the day pretending that nothing had happened and she wasn’t going to run away tonight. But it had, and she was.

It seemed impossible that the possum witch had been able to turn back time. But it made sense. It was why both she and Aunt Nancy felt there was something unbalanced with the world—and it did have everything to do with her. It explained why the cats had been staring at her. They’d known the problem all along. They just hadn’t been able to tell her.

But she knew now, and she was the only one who could fix things—so long as Old Mother Possum would help her. So long as she
could
.

Lillian didn’t know much about magic. Maybe a witch couldn’t do the same spell twice in a row. But there
had
to be a way to make things right again. She’d do whatever it took to bring Aunt back. She’d live her whole life as a kitten. She’d even die as a snakebit girl.

Later that afternoon she went out to the well for water. On the way back, skinny Star came up beside her and followed her up onto the side porch that led into the kitchen. Lillian glanced around to make sure no one was looking.

“Hey, Star,” she said in a soft voice. “How’re you doing?”

She patted the cat and it arched its back, purring, before it backed away.

“You need to stop that,” she said. “I can’t think straight when you’re petting me, and I’ve got a message for you.”

“What kind of a message? Is it from T.H.?”

“Like I’d be delivering messages for a fox.”

“Sorry. Who’s it from?”

“Rufus says if you’re going to go, you’ve got to go
now
. The bears think you’ve been spying for the spider woman, but they weren’t sure. Now Joen says he’s got proof.”

“I’m not spying for anybody.”

“That’s as may be, but it doesn’t change anything.”

“What kind of proof would he have?”

“I don’t know,” Star said, “but he’s got a bottle in his pocket that he’s guarding real careful.”

Lillian’s heart sank. “You mean like a little brown bottle for tinctures?”

“No, it’s bigger than that, and the glass is clear. But that’s all I could see. I don’t know what’s in it.”

It was the wrong time, but Lillian knew she had to run now. Except just then the kitchen door opened. Star darted away and Lillian was left alone to face Mother Manan.

“What are you doing out here, girl?”

“I was just getting some water and petting the cat.”

“I don’t remember petting cats being part of your chores.”

“No, ma’am. Ah—was there something you wanted?”

The bear woman nodded. “I need you in the parlor.”

Lillian considered bolting, right there and then, but she knew how fast Joen was, and Mother Manan would have him on her tail as quick as you could shake a stick. The whole plan was to
sneak
off so that no one would know she was gone until morning and she was miles and miles away.

Sighing, she picked up the bucket and followed Mother Manan into the kitchen. She left the bucket there and continued on to the parlor with the old woman.

Of course Joen had to be in there, too.

“What did you want, ma’am?” Lillian asked.

Mother Manan lowered herself into her chair. Joen’s eyes were still mean, but his mouth had pulled into a satisfied smirk. It didn’t look any more pleasant than his usual scowl.

“Joen found something in your room,” Mother Manan said, nodding to Joen, who pulled a jar out from behind his back.

Lillian couldn’t see what was inside because of his big fingers. But then he put it down on the table. There was a big black spider inside—the kind you could sometimes find on logs down by the creek below
Aunt’s farm, or in the outhouse, with a body the size of a man’s thumb and fat, hairy legs.

“I’ve never seen that jar before,” Lillian said truthfully.

“And the spider?”

Lillian picked the jar up and noticed how Mother Manan gave a little shiver when she did. Even Joen looked—well, not exactly frightened, but wary.

Lillian peered inside the jar at the poor trapped spider.