The Cats of Tanglewood Forest

  “I don’t think I want to be a cat,” she said.

  Now she really had to find the fairies.

  By the time she’d bounded all the way down to the creek, she was more comfortable in her new body, though no happier about being in it. There were no fairies about, but then there never were when she was looking for them. What was she going to do? She couldn’t go through the rest of her life as a cat.

  Finding a quiet pool along the bank, she looked in. And here was the strangest thing of all: There was her own girl’s face looking back at her from the water. When she lifted what was plainly a paw, the reflection lifted a hand.

  Lillian sat back on her haunches to consider this.

  “They changed you,” a voice said from above. “Now you’re not quite girl, not quite cat.”

  She looked up to see an old crow perched on a branch.

  “Do you mean the fairies?” she asked.

  “No, the cats.”

  “The cats?” she said. “But why?”

  “You were dying. They had no madstone to draw the poison out, nor milk to soak it in, nor hands to do the work and hold the stone in place. So they did what they could. They changed you into something that’s not dying.”

  Lillian had seen a madstone before. Harlene Welch had one. Her husband found it in the stomach of a deer he was field-dressing, a smooth, flat, grayish-looking stone about the size of a silver dollar. You had to soak it in milk and then lay it against the bite, where it would cling, only falling off when all the poison had been drawn out. It worked on bites from both snakes and rabid animals.

  “Will I be like this forever?” Lillian asked.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” the crow said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know the stories,” he said. “What was changed once can be changed again.”

  “I don’t know that story,” Lillian said. “I don’t know any stories about snakes. I only know that song about the awful, dreadful snake, and the little girl dies in it.”

  The crow nodded his head. “That’s a sad song.”

  “Can you tell me what to do?”

  “Can’t.”

  “But—”

  “Not won’t,” the crow said, “but can’t. I know the stories, but the stories don’t tell how one thing is changed into another, just that it is. You have to ask someone who knows something about magic.”

  “Like the cats.”

  “Well, now,” the crow said, “any other day and I’d say yes to that. But that’s a big magic those cats did, and they’ll be hiding now.”

  “Hiding from what?”

  “You know.”

  Lillian shook her head. “But I don’t. I don’t seem to know anything anymore.”

  The crow looked one way, then another.

  “Him,” he said in a soft croak. “They’ll be hiding from him. Cats are magic, but they’re not supposed to work magic. He doesn’t like that.”

  Lillian gave a nervous look around herself as well, though she had no idea what she was looking for.

  “Who are you talking about?” she whispered.

  “The Father of Cats.”

  Lillian’s eyes went wide. “There really is a Father of Cats?”

  “Says the girl who’s always out looking for fairies.”

  “How do you know that?”

  The crow’s chest feathers puffed a little.

  “Well, now,” he said. “There’s not much goes on in these woods that I don’t know about.”

  “But you can’t help me.”

  “I didn’t say that. The problem is that the Father of Cats is too big a piece of magic for the likes of you or me.”

  The Father of Cats. Every time the crow said that name, Lillian felt a shiver go running up her spine. There wasn’t anybody ’round here didn’t know some story about that old black panther who was supposed to haunt these hills. They said he snatched babies right out of their cribs and crunched on their bones up in the boughs of some tall, tall tree. He plucked livestock from the barn and travelers from the road. When he was angry, thunderstorms rumbled high in the mountains and great winds ripped at the homesteads, rattling shutters and carrying away roofs and sheds.

  He was a big dark shadow in the woods, and the only way you knew he was close was by the pat-pat-pat of his tail on the ground, and then it was too late. If a black cat was bad luck, the Father of Cats was worse luck still. Some said he was the devil himself, but that was disputed by as many as those who claimed it to be true. Still, most would at least agree that he was a fearsome creature. Maybe not supernatural, but still very, very dangerous.

  The worst story Lillian knew about the Father of Cats came from one of the Creek boys—John, or maybe it was Robert. The Creeks lived up on the Kickaha rez, but the boys came by Aunt’s from time to time to help with the heavier chores like plowing the corn patch and turning the garden, or fetching and chopping wood. One of those Creeks told her that the Father of Cats could prowl through your dreams. If you caught sight of him there, he’d chase you down until his big jaws chomped down on your head, and then you died. Not just in the dream, but for real.

  “Is—is he everything the stories say he is?” Lillian asked the crow now.

  The crow nodded. “Depends on the stories you’ve heard, but probably.”

  The shiver went up Lillian’s spine again.

  “Oh, no question,” the crow went on, “he’s desperately powerful, that bogey panther. Folks like us, we don’t want to get on his bad side. We don’t even want him turning his attention our way. So you can’t blame those cats for hiding.”

  “But what do I do?”

  “You need to find you a body that’s got enough magic in her she won’t be scared, but she’s also got to be somewise less formidable than him, so that he doesn’t see her as a threat. Someone like Old Mother Possum.”

  “I’ve never heard of her.”

  “That’s because she lives in your new world, not the one you came from.”

  “I don’t want to be in a new world,” Lillian said.

  “Maybe so,” the crow said, “but you don’t want to go back to the old one just yet, because over there you’re a dead little snakebit girl.”

  “I don’t want to be that, either.”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “Where do I find her?” Lillian asked.

  “You know where the creek splits by the big rocks?”

  Lillian nodded.

  “Well, 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. You can’t miss that tree.”

  “Is—is she nice?” Lillian wanted to know.

  The crow laughed. “She’s a possum that’s part witch—what do you think?”

  Lillian didn’t know what to think, except she wished that mean snake hadn’t bitten her in the first place.

  “Now, when you go see her,” the crow said, “make sure you show the proper respect.”

  Lillian’s fur puffed a little. “I may look like a cat, but I know how to be polite.”

  “Being polite goes without saying. I meant you should bring her a little something as a token of respect.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t have to be big. A mouse, or a vole. Something tasty, with crunchy bones.”

  Lillian thought of the squirrel she’d met, and now this crow.

  “Do they talk?” she asked.

  “Does who talk?”

  “The mice and voles.”

  The crow laughed. “Of course they talk. Everything talks. Just everybody doesn’t take the time to listen.”

  “I couldn’t kill a talking mouse.”

  The crow looked at her in astonishment. “Then how will you eat?”

  “I don’t know. Do trees and plants talk, too?”

  “Pretty much, though it’s not so easy to understand them unless they have
a spirit living inside to do the translating. Otherwise their conversations are too slow for us to follow.” He chuckled. “But if you think a tree is slow, you should try talking to a stone. They can take a year just to tell you their names.”

  “What’s your name?” Lillian asked the crow.

  “Well, now,” he replied, “there’s some that call me Jack, and I’ll answer to that.”

  “Jack Crow,” Lillian repeated. “I’m—”

  “Lillian. I know.”

  “Because you know everything that happens in these hills.”

  The crow preened a feather. “That I do. Now a word of warning, little cat girl,” he added. “I know you like those hound dogs at the Welches’ farm, but you need to steer clear of them so long as you’re walking around in the skin of a cat. You see a dog sniffing around, you just go up a tree and stay there until it’s gone. Hounds and foxes and coyotes… none of them’s your friend—not any longer. There’s more than one critter living in these woods that would enjoy the morsel a little cat girl might provide.”

  “I’m not scared,” Lillian said.

  “I can see that. But you should be. You’re in a dangerous world now.”

  Lillian thought her own world hadn’t been so safe if you could die from a snakebite when all you were doing was minding your own business.

  She had a hundred more questions for the crow, but just then the belling sound of Aunt’s big iron triangle came ringing down from the farmhouse. Suppertime. The crow flew off and Lillian jumped from stone to stone across the creek and ran up the hill.

  She was hungry, but that wasn’t why she hurried home. She realized that Aunt would help her, because Aunt always knew what to do. She’d know some cure, or Harlene Welch would. And if neither of them did, one of them would know some old witchy woman with a bottle tree outside her house and magic in her fingers. Aunt might not put much store in spending time looking for fairies, but like most folks in these hills, she was a firm believer in cures and potions, and she knew where to get them.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Annabelle

  Now, what have we here?” Aunt said as Lillian came running up to her.

  “It’s me, it’s me!” she cried. “Lillian.”

  But unlike the squirrel and the crow, Aunt didn’t hear words, only a plaintive mewling. She smiled and picked Lillian up, scratching her under her chin. Lillian couldn’t help herself—she immediately started to purr.

  “Where did you come from?” Aunt said. She looked off across the fields. “And where is that girl?”

  “I’m here, I’m here,” Lillian cried from her arms.

  But Aunt still couldn’t understand her. She carried her inside and gave her a saucer of milk, which Lillian immediately began to lap up because, as much as she didn’t want to be a cat, it was suppertime and she was hungry from the long day’s activities.

  When she was done, she wove in and out between Aunt’s legs, but while Aunt would bend down to pat her, she was plainly worried and stood at the doorway looking out at where the dusk was drawing long shadows across the hillside.

  They had no phone. They had no close neighbors. So eventually Aunt took the lantern and went out looking for her niece.

  She made her way down to the creek first, Lillian trailing after her, still a kitten rather than a girl. Aunt walked almost a mile up the hollow, her lantern light bobbing in the dark woods, then crossed over the creek and came back the other way. Lillian followed behind, no longer trying to tell Aunt she was right here. If Aunt wasn’t going to listen to her, there was nothing she could do.

  When they got back to the farm and Aunt went into the house, Lillian made her way to the barn. There were always cats there—maybe one of them was still hiding in some dark corner. She squeezed inside through a crack where the side door hung a bit loose. Something big stirred in the corner. Then Annabelle, Aunt’s milk cow, lifted her head. She blinked a couple of times before her gaze settled on Lillian.

  “Hmm,” she said.

  “Hello?” Lillian tried, not sure if the hmm was friendly or not.

  “I haven’t seen a cat in here all day,” Annabelle said, “which is unusual enough on its own, but now when one of you finally does come in, there’s something not quite right about you.”

  “That’s because I’m a girl, not a cat.”

  “I see. That is, I don’t see the girl you say you are, but it does explain why I sense something strange about you. Have we met before? Because there’s also something familiar about you.”

  “I’m Lillian.”

  “Ah, yes, of course. It’s too bad you’ve changed. I always thought you had a firm but gentle grip.”

  “I don’t have a grip at all now. I don’t even have hands.”

  “I can see that, too. Mind you keep those claws away from my udder.”

  “I will,” Lillian assured her. “I only came in to see if any of the cats were here. But you say they’re all gone?”

  “Who knows what they’re up to?” Annabelle said. “You know cats. They’re a flighty bunch, going whichever way the wind blows. No offense.”

  She shifted her bulk and Lillian felt the movement through the floorboards under her paws. She’d never realized just how huge Annabelle was.

  “What do you want with the cats?” the cow asked.

  “They’re the ones who changed me into a kitten.”

  “Hmm. The old man won’t like that.”

  “Old man?” Lillian asked. “Do you mean the Father of Cats?”

  Annabelle nodded. “Though I wouldn’t be throwing his name around willy-nilly—not unless you want to call him to you.”

  “I don’t. Jack Crow said he’s just like in the stories.”

  “He is and he isn’t. Depends on what stories you’ve been listening to. But there’s no doubt he’s a caution.”

  That was the sort of thing Aunt would say when she meant something was a little bit dangerous, so you should be careful.

  “So you’ve been talking to Jack Crow?” Annabelle asked.

  Lillian nodded and told her story.

  “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 g
ave 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.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Treed by

  a Fox

  Lillian 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.