The Cats of Tanglewood Forest

  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.”
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  “I don’t know any stories about possum witches,” Lillian said. “I don’t know any about possums at all, except for the one about why they have hairless tails.”

  That one she got from one of the many Creek aunts by way of John Creek. He was always bribing her to help him when he was chopping and stacking wood, and a story was the best bribe—especially if it came from the aunts.

  The Creek aunts weren’t at all like her aunt. They were tall and a little scary—especially Aunt Nancy, maybe because she was a medicine woman, and everybody knew to be careful around bottle witches and medicine women. The Creek aunts had long memories that held all the tribal memories and herb lore of the Kickaha. Aunt got her own herb lore from them, and Lillian got their stories through John or one of the other Creek boys.

  In the old days, this story went, Possum had a glorious tail that he never tired of parading in front of Rabbit. This was just meanness on Possum’s part, because until Bear pulled it off in a fight, Rabbit’s tail had been just as glorious. But after the fight, all he had left was a fluffy tuft.

  Still, with the help of Cricket, who cut the hair from Possum’s tail when he was supposed to be grooming it, Rabbit got some retribution. Possum was so embarrassed when the other animals saw him with his hairless tail that he fainted dead away—something possums still do to this day.

  Of course it was just a story, but when Lillian thought about all that had happened to her since she’d fallen asleep under the beech tree, she supposed it could be true.

  “Do you think it’s true?” she asked the fox.

  T.H. laughed. “Who knows? But I sure wouldn’t go repeating it in front of her.”

  “She’s really so dangerous?”

  “Only one way to find out,” T.H. told her. “If you’re feeling up to it…”

  “I have to go. It’s that, or be a kitten forever.”

  “It’s your choice.”

  “Jack Crow said I should bring a present—to show my respect.”

  “You mentioned that,” T.H. said. “Did he say what kind of present?”

  “He seemed to think a mouse or a vole.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt,” T.H. said, “but I don’t know as it would help much, either. Might seem like a bribe, and not a very fancy one.”

  “But I want her to like me.”

  “No, you don’t. Possum witches are a whole different thing from folks like you and me. You might as well try to make friends with a stone or a tree.”

  “I like stones and trees.”

  T.H. smiled. “Sure you do. But you can’t go running in the fields with them, or play ball, or have any kind of a decent conversation, so what’s the point?”

  “I don’t know. Stones are good to sit on, and I like sleeping under trees—except for when snakes sneak up and bite me.”

  “I think you’re stalling.”

  “I guess I am,” Lillian admitted. “But not anymore.”

  So off they went, the tall fox with a kitten trotting at his side, down the treed slopes to where the creek split.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Old Mother

  Possum

  Lillian had only ever caught glimpses of foxes before this—quick flashes of their russet fur across a meadow, or a half-hidden shape in some distant trees. She’d never realized how sleek they were, how delicate and graceful, the economy of their movement. T.H. moved through the forest like the melody of a well-known song, in perfect harmony with his surroundings.

  She kept stealing glances at him while she bounded along, trying to keep up. Handsome was a good name for him, and Truthful, too, it seemed. When they got to the creek, he jumped easily from stone to stone to reach the other side. Lillian followed in his wake.

  She’d crossed by these stepping-stones a hundred times—but that was always in her human form, with her longer legs. Even with her agile cat body, she slipped on the last rock and would have fallen into the creek if T.H. hadn’t snapped her up by the nape of her neck. She shivered for a moment, imagining the worst as she hung dangling from his teeth, but he only set her down on the ground, safe and dry.

  “You’re a feisty little thing,” he said, “no question. But you need to pay more attention to your size. Your legs aren’t as long as mine.”

  “They used to be,” she told him. “They were even longer.”

  He smiled. “That’s as may be, but you’re stuck at this size now.”

  “Only until I get some help from Old Mother Possum.”

  His smile faded.

  “We’ll see about that,” he said, and set off again.

  “You don’t have to be so grouchy,” Lillian said.

  But she worried about T.H.’s sudden change of mood. If the possum witch made him this uneasy, how dangerous was she? Maybe she should have caught a vole after all.

  The ground soon grew marshy underfoot. T.H. didn’t seem to like having wet feet any more than Lillian did. He took a winding way through the marsh, avoiding the soggy ground wherever he could. Lillian hopped along after him, but the limitations of her smaller shape meant she was soon soaked to her belly.

  It seemed to take a long time before they finally saw the tall dead pine rising from a small hillock ahead of them. Lillian hesitated. Lit only by the light of a three-quarter moon that had just topped the rim of the hollow, it seemed an ominous place. She could hear the almost inaudible clink of small bottles tapping against one another.

  “I didn’t know she was a bottle witch,” Lillian whispered.

  “She’s not quite possum, not quite human,” T.H. said. “Truth is, I don’t know what she is.”

  You never went to a bottle witch with a trivial concern—that’s what Aunt always said. Well, being changed from a dying girl into a kitten wasn’t trivial any way you might stretch it. Still…

  Lillian swallowed, her mouth dry.

  “We’ve come this far,” she said, trying to keep the reluctance from her voice. “No point in stopping here.”

  T.H. nodded. “Except you go on from here on your own.”

  “W-what? Why?”

  She was going to add, You’re not scared, are you? But she didn’t suppose he’d appreciate that. Being changed into a kitten was her predicament, not his, and she couldn’t very well expect him to put himself in danger for her.

  “Old Mother Possum and I—we have some history,” T.H. said. “I ate her husband, and I don’t think she took too kindly to that.”

  “You ate her husband?”

  T.H. shrugged. “He was just lying there in the middle of a game trail one evening. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Not eat him?”

  “I’m a fox. It’s what we do.”

  “I suppose. But I can see why she’d be mad at you.”

  “She’s not,” T.H. said. “I’m still standing here, aren’t I? She doesn’t know that I ate him. But if I get any closer, I’ll bet she’ll smell it on me, and then there’ll be trouble.”

  “So I have to go on… alone?”

  T.H. gave her shoulder a nudge with his muzzle.

  “Come on now,” he said. “I thought nothing scared you.”

  “I-I’m not scared. It’s just… maybe I should wait until morning.”

  “An old witch like that,” T.H. said, “she’ll be fast asleep during the day. Probably won’t take it well, being woken up and all.”

  Lillian shuddered, and then she squared her small shoulders. “Wish me luck,” she said.

  “I do.”

  “Thanks for coming this far with me—and for catching me back at the creek.”

  “My pleasure. Like I said, I was bored. Now I’m anything but. I’ll wait here for you.”

  “You will?”

  T.H. smiled. “Sure. I want to see where your story goes next.”

  Lillian was about to tell him that he was nothing like she thought a fox would be, except she realized that she was only stalling again—putting off what she didn’t want to do. Aunt used to say, “There’s those that talk, and
those that do. Which do you think gets the thing done?”

  It wasn’t a question that Aunt ever expected an answer to.

  “I’ll see you later,” Lillian told T.H.

  Without T.H. leading the way, she had a harder time judging where the ground was solid and where it would turn to mush under her paws. By the time she reached the hillock where the big dead pine stood, she was caked with mud and soaked right through. She shook herself, spraying mud and smelly marsh water in all directions, making the bottles on the tree clink and rattle even louder.

  There were dozens of the little bottles—dark blue and brown glass, the kind used for medicines and tinctures. They banged and clinked against each other in an eerie chorus while Lillian froze, holding her breath until they stopped moving. But she knew it was too late. The noise would have already warned the possum witch that she was here.

  What if the witch wouldn’t listen to her? She was just a bedraggled kitten. What if the witch just turned her into something even less appealing than a cat? A frog, maybe. Or a mosquito. A clump of weeds.

  She looked back the way she’d come. Should she try to escape while she could? There was no sign of T.H. No sound except for the cries of the peepers and the hum of insects. She turned back to the dead pine and her heart caught in her throat.

  Old Mother Possum was standing under its bare branches, among the bottles.

  Lillian hadn’t expected her to fit her name as well as she did—neither a woman nor a possum, she was rather some odd combination of the two. She stood just under three feet—tall for a possum, short for a woman, but much bigger than the kitten Lillian was. Her eyes were so dark they didn’t seem to have pupils. There was a long possum shape to her face, and her dark gray hair was pulled back in a wispy bun. Even her skin seemed gray, but that was only because of a thin covering of fine possum fur. She wore a deerskin dress decorated with quills and cowrie shells and intricate beaded patterns. Her thin feet—vaguely human-foot-shaped—were bare but still furry.

  “Well, now,” she said after studying Lillian for a long moment, “you’re not as big as I expected.”