The Cats of Tanglewood Forest

by Charles de Lint

  She thought about poor Aunt lying all alone in the parlor.

  “Can I go see her?” she asked.

  “Of course you can, hon. I’ll go up with you, and we can pick out something pretty for your Aunt Fran to wear. But before we go, I need to see to the livestock.” She cocked her head. “Will you help?”

  Lillian nodded. What else could she do?

  The day they laid Aunt to rest started out sunny, but by the time they’d gathered in the small family plot on the hill above the Kindred farm, the skies had clouded over and threatened rain. Harlene and Earl Welch stood beside Lillian at the graveside. Lillian wore her good dress, and even had shoes on her feet. Preacher Bartholomew stood at the head of the grave, his Bible open in his hands.

  A few other townsfolk and neighbors had made the long hike up to the farm. The Mabes, who lived a few farms over. Charley Smith from the general store. John Durrow and his son Jimmy, who grazed their cattle on the lower pastures near the road to town. Agnes Nash, who looked after the town’s library. Humble Johnson, a banjo player who led the dances at the grange.

  Standing behind them were the extended families of the Creeks—dark-skinned men in buckskin and denim, the women in long, embroidered black skirts, with their hair in braids. The aunts were in front, all except for Aunt Nancy, the oldest. She stood at the edge of the forest, half-hidden in shadow, her somber gaze never straying from Lillian.

  At any other time her attention would have made Lillian nervous. No one knew Aunt Nancy’s age. It was said that there’d been a Nancy Creek living in these hills when the white men first came from the east and that she’d still be here long after they were gone. Lillian didn’t know anything about that. She only knew that rowdy and joking though the Creek boys might be, they all grew quiet at even the mention of Aunt Nancy’s name.

  She didn’t seem to be alone, standing there under the trees. Lillian thought she could see a dark figure standing behind her, even taller than the stately Kickaha woman, whose head was bowed in sorrow. It was hard to tell, because she only stole glances at them. Sometimes when she looked the figure was there, sometimes it was just Aunt Nancy.

  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.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Welch Farm

  Lillian’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?”

  “I’ve been doing my lessons with Aunt,” Lillian said.

  “I know, hon. But Fran’s not here anymore, and I’m no teacher.”

  Lillian didn’t know what to say. It was bad enough that the snake had taken Aunt from her. Was it taking away her whole life now?

  Tears brimmed in her eyes but she refused to cry.

  “Harlene, go easy on the child. School’s still the whole summer away,” Earl said. “I don’t see any harm in showing her a thing or two about looking after a farm until then.”

  Harlene frowned.

  “Well, I don’t,” Earl said.

  Lillian looked from one to the other. She knew something was happening, but she didn’t know what. It seemed to lie under the words that the Welches were actually saying to each other—as though they were having two conversations at the same time.

  “Fine,” Harlene said after a moment. “But come the fall, she’s going to school.”

  Don’t I get any say in it? Lillian wondered, but she kept it to herself.

  “Of course she’ll go to school,” Earl said, “but that doesn’t mean she can’t learn a few useful things in the meanwise.”

  Harlene gave a reluctant nod, and then turned to Lillian with a smile.

  “Don’t you worry,” she said. “We’ll raise you like you’re our own daughter—just like your Aunt Fran would have wanted.”

  Lillian expected Harlene had that wrong. Aunt would never try to change Lillian into someone she wasn’t.

  But Harlene was right about one thing: Aunt wasn’t here anymore. Harlene and Earl might be trying to look out for her, but they had their own notions as to who Lillian was and what she was supposed to become. And it wasn’t going to matter one lick what Lillian herself thought about anything.

  Now she guessed she understood a little better this business of two conversations going on at the same time. That was when you thought one thing, but you said something different.

  Well, she could do that, too.

  “I know you’re looking out for me,” she told Harlene, “and I appreciate it, I really do.”

  Harlene’s smiled brightened. “I know you do, hon. You’ll turn out to be the smartest young lady in the county. Just you wait and see.”

  True to his word, Earl taught Lillian to look for weaknesses in structures and fences, and how to mend them. As the summer wound on, she became adept with a hammer and saw and learned all the basic skills needed to keep Aunt’s farm running and in good repair.

  She took pride in what she was learning, but she couldn’t exactly say she was happy. She didn’t talk about it, but she supposed they could see it on her face.

  “A body can’t depend on anybody else for their happiness,” Earl told her one day while they were repairing the roof of the house. “The only way you can ever find any peace is to find it in yourself—in what you do and what you stand for.”

  Lillian wasn’t sure what she stood for, but it didn’t include getting prissied up and going to school. Only when she was away from the Welches’ farm did she breathe easier. The woods seemed to open up and her footsteps were lighter. Even missing Aunt as much as she did couldn’t stop the lift in her spirit.

  Like the cats who watched and waited, she was waiting, too, only she wasn’t quite sure for what.

  Eventually, the days got shorter, dusk fell a little earlier every day, and that first day of attending classes was no longer a distant prospect.

  Harlene remained fixed on the notion that there’d be some magical transformation when Lillian stepped across the threshold of the one-room school down the road. That Lillian would enter as a tomboy, but the moment she took her seat she’d be a proper young lady.

  Lillian thought she might be able to stand wearing shoes all day, but she wasn’t sure she could sit still for all that time. She liked learning. She enjoyed reading, knowing how to write was a good thing, and math was sort of interesting. She wouldn’t mind being better at all of them.

  But if she was in school all day, who would look after Aunt’s farm? No one. It would only become one more abandoned homestead. And if it fell to ruin there’d be nothing of Aunt or the Kindred farm left in the world. No one would remember. No one would care.

  Lillian couldn’t let that happen. And that’s when she understood what she had been waiting to do all this time.

  The night before Harlene was to take her into town to buy a new dress, shoes, and sc
hool supplies, Lillian packed up her few belongings, left a note for Harlene and Earl, and walked back up into the hills. When she got to Aunt’s farm, she stowed her bundle under the porch and then kept on going. The path she took now led east, deeper into the Tanglewood Forest.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Creek Boys

  Forty minutes later she reached her destination. From the tree line she could see the scattering of cabins in the hollow below. There were no lights on. Everybody was asleep, just as she should be.

  She stepped off the path and found herself a nook in some tree roots. She planned to wait there until dawn, when the Creeks would be awake. But no sooner had she settled down than a voice called softly from the branches above.

  “Hey, Lillian. What are you doing here?”

  She started. For a moment she thought she was back in her dream, where birds and animals talked to her from out of the trees. But then she recognized the voice. She peered up into the branches and could make out the dark shape of John Creek sitting on a bough.

  “Hello hello,” she said. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  John swung down from the branch and dropped lightly onto the ground.

  “I’m just fooling around with Davy,” he said. “We’re having a contest to see who can—”

  He broke off when a stick hit his shoulder.

  “Gotcha!” Davy cried.

  He stepped out from the underbrush on the other side of the path, tall and dark-haired like all the Creek boys.

  “No fair,” John said. “I’m having a time-out talking to Lillian.”

  “You didn’t call time-out! Hello, Lillian.”

  Lillian nodded to him. “So the two of you are running around in the middle of the night playing tag?”

  John shrugged. “It’s more fun at night, when everybody else is asleep.”