The Cats of Tanglewood Forest Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.”

    “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 witchesand 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.