The Cats of Tanglewood Forest Read Online Free PDF

“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
    L illian 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 gotto 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,