The Cats of Tanglewood Forest Read Free Page A

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