Read Online The Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles De Lint - Free Book Online Page B

squared her shoulders and started back toward Aunt Nancy’s cabin.
    “You’re
really
going to just knock on her door?” Davy asked.
    “Please, Davy,” Lillian said over her shoulder. “Let it be. I need to see her.”
    Davy shrugged. “I’ll come by later and pick up the pieces,” he called after her.
    Lillian didn’t bother to answer. As she approached the stairs the big cat stood and arched its back before turning and leaping onto the other end of the porch rail.
    “Pleased to meet you, too,” Lillian said as she edged her way up the stairs. Rubbing her hands together, she took a deep breath, then knocked on the door. There was no response. Lillian turned to look at Davy, who stood right where she’d left him, hands in his pockets. She was about to knock on the door again when it jerked open and there stood Aunt Nancy, tall and formidable.



“It’s you,” Aunt Nancy said.
    Lillian cleared her throat, but before she could speak Aunt Nancy went on: “I should have realized when I saw you at the funeral. What have you
done
?”
    “I didn’t—I mean, I never—”
    “There are always consequences,” Aunt Nancy said. “Why can’t anyone remember that?” Her gaze went past Lillian to where Davy was standing. “Do you need something from me, Davy Creek?”
    “N-no, ma’am.”
    “Then why are you standing there? If you’ve nothing to do, I can find you a few chores.”
    “I think I hear my dad calling me,” Davy said.
    He jogged away and Aunt Nancy returned her attention to Lillian.
    “You’d better come inside,” she said.
    That was the last thing Lillian wanted to do. She didn’t know what Aunt Nancy thought she’d done, but she knew it wasn’t good.
    “Well?” Aunt Nancy said. “I don’t have all day to dawdle out here.”
    Lillian went inside, each step more reluctant than the one before.
    Aunt Nancy’s cabin was clean and tidy, as opposed to the happy chaos of the one where John lived. More herbs hung from the inside rafters, but as clean as the rest of the cabin was, there were masses of cobwebs up in the ceiling corners. Lillian pretty much loved anything that walked or flew or swam, including spiders, but those cobwebs gave her the creeps.
    Aunt Nancy motioned her to a wooden-backed chair at the small kitchen table and sat down across from her. She folded her hands on the polished pine surface of the table and regarded Lillian with her dark gaze.
    “Tell me what you did,” she said, “and maybe we can fix it.”
    “Do—do you mean my running away from the Welches’?” Lillian tried.
    “That depends. When was that?”
    “Last night.”
    Aunt Nancy shook her head. “No, things have been going wrong since long before that. Haven’t you felt it?”
    Lillian could barely think. This wasn’t going well at all. She knew several things felt wrong, but they all had to do with losing Aunt and her old life. None of them seemed like anything
she’d
done.
    “Well, it’s not your running away,” Aunt Nancy said without waiting for her reply. “But I trust my bones. I can sense that day by day the world is going someplace it shouldn’t, and as soon as I found you standing there on my porch, I could see that you’re smack dab in the middle of it all. So I’ll ask you again: What. Have. You. Done?”
    Lillian felt a pang of guilt in the pit of her stomach. She must have done
something
, elsewise Aunt Nancy wouldn’t be pointing the finger at her. And what about the cats, always watching from a distance? What made them so wary of her?
    Cats… her strange dream about the snakebite and the cats’ magic. Could it have something to do with that? No, surely a dream wouldn’t count, andshe didn’t want to make Aunt Nancy angry by mentioning anything so silly.
    “I honestly didn’t do anything.”
    “But maybe something happened close to you? It would have been around the beginning of the summer.”
    “I can’t think of anything except for Aunt dying,” Lillian said.