The Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles De Lint Page A

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 youraunt 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