“The homestead,” she said. “Yes. But also the hills. I can’t recall exactly how much land’s involved. Something in the neighborhood of a hundred square miles, I reckon. The lawyer will know for sure.”
“You own all that land behind our farm?” Adie asked.
“No one really owns the land,” Aunt Lillian told her. “But I guess I hold the paper on it.”
“But you…”
Aunt Lillian grinned. “Live plain and simple and poor as a church mouse?”
“Something like that.”
“Maybe she doesn’t have any money,” Elsie said, a smug look on her face. “But I’m guessing Lily McGlure has more than enough.”
“Who’s Lily McGlure?” Laurel asked.
“Famous artist,” Adie told her. “Loads of money.”
I wondered how Adie’d come to know something like that, but it got explained pretty quick.
“I’m sorry,” Elsie was saying to Aunt Lillian. “I know we shouldn’t have looked in that chest with all your paintings and sketchbooks, but we got scared when we couldn’t find you or Janey. So then we got thinking about bodies and where you could hide them…”
“That’s all right, girl,” Aunt Lillian said. “It’s nothing I’m ashamed of. I just always kept my distance from being Lily McGlure on account of once folks know you’ve got money, they come hounding you for it and you never do get no peace. Folks always knew me as Lily Kindred, living with her aunt, Em Kindred, though I was indeed born Lillian McGlure. It was purely a girlish whim I took to use the McGlure name on my art at first, but later I saw the advantage of it and, well, I just left it that way.”
“You’re a famous artist?” I asked. “When did that happen?”
“Oh, a long time ago,” Aunt Lillian said. “I started in on drawing when I was younger than you and I guess I did pretty well because, after a time, I had me all these folks in Newford, and even farther off, falling over themselves to buy what I was doing. Got me an agent and everything, selling both the originals as well as prints and the like. Aunt Em and me, well, we didn’t need more than we had—and didn’t want it, neither. So first off, I bought all this land to keep it safe from the mining and logging companies and such, and then I had any other money coming my way put into a trust fund to take care of taxes and all.
“A body could get themselves proper rich, selling off the land and using the money in that fund, I reckon.”
“I would never do that,” I told her.
She smiled. “I know. Why do you think I’m leaving it to you, girl? But you ever find you need some money, maybe to get you an education, or for one of your sisters, don’t you be shy about selling off some of that old artwork of mine. And you’ll find a treat or two, down at the bottom of that chest. I got me three color studies by Milo Johnson, any one of which’d fetch top dollar at an auction.”
Elsie’s eyes went wide, but the rest of us didn’t much know who she was talking about.
“Probably another famous artist,” Laurel said.
“Only the most famous to paint in these hills,” Elsie said, “after Lily McGlure.”
“Now you’re embarrassing me, girl,” Aunt Lillian said, but I could see she was pleased with the compliment all the same.
“Why did you stop painting?” Elsie asked.
Aunt Lillian shrugged. “I don’t know. I got old and my fingers got stiff. And I said pretty much all I had to say with my paints, I reckon, though I’ve still been drawing in one of my sketchbooks from time to time. The thing is, you do a thing long enough, don’t matter how much you love it, it can start to wear some and you want to turn to something else. Gets so you look at what could be the perfect picture and you just want to hold it in your head and appreciate it for what it is, ’stead of trying to capture it on canvas.
“And after Aunt Em died, I didn’t really have the time no more.”
She turned to me.
“You remember this, girl,” she said. “You don’t have to be no spinster to live out on that old homestead and do it right.”
I just shrugged.
“There’s just one more thing,” Aunt Lillian said. “I’m leaving you with a lot of benefits, I guess, though truth to tell, it just lets my heart rest easy knowing that everything I got’s passing into such good and capable hands. But I’ve got to leave you with an unpaid debt as well.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, that Father of Cats that Li’l Pater and the fairies were talking about—that’s the same old black panther in those stories I told you ’bout from when I was a girl. You ’member them?”
“Well then, I reckon you remember how I owe him. That debt’s supposed to pass on to my children and their children after. But I never had me a child. I guess the closest I’ve come is you, so I’m asking you to take that on as well.”
“What… what’s he going to ask me to do?”
I knew I couldn’t say no to Aunt Lillian, but I was remembering how even those fierce bee fairies had seemed wary when they thought the Father of Cats was taking an interest in their affairs. And if he scared them…
“I don’t rightly know,” Aunt Lillian said. “But I told him I’d only do whatever it was if no one would be hurt by it.”
“The Father of Cats is an honorable being,” the Apple Tree Man said. “What he asks of you might be hard, but it won’t be wrong.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take on that debt for you, Aunt Lillian.” I turned to the Apple Tree Man, adding, “And I guess I owe you an apology, just like I did Li’l Pater. I should have just trusted you.”
He smiled. “Nothing wrong with someone needing to earn your trust. I’m just happy it all worked out the way it did. You were very brave out there with the bee fairies.”
“I didn’t feel brave. I just felt stupid.”
“Oh, I know,” Bess said. “And scared, too. I was sure they’d hear my knees knocking against each other from one end of the meadow to the other.”
I looked at her for a long moment.
“But you and Laurel,” I finally said. “You’re always doing stuff in front of people. Playing and singing and dancing.”
“Well, I get nervous doing that sometimes, too,” Bess said. “Laurel’s the one who’s not scared of anything.”
Laurel laughed. “What’s the worst that can happen? You make a fool of yourself, but life goes on.”
“Except here we could’ve gotten ourselves shot like the queen did,” I said.
Laurel went quiet pretty fast.
“There’s that,” she said.
I turned back to the Apple Tree Man.
“It’s time we were going,” I said.
I’d told the truth before, about not wanting to be in this place. But right now I didn’t want to go, because it meant leaving Aunt Lillian behind. I figured I’d probably see her from time to time, but nothing was going to be the same anymore. I was happy to look after that place of hers for her, but I was also thinking how that could be a lonely way to live, especially with her being gone and all.
I guess she knew what I was thinking. She came up and put her arms around me and just held me for a time.
“You’ll do fine, girl,” she said.
I held on tight to her for a moment longer, then we gathered up Grace and Ruth from across the meadow, where they were playing leapfrog with Li’l Pater, and we all made our way back to where the door into the Apple Tree Man’s house opened out on this world.