Free The Society of Secret Cats by De Kenyon Page A

away anymore. ”
    “ Please, ” Jaela said. The ground was shaking even harder than before.
    I shifted form, until I walked like a man on my hind legs, and picked up Jaela in my arms. I ran quickly through the forest, ignoring the branches that whipped across my fur, protecting Jaela in my arms. She put her arms around my neck and clutched me hard, but not so hard that I couldn ’ t breathe.
    We ran, the footsteps growing louder, until I came upon a little house in a clearing of the forest. I hadn ’ t noticed how dark was the forest (we cats can see well in dark places) until we reached the clearing, and bright moonlight shone down, making the long blades of grass shine white. The windows of the little house were covered with wooden shutters that let only tiny cracks of light through, but the chimney was puffing smoke. Jaela shivered in my arms, and I realized she must be cold, a human outside at night in only her nightgown.
    I stepped toward the house when the hissing voice laughed at me again. “ I wouldn ’ t do that if I were you. ”
    I looked up; the spiderlike Aranea hung above us, as though we hadn ’ t moved a step.
    “ Get back! ” I swiped at it with one paw, cutting across one leg, which dripped clear fluid onto the forest floor.
    “ Sssss...no need to be rude, ” the Aranea said. “ But I would avoid the house if I were you. Witches live in houses in the middle of the wood. A word to the wise. ”
    Jaela shivered again.
    “ She is cold, ” I explained.
    “ Better to be cold than eaten by a witch , ” the Aranea said.
    “ She cannot be eaten in her own dream, ” I said.
    The Aranea dribbled green slime onto a foreleg and rubbed it over the wound in its other leg. “ But she is not in her own dream any longer, as I said. This is the Great Forest, not some little child ’ s dream. This is something bigger. ”
    I turned around in a circle slowly as the shaking, quaking footsteps grew ever closer. “ What is it, then? I have never been here, nor have I ever heard of it. ”
    “ If a child lives in a house, and a house lives in a city, and a city lives in a region, and a region lives in a country, and a country lives in a continent, and a continent lives on the whole world wide, then this is the continent of dreams upon which the child lives. A dream that came out of the great forests of the old world. ”
    “ Why are we here? ”
    I could see trees falling, jerking, disappearing as the earth-shaking monster shoved them aside.
    “ She is a very strong dreamer, ” the spider-kin said. “ I have had my eyes on her for quite some time. Perhaps others have, too. ”
    “ And what is that? ” I asked. I felt as though I was not the mighty warrior-cat of dreams that I had come to think of myself over the last five years of defending the girl from dreams, most no stronger and no more clever than the Ara nea above us.
    “ An Azdaja, ” it said. “ If it comes to a choice between killing the girl and letting the Azdaja eat her and take over her dreams, well, there are other little girls you can protect. ”
    I shuddered, and held Jaela close. “ Never. ”
    “ When you see it, you will understand. Now run! But do not go into the house. For there are things even worse than the Azdaja in the Great Forest. ”
     
    I backed into the darkness of the forest and ran. One of the clever-clever things that I have learned, as a dream-walker, is to run faster than paws can run, faster than thought. I do not know of any other dream-walkers who can run so fast, but of course now I realize that I only knew a handful of our kind, hardly enough to say that I knew anything at all.
    But still, when I put my tail to it, I could run faster than the Azdaja, for I heard the sound of it fading behind us.
    The Aranea could run even faster, or had some other trick, for it was waiting for us when I stopped, gasping, under another tree.
    “ Doesn ’ t this forest ever end? ” I asked.
    “ No, ” said the spider-kin.