Scary Stories for Young Foxes

“A shudder ran from his teacher’s ears straight to the tip of her tail. She tried to take a step toward his voice, but then wavered and missed. She turned in a half circle, then sat down again. Her gooey eyes stared at nothing. […] Miss Vix’s head swayed. Her breath sounded choked with cobwebs. […] Miss Vix lifted her snout. And she saw him through the goo. Her muzzle tightened into a snarl, but then she shook her head back and forth, like she was trying to escape a sneeze. A sound bubbled from her throat. ‘Run.’”

In this passage, it is clear that Mia and her siblings, Roa in particular, have always looked up to and tried to emulate their teacher, Miss Vix. Her sudden transformation from nurturing expert to menacing threat is confusing to her students, who struggle to process and react to what is happening. In the moment, they are unable to reconcile this vicious foe with the vixen who has made it her objective to protect and prepare them for the dangers of the world they will face as independent foxes. In their denial, they try to convince themselves that she is testing them, presenting them with an exercise that will compel them to use their best judgment and all they have learned thus far. Unequipped to deal with the threat of the yellow sickness, their hesitation costs many of them their lives.

“‘What’s more frightening than a rabid teacher?’ the storyteller asked.

The kits tilted their heads questioningly, ears still flat.

‘Perhaps,’ the storyteller continued, ‘someone in your family who is just as cruel, even though they are not diseased.’”

The storyteller’s tale comprises a myriad of horrors, ranging from the expected, routine threats posed to young foxes by humans and larger predators to more insidious threats that emerge slowly, with more subtlety. These aspects of the story may appear less frightening to the young foxes at first, but collectively, they reflect the harsh reality that sometimes those upon whom a young fox should be able to rely are the ones who pose the greatest threat. As the storyteller proceeds, the young foxes learn that there are adults who will willingly corrupt and manipulate even their own relatives for personal gain or even to satisfy a cruel sense of amusement.

“‘Everything will come twice as hard for you, Uly, my son,’ his mom whispered. ‘But the rewards will be twice as wonderful. Once you finally manage to nip a strawberry, the juice will taste twice as sweet. The prairie dogs will be twice as succulent when you tear open their bellies. And the vixens—’ her voice caught. ‘Well, life will have a shine for you that it will not have for any other fox. You’ll never take anything for granted.’”

The torment and manipulation constantly visited upon him by his sisters has left Uly with a broken spirit and a complete lack of either confidence in himself or optimism for his future to such an extent that Uly hopes never to be separated from his mother, often asking if he can stay with her even after he has come of age. His mother constantly defends Uly and is determined in her mission to remind him that he is capable of more than he thinks and deserving of happiness, but her love is unable to shift the pessimism surrounding his overall sense of self. His dejection illustrates the potential for the power of incessant cruelty to pollute one’s view of themselves and the world around them and to overpower and drown out kindness.

“‘If he can’t hunt, he should starve,’ Ada said.

‘It’s only fair,’ said Ali.

‘Hush now,’ their mother said, ‘How would any of you feel if your sisters talked about you that way?’

Three of the sisters whimpered with guilt.

Only Ava stood strong. ‘Mr. Scratch wouldn’t like what you’re doing, Mom.’

Uly saw storm clouds pass behind his mother’s eyes.

‘Ava…’ she said. ‘Where on earth did you hear that name?’”

From their father, Mr. Scratch, Uly’s sisters have learned to reject the compassion that their mother has tried to instill in them. Instead, they follow their father’s twisted views and perceive collaboration and prioritization of collective family survival as a weakness rather than a source of integrity and strength. Ava, the most unwaveringly callous kit and Mr. Scratch’s chosen protégé, not only feels emboldened enough to disrespect and taunt her mother, but she also does so knowing that she will strike fear in the vixen who has cared for her and her six siblings. Ava revels in her sense of triumph and power in the wake of their mother’s reaction, while Uly learns the unpleasant lesson that there is someone in the world who can make even his protector tremble.

“Before she could say it, Uly ran from the den. He hopped up the slick rock of the Great Boulder, claws skidding, whimpering every time his forepaw struck the hard stone. Every few steps, he stumbled, bruising his muzzle. But then he’d sense an ashen shadow behind him, and his fear would pick him up again. […] He would wait until the winds cleaned the lilac scent from the boulder and his mom called down that it was safe to come out again. She’d find a way to guide him back up the cliff. Even if she had to leap down and carry him by the scruff.”

Though his sisters have always been cruel to him, often suggesting that he deserves to die, Uly sacrifices himself for their sake when their father tries to force their mother to choose which of her kits will die. Throughout the rest of his story, Uly makes intentional decisions with the goal of separating himself from his sisters’ approach to life, consciously repudiating any influences of theirs that linger in his worldview. While Uly is initially meek and afraid as he ventures off on his own, this courageous, impulsive decision is an indication of his strength of character and his potential to summon bravery to cultivate as he faces unpredictable threats of escalating severity.

“‘But—but you said you’d be there. Every step of the way. You—you lied to me.’

‘I’m sorry, Mia. I never meant to lie.’ Her mom’s golden eyes searched Mia’s blue swirl ones in the flashes of approaching light. ‘But you have to go. You’re the only kit left.’

‘What do you mean “the only”?’ Mia asked. […]

‘Mia,’ her mother said in a calmer voice now. ‘Listen to me carefully. Sometimes there are fires in the fields. Many animals will inhale the smoke. Many will die. […] From the ashes, the wood and the grasses will grow back lusher, greener than before. They’ll be populated with more things to eat. So while some animals may have died, later generations will live better for it. Do you understand?’”

Uly and Mia’s vastly different experiences as kits shape the ways in which they interpret the hostile realities of the world around them and the beliefs they hold about themselves. When Mia’s mother, caught in Beatrix Potter’s trap, tries to explain the dire nature of her circumstances and the necessity for Mia to continue without her, Mia feels betrayed by her mother. Mia is hurt that her mother lied in order to ensure Mia’s cooperation in that emergency situation. Loved by her mother and siblings and nurtured by Miss Vix, Mia’s confidence is derived from the privilege of exploring potential threats in a safe, theoretical environment, while Uly, who learned to fear his own litter mates, is more cautious and defeatist because he has firsthand knowledge of how treacherous the world can be.

“The rabbit’s eyes shined. ‘Mr. Tod is not in his body anymore.’

She looked at the fox, sitting perfectly still on the high perch. ‘Wh-what do you mean?’

‘He’s there,’ the rabbit said, pointing his nose. ‘In the pages.’ […]

‘What do you mean the fox is there?’ Mia asked, staring at the strange little words. ‘Where?’

‘In the page farthest from you.’

Mia squinted at the wall facing her. These pages were populated with creatures—a bullfrog, a bunny, a squirrel—as flat as the worlds that held them. But they weren’t behaving like animals. They stood upright on their hind paws and wore extra skins just like the human.”

To be kidnapped and tortured for another’s gain or amusement might be among the most horrifying concepts in fiction or otherwise. Learning that one’s captor is lacking in empathy invites the possibility that there are no limits to the amount of cruelty and degradation that one might suffer, creating the opportunity to contemplate one’s helplessness and loneliness while awaiting one’s fate. The transformation of Miss Vix into a deadly adversary is difficult for Mia to conceptualize, as it is the worst thing that has ever happened to her in her young life, and she therefore struggles to understand why someone would deliberately inflict harm; likewise, she cannot reconcile the notion of rendering living creatures into inanimate décor and exploitable parts. In this section of the novel, Heidicker also takes the opportunity to offer the world a scathing critique of the real-life Potter’s cruelty to animals, thus casting a pall over the writings and illustrations that are so uncritically beloved by so many. In this way, the author seeks to instruct both children and adults, for he makes it a point to emphasize the horrors that lurk beneath even the most innocuous of things—such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

“‘I heard you whimpering, Little Miss, and I am sorry about this. But there is no use in making it more difficult than it already is.’ […] Miss Potter poured the sleeping liquid over the cloth and then opened the cage with a gloved hand. Mia tried to leap out, but the woman caught her by the scruff, making Mia’s spine bend and her paws dangle helplessly. Miss Potter frowned, ‘Just know that I’m no happier about it than you are.’ She pressed the cloth over Mia’s muzzle and looked away. The woozy scent shot up Mia’s nose. Her eyes watered over. The walls started to melt and bend. […] ‘Well, […] I suppose we’ll have to start over tomorrow.’ She went to the light switch and scowled at Mia’s cage. ‘Get a good night’s sleep, Little Miss. And do try not to look so dour in the morning.’”

In the section of the novel subtitled “House of Trix,” Heidicker implements revelation to the reader as an element of horror; the young fox kits listening to the ghoulish and barbaric acts perpetrated by the human in the story will not recognize her by name, but most young readers in the Western world know the name of Beatrix Potter. Though her illustrations and accompanying stories are widely popular and, nearly a century after her death, continue to be aggressively marketed toward young children, what are less highly publicized are the practices of animal cruelty that she undertook in her attempts to understand the anatomy and physiology of the small woodland creatures featured in her artwork. Through this unveiling of the less-than-pleasant origins of Potter’s craft, Heidicker suggests that macabre and sinister secrets may lie behind more seemingly pleasant and innocuous references than they realize. What some might find particularly chilling is Potter’s utter lack of empathy for the obvious distress of the animals in her cages as she tut-tuts about her own inconveniences while they fear for their lives.

“Creeeaaak THUMP! His heart went cold. It was the skin of a little girl fox—dangling just like the rabbit’s. She hung from her muzzle by what looked like a vine. Her body swung back and forth, her hind legs striking the side of the hollow border. Creeeaaak THUMP! Creeeaaak THUMP! […] He nearly jumped out of his skin when the fox opened her mouth and dropped to the ground. He froze as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The fox was more than just skin. And she hadn’t been hanging from the vine at all. She’d been tugging at it. It was still wrapped around her neck.”

Uly’s first glimpse of Mia occurs as she swings at the end of Miss Potter’s rope; what he witnesses bridges a gap left at the end of “House of Trix.” From Uly’s observation, the reader learns that Miss Potter, who has run out of ether, has instead left to stoke her fire while Mia slowly strangles to death. The eerie sound of “Creeeaaak THUMP! Creeeaaak THUMP!” described by Heidicker evokes the haunting sound of a body swinging by its neck and emulates the sound effects often employed in film and audio horror productions. Determined and resourceful, Mia realizes that she can alleviate the pressure on her neck by climbing the rope and gnawing at it with her teeth.

“He wondered what Mia saw when she looked at him. He was small for his moons, he knew, and it was hard not to notice his withered front paw. His legs were as skinny as sticks, and his fur was ragged from too much scratching. His mom had told his he had a violet tinge to his fur, like he’d been ‘smooched all over like a blackberry bush.’ But his sisters teased him that his eyes were always wet and shiny, like he was about to cry at any moment. Uly widened his eyes, drying them out so Mia wouldn’t think he was scared.”

Like most fox kits, Uly’s only exposure to his peers is comprised of the time he spent with his littermates, and he has assumed the burden of his sisters’ opinions, accepting their externalized definition of him as part of his identity, as though their cruel assertions were statements of fact. He has no means of judging himself or establishing a sense of self-worth apart from his mother’s assurances, and once he has decided that he does not need to fear Mia, he becomes deeply insecure about how she will perceive him.

“‘So, if the yellow gets inside you,’ he said, ‘then it, uh, strangles your personality, making it go away forever. Your tongue runs dry, and the only thing that will quench it is, well…blood. You start hearing whispers in your head that tell you to kill, and your gooey eyes start seeing everything as food. Even other foxes. Once you bite someone and pass the yellow on to them, then you dry up and you die.’ […]

She looked at him a long time. ‘You’re a liar,’ she finally said. ‘My siblings are safe in the Eavey Wood. They’re taking lessons from Miss Vix.’”

Uly has been told stories meant to frighten him for so long that he does not consider how Mia might react when he relates the information that his sisters have given him about the yellow sickness. Although Mia’s mother explained indirectly that her siblings would not survive Miss Vix’s attack, Mia has avoided thinking about their fate. She is not upset with Uly because she truly believes he is being intentionally hurtful or because she thinks he is wrong about what happened, but because optimism and determination, as protective factors, have saved her life thus far.

“In his darkest moments, Uly feared he’d never left the crack. That everything that had come since—the forest, the furless terror, this swamp—were all part of the same nightmare. He was afraid that his life in the Boulder Fields had been nothing more than a dream he would never have again.”

Uly’s fear in the present moment is justified, but the fact that he longs for the Boulder Fields, where his sisters posed a constant threat to his survival and where his mother struggled to feed her kits, is a testament to his lack of understanding of how truly abysmal his situation had been. As is common for many young humans from dysfunctional home situations without healthier alternatives to which they might compare their own inadequate or threatening circumstances, Uly finds comfort by romanticizing the only home he has ever known. In truth, he fled his home because his own father threatened to kill either him or his five remaining sisters if his own mother did not do it herself. Ultimately, Uly’s growing courage in the subsequent moments of his story will become the factor that propels him into self-reliance and confidence in his partnership with Mia, convincing him that he deserves better treatment than his siblings gave him.

“‘Quick!’ she said, searching the bank. ‘We have to find something to drag you over here.’

Uly was shocked. If he’d been in Mia’s position, he would have fled the second the water exploded and never looked back. Just having her stick around filled his whiskers with confidence.”

Uly frequently underestimates himself; he is correct in his assessment that he would have been frightened when the water exploded, but he has also been so browbeaten that he is incapable of appreciating the moments of bravery he has demonstrated under pressure in his short time away from his mother and sisters. Uly is strongest and most courageous when he is acting in service of others, and Mia’s loyalty, despite the newness of their friendship, provides him with a sense of purpose and determination that he did not feel when trying to survive on his own.

“Mia’s jaw fell open. ‘It got your leg!’

It was true. Uly’s withered foreleg was gone. Taken. […] He sighed. ‘At least now I don’t have to carry it around anymore.’ […]

‘I’m sorry, Mia,’ he said. ‘Sorry for saying that stuff about your brothers and sister. Whenever my sisters told me stories—even true ones—they always did it to hurt me. And I…I don’t want to be like them.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘I don’t know what happened to your siblings. Really.’”

Uly’s forepaw is a central symbolic element throughout Scary Stories for Young Foxes; he struggles to navigate the impacts that it has on his balance and mobility, and it is the feature invariably drawing most of his sisters’ teasing and disdain. Appropriately, Uly’s forepaw transforms into his greatest asset in his fight for his life; had the alligator attacked any other fox, they might have bled to death when the limb was torn away. Instead, Uly is liberated from the burden of having to negotiate his ineffectual limb. It is with relief and not dismay that he addresses the absence of a difference that had once held him back. Liberated from his physical weakness, he also commits to leaving behind any remnants of the ways they interacted with others, promising Mia that he is disavowing their example.

“Mia furrowed her brow. She could understand being afraid of a Golgathursh. But not of a dad. She wanted to grab Uly by the scruff and drag him up the hill. But that hadn’t gone over very well in the swamp. She needed a different approach.

She descended until she was just uphill of him. ‘Your dad might have food for us. You love food.’

Uly’s muzzle trembled. ‘You don’t know him.’”

This passage is designed to provide a parallel for the experience of young human children who are trapped in dangerous or dysfunctional home situations that they do not have the emotional tools to negotiate. Often, such children do not realize how desperate and inadequate their circumstances are until their exposure to the world around them increases and they gain enough experience to be able to draw comparisons. Likewise, many young children from supportive and healthy home environments do not realize how harrowing and abusive the experiences of their peers can be. Heidicker captures this contrast by creating a scene in which Mia offhandedly discounts Uly’s assertions about his father—not because she thinks that Uly is lying, but rather because the idea of a selfish and sadistic parent is so utterly foreign to her. Mia sees Uly as someone who underestimates his own abilities and overestimates the level of danger in any given situation. These observations give rise to her doubts about his father’s true nature.

“The vixens of the Lilac Kingdom had a strange, glazed look in their eyes. Mia tried not to look directly at them. They reminded her of Mr. Tod’s eyes.”

Uly learns of the danger his father poses to himself and his sisters when Mr. Scratch arrives at their den in the Boulder Fields to demand that his mother and sisters return to the Lilac Kingdom, but there are even more sinister aspects of Mr. Scratch’s wickedness that Uly does not know about or understand. After Mia infiltrates his domain, she tries to make sense of the social dynamics governing the interactions between Mr. Scratch and the vixens who swear loyalty to him. She soon realizes that there is something frightening and unsettling about the complacent, subservient demeanor of the vixens, but she has only one reference to which she can compare it. Mr. Tod’s eyes were replaced with glass replicas by Potter when the human woman killed and stuffed his corpse to display it on her shelf; what Mia perceived in his expression when she tried to speak with him was complete vacancy. Mia sees that same vacancy in the vixens and cannot yet draw the connection between their lifeless defeat and the abuse and terror they are suffering at the hands of Mr. Scratch.

“He chuckled. ‘It is you who wants to stay. You just don’t realize it yet.’ […] ‘You have everything you could ever want here, Mia,’ Wynn said. ‘Food. Safety. Vixens to call sisters. If you desire anything else, all you have to do is name it.’

‘I told you like three times already,’ she said. ‘I want to find my mom.’ […]

‘Your eyes are nearly golden. You’re now able to make choices for yourself.’

‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘And I want to leave.’

Wynn stopped pacing with a sigh. ‘Perhaps I was mistaken. It seems you’re still too immature to understand how dangerous it is out there. Fortunately, I am an adult who can make choices for you. And I choose to have you stay.’”

Narcissistic and highly manipulative, Mr. Scratch is inclined to grant Mia the illusion of autonomy only as long as the “choices” she makes align with what he wants her to do. Like many villains, Mr. Scratch unabashedly changes the rules and parameters of his fluctuating terms in order to ensure that his desired outcome is met. When he thinks she will acquiesce to his charms, he declares that Mia is old enough to make her own decisions, but when her choices do not align with his desires, he switches gears and states that she is too young to make choices for herself. The full villainy of his approach becomes clear when he has the audacity to proclaim the authority to make those choices for her. At this point, Mia finally begins to understand the malice that so frightened Uly; furthermore, she realizes the fiendish desire that allows him to see her not as a fox kit in need of protection, but as a future vixen he can control.

“The storyteller sighed. ‘No fox kit is safe in the wild. No matter how sweet. No matter how brave.’ The runt’s ears perked. She thought she’d heard that voice in the cavern pitch a little. As if even the storyteller’s heart broke at the telling.

As for those who create the horror in this world, they have their own stories. And as to whether they feel any guilt for their deeds. Well....”

Though hints are provided by Heidicker throughout the storyteller’s narrative, it is not revealed until the end of Scary Stories for Young Foxes that the storyteller is Mia herself. The runt, the only fox kit who remains until the end, begins to sense, in this moment, that the storyteller has a connection to the events and to better appreciate the fact that the sharing is done with a greater purpose in mind than the simple enjoyment of an entertaining story. Though the fox kits can learn much from Mia and Uly’s story, it is important to the storyteller that they remember that being virtuous and brave is not enough, that unfairness abounds in the harsh world of the animal kingdom, and that sometimes despite one’s best efforts, tragedies and failures are inevitable.

“He would kill his son, so that no would know he could sire a kit like that.

More bats clung to his fur, tearing, biting, shrieking. He pressed through them.

The vixens of the land would respect him.

The bats sank in their teeth, ripping away tufts of fur.

Of skin.

He would grow his kingdom.

Mr. Scratch stumbled, his ears deafened by a thousand shrieks.

He refused to lose a fight to his own pathetic son.

He—.”

Uly and Mia eventually defeat Mr. Scratch by exploiting his pride; he is so convinced of his superiority as ruler of his kingdom that he can be goaded into defending himself against verbal insults and bested by his own inability to ignore what he considers to be slights against him. Of all the adversaries that Mia and Uly face over the course of Scary Stories for Young Foxes, Mr. Scratch is perhaps the most frightening in his callousness and sadism; he represents the ultimate deviation from social expectations: a parent who is so consumed by arrogance, viciousness, and egotism that he is willing to kill his own kits to find validation. Ironically, it is his erroneous belief that he is invincible that makes him the most vulnerable.

“Mia smiled, then stared at a puddle. She was quiet a moment. ‘My mom left me.’

Uly’s ears perked.

‘When I got caught by the human, my mom ran and hid in a bush and wouldn’t come out. Then she fled into the forest the moment she couldn’t smell me. Like she just…gave up.’”

Mia struggles to reconcile her feelings of abandonment at the hands of her mother, though her mother’s willingness to leave her children behind was already demonstrated when her other kits were attacked by the rabid Miss Vix. Mia’s mother had carefully assessed whether or not Mia herself was rabid before leaving the Eavey Wood with her daughter, and she was not compelled to check on her other kits to confirm that they had been infected. Though Mia’s mother stays behind as long as she can outside Miss Potter’s house, it takes only one night of Mia failing to respond to her before Mia’s mother abandons her. Mia had higher expectations of her mother, and, in an expression of a common theme throughout the book, Mia begins to accept, with profound hurt, that adults, even those who the young are supposed to trust to protect and care for them, may find themselves in a position that forces them to make decisions that seem self-serving.

“With every step, the snow tugged at his foreleg, giving his shoulder a sickly bloom of pain. […] Out of the foxes with three working paws, he was the best. He’d survived two adventures on these paws. He’d escaped the belly of the Golgathursh, and he had outsmarted his own father. On top of that, he’d successfully scavenged food for Mia. […] Uly felt heroic. And he realized what he’d been missing all along. He finally had someone to hunt for. And not just someone. Someones. There were five kits and a vixen depending on him. And that made the deep drifts and the blooms of pain and the endless snowflakes somehow manageable.”

The growth that Uly experiences over the course of the storyteller’s tale arises out of his unexpected ability to prove to himself that he is capable of more than he ever imagined. The efforts that he finds the strength to put forth, and the endurance and tenacity that he summons from within himself, prove that his sisters were wrong. As his mother predicted, he gains a new appreciation for what he has and realizes that he has finally found genuine companionship with Mia. Both young foxes watched their home lives fall apart before meeting each other, but together they discover that when one is working for the benefit of those they care about, they find strength that emanates from their attachments to one another and also from their desire to be the best versions of themselves that they can become.

“She just sniffed at their heads—Uly, Marley, Roa, Alfie—and regretted naming them so soon. Her mind flashed back to that moment in the forest. The moment when Miss Potter had crouched, holding Mia out by her scruff, and Mia’s mom had refused to come closer. Mia wouldn’t have hesitated in that moment. If she had seen the thing that had taken Bizy, she would have ripped out its throat, even if it put Mia in danger. […] Her mom had grieved for Mia’s death without even seeing with her own two eyes whether Mia was alive or not. Mia got up. She refused to believe Bizy was gone. Not until she saw with her own two eyes. She left the shivering kits behind and limped around the den, sniffing for clues.”

One of the central themes of Scary Stories for Young Foxes is the value of forming chosen bonds and connections with others, banding together out of mutual love and devotion to ensure survival, and hopefully living a long, happy life as a result. This process involves deciding what one will take from one’s family or origin and what one will leave behind as one defines who they are going to be moving forward in the world. When Mia, sedated by the ether, cannot answer her mother, her mother abandons her at Miss Potter’s house. Faced with this abandonment, Mia struggles with the realization that her mother decided not to wait any longer; she feels that her mother gave up too easily and too soon. Though Mia falls unwittingly and unwillingly into her new responsibility as caregiver for this young litter of orphaned kits, she resolves to devote the kind of effort she wishes she had been granted by her own mother.

“Her voice broke, but and she had to wait a moment before she could continue. ‘But from the ashes, the trees will grow back greener, better than before. And there will be lots of good things to eat. And even though the fire was scary, and even though it took some foxes away…the other foxes will remember. They’ll remember the foxes who died. They’ll remember the smell of the smoke. And they’ll tell all their friends and siblings and kits about it so that it never has to happen again. And all the foxes will live happily ever after.’ She sniffed. ‘Or as happy as they can be, at least.’”

The words her own mother spoke to her when she encouraged Mia to leave her in the clutches of the trap so many weeks before spring to Mia’s mind, and she echoes her own mother’s statements as she buries little Bizy. With this symbolic action, Mia is in a sense forgiving her mother, while at the same time vowing to protect the remaining kits with a tenacity that her mother had not managed to show Mia herself. Mia realizes how much she has grown up since she set out from the Eavey Wood and left everyone and everything she knew behind, and this new generation of kits, her adopted and chosen family, represents an opportunity to save those who might otherwise have been orphaned like her.