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FOR MARK WITH FIREFLIES
THE HAUNTED SEASON had arrived in the Antler Wood.
The sky grayed, the leaves blushed red, and mist coiled through the trees like something alive. Even the pumpkins began to rot and show their true faces.
On these chilled autumn nights, it was best for fox kits to remain near their den on the edge of the wood. There, they could feast on apples that tumbled from high branches. They could hunt for smoky acorns and crunchy stick bugs and juicy mice. And when dusk turned to starlight, the kits could return to their den, tuck under their mother’s fur, and be soothed by her heartbeat.
“Tell us a story,” the alpha kit said one misty night.
“Make it scary!” the fourth said, yipping and hopping.
“Yeah!” said the third, snarling. “So scary our eyes fall out of our heads.”
“Please stop biting my face, children,” their mother said.
The kits behaved themselves while she smoothed out a bed for the night.
“Let’s see,” she said. “How about … ‘Rattlebones’?”
“Mo-om!” the beta said, rolling her eyes.
“You told us that story when we were two weeks,” said the alpha.
“It’s boring!” said the fourth.
“Very well…” Their mom began ripping out roots that had snuck through the den’s walls. “How about ‘Willoughby Wallaby and the Floating Paw’?”
“Seriously?” the fifth kit said.
“That story wouldn’t raise the hackles on a field mouse!” said the fourth.
“It’s kit stuff,” said the third.
“Well,” their mom said. “Those are the stories I know.”
Seven little foxes sighed.
“Sorry to be a disappointment,” their mom said, lying down. She paused and looked at the kits with all seriousness. “But you must promise that no matter what you do tonight, you will not go to Bog Cavern.”
The kits’ ears perked.
“What’s … Bog Cavern?” the alpha asked.
“That’s where the old storyteller lives,” their mom said. “If you go there, you’ll hear a story so frightening it will put the white in your tail.”
The kits stared at their thin, dusty brown tails with wide eyes.
“Wait a second,” the fourth said, looking at the fluffy white end of their mom’s tail. “You heard the story?”
“Only part,” she answered. “And I wouldn’t repeat what I heard for a thousand mice.”
The kits gave one another meaningful looks. They didn’t want some toothless story like “Willoughby Wallaby,” which could be forgotten with a shiver and some milk and a lick on the cheek. They wanted a story so scary it would prove their bravery and change them forever.
All except the little one, that was. She preferred the sound of her mom’s heartbeat.
Yes, it may have been wise for fox kits to stay close to the den once the leaves began to fall. But the fog and the frost and the old crimson moon had stirred something in their whiskers. And so they waited till all was quiet, save their mother’s snoozing. And then seven little foxes slipped out of their den with a mission to scare some white into their tails.
* * *
Seven kits snuck into the night—over the log, around the stone, across the creek, and through the grass … deep into the Antler Wood.
The trees threw up their limbs as if to frighten them away.
The little one slowed at their warning.
“C’mon, sticky paws!” the beta kit whispered.
Seven kits crept through the wood—beneath the bone-white branches, past the broken trap, beyond the cave of snoring, over the human bones … to the entrance of Bog Cavern.
Roots dripped over its mouth. Fog oozed from its throat. The kits squinted into the darkness but saw nothing but a pile of bones and skin.
“Is the storyteller … dead?” the fifth kit whispered.
The fourth kit sniffed. Snff snff. “Doesn’t smell dead.”
“Someone go nose it awake!” the third kit said.
“Don’t look at me!” said the beta. “I like my nose.”
“Shh!” said the alpha.
The bones stirred, then jerked up so abruptly every one of the kits’ paws left the ground. The little one scurried behind her beta sister.
The bones sat themselves upright, forming a sort of fox silhouette. Eyes flashed green in the darkness.
“What have we here?” the storyteller said with a voice like spilling dust. Snff. Snfffff. “Hmph. Grovelers.”
The beta gave the alpha a nudge.
“Oh, um,” the alpha said, voice cracking. “Would you tell us a scary story, uh, please?”
The storyteller sniffed again. “Too young. Come back when you’ve lost your milk teeth.”
The fox kits clamped their muzzles shut. The little one hoped this was enough to get her siblings to scurry home, but no one budged.
The alpha cleared his throat and delivered the speech he’d prepared. “We’re, um, smart enough to know that stories are as harmless as the wind through the leaves. They cannot pluck our whiskers or break our bones or, um, strip our skins.”
A silence grew behind the roots, so complete it seemed it could suck the kits into the darkness.
“Sure of that, are you?” the storyteller asked.
Seven little foxes tried not to shiver. Two of them succeeded.
“All scary stories have two sides,” the storyteller said. “Like the bright and dark of the moon. If you’re brave enough to listen and wise enough to stay to the end, the stories can shine a light on the good in the world. They can guide your muzzles. They can help you survive.”
A cloud slid off the moon, and shadows reared up around the cavern. The Antler Wood seemed darker now that there was light.
“But,” the storyteller said, “if you don’t listen closely … if you turn tail from the horror and don’t stay till the end, then the darkness of the story can swallow all hope. It can frighten you so deeply you’ll never want to leave your den again. You’ll waste away the days with your mother, forever smelling like her milk.”
The wind pawed at the leaves. The moon shined on the gray fur of the storyteller’s face.
“So. Do you still want to hear a scary story?”
Seven little foxes gulped. Only the alpha nodded.
“Come closer, then,” the storyteller said. “And we’ll see which of you makes it to the end.”
The alpha marched forward. The third hesitated a moment and then followed. Then came the beta and the fourth, fifth, and sixth, trembling.
The littlest fox gazed back through the Antler Wood—over the bones, beyond the cave, past the trap, beneath the branches, through the grass, across the creek, around the stone, over the log—toward home. She breathed deep and padded close to the cavern with her siblings.
&nb
sp; Seven little foxes sat and listened.
“Our story begins,” the storyteller said, “in the Eavey Wood…”
MISS VIX
ONE
THE SUN WAS only just peeking over the peachleaf trees, but the heat was already crisping the leaves and steaming the creek and making the dying fields too bright to look at.
Roa, Marley, and Mia trotted toward the dappled shade of the Eavey Wood, tongues lolling. The grasses buzzed deliciously around them, but on these high-sun days, the grasshoppers were as dry and sour as birch bark.
“Whaddaya think we’ll learn today?” Roa said.
“Hopefully about shadows and holes and how to take naps in them,” said Mia, panting.
Marley was busy rolling in something smelly and didn’t hear the question.
“Come on, Mar,” Roa said. “We’re gonna be late.”
Every morning, when the sky woke white and watery, when the owls were tucking into their trunks and the snakes had not warmed up yet, the kits gathered beneath the Learning Tree for their lessons. Their teacher was called Miss Vix, and she taught them what they needed to know while their mother tended to the hunting and the den.
In their first few weeks outside the den, Miss Vix had taught the kits how to swish their tails through the reeds to stir up a buzzy explosion of insects, which they could snap out of the air. She taught them how to point their muzzles northward when hunting, waiting for the claw of the Sky Fox to draw a hazy ring of purple around their prey.
She taught them the birdsong for “eagle” and “snake,” so they knew whether to duck or jump when a predator was near. And when there were no birds in the treetops to sound the alarm, Miss Vix taught them how to perk their ears and listen for the sounds of large feathers brushing the wind or golden scales parting the earth.
Months from now, after the breath of autumn blew red into the leaves, the kits would celebrate their Golden-Eyed Day, and they would set out to claim their own territories. But until that day came, they would learn how to become proper foxes.
Something flopped fatly across the three kits’ path.
Roa sniffed the creature’s damp skin and pond breath, and gagged. “Blech. Toad slime.”
“Catcher gets belly!” Marley said, hips in a wiggle.
Mia collapsed in the shade of a wilting rosebush. “Too hot.”
Marley bounded after the toad while Roa gazed toward the Learning Tree and sighed.
“Don’t worry,” Mia said, fixing him with her blue-swirl eyes. “Miss Vix won’t get any less pretty, and your eyes won’t get any less blue.”
Roa scowled. He tried to think of a comeback, but instead his ear twitched.
This sent Mia into hysterics. “So it’s true!” She rolled onto her back and addressed him upside down. “You wanna marry Miss Vix and start an adorable little den with her!”
He tackled his sister, and they lashed at each other with their milk teeth. But the day’s heat quickly made them both give up in a panting puddle.
There came a wet plop in a nearby pond, and Marley came bounding back, shaking mud from his muzzle. “It was too slippery.”
“Psh,” Mia said, rounding to her paws. “That jumper was as dry as dust.” She trotted toward the Learning Tree and called back to Roa. “C’mon, Mr. Vix!”
Roa followed, grumbling.
It was true that Miss Vix had honeyed eyes and lush black ears and golden fur that smelled like butterfly dust. And it was true that the tip of her tail was as white as cloud fluff and her boots were as black as the space between the stars.
But Roa didn’t want to start a den with her. He wanted to be like her when he grew up. He admired the arc in his teacher’s back whenever she pounced on her prey … the way she could sniff out a scuttling from a distance of three hundred tails … and how she had once stolen a badger’s feast, piece by piece, by nipping at the badger’s ears and getting it to chase her.
The three siblings continued on, panting. They passed the sluggish river, fish glittering in the sun. They passed the bush with shriveled raspberries that tasted as bright as lightning. And they passed Lumpy Prairie, where cottontail season had finally come to an end. The grass was growing brittle, and baby bunnies were no longer as easy to pluck as blackberries off the vine.
“Melting,” Marley said.
“Evaporating,” said Mia.
Roa just panted.
No birds sang in the Eavey Wood that morning. The leaves rasped like an old, dying snake.
TWO
AFTER A SHORT, sunbaked trot, Roa, Marley, and Mia leapt atop the tumbled oak that bordered meadow and wood.
“Huh,” Mia said, curling her lip. “Does something smell”—snff snff—“funny to you guys?”
Roa blinked away the shadows left by the sun. He sniffed the trees. Miss Vix’s butterfly scent was lost on the wind. It had been replaced with something darker. Something … yellow.
Snrrrrrt! Marley snorted thickly. “I don’t smell anything.”
He bounded off the tumbled oak. Mia and Roa gave each other a look and then followed. The three arrived beneath the shade of the Learning Tree, stopping at the hawthorn bush where Miss Vix greeted them every morning.
Their teacher was nowhere in sight.
Bizy, the kits’ alpha sister, sat in front of the bush, head tilted. Every morning, when they left the den, she sprinted ahead, like reaching the Learning Tree was some sort of race.
“You win again, Biz!” Marley said, out of breath.
Bizy glanced at them. She didn’t brag about her win like she usually did. Instead, she stared back into the hawthorn bush. Its branches were trembling.
Roa sniffed—snff snff—and the yellow stench crept up his nostrils and roiled his stomach.
“Yuck,” Marley said, pawing at his nose. “What died in there?”
“Smells like shrew barf,” Mia said, wrinkling her muzzle.
“It’s—” Bizy’s head tilted to the other side. “It’s M-Miss Vix.”
Roa’s ears perked while his heart made a little jump.
“What the squip is she teaching?” Mia said. “How to stink so bad you scare away all the prey?”
Marley laughed. Roa sniffed at the bush again. Beneath the yellow, he caught a faint scent, dusty sweet and familiar. Bits of golden fur flashed between the shifting leaves. In the shadows, he could barely make out the silhouette of a fox. Its head swayed back and forth like an eel in water. Its mouth hung open as if tasting the air.
“That’s not Miss Vix…,” Roa said. “Is it?”
He took a step toward the bush, but then something sharp clamped down on his tail. He whirled and tackled Bizy to the ground. She caught his paw in her teeth.
“Mif Vikff seh don’ go in ver,” she said.
Roa loosed his paw from her mouth and gave it a lick.
“Maybe it’s a game!” Marley said, tail wagging.
“It is!” Mia said. “It’s called Who Stinks the Worst.” Snff snff. “Marley wins!”
He pounced on her, and they rolled away.
Roa hadn’t taken his eyes from the swaying silhouette. Beneath the rustle of leaves, he could hear a hair-raising click of teeth—klik … klik klik.
“What’s she doing in there, Biz?” Roa asked his alpha sister.
Bizy flattened her ears. “When I got here, everything was n-n-normal. Normal day. N-n-normal Miss Vix…” She swallowed deep and stared into the bush. “Except for Alfie.”
Alfie may have been the runt of the litter, but he was the most adventurous. Their mom could never get him to stay put near the den, and she’d given up trying long ago. Alfie would disappear for hours at a time and return smelling of orange mud or hairy leaves and, one time, even bear dung.
“He was hiding in the b-b-bushes,” Bizy said, her stutter worse than usual. “A-a-and he smelled funny. M-Miss Vix was trying to get him to c-come out. Sh-sh-she kept asking, ‘Are you hurt? Are you h-hurt?’ When he didn’t answer, sh-sh-she grabbed him by his tail and p-pulle
d him out.” Bizy swallowed deep. “Alfie looked … d-different. His fur was all muddy and slicked back. His legs were gn-gnawed pink. All the fur on his tail was g-gone except a little t-tuft at the end. His lips jumped off his t-t-teeth and his breath was fast and s-squeaky. His p-pupils were as wide as the night sky…”
Bizy whimpered, and Roa cleaned her ears until she was soothed. In the hawthorn bush, the paws of the dark silhouette twitched up off the ground, like they’d stepped in ants.
“Miss Vix went to lick Alfie’s w-wounds,” Bizy said, “but h-h-he bit her paw. Hard. Then he r-ran off. Miss Vix licked her paw, and I saw b-blood drip.”
She turned her nose to a little black spatter in the dust. Roa stared at it.
“I a-asked if she was okay,” Bizy said, “b-but she just stood there and t-t-trembled. Then she said, ‘C-class is over,’ and crawled into the b-b-bush.”
The silhouette moved its jaws. A breeze made the leaves sharpen themselves against one another. Roa held back a shudder. Had Alfie wandered somewhere and come back smelling of yellow? Had he given the yellow to Miss Vix when he bit her?
“Still playing the stinky game?” Mia asked, returning from her battle with Marley.
Roa stared into the bush. “I’m gonna go in and check on her.”
“I d-dunno about that,” Bizy said.
“Do it!” Marley said. “I’d do it, but I don’t think my butt would fit in there.”
Behind the leaves, the silhouette stopped swaying and held perfectly still … as if listening. Roa hesitated.
“What if it’s a test?” Mia said, narrowing her blue-swirl eyes. “We’re not supposed to go in strange and stinky places. What if you go in there and Miss Vix bites your scruff and you fail at everything forever?”
Roa rocked paw to paw. “But what if I don’t go in there and I fail?”
The silhouette seemed to stare at him, as if waiting for an answer.
Roa nodded, determined. “I’m going in.”
“Well, you’ve said that twice now,” Mia said. “But times you’ve gone in there? Zero.”
Scary Stories for Young Foxes Page 1
