Scary Stories for Young Foxes

by Christian McKay Heidicker

  She looked up through her cage at the fox with the sandy whiskers. The rabbit had been right. Mr. Tod had nothing inside his soul. Miss Potter had trapped him inside a page and then stolen his eyes and stuffed his body with grass.

  Mia’s heart beat in her ears now. She looked back just as Miss Potter lifted the dripping insides of the rabbit, streams of blood running down her arms.

  “Pee-yoo,” the woman said.

  She opened the window with her elbow and then slopped the bunny’s innards outside. Mia pressed her nose through her cage, sniffing at the trees, the wind, the soil. This was it. She needed to escape. Otherwise, she’d end up just like Mr. Tod and the rabbit. She could almost feel the cold of the silver claw opening her belly. She gnawed at the silver sticks of the cage, trying to get them to snap. But it was no use.

  The bunny’s innards disposed of, Miss Potter summoned a small waterfall and cleaned the blood from her hands. Then she stepped to what looked like a black boulder and picked up a small stick. There came a brisk scratch, and a flame gasped to life, tingling Mia’s nostrils.

  Fire. The human could make fire.

  Miss Potter grew distracted, using the waterfall to fill a pot big enough for Mia to fit inside. Mia watched as the flame crept down the stick to Miss Potter’s fingers. The woman hissed like a snake, jerking her hand, and the flame leapt onto the floor.

  “Ack! Ack! Ack!” Miss Potter cried, stamping on the fire until it was extinguished. She went to the window and waved the smoke out with her hands. When that didn’t clear it, she opened the front door, wafting fresh air into the den.

  Miss Potter wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Oh, Beatrix,” she said, laughing. “You really can be such a goose sometimes! You’re meant to cook the rabbit, not yourself!”

  The smoke cleared, and she shut the door and the window. Now all that was left was the trapped air, laced with ash. Mia’s nose ached to sniff the trees again.

  Miss Potter scratched another flame to life and touched it to the boulder, which whooshed with a circle of fire. She lifted the water-filled pot over it, and soon, steam coiled. Once the water started to bubble, Miss Potter dropped the rabbit’s empty skin inside. She created another fire and tossed his glistening meat over it.

  The room filled with eye-watering smells. A hunger growled up inside Mia, try as she might to fight it. The rabbit’s meat would fill her with energy. She might even be strong enough to break these silver sticks. She paced her cage, whimpering and licking her lips.

  “Enough fidgeting, Little Miss!” Miss Potter said. “Your breakfast is coming.”

  Once the meat had grown crisp and glistening, the woman served it to herself. Then she walked to Mia’s cage and opened it with a creak. “Here’s your oatmeal.”

  She set a shell of pale burbling mud next to Mia and then closed the door. Mia sniffed at the oatmeal, then sneezed. It was as scentless as mud. Just like she would become if she ate it.

  As Miss Potter feasted on the rabbit’s meat, making satisfied sounds and slurping the fat from her fingers, Mia tucked herself into a ball in the corner of her cage.

  She had disobeyed her mom and not gone into the forest when she was supposed to. And now she would pay the price. Miss Potter would steal her scent. Then her essence. Then her breath and her skin. The woman would feast on Mia’s meat while Mia watched, helpless, from a leaf-flat watercolor world.

  The rabbit eaten, Miss Potter cleaned the grease from her hands in the small waterfall and then impaled a new page above the rabbit’s empty cage.

  “There!” she exclaimed. “The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit! It’s far from my best work, but it will pay the bills.”

  She used a stick to fish out the rabbit’s skin from the steaming pot, and then opened the front door and hung it to dry.

  Mia stared at the new drawing above the empty cage. The rabbit with the floppy ears fled through the flat world in terror, forever running from some unseen danger. Whatever it was had stolen his tail and whiskers.

  Mia could have sworn she saw the drawing’s nose twitch.

  SEVEN

  NIGHT FELL, and a spindly moon rose in the window.

  Mia pretended to sleep while Miss Potter blew out the tiny flames around the room. Footsteps approached the cage, and the latch squeaked open. Miss Potter clicked her tongue. “What a waste.” She removed the uneaten oatmeal and then closed the latch again.

  She hadn’t noticed that one of Mia’s eyes was not perfectly shut.

  Once Miss Potter was safely tucked away in her room, Mia sat up. A sliver of moonlight gleamed on the cage’s silver latch. She’d watched through the crack in her eyelid as Miss Potter had opened it. All Mia had to do was lift.

  She poked her nose through the square directly below the latch and tried to nuzzle it upward. But the space was too tight. The silver sticks cut her muzzle. She pulled her nose out to lick the ache away and realized something. She slid her nose back into the square and licked.

  Her tongue lifted the latch.

  The cage creaked open, and Mia hunched, waiting to see if the sound had woken Miss Potter. Snoring drifted from the other room. Mia bounded out of the cage and crept across the floor, nails clicking as she sniffed for an escape.

  Mr. Tod’s glowing eyes seemed to follow her around the room.

  “Stop staring at me,” she whispered to him.

  She padded to the den’s entrance. Its latch was much too high to lick open, so she sniffed the narrow space around its edges. She could smell squirrels and acorns and leaves and streams. The breath of the forest was a whisker away, but she couldn’t figure out how to reach it.

  She caught an apple scent, and her tail started to wag.

  “Yaowr!” Mia said, making the smallest yelp she could.

  A few moments later, a sniffing came from under the door. “Mia?”

  “Mom!”

  She could smell her mom’s breath through the crack beneath the door; the same air pulled between their nostrils.

  “Oh, thank goodness!” her mom said, sobbing with relief. “You’re alive! I’m sorry it took me so long to find you. I move slowly on three paws. Are you okay?”

  “She’s gonna take my skin!” Mia said. “She’s gonna cook me and replace my eyes and—and—and trap me in one of those … pages!”

  “Slow down, honey. You can tell me all about it later. Right now, we need to get you out of there.”

  Mia scratched at the door, whimpering. “This is the only way out. The rabbit told me before Miss Potter—before she took his…”

  “It’s going to be okay, Mia,” her mom said, but Mia could hear panic in her voice. “Can you reach that hole? I can’t jump with my injured paw.”

  Mia looked at the window. Maybe the rabbit hadn’t been right about everything. The window was as invisible as a fly’s wing. Wings could be crunched. She trotted to the space where Miss Potter had skinned the rabbit. She fixed her eyes on the moon in the window and, bounding across the room, made a great leap.

  THUMP!

  Her nose struck the wall just beneath the window, surprising a yelp out of her. She recovered and crouched in the shadows of the skin tree, muzzle aching, ears alert. Miss Potter snored in her room.

  Mia decided to try again, this time pushing the air out of her lungs so she wouldn’t make a sound. She ran and leapt and—THUMP!

  She pawed at her bruised muzzle and then returned to the door.

  “My legs aren’t long enough.”

  Her mom took a breath. “Can you find another way out?”

  Mia sniffed. The only other place was down the hall, in the dark space where Miss Potter went to sleep.

  “I can try,” Mia said, breath shaking.

  “I’ll be right here,” her mom said.

  The door to Miss Potter’s room was open just a crack. Mia nuzzled it wider and sniffed the darkness. The woman snoozed softly. There was no window. Mia was about to go back, but then shapes started to form in the shadows. Claws. Fangs. Glowing e
yes. The room was filled with dead animals—frozen in hideous poses, eyes popping out of their empty skins.

  Mia recognized the characters from Miss Potter’s pages. There were the squirrel, the duck, and the bullfrog. There was the badger, claws in the air, jaws locked in an eternal hiss. And there was Sara, the rabbit’s wife, eyes sparkling with never-ending fear.

  Trembling, Mia backed up. Her tail bumped into something, knocking an object to the ground, where it shattered.

  “Hmph?”

  The sound stirred Miss Potter, who sat bolt upright. She snatched something from her bedside and clicked it, and a beam of light blared across the room, nearly catching Mia’s tail as she slipped out of the door. Mia leapt into her cage and caught the door with her teeth. She yanked back, and the latch clicked shut just as the woman stomped into the room.

  The light shined on Mia, making her squint.

  “Mia!” Mia’s mom called from outside. “Mia, tell me you’re okay!”

  Miss Potter pointed her light out the window. “Who’s making that racket?”

  Mia’s mom fell silent.

  Miss Potter killed the light with a click, scratched her chin, and returned to her room.

  Mia trembled in her cage, the image of the empty-eyed creatures still wild in her mind. And not only because they were stuffed. The duck had wings for flying. The badger had jaws for chomping. Even Sara had long legs for kicking. And yet none of them were able to escape before Miss Potter stole their essence and their skins.

  What chance did a fox kit have?

  EIGHT

  THE SUN ROSE and set in the window more times than Mia could count. The days blended together in a stale blur, slowly leaching the terror from her heart and replacing it with something she’d never felt before: boredom.

  Every morning, Miss Potter swept into the room, wafting her melted-flower scent and talking to herself. “Make the tea, make the tea.” After the water howled in pain, she would throw open the window to let the weather in. Mia would smell her mom outside, patiently waiting for the night to come.

  As sunlight filled the human den, Miss Potter would use the silver claw to sharpen her pencils and then sit before Mia’s cage, skritching shapes onto her pages.

  Skritch skritch skritch. “I’ve always said that one must see, smell, and touch one’s subject.” Skritch skritch. “Ahem. Well, perhaps not smell—not when one’s subject is a skunk or a badger or some scandalous character like that.” Skriiiiiiiitch! “Still, I’ve always said to myself, I’ve said, ‘Beatrix, you must know how fog smells, how frost tastes, before you draw it.’”

  Day after day, as Mia watched her own form take shape on the page, she thought she could feel her personality slowly seeping out of her paws.

  In the afternoons, Miss Potter placed what looked like clear puddles over her eyes and studied her work. “These are turning out quite well, if I do say so myself! And ahead of deadline too! I should be finished with you in just a few more days…”

  Mia tried not to think about what this meant. Instead, she lay on her side and watched the branches scratch at the window, trying to remember what it felt like to curl up beneath them.

  As the sky began to fade, Miss Potter would serve herself duck or rabbit, and Mia a steaming bowl of oatmeal. The smell of sizzling meat squeezed Mia’s stomach until she was forced to take tiny licks at the tasteless mud, choking down every last bit.

  In the evening, Miss Potter would shut the window, cutting off the wind and the leaves and Mia’s mom’s apple scent. Then she would light a fire in the small cave, putting a flicker in Mr. Tod’s eyes.

  “Well, I’m spent,” Miss Potter would say once the flames had faded to embers. “Good night, Little Miss! Sleep tight.”

  With that, she would slip into her room, and Mia would be left alone with the moon and the shadows and Mr. Tod’s glowing gaze. When all was quiet, she would lick open the latch and lie by the door. And her mother would whisper soothing things through the cracks while Mia pretended not to hear the tears in her voice.

  NINE

  “AAAAAAAND FINISHED!” Miss Potter sang out one evening.

  She sat in front of Mia’s cage. Only this time, she did not bring her pencil to skritch with. Instead, she brought several pages, which she tapped into a neat pile on her lap.

  “This is only a rough draft, mind. I’m still working out the details.” She studied the pages. “And I didn’t quite get your eyes right, I’m afraid. You always look so dour.”

  She took a deep breath, then held up the first page. It showed a picture of Mia. Only, like the other watercolor animals, she stood on her hind paws. She carried a little nest filled with strawberries and wore a fluffy dress like the ones Miss Potter wore. A soft white something covered her head, save her ears, which stuck out the top.

  Miss Potter cleared her throat and spoke in a pinched voice. “In the northlands, there was a valley of fog most white, with the golden tops of trees poking through. And in those trees lived a young fox kit. Her name was Little Miss.”

  Mia tried folding her paws over her ears, but they kept springing up. Had the fox with the glowing eyes listened to The Tale of Mr. Tod? Was this the last thing he ever did?

  Miss Potter proceeded to tell the tale of a young vixen, whose two naughty brothers were always getting into trouble. After the brothers snuck onto a farm to hassle some chickens, the angry old farmer swore to shoot off their tails.

  The words stirred something in Mia, and she tilted an ear.

  The clever Little Miss managed to convince the farmer that the blood on her brothers’ muzzles was nothing more than strawberry jam. In the end, the farmer left, scratching his head, and the fox kits made it home in time for their parents to lick their cheeks good night.

  “The end,” Miss Potter said, turning over the last page. She bared her teeth at Mia. “And now, Little Miss, you shall live forever—in the hearts and minds of children everywhere.”

  Mia sniffed at the pages. Maybe living in the watercolor world wouldn’t be so bad. She could remain in a story where she saved her siblings from the evils of the world until the end of time. Just as she feared she’d failed to do in the Eavey Wood.

  “Well?” Miss Potter said. “What did you think? It may not be as exciting as the old tales with Peter, but I enjoy it. And to think we turned a tricksy fox into a hero!” She wrinkled her nose in that way Mia had come to learn wasn’t a snarl. “I think someone deserves a treat.”

  She went to the kitchen and then brought back a raw piece of meat, which she tossed into the cage. Mia stared at it. Did this belong to the rabbit?

  “Well?” Miss Potter said. “Go on, then.”

  Mia sniffed at the meat. She didn’t touch it.

  “Grown used to my oatmeal, have you?” Miss Potter said. “Good. Hunters are such nasty characters.” She removed the meat and sighed. “Well … no use in avoiding the inevitable.”

  She collected the cloth and the jar and the silver claw, blowing away the pencil dust. Then she reached for the skin tree, paused, and frowned around the room.

  “Now where have my gloves run off to?”

  She disappeared into her bedroom.

  Mia licked open the cage’s latch and bounded to the door. “Mom!” she howled. “You have to save me! She’s going to do it right now!”

  A moment later, her mom scratched at the door. “What can I do? I don’t know what to do!”

  Mia whimpered. Her mom was supposed to have all the answers. Mia searched the house, thinking. The window was too high. The door was blocked. Miss Potter had taken the sleeping liquid with her … Then she saw the answer.

  A minute later, Miss Potter swept back into the room, pulling on her gloves. “I heard your whimpering, Little Miss, and I am sorry about this. But there’s no use in making it any more difficult than it already is.”

  When she turned around, Mia was back in her cage. Miss Potter poured the sleeping liquid over the cloth and then opened the cage with a gloved hand. M
ia 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.

  Just before everything fell to darkness, the smell was gone.

  “What’s this?” Miss Potter said in a high-pitched voice.

  She dropped Mia, half-conscious, back in her cage and closed it. Mia was barely able to keep her heavy eyelids open, but she watched through blurry lashes as Miss Potter went to her desk and picked up a drawing of Little Miss. A stream of pee trickled off it, smearing the pencil work.

  “What happened?” Miss Potter said, horrified.

  She searched the room for the culprit, never dreaming that Mia could have let herself out of her cage and then put herself back.

  Mia wanted to howl to her mom, to let her know that she was still alive. But she could barely stay awake. Her head felt full of stones. She couldn’t feel her paws. Her eyelids kept drifting shut without her permission.

  Miss Potter let out a frustrated sound as she crumpled the paper and threw it in the trash.

  “Well,” she said, cleaning her hands in the small waterfall and then violently flicking droplets from her fingers. “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.”

  She flicked off the light and then disappeared into her room.

  There was a scratching at the door.

  “Mia?” her mom howled. “Are you there? What did she do to you?”

  Mia tried to swim out of sleep. But the walls couldn’t hold their shape. The silver sticks wavered in and out of focus. Her eyes fell shut again.

  “Mia!” her mom said, scratching.

  Mia jerked awake. She needed to lick open the latch. She needed to let her mom know she was still alive. But she couldn’t lift her head. Her tongue hung heavy in her mouth.