Mia’s blood ran cold as her friend vanished over the edge. Her ears twitched in the silence. No hiccups echoed from the bottom. No sounds at all.
Odette released Mia’s throat. “There, child,” she said. “Wasn’t that easy?”
Wynn lunged toward Mercy, snarling. “Why did you do that?”
Mercy snarled, defiant. “So you couldn’t eat him.” Her eyes flashed to Mia. “Run, girl! Run now!”
Without thinking, Mia leapt up. Odette lunged after her, but Mia dodged around her snapping jaws and bounded clear of the rocks.
Mia ran from the Lilac Kingdom—down the hill and east, along the cliffs. Soon, she could feel Wynn’s ashen breath huffing behind her, his jaws snipping at her tail. She had to lose him. Then she could find her mom—the only thing that could make Mia feel better after watching Uly’s lifeless body fall into the chasm.
Wynn snapped, just missing Mia’s tail. He was too quick for her. She couldn’t beat him in a fight. How could she lose him when there were no places big enough for her to hide?
Mia thought of something. A trick Miss Vix had never taught.
She continued east, past the cliffs and up the scramble, to the hills where the humans dwelled. Keeping Wynn close on her tail, she pricked her ears and sniffed the air. She listened for the wet grinding of teeth, sniffed for the gray breath and the putrid black scent. If she could lead Wynn to the badger, it would fight Wynn for her.
She ran, sniffing, around the base of the hill. All she could smell was ash from the humans’ fire. She turned her paws uphill. If she could just make it to the top, she’d be able to—SNAP!
Mia jerked to a painful stop, her muzzle thudding to the grass. Her eyes blurred on the hills, the clouds, the rain. Screams filled her ears. She realized they were coming from her. Something had caught her hind paw.
Her eyes refocused, and she saw the silver root. Its jaws had crunched her back toes, grinding her nerves together. She tried to shake it off, but her tendons rolled and grated, and she nearly passed out.
A shadow stepped to the top of the hill.
“It seems you’ve found yourself in quite the predicament,” Wynn said, smiling. “Shame you chose not to remain in my kingdom, where it was safe.”
Mia lunged at him, but her teeth missed his nose by a hairsbreadth. White pain shot through her leg, and Mia dropped to the ground, breath shuddering.
Wynn clicked his tongue. “Well, I should return.” He turned back toward his kingdom but then gave Mia a pitying look. “I do hope the trappers collect you soon. I have watched the sun melt a vixen down to skin and bones, and seen the ants eat her eyes while she was still alive.”
With that, his tail trailed off like smoke through the rain.
Mia let the whimpers melt out of her. She tried to shake her paw free, but the trap refused to let go. She collapsed on her side, tears mixing with the rain in her whiskers.
Uly was dead. Soon, some human would come and collect Mia’s skin. And that would be that.
“Mom?” she said into the rain. “If you’re coming back, now would be the time.”
The storm continued to rage.
THE CLOUDS ABOVE the Antler Wood grumbled and sneered.
The little one’s heart felt trapped between beats. Was Uly really dead? Was Mia going to be eaten by ants? Was Mr. Scratch going to win?
“Hey,” the beta said, “when did Mal leave?”
The little one looked to where her alpha brother had been sitting. There was nothing but a pee puddle.
Two little foxes.
“You have to keep going,” the beta said into the cavern. “Uly can’t be dead. Can he?”
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 the voice in the cavern pinch 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…”
THE PAW
ONE
MR. SCRATCH WAS PLEASED.
The threats to his kingdom had been taken care of—Mia, Mercy, the crippled runt. And now he could walk his rocks with pride. He admired the hill, the marshes, the scraggly branches, and the rich life he had built with his very own scent.
When he reached the chasm, he saw a tuft of fur hovering on the ledge. The fur was ashen but too soft to be his own. It must have come loose when Mercy had shaken her son by the throat.
Mr. Scratch’s eye twitched when he remembered Mia’s words: Anything is better than you.
He nudged the fur into the chasm and then continued his walk.
As the sun set, he climbed to his roost between the pillars of rock at the peak of his kingdom. There he curled up, content in knowing that the kits who’d questioned him were dead at the bottom of the chasm … or about to die in that human trap.
Mr. Scratch fell asleep by the howl of the wolves.
* * *
That night, the scratching began.
Scrtch scrtch scrrrrrtch.
Mr. Scratch jerked out of sleep and stared woozily into the night.
“Odette?”
The scratching stopped, as if caught.
He sniffed, but smelled nothing save the cool leaf mulch at the base of the rocks. He huffed and lay his head back down.
The moment he was slipping back to sleep, it came again.
Scrtch scrtch scrrrrrtch.
He sat up with a snarl. “Odette!”
Scrtch scrtch.
The sound came from outside the rocky pillars surrounding his roost.
“If I have to come and stop your scratching, you’ll regret it.”
Scrtch scrtch scrtch.
He rounded to his paws and trotted to a space between the pillars.
There was no one there.
A moldy stench caught his nose. And he saw the thing, lying on the rock. It was a fox’s paw. Its fur was gray with cobwebs. Its meat writhed with maggots.
He stepped back with disgust.
“Odette!” he howled. “ODETTE!”
Moments later, the vixen appeared, eyes drooping with sleep. “Yes, husband?”
“What is this foul thing doing here?” he demanded.
Odette blinked at the paw. “I … don’t know.”
“Where’s Mercy?” he said.
“In the vixens’ quarters. She hasn’t stirred.”
He huffed. “Get rid of it.”
Odette bowed, gathered the rotten paw in her mouth, and took it away.
Mr. Scratch returned to his roost and thought no more of it that night.
* * *
The following day, he marked his territory near the cliffs, the marshes, and the chasm so that any foxes trying to sneak in would know who they were dealing with. He checked his food stores and then he checked them again. He went to the vixens’ quarters, where Odette cleaned his muzzle while Mercy kept her back to him. When the moon rose, he returned to his roost.
The paw was waiting in his bed.
“Odette!” he cried.
She appeared. “Yes, husband?”
“I thought I told you to get rid of this thing.”
She blinked at the paw. “I … I buried it in the marsh.”
“Well, it seems to have crawled back, hasn’t it?”
Odette sniffed at the paw. “I don’t think it could crawl if it tried.”
Mr. Scratch huffed and stared at the thing. It was small. Almost like it had belonged to a kit. A thought came to him, but he shook it away.
“And you say Mercy has not left your quarters?”
“She hasn’t moved a whisker in days,” Odette said. “Not since—”
Mr. Scratch growled, silencing her. He sneered at the paw. “Drop this into the chasm, where it belongs.”
“Where it belongs, husband?” Odette asked.
He was about to answer, So it can b
e with its owner, but thought better of it.
Scrrrrrtch!
He whirled, ears swiveling. He thought he’d heard the scratching behind him. But that was ridiculous. The paw was right there—as dead as the kit at the bottom of the chasm.
“Go,” he told Odette.
This time, he watched from the high rocks as Odette carried the moldy paw to the chasm’s edge and dropped it over the side. The paw was swallowed in mist.
* * *
The next evening, Mr. Scratch hunted.
He caught a jackrabbit, but its powerful hind legs kicked him in the chest, giving him a terrible gash. He broke the thing’s neck, and even though it was already dead, violently shook it between his fangs. He dragged the remains back to the high rocks, where he feasted on its liver. Then he went to his roost to clean his wound and rest for the night.
The next morning, a powerful hunger awoke him. He returned to the rabbit and nuzzled open its belly. He bit into something gray and cobwebbed and leapt back.
The paw was sticking out of the rabbit’s stomach.
Mr. Scratch whirled, hackles rising, snarling toward the corners of his rocky den, searching for the intruder. But all he could smell was his own lilac scent.
Dark thoughts crept into his mind. Paws didn’t just come back to life. If they did, then any number of other creatures he’d sent to the Underwood would have come crawling back to take revenge on him.
He bounded to the vixens’ quarters.
“Which of you put that paw in my food?”
He realized his jaw was trembling and clamped his teeth to steady it.
Odette scrambled to her paws. “I would never, husband.”
Mercy lay still. He wanted to grab her and shake her, just like he had the rabbit, until she looked at him, spoke to him. But instead he steadied his breath.
Odette had always been loyal. Even Mercy had killed her own son for him. They would never betray him. They loved him too much.
Anything is better than you.
“Shut up,” he hissed.
Odette cowered. “I—I didn’t say anything, husband.”
Mr. Scratch thought a moment. “I want you to travel west,” he told her. “To the chasm’s end. I want you to descend to its base and make sure that my … that that boy’s body is still there.”
“But…,” Odette said. “But that will take days.”
He stared at her.
She bowed. “I’ll return as soon as I can.” And she set off.
Mr. Scratch returned to his roost, where he took up the paw and carried it deep into the marshes. He dug open a swath of mud, dropped the paw inside, and covered it up. He scanned the area to see if anyone was watching. The bog was empty.
“That’s the end of it, then,” he said, and returned to his kingdom.
* * *
Sleep would not come for Mr. Scratch that night. The moon was too bright. The wolves were silent. His restless heart beat strange images into his head:
The corpse of a three-legged kit dragging itself out of the mouth of the Underwood, broken bones jutting out of its fur. A stir in the darkness. And Mr. Scratch’s many other dead children crawling out after …
Scrtch scrtch scrtch.
Mr. Scratch awoke with a start. His ear spasmed, trying to determine if the sound had been real or some sleepless delirium.
Scrtch scrtch scrrrrrtch.
He leapt up and bounded toward the eastern stone. Nothing.
“Odette!”
Scrtch scrtch scrtch.
The sound came from the west now. He ran through the circle of rocks. Again, nothing.
“Mercy!”
Scrtch scrtch scrrrrrtch.
The sound came from the north.
He bolted around the circle of stones to the other side but found nothing there.
“Ha!” he said. “I buried your little paw, and now you don’t have it to frighten me anymore!”
He laughed into the night, then fell quiet, listening. The stars pulsed with his heartbeat.
A shape caught his eye in the moonlight. Something was hopping across the hill.
“Odette?” he whispered.
But the shape did not come up the hill. Instead it hobbled toward the caves that wound through the core of his kingdom.
Mr. Scratch squinted. His hair prickled. The thing was too small to be Odette. Moonlight gleamed on its bloody fur. It only had three legs.
He backed away from the edge.
The scratching began again.
Scrtch scrtch.
To the west.
Scrtch scrtch scrtch.
To the north.
Scrtch scrtch scrtch scrrrrrtch.
Mr. Scratch whirled. “Come out! Face me!”
A paw crawled from behind one of the rocks. It was covered in cobwebs and maggots. It lifted and flopped, digging its claws into the earth and slowly drawing closer, closer.
Mr. Scratch’s heart was beating so fast he thought it might burst. “You may have tricked my senses, but let’s see you protect that three-legged creature!”
He bounded out of his roost, down the rocks to the scraggly hill. He followed the trail of blood and triple pawprints to the cave.
“I know you’re in there!”
In there in there in there.
“I don’t know how you survived that fall, but I promise that this you will not survive…”
Survive survive survive.
Mr. Scratch gripped his claws into the soil, and he bounded inside.
A howl pierced through the darkness. “Arooooooooooooo!”
It echoed deep, waking the shadows with ruffles and shrieks. The cave’s ceiling bled a mass of black that bent midair and came screeching toward him.
No.
The shadows consumed Mr. Scratch. Wings batted his eyes. Claws tore his nose. Fangs hissed in his ears. He could see something ahead, between the frantic bodies—two fox ears sticking out of a shallow pool.
He fought through the shrieking chaos.
He would seize that crippled kit and shake it to death, like Mercy had failed to do.
He lashed his teeth, tearing the bats from his sides.
He would kill his son, so that no one 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—
* * *
Once the last of the bats had fluttered into the night sky, the stars sparkled on nothing but blood and tufts of black fur.
And Uly rose from the water with a gasp.
TWO
Three nights earlier …
MIA GAVE UP trying to escape.
She had shaken the trap, tried prying open its silver jaws, where her paw was scrunched, even tried biting the sliver that held the jaws together. If she could just get her teeth around it like Miss Potter’s fingers had, she could get the trap to release … But her teeth kept slipping, and the trap kept thunking to the ground, sending bolts of pain through her hind leg.
Mia whimpered, wondering how her mom had put on such a brave face when she’d been trapped. Moms must be stronger, she guessed.
Now that the rain had cleared, the high whine of insects drilled into Mia’s ears. Was she cursed? It felt as if every fox kit who came near her was doomed to die. Alfie. Marley. Bizy. Roa. She accepted that her siblings were gone now. Taken by the yellow.
But she couldn’t accept that Uly was dead too. She should have listened to him and headed east across the hills. She had wanted to lead them away from the humans but instead had led them to something much worse: Uly’s own father. How could a fox be so cruel to other foxes?
Mia laid her head in a
puddle and closed her eyes. She waited for the humans to come.
* * *
Mia woke to a sound.
Squuuiiiiikkkkkk squirk squeeeeeee.
It was wet and squishy, and squirmed through her ears.
She turned away from it, and the trap pulled, sending another jolt through her leg and into her teeth. She whimpered and settled again.
The sound continued.
Sqrk squee sksh.
She lifted her head and found a hairy clump of moss, coiled with maggots. She was about to nip at it, to tell it to stop its squirming and let her die in peace, when she noticed the thing had claws—four thick black ones, cracked to bits. Mia was so woozy with pain it took her a few moments to see what it was.
It was a fox’s paw, rotten with rain. The paw had been chewed through, and not only by maggots. Mia felt the pain in her hind paw, right at the spot where this paw was cut off. The last fox to get caught in this trap must have gnawed through his own paw to escape. And he had left a part of himself behind.
Mia sat up painfully, jangling the trap. Darkness overtook her heart as she stared at her own trapped paw. Could she do that? In order to save her own skin? With Uly dead and her mom missing … was it even worth it?
She bit experimentally into her back ankle and yipped. She bit again, and red flashed through her eyes. She let go until the pain faded. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t force her teeth to cut her own skin. She took a deep breath and attacked her foot again, shaking her head back and forth.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a familiar voice said.
Mia looked up, ears perked.
Uly.
Uly was there. Standing in front of her.
“It’s not easy having three paws,” he said. “Besides, you’re gonna need all of them.”
Mia blinked to make sure he was real. “I thought you were dead,” she whispered, afraid that if she spoke any louder, he would vanish.
“So did I,” he said. “Lucky for you, I seem to be hard to kill. I’m like my dad that way.”
Scary Stories for Young Foxes Page 15