Scary Stories for Young Foxes

In the aftermath of Miss Vix’s attack, Mia must confront several frightening changes all at once, for not only has she lost her siblings forever, but she must also leave her home territory of Eavey Wood and strike out on her own long before she has reached full maturity. When her mother forces them both to leave so suddenly, Mia fears not only for her siblings’ well-being but also for herself, for she understands that Miss Vix’s lessons are most applicable in the familiar confines of the Eavey Wood. She struggles to process the reality that she now must face dangers that she has not been prepared to anticipate, as well as the necessity of leaving her old life behind. Mia does not understand the severity of the yellow sickness and the terminal, irrevocable nature of the infection, so the decision to lie and tell Mia that her siblings will be fine reflects not cowardice but dire necessity. In order to usher her one remaining child to safety, she uses the falsehood to allow her daughter to cling to one small shred of comfort as everything else is utterly lost.

Later in the novel, Mia will feel betrayed by her mother when Uly explains the full reality of the yellow sickness, and she will eventually have to come to terms with her mother’s lie. Her mother is relying on her best judgment in the moment because she understands that the urgency of ensuring her daughter’s compliance supersedes the need to be honest. If she tells Mia in the midst of the action that the other kits are dead, the resulting sense of hopelessness might impact Mia’s willingness to cooperate, thus jeopardizing their chances of survival. When they flee Eavey Wood, and later when Mia’s mother begs her to run away and leave her in the trap, Mia’s mother experiences anguish at compelling a young and inexperienced person to shoulder a burden far beyond their capabilities. Because this survival theme commonly occurs in real life and can strike at any moment, these flight scenes represent yet another example of the author’s use of Horror as a Teaching Tool for Young Readers.

By conveying harsh life lessons in the form of a dark animal fable, the author gains access to serious topics that would otherwise be considered far too intense for such a young readership; hypothetically, if the protagonists were all humans, there would be far too thin a veneer separating the mask of the story from the ugly life truths underneath. Yet, even in the midst of such horror, the author makes sure to inject threads of courage, strength, and nobility, for it is clear from the start that Mia is led by her emotions: her love, loyalty, and sense of responsibility, all of which are steeped in her survivor’s guilt at the terrifying and traumatic confusion of this fateful day in her life. While Mia represents a strong personification of human emotions and ideals, her mother represents the stoic pragmatism of the animal world, for she feels a biological responsibility toward ensuring the birth of more foxes in the future, whether it is herself or Mia who carries forth the next generation. She therefore explains that foxes, like all other wild creatures, are part of an ecosystem that requires them to act with the good of their species in mind in order to ensure the balance and harmony of the environment.

In stark contrast with this sensitive portrayal of the natural order, Beatrix Potter’s cottage is a house of horrors all its own. When Mia meets the widower rabbit, she has never conversed with one before because to Mia, rabbits are merely prey animals. However, she soon finds herself developing compassion for him as she learns about the loss of his wife and as she watches Miss Potter anesthetize, skin, and eat him. Mia has been taught to fear human beings, but not about the specific fates that might befall foxes who happen to venture too near to them; most of these foxes do not return with a cautionary tale to share. This section of the storyteller’s tale raises the question of whether it is more frightening to wait and wonder what a sadistic captor might do once they have you in their clutches or to know what your fate will be but not when the end will come. Heidicker’s portrayal of Potter is particularly gruesome, for her very nonchalance while perpetuating such horrors upon the captive animals emphasizes what little regard she has for other living things. Additionally, the descriptions, while jarringly graphic, are not executed with such creative freedom that they defy accuracy, and thus this fictional tale holds a considerable amount of brutally pragmatic honesty. Potter, beloved writer of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, did indeed engage in such visceral and torturous practices, exploiting and terrorizing the animals she trapped, and she did so for her own gain, profiting from the sales of the books that these animals made possible and benefitting from the fame that ensued when her work became popular. By choosing to use a fictionalized version of a historical figure instead of creating an entirely fictional character, Heidicker invites young readers to consider that what seems harmless, wholesome, and innocent might have a truly sinister and ghoulish background.