Foxes Earth
His mother made sure that Jeremy saw her pack the car early on with a cool box full of picnic food and their rarely used red tartan blanket, knowing that when she was ready to take him out to the woods, he would come willingly.
This wasn’t a typical summer picnic, and they started out around dusk in this unusually mild September. She parked up in a passing place far enough down Renard lane that it wasn’t easily walkable. The woods encompassed and welcomed them as they stepped out of the car and into the humid, aromatic warmth, and she felt her tension ease for the first time in months.
The tight, painful feeling of stress in her shoulders and neck took centre stage as always, but she felt exhilarated at the thought about her plan. She was only peripherally aware that she was taking advantage of the trust the little boy still had in her, unearned trust.
Jeremy was good at counting, his teacher said. He knew all of the numbers and could count to a hundred before the other kids in his class. He got butterflies in his stomach when his mother told him they were going to have a picnic in the woods. He remembered that he liked picnics, but the woods were spooky.
He wanted to believe that this was going to be a fun outing like the sunny days out they used to have with the family. He was no longer sure those memories were even real, or just part of a dream, or im his imagination. He had a big imagination, his mother said.
This didn’t feel quite the same as those lovely days though and Jeremy was a little bit worried. Shadows of the ‘bad days’ left him ill at ease, and he knew that his mother’s mood could turn on a dime.
They had to find the ideal place to set out their picnic, his mother told Jeremy as they set off to scout the woods for a suitable clearing. He was only a little bit scared as they got further into the darkness of wood. He was nearly 5 now so he knew he should be a brave, grown-up boy.
In the centre of the woods there was one clearing with a sort of concrete bunker in the centre. It was like those his dad used to take him to see on the Hillside, where they used to play battlefields together, with his brother. His mother stopped right there, looking around as if to check there they were alone.
“This will be perfect, just here Jeremy. You wait here and I will go and get the picnic”.
Jeremy didn’t think it looked like a good place. The ground looked damp and there was less light. He looked at his mother and his spirits lifted, because she looked satisfied and happy.
“It looks like it is going to rain in a minute, how about you go inside that bunker and wait for me so that you don’t get wet.”
““Um. But, it’s dark and… small” he said, even though he knew that might make her angry, he couldn’t help but blurt it out.
“Don’t be silly” his mother scolded her tone implatient, shutting him up instantly. “You don’t want me to have to change your wet clothes for you as well do you, after I have already done all this work making this lovely picnic for us? Go on, get inside where it’s dry, and I’ll be back soon”.
He was terrified of small spaces, and didn’t understand how she could have forgotten, after that time he’d got stuck in the understairs cupboard and hadn’t been found for hours. Jeremy was confused, and disorientated in this place that looked so strange now in the halflight. But he loved his mother and he didn’t want her to be sad or angry…
Jeremy looked again at the bunker, and his heart fell into his stomach. Knowing he really had no choice he walked towards it, slowly at first, hoping she would change her mind, knowing that she wouldn’t. He got down onto his knees in fron of the opening, peering into the dark interior, then crawled into the tomblike space. He looked back at his mother from within the cool concrete. It was smaller inside than it looked from where she stood.
“Further inside Jeremy!”
He shuffled on his bum backwards, and kept going as she encouraged him, right until he could feel the cold, rough cement of the wall on his back, through the thin jersey of his red t-shirt. He couldn’t see anything from where he sat now, except for a speck of light at the front, but could tell from the change in her voice that his mother was pleased.
“Good boy. I’ll just nip back to the car, it won’t take long. But don’t come out until you hear me call you, OK?”
“OK Mum” he called from the back of the bunker.
He heard the crunch of leaves and crack of branches as she walked away. He clung to the sound of her feet as it got softer and quieter, then just a small rustle, and eventually dying away. He was left just with the sound of his heartbeat and any noise he made breathing or shuffling to get comfortable, which was magnified in the hollow chamber. He was still trying very hard to be brave, so that he could make himself stay inside as she’d told him to, then she wouldn’t need to be upset with him when she got back, and he wouldn’t have spoiled the picnic. The smell wasn’t too bad, just rotted down leaves in moist piles, but it wasn’t the fresh autumn air he’d enjoyed outside. At least it was too small a space for teenagers to have used it as a den, so he was spared the smell or beer, urine and old fagends.
To keep calm, he tried to focus on the light at the front, and the sounds of the trees outside, which he could hear now, whistling in a wind that he hadn’t felt earlier. He kept still, so as not to be reminded how little room there was to move his limbs.
Jeremy didn’t know how long he’d been there, but already it seemed like a really long time. He could tell the time on the chunky digital watch that dad had given him, the one from the market with Bob the Builder on the front, and it was supposed to light up but it never had worked properly. So he made keeping still and quiet into a little game, and as he became a little less scared he then became bored and sleepy.
The staying quiet game helped him to listen out for his mum’s voice calling him, time to come out. He counted in his head as well while he waited. He was good at counting and adding up at school. He counted in sets of 60, silently mouthing ‘elephant’ in between each second to keep them even, then used his figures, and his toes when he ran out, to keep track of the sets. At night when he was bored in his room at home, he would count things to pass the time; it started with cats and dogs, but quickly moved on to a variety of more exotic animals like lions and anteaters. Today he counted moles, because he felt like a mole hidden away in this hole, nearly blind, unable to see or hear the world outside.
Jeremy was dreaming that he was falling really fast into a pitch black hole…. when he woke up with a jump. His whole body jolted violently as if he really had hit the bottom. He was all muddled, and didn’t know where he was. Scrabbling around trying to get his bearings, feeling the cold earth below his hands, his breathing was too fast, and his limbs tried involuntarily to free themselves into space that wasn’t there. Cold, black, dank, scratchy, moist. The bunker. He forced himself to slow his breathing, until he could think clearly again.
He shivered, the temperature had dropped and the light from the entrance had disappeared entirely. He tried to remember how many times he had counted his fingers and toes. Maybe 3 or 4 times over? Before that, he had been in the bunker for perhaps an hour? Then asleep for some time after. This meant his mother must have been away for at least 3 hours. It must be dark outside by now.
Had something happened to his mum, why hadn’t she come back with the picnic yet? Jeremy wasn’t scared of the cold dark woods at all any more, and he wasn’t even scared of being in the bunker now that he’d got used to it. He had a much darker worry lurking, though, a sinister persistent pinprick of disquiet, obscured by feelings of shame. He feared his mother had left him in the woods forever.
20 miles away from the woods, on the outskirts of town, Jeremy’s mother was sitting at her kitchen table with her head in her hands. Her stomach churned and her heart was still punching her chest from inside. What was this satisfying feeling? Euphoria, Freedom. Underlined with guilt.
She was wondering if she could go through with it, and leave the child there for good. Once he realised she wasn’t coming back, he would try and look for her, probably try to return to where they’d parked. He wasn’t stupid. But foxes would have found him before he could get that far, and he would have started to turn. No one would want to pick him up after that.
She stood up and felt overwhelmed with nausea and her stomach released bile into her mouth, making her rush to the sink to vomit up what little she had digested that day.
It had been so easy to leave him, that’s what sickened her most.
If it was dark outside and she wasn’t back yet Mum wouldn’t know if came out of the bunker for a while would she? He didn’t want to make her upset, but he desperately needed to stretch out his legs. He could feel them going numb with pins and needles, and Mum had always told him the best thing to do was to walk around on them when they got like that, even if it hurt.
There was more light out here than inside the bunker, even though the sun had gone in. A crescent moon cast it’s glow, unveiling the night-time woods, a different world to the one they’d arrived to. Shafts of moonlight hit branches that had fallen earlier wind, giving them a silvery glow. The birdsong had been replaced by bats’ squeaks, and the occasional screech of a fox out on the hunt. The undertow of the woods at night didn’t frighten Jeremy as maybe it should. The adrenaline from the fear of being alone kept his mind racing and his body alert.
As he came out into the night, just in front of the bunker he found a small fleece blanket rolled up, a flask and a paper sandwich bag. Confused, but also cold and hungry, he hurried to pull the blanket around him and found sandwiches inside the bag. Cheese, on dry bread, just as his mother always made them, and weak tea with milk, both of which he devoured.
Just as Jeremy finished eating, he had the feeling he was being watched, and he stood up slowly on stiff, chubby legs, to turn around and look behind him. He could see pairs of amber eyes glinting in his direction, foxes! He could count 12, maybe more, sleek, rust-red jackets with triangles of grubby white on their chests.
The foxes surveyed the child inquisitively, interested and curious as to what he was doing on their earth.
Radley turned up her music as her favourite Carpenters song came on, “On Top of the World”. The familiar drive home was more fun than it should have been, as she’d had one glass of red too many to drive really. The success of her show had been anticipated of course, but she had surprised herself with the self-assured way she had dealt with the critics and fans, in light of her usual gaucheness at large gatherings. The gangly, socially awkward Radley had been banished, for tonight at least. On top of the world was a new feeling for her, and she liked it.
Shimmying the car onto Woods Lane, she knew how fast she could pull into the next corner in her newly purchased 1970 Saab 96, without worry of losing grip of the road. She always enjoyed this part of the drive and the although the woods had a bit of a creepy reputation, she didn’t mind them at all.
The area was home to the largest known foxes earth in the county. Local folklore painted a picture of the russett residents as ferocious child-savaging beasts, guarding the entrances to their burrows territorially, hackles raised and lips curled back over their teeth at the merest hint of human intrusion in the wood.
One elaborate rumour Radley had heard was about the little girl from town who had disappeared in the 1980s. She would apparently take the shortcut home through the woods after school, but on that particular afternoon she didn’t make it back . Police found her body a week later, completely stripped of clothes, flesh, organs and sinew. Supposedly they had to identify her by her dental records and the post mortem showed bite marks indicating fox activity. It was concluded that red devils had chewed for awhile on the dead bones of the girl, after feasting on her fresh meat.
Radley thought the story was ludicrous, something more akin to a Grimm’s fairy tale than real life. All that was missing was a red cape and a little wicker basket. It was probably closer to the truth to say that the Police filed the closure report on the case because they failed that little girl, and folklore took care of the rest.
Anyway, personally she found the spot tranquil, not hostile or frightening at all. She often liked to stop here on her way home just to sit with the peaceful, unselfconscious sound of the wildlife, even at night. Especially at night.
As Karen Carpenter’s lyrics were reaching their crescendo, she stepped the car down a gear to move into the large swooping corner of the lane. She pressed down on the accelerator…. and caught a flash of brick red as the headlights bounced off something moving across the road. Too late! Her bumper clipped a small solid form, sending it whirling back into the edge of the woods. Adrenalin flooded her system, bringing new oxygen to focus her brain and body, making her gasp and quickly slam on the inadequate vintage brakes as best she could.
Negotiating the speeding, skittering car to a standstill at the side of the road, was a feat achieved more by Radley’s sheer force of will than any driving prowess. She jumped out without switching off the engine, the lights, or the song now at it’s tail end, and squinted into the woods in an attempt seek out what she had sent reeling into the trees. As her eyes grew accustomed to the moonlight, she could make out a small creature, just barely hidden by the thick trunk of a tree it was crouching behind, shaking. The silky, rust-red fox fur was unmistakable, even against the reddish bracken where it stood. So, it was alive at least, Radley was relieved. Although something did seem off in it’s gait, and she worried that perhaps it was too badly injured to stand.
She crept slowly and quietly forward so as not to startle the creature, all the time whispering soft words, hoping that it would sense from her tone that she was friend not foe. She tentatively put a hand out tentatively, the jut of its bones poking through the thick fur on it’s back. She could feel the body tremble under her fingers, and stroked the fox apprehensively, worried it might run. But instead she felt it push against her hand, instinctively, soothed at her touch, and motivating her to move in closer to get a look at what state it was in.
The creature turned sharply to look at her then, it’s speckled amber eyes locking onto her lipid brown ones, and she almost jumped backwards in shock. She took in its face, hands, feet, body… it wasn’t a fox, it was a tiny child! It looked barely more than a toddler, and was indeed covered in the red fox fur she had first seen, but without question, it was a child.
Despite her now jangling nerves, Radley stayed rooted to the spot, controlling her breathing, careful not to scare the fox-child. At that moment the next song in the playlist began blaring loudly from the car. The fox-child screamed a blood curdling high-pitched “YAAGGAGHH” and leapt in the air with surprising energy. It’s intention to fling itself into Radley’s arms, just as if she were it’s loving mother and it her child, needing protection from the world.
FIN
