Chapter 1: Foxy Nightmares

Only a scoop of silver was left of the moon. In a few days time, it would just be a sliver of light between stars, and it would be my thirteenth birthday. 

Sparrow Creek was a dwarfish town close to the middle of nowhere,

—Although it wasn’t much of a town at all. My entire grade held only twenty-two students, and each of them had their own treehouses and favorite camping spots in the surrounding woods of Sparrow Creek because those woods were all there was for miles. 

I myself spent time in a tree house reading borrowed books, as for camping, Dad could only take us out maybe three times a year. I didn’t care, I still loved nature fully, and loved the sticky sap, the glowy leaves, and all the warmth of the sun. If three times was all we could manage, then three times is all I needed. 

“Aven- Raven,” my father called into the woods, carrying his voice to the general direction of my favorite reading spot.

Orange skies bled through the leafy and full canopy of trees with light dappling the tree bark and wind carrying the noise of crunching red autumn leaves and chirping wildlife. I left the grove of oaks on the sun baked rocky outcropping that I’d been tucked away on. I dashed past the creek and the fallen trees and bounded over the tiny ravine that was connected to our Forrest only by a drawbridge. 

Dad held my hand as we headed home, knowing a hot plate and cup of tea would be waiting for me. He and I walked in our little house together, the needle eye of our cul de sac which was surrounded by thin woods that connected to a nature trail, a wide single dirt path that ran the length of the woods, connected to the main camping grounds, attached to denser forests and the mountains beyond that.

Dad’s dinner consisted of chicken pie, gravy, and sweet white tea. He bid me good night and flicked the light to my room off. 

Click

That was when the dread began to pool in my stomach, I’d been having strange dreams for the past two weeks. I’d be walking my usual path to the sun rocks to find a bright red fox with yellow eyes in a bush, I’d pet it and move on. The fox would walk alongside me till I reached the edge of the oak grove, my reading spot, it’d clack its teeth a bit then dart off. That was it.

...Until a while ago, the fox no longer walked besides me on the path, rather, just behind me. Or simply out of view, I could still hear it, though, clack, clack, clack, and when I could see it in my dreams, its eyes glowed unnaturally bright, and it almost seemed to grin at me.

But the fox always looked wrong. Its legs were too long, its teeth too many, and its eyes too big. Not too long after that advancement in the dream, the fox would make noises, like giggling, or whispers behind my back, even notes from my piano, but every time I turned around, it was either innocently trotting behind me or nowhere to be seen.