Scary Stories for Young Foxes

Uly, the second main protagonist, is one of seven fox kits born to his mother, Mercy, a vixen raising her litter of kits alone after escaping the terrifying and tyrannical Wynn, also known as Mr. Scratch. Uly was born with a disability; one of his forepaws never received a sufficient supply of blood. At the beginning of the story, the wasted paw is a burden to him, lying shriveled and inanimate against his chest. He struggles to compete with his six sisters for the meager amount of food his mother is able to bring back to their den. His mother is gentle, patient, and kind with him, but she is drowned out by her six daughters, all of whom are cruel to their brother and refuse to help clean him and share their food with him. Although Mercy has told her children that their father is dead, Mr. Scratch finds her and the kits and demands that she choose between their son and his sisters. To spare his mother this painful choice, Uly flees into the woods alone. When he meets Mia, he is perpetually afraid and entirely lacking in self-confidence. With her kindness and encouragement, and the motivation he finds in collaborating with someone else who has his best interests at heart, Uly begins to surprise himself as he learns what he is capable of, conquering both rational and exaggerated fears and confronting and outsmarting those who threaten the ones he cares about. When he loses his shriveled foreleg to the jaws of an alligator, he feels a sense of relief instead of a sense of loss, and this cathartic experience marks a dramatic shift in mindset for him. Uly’s sense of purpose is further cemented when he and Mia adopt a litter of orphaned fox kits, and Uly discovers purpose and fulfillment in his chosen role of helping and providing for others. When storyteller-Mia concludes her harrowing tale, it appears that Uly has been lost forever after his final confrontation with his father and the rescue of the young fox kit, Marley. However, at the conclusion of Scary Stories for Young Foxes, the reader learns that Uly is alive and well and that he and Mia continue to enjoy a fulfilling partnership as wise and experienced adults.

Wynn, more commonly known as Mr. Scratch, is Uly’s father and one of two primary antagonists of Scary Stories for Young Foxes. Selfish, sadistic, and manipulative, he is deeply insecure and feels threatened by any and all male foxes who enter his domain, which he calls the Lilac Kingdom. He narcissistically believes that he has universal appeal to all female foxes, but the vixens that he holds captive in his den are kept there through coercion, abuse, and fear tactics. When Mercy, a vixen he considers to be his “wife,” escapes his cruel clutches, he seeks her out but does not confront her immediately. Instead, he approaches their daughter, Ava, in secret, corrupting her and using her to gain information about Mercy’s litter. He also grooms her to become a bully and behave with cruel hostility toward Uly, thereby tormenting his son by proxy. He tries to force Mercy to choose between their daughters and son; he wants Uly dead and would not hesitate to kill Uly himself, but his abusive tendencies make him relish the thought of forcing Mercy to kill her own child to save the rest of her litter. He forces Mercy to leave her daughters behind and return with him to the Lilac Kingdom. When he later finds Mia in the forest, he pretends to be hospitable but slowly begins to tighten his clutches, finally informing her that she is not allowed to leave. Though she is young, he makes his intentions to take her as one of his wives explicitly clear. He is ultimately outfoxed by Mia, Mercy, and Uly, who bait him by assaulting his pride. As Mercy predicts, he is difficult to kill, and he remerges at the end of the story just like the classic monster of a horror movie, fighting with Mia’s surviving rabid brother, Roa. He is defeated when Uly tricks him once again, causing him to tip into a frozen river where he is carried away by the current.