Scary Stories for Young Foxes

Mia is one of the two main protagonists of Scary Stories for Young Foxes. It is revealed at the end of the anthology that she is the unnamed storyteller and that the third-person account that comprises the eight stories shared with her young audience of fox kits has been her faithful recollection of the harrowing events of her childhood. Until the morning that her siblings and beloved teacher are infected with rabies, Mia leads a happy, safe, and secure life with her mother, brothers, and sister. When Miss Vix’s downfall jeopardizes the family’s safety, Mia feels a terrible sense of guilt at the thought of abandoning her already-bitten siblings to their gruesome fate. However, at her mother’s insistence and with her mother’s desperate falsehood—the promise that Mia’s siblings will recover—Mia reluctantly leaves them behind. Mia later rescues her mother from an animal trap only to be taken captive herself, and she is grief-stricken and wounded when her mother, believing her dead, abandons her to her sadistic captor. As she partners up with her newfound friend, Uly, Mia struggles to accept and reconcile the belief that she failed her siblings and the loneliness and rejection that accompany the fact that her mother gave up on her so quickly and did not fight harder to help her daughter survive.