[Valentines Contest Entry 2017] The Woodcutter and the Fox

Once upon a lonely mountain, there lived a woodcutter. His family was gone and he spent his days in a shanty, taking weekly trips down the trail to trade off his choppings. It was an age of fire and steel, Imperials and conquest, one which did not favour the lowly woodcutter, but that didn’t bother him. He was a woodcutter, and his father had been a woodcutter, and his father’s father before him had been a woodcutter too. It was their blood.

Woodcutters are simple creatures. They need only two things: an axe and a pair of arms. In the morning, they venture into the wood and chop. In the afternoon, they haul their labours home with them, and eat a hearty dinner. In the evening, they smoke their pipes and watch the fireflies dance with the stars.

Woodcutters are like sturdy rocks in the current of time. They know only their profession, and their knowledge of the outside world comes solely from tidbits that the villagers whisper among themselves. During the snow falls and the torrentials, they can find themselves cut off from the outside world for weeks at a time. Because of this, they are oblivious to many things that the common folk are aware of.

It was on one such day, a day when the sky had broken into a tantrum of tears, that the woodcutter met the fox.

The sky roared inside his ears mid-chop, and he was forced to flee in lieu of his efforts. The hard dirt had softened into a squelching and it wasn’t long before he was blindly rushing through the trees to safety. The rain had been long overdue, and almost like a pent-up bottle of emotions, had no qualms with eliciting its fury upon the mountainside.

The woodcutter was little more than half of the way home when he found the fox, a small, matted bundle that lay out in the open, at the mercy of the elements. The line where the blood ended and its tattered coat began was unclear, but the black heavens would surely claim it if he left it be. Being a woodcutter, he naturally scooped the poor creature in his arms and continued on his mad dash for safety, all without missing a beat.

He reached safety of course, as a strong, healthy young man, and immediately tended to the wounds of his guest. The mountain had cut and scratched the beast many times, but the woodcutter was surprised to discover half an arrow shaft embedded within the fox’s hind leg. The creature had clearly tried to remove it, but had only succeeded in making it worse.

“This will hurt,” he said. “But please bear with it.”

He didn’t expect the fox to understand. But the sudden defiance that flared to life in its eyes suggested that it did, and that it wasn’t happy.

It struggled and fought as the woodcutter removed the shaft, tainting his cabin with the musky scent of blood. Had the fox been at full health, it might have even succeeded in taking off a finger or two. As things were, the woodcutter barely escaped with a single nip on his index finger. With the wound closed and bound tightly in linen, the fox licked its lips and closed its eyes. Worn from the tiresome day and trapped inside by the raging storm, the woodcutter fell onto his sleeping mat and slept.

Now, as I’m certain you know, creatures on the mountain are not always what they seem to be. There are certain spirits and familiars that roam the woods in the form of animals, and some that even tempt men to their deaths by taking on the form of other humans. The woodcutter had never heard of such beings, so you can imagine his surprise when he woke up to find a set of jaws clamped tightly around his throat.

Finding strength from the prospect of death, he threw off his assailant with a cry, only to realize that it was too large and heavy to be the fox. Instead, there lay a pale woman on the floor of his shanty, as stark as the day she was born. Her eyes were wild and frantic, her matted hair long and tangled about her neck, her teeth clenched in a snarl. She was beautiful, in the wild, feral way that nature was, despite the streaks of dirt and blood on her skin, despite her uncouth state. It wasn’t until he saw the pointed ears upon her head, the bushy tail between her legs and the bloody wound around her thigh that he made the connection.

Rubbing the bite marks around his neck, he watched as the woman scrambled towards the door on all fours, only to fall flat after but three steps. Whimpering in pain, she continued to drag herself towards the door in a sorry state, but was stopped short by the unfamiliar mechanism of the doorknob. Her strength finally left her, and she collapsed onto the floor in a heap.

The woodcutter tended to her once more. When she woke again, she seemed to have resigned herself to her fate, and accepted his hospitality without resistance. Perhaps she was too weak to resist, perhaps she was simply waiting until her strength recovered. The woodcutter didn’t know, and the woodcutter didn’t care, for all woodcutters are honest and simple men.

Over the coming days, the woman’s wounds began to heal, and she became more lively. He dressed her in some old garments of his and wiped her down every day, as abashed as it was. Her tail would swish from side to side when she was awake, her ears would twitch, and her hairs would shine with unrivalled luster. She continued to snap at his fingers when he tried to feed her, but she seemed to understand that attempting to escape would not speed her recovery in the slightest.

A week passed, and just as the woodcutter was ready to delve back into his daily fare, the Emperor’s soldiers came knocking at his door.

He heard them before he saw them, the thundering of hooves trampling across the tranquility of the mountain. Their banners were held high for all to see, and their leader wasted no time with his business.

“Woodcutter. Would a fox happen to have passed through here?”

Armed to the teeth with Imperial steel that clanked with each movement, the general and his men dismounted. The woodcutter was just as tall and strong, but he did not possess the arms nor the technique to oppose them. His thoughts immediately went to the woman staying inside his shanty.

“I have seen many foxes,” he replied. “The mountains are full of them. Is there anything in particular about the fox you seek?”

“She is a fox, yet not a fox. Surely you have heard of the fox spirits, woodcutter?”

“Nay, I have not,” he said, and he was honest.

“They are powerful creatures, with the ability to take on human form. Many a man has fallen victim to their charms, for they are cunning, and they eat our flesh. But their coats make for a fine luxury, and for this reason we hunt them to extinction.”

“How many days past?”

The general tugged at his beard. “One week. The night of the storm.”

“No fox nor man passed through here,” the woodcutter affirmed. “This is the first I have heard of such creatures.”

“I see. Yes, they are far too cunning to be seen by a mere woodcutter. Please step aside if you will, I would like a look inside your cabin. It may be hiding there, unbeknownst to you.”

The woodcutter bit his tongue, but dared not raise a finger against their Imperial steel. He folded his arms and waited as two more men dismounted, and the three Knights stepped into his shanty.

Moments passed, and in this time he pieced together the puzzle. He was simple, but by no means a fool. The fox had clearly been the target of the Emperor’s hunt, though how it had eluded them for a week was still a mystery. The fact that the fox spirits ate human flesh was unnerving to him, and he could not help but mull it over as the three soldiers emerged from his hut.

“Thank you for your time, woodcutter,” the general said. “We will be on our way.”

And like that, they left.

The woodcutter, surprised at the outcome of the event, rushed into the cabin. The sheets had been pulled aside, and the woman was gone. A breeze blew through the newly opened window. Nothing remained of the fox, not even a hair.

Time passed.

The woodcutter grew older by a turn of the moon, and soon he forgot about his encounter with the fox. The Emperor’s men never returned, and no matter how hard he listened, the villagers never mentioned anything about a fox. The woodcutter was a woodcutter once more, venturing into the forest in the mornings, hauling his goods back in the afternoons, watching the fireflies dance among the stars in the evenings.

And this continued for another turn of the moon, and another, and then a turn of the seasons, and one more. The woodcutter was no longer a young man but approaching the pinnacle of his life, having reached a third decade of age. His muscles had ironed through the years, his hair grizzled.

And it was one stormy night, much like that night so many years ago, that there came a knock at his door.

Unsure of what to expect, the woodcutter opened it and found the fox at his feet, bleeding heavily from its side.

The woodcutter took in the creature without a second thought and tended to it. The source of its injury was not man, but rather the wilds. It had been savaged by a pack of wolves, barely escaping with its life.

He clothed it, bathed it, fed it, and this time it didn’t resist. It never tried to take his flesh, never tried to eat him whole. He never doubted it at all. It was a fox to him, and only a fox. The woodcutter’s mind did not care for spirits and superstition.

On the eve of the third day, the woman appeared once more - but she no longer shied from his touch.

A week passed, and then another, and before he knew it, the woman’s injuries had fully healed. But unlike their first meeting, she didn’t leave. She would be sleeping in the mornings when he left to cut wood, and she would wait patiently for him, tail swishing from side to side when he returned. She never spoke a word of human, but they understood each other from their actions alone. One day she began to walk on two legs, and on another he was pleasantly surprised to find a crude meal waiting for him upon his return.

The woodcutter was lonely, but he was honest, and never dared lay a finger on her. Being of a solitary nature, he had never had much experience with women, aside from the odd romp with a village girl. It wasn’t until the fox came to him one night that he embraced her as his lover, and experienced true happiness.

She learned everything but how to talk, and he often took her down to the village. She understood him, and listened to his instructions, and no one ever discovered her true nature. In the mornings, she would travel into the woods with him and watch him cut wood. In the afternoons, she would help him haul his cuttings back to the shanty. And in the evenings, they would embrace each other and watch the fireflies dance among the stars.

But all good things must come to an end.

The fox-woman never aged no matter how much time passed. The woodcutter’s hair became grey, his face creased, but she was as flawless as the day they’d met. A nagging worry grew at the back of his head, but he brushed it aside.

They continued to spend their days as they always had. Not once did the woman fall pregnant, and without an heir or an extra pair of hands around the house, everything fell onto her shoulders.

The woodcutter’s hair was white now, his arms no longer sturdy, his axe notched and rusted from age. His steps quivered and his eyes glazed over sometimes, but the woman never left his side. His ironed muscles had loosened and could no longer cut wood. The fox travelled to the village every week with the money that the woodcutter had saved up throughout his youth, and returned with food and supplies. The woodcutter spent hours looking out across the mountainside with his partner curled up by his side, and hours more staring at the stars.

And then, one day, the woodcutter fell asleep and never woke up.

Several months flew by before the villagers happened upon the shack. The interior had been covered in a thick layer of dust, and a single cross punctured the ground in the back yard. There was no sign of the woodcutter’s wife, nor his daughter, who had stopped coming to town a few months ago.

The age of fire and steel passed. The forest of trees was cut down and replaced with a forest of concrete. The shanty where the woodcutter once lived had been trimmed into a small park, but the view remained the same. A view on the mountainside that overlooked the entire city below.

Fox spirits are very intelligent creatures. They live for hundreds of years, and they never forget. Their grudges last forever, but so does their loyalty.

They say that if you go to that park on a clear night, you’ll see a fox. A scar runs across her side, and she walks with a slight limp. She will be curled up beside a patch of grass, watching as the fireflies dance among the city lights.