The Song of the Fox

by Sanne Rosenmay

Prologue

Stories travelled through the village — soft words, whispering voices drifting through the narrow streets like wind between rooftops on restless late-summer evenings.

They spoke of a creature, a fox, creeping closer to the houses with every passing night.
A beautiful, yet dangerous one.

People began closing their doors earlier than before.
Children were pulled inside from their games long before dusk.
The villagers said it brought misfortune, that whoever met its eyes would lose themselves.
Yet no one had seen it up close — only glimpses, shadows, footprints pressed into the mud outside the barn.

I remember the sound of their voices as I walked through the streets — the fear in them, sharp and cold against my skin.
But there was something else within me, something that pulled in another direction.

For I too had seen it.
Not as a shadow, but as a living flame among the trees beyond the fields.
Its fur glowed like red amber, and its eyes shone in the dusk — calm, aware, as if it already knew me.

From that day on, the village seemed a little darker.
The voices sharper.
The air heavier.
And every time the fox was mentioned, I felt it again — that quiet warmth, that strange pull of curiosity and longing in my chest.

They said it brought danger.
But I thought, perhaps it brought truth.

The Omen

It began with small signs.
A shadow moving at the edge of my sight.
A glimpse of something rust-red between the trees, right where the evening light broke.
At first, I thought it was only the wind, or a trick of shadows.

But I felt it.
That peculiar stillness that falls when something or someone is watching you.
An alertness in the air, as though the whole forest was holding its breath.

I started seeing it more often.
Sometimes by the field’s edge when I walked home after sunset.
Other times closer — a shape in the mist, silent, waiting.
And each time I sensed the same peace.
The same inexplicable feeling that it had not come to hunt… but to find.

In the village, fear was growing.
Feathers and tracks were found, and the people said the fox must be driven away.
One of the men began setting traps.
I said nothing, but my heart tightened each time I heard the metallic snap echo through the treeline.

One night, I dreamed of it — the fox.
It stood before me on a narrow path, surrounded by fog.
Behind it burned a faint glow, like the last ember of a dying fire, yet I felt no heat — only the gaze, golden and deep, seeing through all that I could not.

When I awoke, I could still smell earth and fur in my nose.
It felt like an omen — not of danger, but of change.

The Meeting

It happened one evening when the sky was heavy and golden after rain.
The air smelled of wet leaves and soil, and everything felt saturated — as if the world itself was holding its breath.

Something inside me stirred — a quiet pull, like an invisible current asking me to follow.
So I did.

I walked alone towards the field behind the old mill, where the forest begins.
It was silent, except for the dripping of rain from branches and, far away, the faint call of an owl.

I saw it before I heard it — a flicker of movement between the trunks, red as the embers of a dying fire.
It stood completely still.

The fox.

I remember how everything in me froze — not from fear, but from recognition.
Like remembering a melody once loved, long forgotten.

Its gaze was steady, yet calm.
The eyes, amber-gold, alive in a way that almost hurt to look at.
It stepped closer.
And closer still.
Its fur was clean, thick, beautiful — as though light itself had woven it.

I said nothing. I hardly dared breathe.
But something moved inside me — a kind of wordless understanding.
It stopped an arm’s length away.
I reached out my hand, slowly, as if moving through water.

It didn’t flee.
It lowered its head, and the tip of its nose brushed my hand.

It was a moment outside time.
Everything else vanished — the distant voices, the dark, the cold.
Only this: warmth, fur, breath.
A connection that could not be explained, only felt.

When I looked up again, the world was silent.
Even the wind had paused.

The Voices

The rumours spread quickly.
Someone had seen me standing out there, in the forest’s edge, near the fox.
They said I had spoken to it. With it.
That I had let it come too close.
That I had been… marked.

First came the whispers, then the shouting.
They spoke of sickness, of omens and curses.
Torches were lit by the village pond, and the men went out with poles and snares.
I stood in my house and watched the light dance on the walls as something inside me began to loosen from all I had known.

For they saw only fear.
I had seen something else.

I ran before they reached the door — into the darkness, where the torchlight was swallowed by the trees.
I didn’t know exactly where I was going, only that I had to leave — away from the voices, away from what they called truth.

And there, in the heart of the dark, the fox was waiting.

I stopped.
We looked at each other.
It turned quietly and began to walk.
Without looking back.
And I followed.

Behind us came the sounds of shouts and metal — a gathering storm far away.
But the deeper we went, the more the noise faded.
The forest closed around us — not in threat, but in shelter.
Like a hand folding around something fragile.

I knew I could never return.
But there was no fear in me.
Only release — as though everything I had carried finally slipped away.

The Flight

The forest received us.
Branches bent gently, as if in recognition, and the ground was soft beneath our feet.
The moon hung low and heavy between the trunks, its light suspended in the air like silver dust.

We moved without haste, but without hesitation.
The fox knew the way.
It turned where the path disappeared, and I followed as though I had always known how.

The air changed as we went deeper.
It grew damp, filled with the scent of moss, bark, and something else — a sweetness I did not know, but that reminded me of childhood dreams.

Somewhere in the darkness, water murmured — a brook whispering like a voice.
The fox stopped and looked at me.
Its eyes caught the moonlight, and I thought I could see myself reflected in them — not as I was, but as I could be.

I crouched down.
My breath was steady now.
The torches, the voices, the village — all gone.
There was only us.

The fox stepped closer, and I laid my hand on its fur.
It felt alive in a way nothing else ever had — warmth, heartbeat, rhythm beneath my palm.
For a moment, there was no boundary between us.

Through it, I could sense the forest — the damp earth, the wind across bark, the quiet pulse of stars beyond the treetops.
Everything was one.
Everything was alive.

Then it moved again, and I followed, until we reached a place where the bushes and branches shaped a natural hollow — a shelter so still that even time seemed hesitant.

The fox slipped inside, and I followed.
Into the darkness, where the ground was warm and soft with moss.
It lay down, and I lay beside it.

The Heart of the Forest

Silence.
Not the kind that feels empty, but the kind that breathes — as if the earth itself was alive beneath us.
It felt safe, as though creatures of a thousand years had sought refuge here before and found peace.

I felt the damp moss against my cheek, the scent of soil and bark, and the warmth of the fox’s body beside me.
It had laid its head upon my shoulder — heavy, trusting.
Its fur was thick and clean, soft as shadowlight, and I could feel its heartbeat faintly through my clothes.

Gradually, weariness spread through me.
Thoughts dissolved — words, fear, voices from the village — all that had filled me before.
What remained was weight, warmth, and a vast, quiet peace.

Outside our shelter, a faint light flickered.
Torches, perhaps. Or fireflies, dancing among the roots.
But they never came closer.
The world beyond had grown distant, an echo from a life I no longer belonged to.

I closed my eyes, felt the fox breathing — slow, rhythmic.
And I thought, perhaps it had never been the fox they feared.
Perhaps it was what it carried.
Something wild, something true, something untamed that humans could no longer bear to face.

The moon drifted across the sky.
The night held us.
And we slept.

When I woke, the air was clear and cold.
Morning mist had gathered between the trees.
The fox was gone.
But where its head had rested, the earth was slightly pressed, and there lay a single red hair, glinting in the light.

I picked it up, held it between my fingers.
And in that moment, I knew it was still there — not out in the Forest, but within me.

Something in me had grown quiet.
Something had settled.
And in that silence, I could still hear it — the song of the fox.

Epilogue

I found my way back to the path as the sun hung low between the trees.
The forest was different now — not menacing, but awake.
As if it knew I had seen its heart, and that I carried a piece of it with me.

The village stood as before — the roofs, the smoke from the chimneys, the clatter of wheels on gravel.
But I felt the change.
Not in them — in me.

They asked where I had been.
I told them I had lost my way, but found my way home again.
They laughed, relieved, and said the fox was gone — that the traps were empty and peace had returned.

I nodded.
But I did not tell them that the peace they spoke of was not found in the absence of the fox,
but in the presence of what it had left behind.

At night I could still feel the warmth of its fur.
Sometimes I thought I heard it outside — a soft step in the leaves, a breath in the dark.
But I did not go out to see.
I knew it showed itself only to those who remembered how to see.

And I knew I no longer feared the wild within me.

For deep inside, there was still a rhythm —
a gentle, steady pulse, like the heartbeat of a creature that never truly disappeared.

Author’s Note

This story came from a dream — one of those that lingers long after waking, like the scent of rain in moss.
I didn’t understand it at first. The fox kept returning, closer each time, until it no longer felt like a symbol but a presence — calm, patient, and deeply alive.

For me, The Song of the Fox is about the wildness we are taught to fear, and the quiet truth that waits beneath it.
It’s about learning that what others call danger may simply be a part of ourselves we’ve forgotten how to listen to.

I believe we all meet our fox at some point — in dreams, in silence, or in the moments when the world grows still enough to hear what lives beneath the noise.
And if we’re brave enough to reach out, maybe we’ll find that what we feared was never a threat —
only a guide, waiting to lead us home.

— Sanne Rosenmay