This delightfully grim tale is a heartwarming exploration of moving on, perfect for fans of Kate DiCamillo and Tim Burton!
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Aubrey Hartman’s The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest, which is out February 25th 2025.
Clare is the undead fox of Deadwood Forest. Here, leaves grow in a perpetual state of fall: not quite dead, but not quite alive—just like Clare. Long ago, he was struck by a car, and, hovering between life and death, he was given the choice to either cross into the Afterlife or become an Usher of wandering souls. Clare chose the latter: a solitary life of guiding souls to their final resting place.
Clare’s quiet and predictable days are met with upheaval when a badger soul named Gingersnipes knocks on his door. Despite Clare’s efforts to usher her into the Afterlife, the badger is unable to leave Deadwood. This is unprecedented. Baffling. A disturbing mystery which threatens the delicate balance between the living and the dead.
Desperate for help, Clare and Gingersnipes set out on a treacherous journey to find Hesterfowl—the visionary grouse who recently foretold of turmoil in Deadwood. But upon their arrival, Hesterfowl divulges a shocking revelation that leaves Clare devastated, outraged, and determined to do anything to change his fate.
Chapter 1
Clare was dead.
But he was also very much alive.
Undead was the term some folks used—and by folks, I mean the smudgy-faced children who crowded the edge of Deadwood Forest, throwing rocks and sticks at the shadows, chanting:
When winds blow
Through Deadwood east
The undead monster waits to feast
On little bones
And braids
And toes.
But don’t you scream
Or its hunger grows!
Then, of course, they all screamed—a horrific sound that sent chills down Clare’s furry spine. He’d never once eaten a braid, whatever that was. He had, admittedly, eaten a few toes back when he’d been alive, but he was a fox, for heaven’s sake. It hardly seemed fair to accuse him of being a ravenous monster.
The screaming children were an irritation at best, a nuisance at worst. Especially on nights when Clare had work to attend to—important, crucial, life or death (mostly death) saving work.
Thankfully, the children came around only once a year (on All Hallows’ Eve), for Clare worked best in silence. And Deadwood Forest was nothing if not that—so quiet, in fact, that it starred in its own gruesome song:
Hold your breath
And you can hear
The wretched silence
Drawing near.
In Deadwood Forest
Nothing grows,
Nothing breathes,
Or sings or crows.
Yes, it was true. Deadwood was very quiet, which followed reason: Clare was the only (kind of) living thing beneath its canopy. No birds sang in the trees, no frogs droned in the ponds. In contrast, Fernlight Forest, across the road, was bursting with life, merry with birdsong and the crunch of paws in the underbrush.
Deadwood’s abrupt silence felt, to some, like a terrible omen.
It felt, to Clare, like a peace he’d found only in death.
Er—undeath.
You get the idea.
I will not lie to you and say it did not bother Clare, being called a monster. He cringed and quietly begged the children to stop, stuffed moss in his one good ear and went to bed early on that dreadful night.
For, screaming children aside, All Hallows’ Eve was already a most unsettling time. Summoned by the humans’ celebration, the Afterlife surged and swelled, straining the seam between the living and the dead. Some years, the four realms blazed so fervently, even a stray mortal eye glimpsed the glowing beyond.
Now, you might have caught that Clare had only one good ear, fortunately spared from the accident that killed him. From that same accident, he was left with a single good eye. The other was a fickle thing, popping out at the most inconvenient times, rolling across the forest floor and picking up debris. He’d eventually given up and stowed it in a walnut shell beneath his bed. But soon after, he’d seen his reflection in a glassy pond, his left eye socket gaping grotesquely above his snarled whiskers.
He’d made a trip to Deadwood Dump that night. As he’d scavenged, Clare had reverted to walking on all fours, for at certain times, it made sense to keep his nose close to the ground. And that’s when he’d found it: a monocle. A little bent, a little clouded. A thin brass chain dangling from the wire.
He’d placed the monocle on the tufted fur beneath his socket, then peered into the pond’s reflection. To his delight, the foggy glass had done well to cover his eye hollow. He’d even gone so far as to say it made him look. . . respectable.
Dashing.
Thus it went that, from then on, our undead hero donned a monocle. Soon after, he’d also adopted a cloak to cover his patchy fur, a hooded garment made of crushed velvet the color of beetroot.
So do you see why it pained him to be called a monster? He was nothing of the sort. In fact, his work made him something of an angel.
But we will get to that later. And I think you will find it is the most interesting, fascinating, breathtaking—
Ahem.
What’s that?
Who am I, you ask?
I am the narrator. The bard. The teller of this tale. I’m very good at what I do, and in time, you’ll forget I even exist.
Everyone else has, anyway.
But back to our story. I sense that the talk of missing eyeballs has you feeling a little squeamish. And I regret to inform you that it does get worse before it gets better. We have to go with Clare to a dark place—a very dark place indeed—a place where few foxes and only a handful of elk and absolutely no badgers have ever gone before.
And that, dear reader, is a story I fear you are not yet ready to hear.
. . . Or are you?
