‘Fox Teeth’ by Aisling Flynn

Blythe was in the habit of befriending foxes. They gathered in swarms at the edge of her mother’s vast estate. Great orange swaths of fur buzzing through the grass like fire. Blythe admired the way their ears twitched, their long tails that bristled at the first sign of danger, their pointed skulls, sharp yellow teeth, and little black claws. Most of all, she admired their colour. It was best after heavy snowfall, when a fox would leap out from under the thick layer of frost. A spitfire. Rusty stain on a clean white sheet. Blythe sat in front of the window for hours, her nose pressed up against the cold glass, wiping away the fog her breath left behind.

If Blythe had her own way, she would have spent all her time with the foxes, rolling in the dirt, leaping in the long grass, nipping fleas off her companions, rodent carcasses hanging from her mouth.

You must not play with the foxes, they are vermin and carry disease, her mother said. You’ll be punished, she added, softly. Her mother smiled; teeth stained purple from the rich, plummy wine she drank each evening. Blythe looked to her father, sat by the fire, thinking he would support her. He cleared his throat, pushed his reading glasses up his nose and disappeared behind his newspaper.

Blythe pined and cried in her room. For hours she screamed, kicked her feet against the wall, tantrummed and shrieked. Pain in the pit of her belly, desire thrummed inside. She wanted to feel the coarse orange fur between her fingers, touch her nose to their little black snouts, run her hands over their soft ears and prickly tails, have them scratch at her a little, maybe even bite her, draw a playful ooze of blood.

Blythe filled the hole created by her sadness with the only thing she enjoyed as much as foxes: sweets. Light little sponge cakes that, when squeezed, oozed a thick jelly, dusty pastel fruits made from marzipan, scones dotted with chewy dried apricots and slathered with clotted cream, dark chocolate mousses delivered in glass bowls and pale, pink candied almonds, made to look like speckled duck eggs were among her favourites. She would sit in bed for hours surrounded by trays of treats. Mother kept the drapes shut so that Blythe would not see any foxes. They sat together, days on end, in the darkness, the smell of Mother’s wine making the air thick and sticky.

When Blythe’s teeth began to rot out of her skull, she was comfortably assured by Mother that she would purchase new ones for her. Porcelain. They arrived in a little pale blue box, decorated with ribbons and pearls and, although they were pristine and lovely, they never sat right in her mouth. They slid into her cheek, pulling at her skin like a bulbus sore. They left a chalky residue which she was constantly choking on, hacking and coughing, shining globs of slobber running down her chin. Upon leaving the house, Mother forced Blythe to bring a small filigreed vase to spit into so as not to offend those they socialised with. At home, however, Blythe spat directly onto the floor and servants followed her around mopping up the thick, milky spittle.

Eventually,the porcelain dust made Blythe ill. Her complexion had all the blood pulled out of it, she began to sweat through her party dresses, coughing turned to vomiting. Mother only gave in when, at the duke’s spring gala, Blythe hacked up a frothing mess of bile onto the tablecloth while the other guests looked on, little droplets landing on the cuffs and gloves of those closest to her.

It became clear that porcelain teeth would not do. Mother sent out for a new set of teeth for her daughter. They came in a little wooden box tied with a dark ribbon. Inside was a complete set of tiny fox teeth. Each little fang had been plucked from the mouth of the animal and placed in a new black gum made from a soft, leathery material meant to hold up well against saliva. Blythe felt her gut drop as she looked at the little dentures.

Now, aren’t these pretty? said Mother, working to gently open her daughter’s lips with her sparkling, many-ringed fingers. Fox teeth, at the time, were highly coveted, the mark of a stylish woman. Father, who rarely emerged from his study, commented on how fetching Blythe’s new teeth would look with her beautiful red hair. Blythe giggled in reply, flashing her father a gummy smile. He flinched and returned to his study, leaving the maids to assist Mother in pushing the dentures into Blythe’s mouth.

Blythe thought the leathery material tasted like a dried-up tongue. She went to spit them out, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she did so and found that, actually, she looked rather ravishing.

Fox teeth suited her. Plenty of men enjoyed the look of a girl with fox teeth, and it became extremely fashionable amongst the upper classes as time went on, though some clearly wore imitation dog teeth. Other girls, sadly, they did not suit. These were the more practical sort of girls who usually ended up selling their fox teeth and replacing them with a plain wooden set, using the remainder of the cash to buy an apartment in the city or some land in the countryside.

Blythe was not one for practicalities. She laughed loudly at parties, spilt wine, ripped the knees of her tights and spat when she talked. She wore her hair, which had not been cut since age five, in a long, complicated plait with ornate leaves and stones woven through. Her hair was already a deep auburn, but she layered it with orange paint, which hardened under the candlelight, dusted her face with white powder, smudged her eyelids with charcoal.

Problems arose. Blythe suffered from a strange habit. She was biting. She nipped and snapped at the servants, often growing feverish and angry. She drew blood several times and had to be restrained. When Mother arrived home from a tour of France, she found Blythe licking her bloody lips, a gravely injured butler moaning and gurgling in the corner. Mother received complaints from the maids. Constant blood stains on Ms Blythe’s collars, blouses, skirts, the freshly pleated pinafores, all ruined. This would not do. The girl was tranquilized, the fox teeth removed from her mouth. While her gums and mouth had a few days to heal, emptied of teeth for the third time, Mother set out to find a willing donor. She prowled around countryside schools, poking and prodding inside the mouths of dozens of girls, checking for cavities, missing teeth, decay, bad breath.

She made her selection, a girl with jet black hair and a lovely oval face. The girl said she did not need the permission of her parents, would take the money in her own hand. She went willingly with Mother to the dentist’s surgery. One by one, her teeth were prised out. Mother had expected a change of heart from the girl, for her to kick, scream that she had made a mistake but she was silent while the dentist worked. He filled the girl’s mouth with gauze and sent her on her way.

When she returned home, Mother presented her gift to Blythe in a red box that opened on a hinge like a jaw. Blythe took the gift without comment or thanks. The teeth had been cleaned and polished to pristine white by the dentist. Blythe took one from the box and held it up to the light.

They are not attached to any dentures, she said. Won’t they fall out?

The dentist shall affix them to your gums as if they were your own, said Mother. Quietly, footsteps like a cat, said dentist appeared at Mother’s shoulder. He wore tiny round spectacles perched at the end of his nose, like a second set of eyes.

The procedure took hours. When Blythe woke the pain was searing, moving through her mouth like a hot bubble. She went over to the mirror expecting to see some pathetic, swollen creature but saw a dismal beauty there instead. She smiled at her reflection, the clear, smooth teeth, but winced immediately at the pain, feeling just how deep the dentist had dug the teeth into her.

Blythe received several marriage proposals in the months that followed but declined all, claiming her mouth was too sore to kiss a new husband. Smooth, square teeth were now fashionable. Mother relayed stories she heard about girls trying to file down their fox teeth to a more acceptable shape. Poor things, she mumbled, the wine wobbling her speech.

Unfortunately, complications that followed the purchase of this third new smile. Servants had to stay with Blythe at all times after she was discovered out in the tool-shed trying to remove her teeth with a pliers. She had managed to loosen several, and jabbed at them with her tongue, pushing them back and forth like a mouthful of piano keys. It took three footmen to pull the pliers from her hands. Blythe spat a victorious little tooth onto the ground.

The family lost servants. Many succumbed to bribery, assisting Blythe in the removal of seven more teeth in exchange for money, fine dresses, sexual favours. Two of the maids had been caught trying to sell the teeth at the market, encasing them inside cheap lockets, claiming they were antique trinkets. Another had tried to force one of the lost teeth into her own empty gums. They were one by one dismissed.

Danny, a teenage boy and the last of a dwindled supply of footmen, now kept watch over Blythe in her bedchamber. He was pale and thin, his face pointed and sharp, the bones protruding against the skin, ginger hair scraped and combed tightly into place. He was very tall and stooped low as if he wished to disguise this fact. He looked a little bit like a fox and Blythe liked this very much.

Blythe asked Danny to marry her. At first, thinking she was teasing, he didn’t answer, fixed his face in the same blank expression that was meant to denote her authority and his inferiority. But when Blythe started rolling on the floor crying, ripping at the embroidery on her dressing gown, flinging marble ornaments against the wall, he agreed to it. The girl was still pretty, even with the missing teeth, he thought. Mother immediately gifted Danny several acres of land and a chateau to house himself, Blythe, and their future children. The wedding was large and well attended. The bride wore white buttons to fill the gaps in her smile.

Finally separated from her mother, Blythe felt free to deteriorate. Her hair grew longer, matted, thick clumps of it spreading from the nape of her neck, down her shoulder blades. Her forearms and legs were covered in the same and when she stood by the light of the fire, dress discarded on the floor, her whole body lit up like a flame. On the rumpled sheets of their bed, Danny found three of her teeth. His wife shrugged. They fell out, she said, looking up and smiling. The gaps in her smile were now filled with rabid, yellow fangs.

Where did you get those?

I grew them, she said as if it were obvious, they were there all along, underneath, so strange. They’re very sharp. Rather handy.

Danny noticed the bloodied hen in Blythe’s lap, a large puncture wound weakly leaking blood onto her nightdress.

*

Blythe sat in front of the mirror, fawning over herself, careful not to scratch her face with the little black claws she had newly grown that past week. They had stung when they first emerged, cutting through the skin, covering up her round, pink fingernails. She sobbed for hours at the pain. A maid had placed floral patterned bandages on each finger. Once the scabs around the claws healed, Blythe was revitalized, eager to use them. She cut through bedsheets, leaving them in tatters, destroyed all of her lace stockings and ripped gaping holes in her large collection of summer dresses, much to the dismay of the maid who came to dress her each morning.

Blythe went walking in the woods at night time. She went to find foxes. There was a little one she befriended early on. The fox had given Blythe a stern look and opened its mouth to reveal its empty gums. Blythe burst into tears, wrapped the creature up in her jumper and carried her inside. The two became inseparable.

Blythe insisted that the stern fox sleep with her and her husband in their bed. Danny refused, utterly disgusted at his wife’s new pet. Despite this, morning after morning, he awoke to find the fox, nestled snugly between he and his wife, its head tucked into the hollow between Blythe’s neck and shoulder.

Blythe gifted the stern fox with her old dentures and watched her gnash and snap her new teeth in delight, ripping apart cushions in the parlour, dragging her mouth along the embellished carpets. She killed the peacocks that strutted around the grounds, glugging their blood. Greedy thing, laughed Blythe.

Danny wrote to Blythe’s mother seeking advice, informing her of what he believed to be sickness of the mind his wife had developed, and received no answer, only a polite note from a cousin who was house-sitting, saying that madam and her husband had left the country for some time and she did not know when they would return.

Servants began to hand in notes of resignation, many citing the way Ms. Blythe moved around the house, usually wearing only a shift or thin nightie, sometimes nothing at all, walking on all fours and then reverting back to two legs, as unnerving. By this time many, many foxes had taken up residence at the chateau and the staff were afraid they would be bitten or catch fleas. Danny woke several nights to fresh bite marks on his arms and legs that grew infected and festered quicker than any doctor had seen. The skin around his wounds began to blister and scar, a rash spreading from the filth on the fox’s claws. The last of the servants fled fearing it was some disease the creatures had brought into the house.

He could not fall asleep in the bed he shared with his wife anymore, never felt enough at ease to slip into a dream. His ears would prick at the sound of paws on the wooden floor, the savage smell of the foxes like grass and meat, the heat of their fur as they all gathered around Blythe in a bright orange clump. Each night this happened, and he would have to free himself from the tangle of hind legs, little twitching creatures. He’d walk around the chateau, hoping to collapse onto the floor, have his body give in to the exhaustion. Then the milky dawn would creep in through the drapes and another day would begin.

Enough was enough. He went to have it out with her.

When he entered the room, two heads turned to look at him. They were surrounded by a heap of sleeping, fiery fur as if the bed was ablaze. Blythe smiled widely; her long, yellowed fangs now fully exposed. Sitting beside her was another girl with jet black hair and a lovely oval face who Danny had not seen before. The stranger smiled, flashing her empty gums at him. A tooth donor. The stern fox sat between the girls, each one petting it gently, their hands overlapping with each other like a game.

Fearing he was not wanted, fearing violence, fearing the odd ways of women in pairs or groups that his brothers had warned him about, fearing witchcraft, fearing disease, fearing that toothless stranger, fearing the fifty or so orange, flea-bitten creatures snoring on the bed, he packed his bags and ordered a carriage.

Danny took a last look at the chateau, expecting to see his wife running out, begging him to stay. She did not. When he looked up at the doorway, it was open, the two girls, his wife and the stranger, simply staring, watching him leave. Danny hauled his hastily-packed luggage onto the carriage, shut the doors and took his place at the front, whipping the waiting horses. The carriage started to move.

When Danny looked again, feeling more cheated than glum, he saw what he staunchly believes now, after years have passed, to be a trick of the light, some hallucination due to bad health or the stress he was under. He only glanced up quickly, after all, but in that glance, he saw, standing still, framed in the doorway, his wife and the stranger, the stern fox cradled in her arms. It looked as though the ground was on fire or moving, churning under their feet, an endless pack of little foxes scampering around the girls’ ankles.

From issue #9: autumn/winter 2019

About the Author
Aisling Flynn was the winner of the Greywood Arts Winter Writing Residency Award 2018 and shortlisted for both the Francis McManus Short Story Prize and the Lilliput Press Short Fiction Award in 2018. Her work has been featured in Crossing the Dissour, The HCE Review and the anthology Bridges Between.