The axe is too dull, dear Liza, dear Liza. The axe is too dull, dear Liza my love.

            I hum the familiar refrain as I drag my own axe blade across the whetstone. My little sister, Meg, used to sing the song over and over until I would beg for her to stop, until I threw pillows at her, threw Barbies, threw, one time, a butter knife. The knife missed her entirely, didn’t graze her, didn’t even come within a foot of her, but she still wailed and then I wailed louder until our poor mother didn’t know who to punish.

            Meg thought the song was funny, was amused by it, but I knew better. I could see the gears of the relationship turn. Henry was manipulative, but not because he meant to be, because he didn’t know how to be otherwise, because Liza met his questions with answers instead of the stony silence they deserved. I didn’t blame Liza; it was how she was: logical and rational and a fucking martyr. Henry poked holes in every logical suggestion Liza made until she threw her hands in the air and he no longer had to deal with the broken bucket, the long straw, the dull axe, the dry stone.

            Yesterday I tried to fell a tree for firewood behind the cabin I rented for the summer, but the axe was too dull and I spent the night beneath two thick wool blankets. The nights here can be surprisingly chilly for June. The cabin has no heating system besides an old wood-burning cast-iron stove and, though I love its rustic charm, I wish it had one of those super-efficient electric heaters made for yachts that are sometimes repurposed for use in fancy tiny homes, which this cabin is most certainly not.

            I came across the ad for the cabin while I was idly scrolling through real-estate listings for places in upstate New York. Rustic cabin for rent. Price negotiable. The words sang to me like a story. I emailed the owner and he quoted me a rent so low I thought he must have misplaced a decimal, but, no, it was correct. He sent me pictures, which I forwarded excitedly to my best friend Amanda. Amanda responded with concern instead of matching my enthusiasm like I had hoped she would. She was wary of the little cabin, with its one bare bulb and compostable toilet and chimney that seemed ready to give up entirely, but I could afford it and it wasn’t in Brooklyn so it met all of the requirements I had.

            I needed to get out of my place for the summer. I was a year behind on my dissertation and thought a change of scenery might help me focus. I had just separated from my fiancé, oddly enough named Henry, and I was still living in the apartment that we used to share in Brooklyn. The memories of the relationship clung to the walls like grime. Henry and I had apparently modeled our understanding of how to conduct a relationship from the other Henry and his relationship with Liza. There are dishes in the sink, dear Henry, I would say; So? Henry would respond; So, maybe you could wash them, dear Henry? I would say; With what shall I wash them? he would say; With a sponge, Henry, I would say; The sponge has gotten gross, Penny, he’d reply; Okay, so wash the sponge first, I’d call back into the living room as I went to wipe down the kitchen table; With what? he’d yell back; With soap and water, Henry. Eventually we would agree that I probably should have bought new sponges when I last went grocery shopping, and I’d end up taking care of the whole thing. I knew he was wrong – knew it in the depths of my bones because why were sponges somehow my responsibility? – but I always did hate to argue. Liza and I both knew it was usually easier to just fix the bucket yourself.

            The cabin is basically a large shed, one single 300 square foot room. One corner has been designated the kitchen and contains a sink fed by a catchment system, a mini-fridge, a hotplate, and a falling-apart counter. The composting toilet is, wisely, in the opposite corner, as far away from the kitchen as it can be, and is partitioned off for privacy with an old shower curtain. The shower is outside. There is a threadbare, overstuffed chair in a third corner that looks so full of ghosts that I don’t dare touch it. The wood-burning stove is right in the center of the room. I have a cot set up between the stove and kitchen. It is perfect.

            I keep the axe not just for firewood but also for a (false) sense of security. Amanda and Meg both independently brought up the phrase “axe-murder” when I showed them photos of the place. They used the phrase in the context of them not wanting me to get killed by one, so I got an axe. At least, I think overly optimistically, if an axe murderer sneaks into my cabin, it will be a fair fight. I sleep with the axe under my cot.

            Under both the axe and the cot is what might be charitably referred to as a cellar door but is truthfully a trap door. “Cellar door” has been said to be one of the most beautiful phrases in the English language, but this door is not what one imagines when one thinks of the beauty of the phrase. This trap-cellar-door has a big pull ring to open it and rusted hinges that squeak. The first thing I did upon arriving at the cabin was to open the door and inspect the space (five or six cubic feet with walls of packed soil) for murderers or bodies. I found none, though there was a vole living down there. I named the vole Frederick.

            I found Frederick dead on my third night at the cabin, his throat ripped out by a feral cat and his body left at my front door. At least I think it was Frederick. At least I hope it was a cat.

            I spent the third night with my axe curled up on my cot with me like a lover.

            The axe is sharp now and it’s after noon, so I take a break and get one of the unfashionable domestic light beers that I love from the mini-fridge. ​I lie down on the hammock suspended from the stand outside the cabin and take a swig. The beer is about three percent alcohol and tastes more like water than anything else. I press the sweaty coolness of the can against my head. The days here are, unlike the nights, as hot as you would expect for June.

            There is a chicken coop on the property, just a few feet from the cabin. There are chickens too, five of them. ​They cluck as I sit in my hammock, and I put down the book I was only half-reading to watch them. I have given them some corn as the cabin’s owner, who signs his emails Ray, instructed me to do, as I have been doing for weeks now. The chickens are getting plump, and, personally, I think Ray told me to give them too much to eat, but then again what do I know about how much to feed chickens?

            It’s nice to have the chickens around for the company and also for the eggs. Ray told me I could eat the eggs, just not the hens. I am happy to oblige. The eggs are rich and delicious, but I have no desire to behead the chickens, who are cute in the way of awkward dinosaurs.

            The hens give me somewhat wary looks as I watch them peck at the corn and at the earth, rooting around for worms and grubs. I feed them, yes, but also I reach under them some mornings and help myself to their eggs. I apologize to them each time I take an egg. I wish they could understand me. I would explain that, since there are no roosters around, those eggs aren’t going to hatch and it’s a waste of their time to sit on them. But maybe they know; maybe they don’t care. The eggs belong to them, and I’m a thief. They have a point.

            I’ve taken the time to name them, based on what I have gleaned of their personalities over the weeks I’ve been living here.

            Bossy is my favorite – she makes me laugh. She has a tendency to push the other chickens out of the way whenever I feed them leftover scraps of pancakes from my breakfast. Bossy loves pancakes. I imagine she speaks New-York-fast with a slight accent from somewhere I can’t place and uses the phrase YOLO un-ironically. Whenever there is a prime patch of sunlight, Bossy will be the one sitting in it.

            Hungry is, as is to be expected from her name, always hungry. She watches me when I eat lunch outside, stupid gaze fixated on my tuna sandwich. I always try to sneak her a bit of crust behind Bossy’s back. Hungry might as well be just a mouth.

            Then there are Princess and Noisy. Princess seems haughty to me, though I can’t completely say why. It mostly has to do with the way she holds her head, her neck extended to its limit, beak pointed up like she is too good for the very dirt upon which she walks. There is something else too – perhaps a knowingness in her eye? A look that says she would rather be in Paris or Milan. Noisy basically just clucks a lot. She seems to like the sound of her own voice.

            Tiny is the smallest. She mostly trails behind Bossy, picking up the leftovers she leaves behind and sitting in the shadow she casts. I’m not sure if she is afraid of Bossy or in awe of her. Maybe both.

            I hear a rustle in the bushes and sit as upright as possible in a hammock, readying myself to bolt inside the cabin – I know that coyotes live in these woods – but it is just a rabbit. There are hundreds of rabbits around here. They skitter so quickly across the ground that they usually just look like brown blurs. I say “hi” to the rabbit, but it runs off with astounding speed.

***

            The next day when I go to collect eggs I only see four chickens. Princess is missing. I search for her inside the coop and around the perimeter but find no sign of her. I begin to concoct a story in my head in which she met a dashing young rooster who swept her off her talons and took her off for a romantic trip to Rome. The elaborate story I’m weaving makes me smile as I walk back to the coop, but I stop short when something crunches beneath my sandals. I move my foot and see a small bone. To its right are a beak and a smattering of feathers.

            I find myself tearing up as I dig a small hole with a spade, move the remains to the hole, and cover them with dirt. It’s a shitty burial, and Princess would not approve. I find a rock that shimmers slightly in the light and use that to mark her grave. I nod. It’s at least something.

            Do the surviving chickens need me to comfort them? Did they see her being eaten, bones and all? Can birds be traumatized? There is only one egg today. When I crack it into a bowl the yolk is blood red.

***

            The next morning I brace myself for another dead chicken, but all the chickens are accounted for. ​I feel lighter seeing the four of them, their feathers ruffled, heads tilted to the sun. It’s hot today but there’s a cooling breeze so I take my laptop outside to work. The chickens peck and root, the trauma of the previous day either forgotten or pushed into the back of their minds.

            I’m not sure what makes me look up from my screen, but I do and find myself staring directly into the eyes of a fox. He is sitting a mere ten feet from me and is exactly what you think of when you think of a fox: rusty red with a white tip on his tail, pointy ears and sharp eyes. The platonic ideal of foxes is what this fox is.

            The fox stares at me. It’s unnerving. A rabbit runs directly in front of him, but he doesn’t move. I know then with odd certainty that it was this fox that killed Princess. He doesn’t seem interested in the prey that flits all around him and the prey seems aware that his focus is elsewhere.

             “Excuse me, but did you eat Princess? The chicken that I found dead yesterday?” The fox doesn’t respond. “Because I would appreciate it if you would leave the chickens alone. I know you need to eat, but the chickens are helpless. It hardly seems fair. You are welcome to their eggs if you like, but leave the chickens alone.” Perhaps if I give him the same directive Ray gave me, he will listen.

            The fox doesn’t move.

             “You should be ashamed of yourself,” I scold. “All of these rabbits and squirrels and mice that could give you a fair hunt and you eat a defenseless, flightless chicken.” I make a tsk sound to convey that I am displeased with his behavior. The fox gives me a look that says, The hares are too fast, the squirrels are too agile, and the mice are too small, dear Penny. And, dear Penny, you cannot stand guard over the chickens all day and night.

            We lock eyes, me and the fox. His eyes are sharp and unflinching.

            I’ve never been good at meeting another’s gaze and holding it until they look away. Henry and I used stare each other down frequently, each waiting for the other to blink, to apologize, to admit fault. I remember the time Henry told me that maybe I wasn’t cut out for academia after I blew through my first dissertation deadline last year right as he breezed through his defense. I told him he was being cruel, he told me he was being honest. I blinked first, as always, and ended up thanking him for his candor.

            The fox isn’t about to blink. The game is his. “I’m sorry,” I tell him, “I know you just need to eat. But maybe don’t eat the chickens? Please?”

            The fox turns away sharply, having defeated me, and disappears into the trees. I shiver, though I’m not sure if it’s from the eeriness of the encounter or the setting sun. I bring my things inside before I close and latch the coop door in an attempt to provide the remaining chickens with some kind of security. Only later that night, once I am cozy under a pile of blankets, do I wonder if what I have actually done is trap them.

***

            I awake having decided to bring the chickens into the cabin with me. I tossed and turned all night with worry.

            At sunrise I go to get them and find only three chickens in the coop. The door to the coop is closed but unlatched. Noisy is missing. I find only a smear of blood on the path leading from the coop to indicate that she’s been taken. The other chickens watch me wide-eyed: without Noisy’s presence, they are unnervingly quiet. Our chatterbox has fallen victim and no one wants to make a sound in case it marks them as next.

            I look around for the fox and see him in the distance, staring. I can’t see his expression, but I’m positive he is smug.

            I won’t let him quiet me. I let out a roar, then a growl, then a howl. I am an animal, and he’s harmed my flock. The chickens begin to cluck with me. It’s cacophonous. We unleash our rage upon the fox, wild and unrelenting.

            The fox doesn’t budge. He continues to smirk. We don’t scare him; we amuse him.

            Fucker.

            I gather the chickens and bring them inside.

            The chickens are confused by this, though not ungrateful. The fox has now taken two of their own, and they know that any of them could be next. I have an axe and am on their side, and they feel safe with the walls around them. It’s the least I can do in exchange for the eggs.

            By evening the cabin is covered in bird shit, and I dismantle their coop so that I can use the chicken wire to restrict them to the corner of the cabin with the overstuffed chair in it. They aren’t happy about being confined, but it’s still better than being outside with a hungry fox.

            I work at the little folding table that I have set up next to a window. The words on the page seem to rearrange themselves of their own accord. I can’t think. How stupid of me, thinking that by going to a cabin in the middle of nowhere I could find the peace I needed to write; I had to bring myself with me after all, no getting away from that.

            Maybe I’m not cut out for academia, I think for the hundredth time. My brain is loud and cluttered, and I can’t seem to figure out what point I’m trying to make about D.H. Lawrence’s body of work. I’m not sure I even have a point.

            I close the laptop for the night, turn off my desk lamp and look out the window. Without the glare from the lamp reflecting my own face back to me, I can see what lies beyond the glass pane.

            He is there, as I knew he would be, sitting outside in the moonlight on a tree stump, staring at me. He seems angry, a bold, assured anger. There is no surprise in his anger, no shame, no guilt. His anger is just. I have taken away what is his; the chickens belong to him, not to themselves, not to me, to him. His eyes speak to me, saying, There’s a hole in the cabin, dear Penny, dear Penny, there’s a hole in the cabin and I will find it. I close the blinds.

            Before bed I search the cabin, checking the walls for gaps that might allow a fox to enter. I cannot find any. I remember the look in the fox’s eyes and check again. I take the axe from its usual spot under my cot and place it beside me, holding the handle as I sleep.

***

            We go on like this for weeks, the four of us. My dissertation comes along slowly, but the chickens encourage me. They inspire me, which I’m sure Henry the psychologist would have tried to diagnose, but screw him, he left me for another woman so I don’t have to care what he thinks anymore, and besides, my doctorate is in literature so I know how to find meaning in the meaningless.

            When I feel worthless, Bossy reminds me to value myself. When I hesitate about emailing my advisor to ask questions for fear of bothering them, Hungry reminds me to take what I need. Tiny spends much of the day cozied up at my desk – she’s taken to following me around instead of Bossy – and preens my split ends whenever I hunch over so much that my hair brushes my keyboard. She’s kind to me, and her kindness reminds me to be kind to myself.

***

            I’ve stopped sleeping holding the axe by the time the fox returns. I hadn’t forgotten about him, but it’s been so many weeks since I last saw him peering at me through the window of the cabin that he has become dreamlike in my mind. When he returns though, it is undeniable. I awake to find the morning sun streaming in the window onto only two chickens.

            I find no trace of Hungry, no feathers, no bones, no trail of blood leading to the hole in the wall I must have missed. I know it was the fox though – he has left behind a few ginger hairs in the chicken’s enclosure to taunt me. Bossy and Tiny look at me, frightened that I could not keep them safe. I feel I owe them an explanation; I have none.

            I give a eulogy for Hungry; unable to bury her, it’s the best I can do.

             “Today we say goodbye to Hungry. We will always remember her zeal for life and her love of tuna sandwiches.” I begin to sob uncontrollably and am unable to finish the eulogy. Bossy seems embarrassed for me for not being able to hold my shit together, but I think Tiny understands. I feel so helpless.

            I need to talk to someone, an actual human being, but the reception in the cabin is terrible and the nearest town of any size is an hour drive down winding dirt roads, and I can’t leave the chickens alone anyway. I settle for emailing Amanda: Hey! How’s life going? How is the new apartment? I’m doing okay, except that a fox keeps eating the chickens. There are chickens here. There were five but now there are two and I can’t protect them. My thesis is a mess, and I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, but what else is new? Okay, talk later. Love, Penny.

            I hit send before I can second guess myself. I’ve utterly forgotten how to talk to people, but maybe it’s good that the email is such a jumbled mess: maybe Amanda will drive out here and rescue me and Bossy and Tiny.

            I get an email back from Amanda within the hour. Hey you! I miss you! The new apartment is great, can’t wait for you to come and see it. Sorry about your chickens. Or maybe not your chickens, but someone’s chickens. The chickens. Anyway, I’m sure your thesis is going great, you’re not a mess, and you’ll get through this. If your place is still being subletted but you need to come back to the city, my couch is always free! Seriously, I have at least five streaming services and too much wine so I’d love to have you stay with me for a bit. Love you! ~Amanda

            I want nothing more than to leave this place behind. I want to sleep in an air-conditioned apartment and order in Thai food and binge watch Hulu and drink wine and stay up too late talking to another human being. But I can’t bring myself to say so. I can’t shake the feeling that Amanda is just being nice – I’m sure she doesn’t want me crashing on her couch for the rest of the summer. I can’t bring myself to accept her hospitality. Besides, what would become of the chickens? Could I bring them with me? I think about asking Amanda if I could keep them in a cage in her living room for a few weeks while I’m staying with her, but what kind of request is that? Would she feel obligated to agree? No one wants chickens in their apartment. I decide to not even bother asking.

            Thanks for the offer, I write back, but I’ll be fine! I’m just feeling stressed. Anyway, I’ll see you in about a month when I’m back!

            Bossy looks disappointed in me, like I should be willing to ask for what I need.

             “Don’t look at me like that,” I tell Bossy, “I’m not going to impose on my friend.”

            Bossy makes a gesture I interpret as a shrug, like she doesn’t really much care what I do.

***

            I plan to stay awake at night and sleep during the day to keep watch over the chickens, but just in case I nod off, I set up an alarm system around the chickens. It’s a rudimentary thing, something I saw as a child in old cartoons, just a bunch of old beer cans stacked around the corner they are confined to. That night I sit at my desk alternating between work and looking out into the gloom of the cabin like I too am a nocturnal predator.

            I nod off intermittently. I drink three cups of coffee, but still can’t seem to keep my eyes open. Luckily the fox doesn’t return that night, or for a few nights after. I sleep in the day and sit awake at night, hunched over my desk with only the blue-light of my computer screen, the single lightbulb suspended from the ceiling, and my camp lantern to illuminate the darkness. My writing doesn’t progress, and the darkness of the cabin feels like it’s enveloping me. I hyperventilate sometimes and try breathing techniques to ground me. I watch the chickens as they sleep and try to match my breathing to theirs, slow and steady.

            Finally, he returns. I don’t hear him enter the cabin and he doesn’t set off my beer can alarms, so it is too late for Bossy by the time I’m aware that he’s back. Her strangled cry alerts me. I look up from my books in time to watch Bossy die, her neck snapped in the jaws of the fox.

            And then he grins at me. He fucking grins. I can almost hear him say to me that I should have left, should have taken the chickens and ran. It’s too late now. All my poor decisions, all of my inaction, those are the reasons the chickens died. It’s my fault. How could I have been so complacent?

            I’ve never before felt rage the way I feel it looking at the fox. He sits and eats the chicken calmly in front of me and Tiny, as if we are nothing. I’m done. I get the axe from under my cot and raise it up over the fox. I am fully aware of what I am doing as I bring the blade down over and over. I don’t just kill the fox, I destroy him.

            When I’m done I stare at the bloody mess: fur and bones and viscera. The guilt might have incapacitated me yesterday, but today I breathe it out like smoke. The fox’s corpse makes me feel neither sadness nor pride, just empty unease mixed up with relief until my stomach roils. I need to move what is left of Bossy and the fox somewhere that I don’t have to look at them. It’s too dark out right now to go dig a grave or bring the remains far out into the forest, and I don’t want to just leave them outside the cabin where the smell of fresh meat will attract predators. I grab a shovel and a towel, move my cot aside, and open up the cellar door.

            I let out a stunned laugh that is either appropriate because I am laughing at my own foolishness or inappropriate because I am laughing at the gruesomeness of the scene. There, in the cramped space, are chicken bones, feathers, and a beak that must have once belonged to Hungry. The smell of stale blood is overwhelming. Two holes have been dug into the packed dirt – one that must lead from the outside into the cellar and another, fresher one that I am positive leads somewhere in the cabin. I see the overstuffed chair and push it aside to find a fox-sized hole dug in the earth underneath a missing floorboard.

***

            I leave the moment the sun is up, taking Tiny with me; she can live on my terrace – I won’t be the only hipster in Brooklyn who keeps a chicken on her terrace. We’ve been through too much together for me to leave her now.

            As I pack up my axe, I realize that I don’t actually know how Liza reacts to Henry when they loop back around to the beginning of the song. I doubt they just have the same conversation until they drop dead of frustration. Maybe she does take care of the bucket, as I always suspected, but I suppose that it’s equally likely that she calls him on his bullshit and tells him to figure it out. The thought makes me smile.

            Amanda lets me and Tiny stay with her. I’ll buy all the groceries for the month. Once we are settled in, I email Ray:

            Keep the security deposit. I’ve left early. A fox ate all your chickens. Most of the chicken bones and what is left of the fox are in the cellar. I would apologize, but I’m trying not to apologize for things that aren’t my fault anymore.

            I never hear back from him, which I don’t mind. I’m not sure there really was anything to say after all.