There’s nothing like a quiet beach on a clear night. Black waves breaking under a canopy of stars hold a special kind of magic. Never more so than when draped in the glittering light of the full moon.
My grandmother taught me that. When I was little, she’d take me for walks on the beach long after sunset, and I’d sit with her and watch the moonrise. To this day, I search for glimmers of divinity in the night sky over the Atlantic. It sustains me through gray, dead days.
So, for me, walking the beach at night is a ritual. Flashlights aren’t allowed, and footwear is discouraged. The magic happens when I’m wrapped in the dark with sand between my toes. But in October 2020, I may have gotten more than I bargained for.
Pink lingered in the west, and the evening’s first stars had just sparked to life when I ventured out onto Wells Beach. It was the perfect time for a walk—the weather was mild, the tide was low, and hardly anyone was around. I’d planned to trek the 2/3 mile to the jetty and watch the full moon rise from atop it.
Things first got a little weird when I passed a group of college-aged men standing around drinking. I thought I’d given them a wide berth, but one of them had a young dog on a super long rope. The dog charged, and before his owner could reel in the slack, he leapt and gave me a big puppy kiss on the mouth. Normally, I wouldn’t have cared—I love dogs. But this was still early in the pandemic, before the vaccine, and these guys weren’t social distancing. The man apologized, and I played it off, but it shook me a bit. Little did I know, the excitement was just getting started.
Clouds swallowed the remaining light, and dusk deepened into night. By the time I reached the jetty, it was much too dark to climb it safely. In fact, with the moon still tucked behind the sea, the night was so black that I felt a little disoriented. Though the clouds threatened to ruin my plans to watch the moonrise, I figured I’d stick around to see if they broke enough for a glimpse.
As I waited, the darkness kept shifting around me. I couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead but sensed movement. Other people had arrived in hopes of watching the moonrise as well. That wasn’t surprising since most parking for the beach is by the jetty. Why shouldn’t other folks want to enjoy the full moon rise in such a lovely spot? It wasn’t late, after all. But the meandering shapes kept wandering uncomfortably near, especially for 2020, and none spoke to each other. They drifted silently about like ghosts. Until I heard the familiar, stuttered scratching of canine paws digging through sand. It wasn’t the people who kept coming so close but their loose dogs. Two pups had started excavating beside me.
I’d already had my fill of uncontrolled dogs for one evening, and I didn’t want to twist an ankle in one of their holes, so I backed away. The clouds were thinning anyway, and I’d been too near the jetty to view the rising moon over it.
Generously, the sky’s downy curtains soon parted to reveal the gorgeous harvest moon as it ascended over the jetty. Big and orange, it almost resembled the sun, spilling its magic across the sea and sand. I tried to let some of it seep into me and forgot about the other people and their dogs.
If you follow me on social media, you know how much I love to take photos that capture even a sliver of nature’s splendor. I couldn’t let such a glorious moon go undocumented! So I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture. Unfortunately, I made a critical error in iPhone night-sky photography—I accidentally left the flash on.
Everything changed in that offensive burst of artificial light. There were no other people. There were no dogs. I shared the moonrise only with a pair of foxes. They instantly fixed their glowing gazes on me, bared their fangs in devilish grins, and, to my utter shock, trotted right toward me as though I’d called them.
For a few seconds, I did what you’re supposed to do when a wild canid comes your way—I stood my ground. Using my angriest dog-mom voice, I shouted, “No.”
They didn’t so much as break stride.
I instinctively backpedaled a few steps and yelled something ridiculous like, “No, you stay there.” They kept coming.
Shoving my phone in my pocket, I turned and sprinted as fast as I could. After twenty to thirty seconds, I looked over my shoulder—they were trotting after me, keeping pace. I ran hard down the beach for about half a mile before glancing back again. This time, they were gone.
Photo by Holly Keepers, USFWS.
They could have caught me, of course. Foxes can sprint around 30 mph. Fortunately, healthy foxes don’t attack people. They prey primarily on rodents, after all. But rabid ones have been known to bite, and that was my fear—a peak pandemic ER visit, two dead foxes, and rabies prophylaxis (which can cost upwards of $30,000).
Although this story amuses me now, I can’t convey how surreal this incident felt. It’s been almost four years, and I still think about it often. Of all the foxes I’ve encountered, these were the only ones that didn’t bolt at the sight of me or the sound of my raised voice. Why would foxes run toward a flash of light? Why were they together? How did night get so dark so fast, and then, suddenly, I could see again? Why did I think there were people around me? How did time slow enough during that flash for the foxes to whip their heads at me and grin with wicked delight?
The druidic fantasy writer in me knows exactly what happened—the Veil was thin that night. I was in a liminal place at a liminal time, and the moon was full. Either I slipped a little into another realm, or it leaked into this one. Those weren’t foxes. They were faeries—or something—shapeshifting from humanoid to canid as they pleased. Obviously, they couldn’t allow themselves to be photographed. So they thought they’d have some fun with the trespassing mortal.
Of course, the part of me who trained as a wildlife biologist wants an explanation less rooted in faerie magic. The foxes could have come down to the beach to forage for surf clams or crabs—easy pickings at low tide under the cover of darkness. They’d probably had their run of the beach at night all spring and summer, given the nonexistent 2020 tourist season. I’m guessing they were siblings recently run off by their parents or a mother and her straggling kit. Still, it’s hard to reconcile why a flash of light would summon a pair of crepuscular wild animals faster than a cheeseburger summons my dogs. Lights, especially those that turn on suddenly, are often used to haze and deter foxes and other midsized predators. The best explanation I can come up with is that someone had been feeding these animals at night by flashlight. When they saw the light, they thought I had something for them.
Or maybe they were rabid. Infected animals often lose their fear of people, and foxes comprise a significant portion of documented rabies cases in Maine. But if illness had driven this pair mad with aggression, they missed the perfect chance to go berserk and bite when they were digging next to me. Besides, it seems unlikely that two rabid animals would hang together and react identically to a stimulus.
So, I think these were habituated, food-conditioned animals. That’s not as scary as rabid ones, but it’s still bad for the foxes. It increases their chances of conflict with humans. Wildlife managers inevitably get involved when foxes start approaching people in public spaces. Had one nipped or scratched me, innocently trying to get chicken nuggets to pop out, that would have been it for them. They’d have been hunted down and decapitated for rabies testing. So, don’t feed wild animals. And be careful if you’re alone at night when the Veil is thin. You never know what might slip in from another realm and stare at you with a hungry smile.
K.W. Bernard 