Things aren’t quite what they seem at Raeth, a remote mountain sanctuary for teens that 17-year-old Eli finds herself a resident of.

For starters, it seems like she’s the only teen staying there. Then there’s the fact that time seems to distort every time she goes on one of her long walks through the woods.

Are the people she encounters in the forest real? Does the tea that she’s served at Raeth have hallucinogenic properties? And why isn’t she supposed to leave the facility at night?

These are just a few curious quirks of “The Night Fox,” local writer Ashley Wilda’s debut YA novel. Published in October by Penguin Random House’s imprint Rocky Pond Books, the novel uses magical realism to explore themes of mental health, spirituality, trauma and grief. Each prose chapter in the novel is bookended by a poem.

Wilda grew up in Midlothian and attended John Tyler Community College — now Brightpoint Community College — and the University of Richmond for undergraduate work before getting a master’s from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

In the MFA program, Wilda was required to write both a critical and creative thesis. The latter became the first 100 pages of “The Night Fox.” While fictional, Wilda says the book is drawn from personal experience, and that Eli’s grief in the book is inspired by a complicated relationship that ended when Wilda was 19.

The author has always loved the directness of YA novels.

“There’s an authenticity that you often get with a teen voice,” says Wilda. “It’s just a time in life that’s full of firsts. I often feel like teens have not yet started masking and hiding their emotions and what they really think, the way that adults do.”

The prominence of both a fox figurine and an actual fox in the novel stems from Wilda’s love of the animal.

“They’re often portrayed in fiction as being sly, but I see them as a wise, innocent creature,” Wilda says.

The mountains explored by Eli are a stand-in for the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“I have always felt a very special, intense connection with nature, especially with the Blue Ridge Mountains,” Wilda says. “I grew up rock climbing and camping in West Virginia and in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Shenandoah and Kentucky.”

Though Eli experiences depression because of a breakup, her romantic relationships in the novel are largely chaste.

“For me, a lot of my first love experiences were chaste love experiences that relied more on the emotions and what those meant, rather than anything physical,” Wilda explains.

The author says that Eli is a character who’s experienced trauma from her evangelical upbringing. Some readers have misinterpreted the book’s message, Wilda says, thinking that it’s trying to say that God is the cure for mental health issues.

“It’s literally the opposite reason that I wrote the book,” they say. “I literally wrote the book because purity culture ideologies are harmful, and so many kids who grow up in super spiritual conservative environments struggle with their mental health because they’re told it’s their fault or because their faith isn’t strong enough.”

Wilda hopes the book finds an audience with readers who have dealt with mental health issues, noting that they themselves have complex PTSD.

Though Wilda has previously published poems, short stories and non-fiction pieces, this is the first novel. When the book’s manuscript was sent out to publishers, Wilda and their agent heard back from Penguin Random House on the first business day.

Asked about the novel’s mix of poetry and prose, Wilda says that when they struggled in their young adult years, they would always return to poetry.

“I often feel like poetry just drives straight to the emotional heart of a narrative,” Wilda says. “It’s impossible not to be honest in a poem, honest with yourself and the reader.”