Title: Resurgam 
Author: Ophelia
E-Mail: OpheliaMac@aol.com
Rating: NC-17
Category: X, A
Spoilers: 7th Season, through "all things"
Keywords: MSR
Summary: Something very angry is haunting a tiny graveyard on the 
Vineyard. 
Archive: Anywhere you want-- just let me know where 
you're putting it.

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Disclaimer: Sing to "All Things Bright and Beautiful:" "All 
things dark and horrible, each hidden evil plot, all things weird 
and miserable, Chris Carter owns the lot.  Aaaaaa-men."

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After a hundred years
Nobody knows the place,--
Agony, that enacted there,
Motionless as peace.
               --Emily Dickinson, J. 1147 ("The Forgotten Grave")

The first question Scully had about the South Road Ghost was 
whether to classify it as a revenge or reenactment haunting.   
After seven years of working with Mulder's eccentric 
record-keeping system, this no longer seemed a strange question 
to ask.  She scanned the one-page fax while sipping her morning 
coffee, making small notations in the margins with a red pen.  

The fax had apparently come from a private citizen, a man named 
Irv Stuckey who wrote with an old typewriter ribbon and couldn't 
spell.  He complained at some length about how no one at the FBI 
or his local sheriff's office took him seriously or answered his 
letters.  Great. This kind of case was a nightmare to sell 
upstairs.  Scully wrote at the bottom, "Jurisdiction?" 

The relevant part of the letter read:

This aftrenoon at apprx.  3 pm Kristie Herron was found dead at 
foot of Wesquobsque Cliffs of a brken neck.  As you know the 
South Road gohst does haunt these clifts and you know what for.  
Kristie had all the marks encluding knife cuts on her hands and 
leg & it was the right kind of night very cold & windy.   

If you do the kind of work J. Luce, Jr. says you do and are not 
just wasting taxes you will come out and investegate the death of 
this poor girl.  Even with what happend in Boston she deserves 
better then to die this way & her mother is very broken up.  My 
ph. # is the same as the last letter I sent but since you 
proabably threw it out here it is again    963-0545. 

Sincereley,
Irv Stuckey

It wasn't the weirdest or most illiterate letter Scully had 
received while working on the X-Files, and she didn't let its 
eccentricities distract her.  Irv's description of Kristie's 
wounds intrigued Scully particularly.   He didn't seem to be 
a family member and he certainly wasn't a pathologist.  Where 
had he gotten his information?  She drew an arrow from his 
comment about knife cuts to the bottom of the page, where she 
noted sarcastically, "Clearly, falling over a cliff precludes 
the possibility these cuts were due to natural causes."  

She tapped her pen cap against the former break-room table that 
served as her desk.  Her options were to dismiss Irv's claims and 
round-file the letter, or accept the case and write it up as some 
kind of paranormal event.   For years she'd left this duty to 
Mulder on general principles, but eventually her protests against 
his bookkeeping methods began to feel childish, and now she wrote
cases up herself.

Should she go with reenactment haunting or revenge?  Irv had 
hinted that the ghost's appearance was recurrent, which any good 
paranormal investigator knew was typical of the reenactment type.  
And yet there were the supposed knife wounds to think of.  

Only Mulder would come up with a system that classified paranormal 
phenomena by motive.  //Fine -- eenie, meenie, miney, moe . . .   
Revenge haunting it is.//  Scully wrote the new case number across 
the top of the letter, "X-00-300.17-01."  The first vengeful 
ghost of the year 2000.  

At that moment the door to the office opened and Mulder came in, 
sipping coffee from his MUFON mug.  "'Morning," he said.  

"Good morning," she responded.  Though their words were 
restrained and their manner professional, their gazes met 
and held too long for mere courtesy.  

The familiar electrifying feeling began to build, and soon 
Scully looked away.  The Hoover Building had not been a 
friendly place for her in some time, and she felt too exposed  
when she allowed herself to experience powerful emotions 
while on the job.

The gossip about her and Mulder was nothing new, of course, 
except that now some of it was true. Worse, the rumors 
were circulated with a barely-veiled hostility that made 
them more than just embarrassing.  They were offensively 
intimate, like a dirty stranger peering in at the window.  
Lately she'd taken to saving up her photocopying until the very 
end of the day, when the copy room was likely to be deserted.

Holding out Irv Stuckey's fax, Scully said, "This came in early 
this morning -- a report of an unexplained death.  I've just 
officially made it a revenge haunting,"

"Really.  That's different."  Mulder stood behind her -- too 
close for propriety, as usual -- and looked over her shoulder 
at the paper.  

She repressed the urge to elbow him for teasing her.
Obliviousness to gossip was all very well for him -- Scully 
had previous experience with "discreet" romances, and knew 
popular opinion tended to be much harsher toward the woman.

She persevered in her attempt to remain businesslike. "The 
fax's author is writing from a place called the Wesqobsque 
Cliffs, although I'd be lying if I said I knew where those 
were.  He seems to know you." 

For some reason, that information took all the playfulness out 
of Mulder.  "Wesqobsque?" he asked, taking the fax from her hand.

"What?" she asked, turning to look up at him.  A fine line had
appeared between his brows -- a look of pain.  

"You all right?" she asked.  Office protocol forgotten, she rested
her hand on his arm.

He did not meet her gaze as he edged out from behind her table and 
walked over to his desk.  All intense focus now, Mulder set the fax 
down and began rifling through papers in a drawer.  "Irv's a local 
crackpot -- most of his stories are worth their weight in crap.  With 
luck, this one's as much garbage as the rest of them."  

She got up and followed him.  "Mulder, I don't understand," she 
said.

After a moment he stopped rummaging around and looked up at her.  
"I grew up near the Wesquobsque Cliffs.  They run along the 
Vineyard's South Shore, from Chilmark to Aquinnah.  The story 
of the South Road Ghost is just an old myth from that area, 
local color that plays well to kids and tourists.  I doubt Irv 
even believes in it -- he's just using it for his own purposes."  
After that he went back to digging through the drawer 
again, cursing softly as he dropped handfuls of bent business 
cards and Post-It notes onto the blotter.   

"Did you know her?  The girl who died?" Scully asked softly.  

He continued his search as he spoke.  "A little -- just a 
little bit.  Really I know her mother, or I used to.  Patty Todd 
used to baby-sit us when we were little -- her mom was 
a friend of my mother's.  Patty sent me a card when my dad 
died . . . "  Frustrated, Mulder slammed the drawer back in the 
desk.

In the violence of the gesture, Scully sensed how much he was still 
suffering over the recent loss of his mother, as well as his grief at
learning the truth about what happened to Samantha.  She reached out
to him again, offering a steadying touch.

Whether he noticed her outstretched hand or not, he knocked it away
while straightening up.  "Jesus, Kristie died down there 
on the beach and Irv wants to blame it on the South Road Ghost?  
He's such a little shit."  

"Mulder, you want to tell me what's going on?" she asked.  He still 
had the irritating tendency to draw her into his tortured inner 
monologues without quite acknowledging her presence.

"Sorry," he murmured.  Mulder dropped down into his chair and
ran his fingers through his hair, as if trying to soothe himself.
"I'm looking for Joey Luce's number at the Chilmark police 
station.  If anybody knows what's going on, he should.  I hope 
he'll tell me Irv's full of it."

Still confused, Scully tried focusing on the basics.  "So you're
saying I shouldn't bother with this case.  This isn't an X-File -- 
it's just some guy on Martha's Vineyard who likes to stir up 
trouble." 

Mulder sat back in his chair, as if forcibly relinquishing
some inner tension.  At last he looked up at her, and his 
expression was very sad.  "I'm not saying you shouldn't bother.  
It's . . . complicated.  The story of the South Road Ghost has 
a meaning -- there's a moral to it."

Scully sat down on the edge of his desk, willing to listen.

As she suspected, Mulder couldn't resist the chance to tell a good 
creepy story, even in his current distressed state.  "Supposedly, 
the ghost is a widow named Mary Brown who was executed during the 
winter of 1778.  That was a bad winter for the Island -- bad all 
around."

"That was the winter George Washington spent at Valley Forge," 
Scully said. Images from her childhood history books came to 
mind -- soldiers with black, gangrenous feet, shivering around 
the fire where they boiled shoe leather for food.

Mulder nodded.  "Boston didn't have enough naval power to defend 
the islands off the Cape, and the British had them under siege.   
There was a lot of hunger, a lot of disease.   Mary Brown's 
husband went down with his whole crew in Nantucket Sound when he 
tried engaging a British war ship in his fishing boat."  He 
must have seen Scully's look of amazement because he added, "They 
say the Vineyarders were brave on the water -- no one ever said 
they were smart.  

"After Captain Brown died, Mary gave birth to another baby and 
apparently something just snapped.  She probably couldn't feed
the kids and . . ."   He seemed to be backing away from a too-
accurate reconstruction of the woman's misery.  "Anyway, she went 
nuts.  Killed both her children with a kitchen knife and tried to 
cut her own throat."  

Mulder fell silent a moment.  He rubbed the back of one hand with 
his thumb, as if trying to wear away something unpleasant about 
his boyhood home. "From our vantage point we can say, 'Oh, it was
post-partum psychosis brought on by stress.  Nowadays she might get 
off with manslaughter.'  The Chilmark fathers didn't see it that 
way.  The women of the town nursed her back to health and a few days 
after the new year, they hanged her.  They say her ghost wanders the 
land along the South Shore with her head held up like a lantern.  
I guess the townswomen didn't do as good a job of healing her as 
they thought."  

Scully's medical training offered her a graphic image of the 
likely effects of hanging on a near-severed throat.  "That would 
have been bad," she said.

"It must have been.  She's supposed to appear on cold, windy 
nights to women who've grievously wronged their own children.  
Some say she slashes the mothers up with the murder knife, and 
some say just looking at her drives guilty women mad, and they 
kill themselves.  It's a Lovecraftian, inversion-of-the-natural-
order sort of thing.  Very Freud, very Brothers Grimm.  The only 
problem is that there's nothing to the story.  No one's ever 
found a record showing that Mary Brown even existed, and I've 
been over every inch of those woods along the South Shore -- 
daytime, nighttime, summer, winter.  The house I grew up in is 
about three-quarters of a mile from the South Road Burying 
Ground.  There's nothing out there."

"So Irv Stuckey is implying that Kristie Herron deserved to die 
because of something she did to harm her own child?" Scully asked.
"You're right, he is a shit."  She hoped that Irv's little theory 
hadn't made it back to Kristie's family.  "Do you think that's 
what he meant by 'what happened in Boston' -- something involving 
child abuse?  Child neglect?"

"I don't know what he meant by that," Mulder said.  "As far as I 
know, Kristie didn't have any kids.  It sure doesn't seem right
that Patty's old enough to be a grandmother.  Christ, that makes
me feel ancient."

"Don't remind me," Scully groaned.  Only two months ago, she had 
spent her 36th birthday among a gaggle of relatives, most of them 
with sticky-fingered toddlers and baby carriers in tow.  A cousin 
had managed to produce the first female Scully child in over 15 
years, a red-haired, blue-eyed baby named Emily Christine.  The 
coloring was the predominant one for their family and the name 
a coincidence -- "Emily" was one of the top ten most popular 
girls' names in the country.  And yet, the experience had called 
to mind with terrible sharpness the passage of time and what 
might have been.

"You've got a long way to go before you're old, Red," Mulder said.
He caught her little finger in his hand.  Their relationship was 
still in flux, but there were moments of tenderness to anchor it, 
like stones at the edges of billowing fabric.  
 
At last, Mulder managed to find the much-bent card he was seeking, 
wedged in the cramped space where the drawer's side met the desk 
wall.  He smoothed it out against the desk with the side of his 
hand, and Scully saw it read, "Sergeant Joseph A. Luce, Chilmark 
Police."  

Mulder dialed the phone, and after a moment began the introduction 
she'd heard a thousand times.  "Good morning, this is Special 
Agent Fox Mulder of the FBI and I --"  He didn't get any farther 
far a long time.  

"On hold?" Scully mouthed.

He shook his head and gave her a pained look.  Eventually he 
said, "Great, Doreen, thanks.  Listen, is Joey--"  Apparently 
he'd been cut off again.  Several seconds passed.  Mulder pushed 
the speaker phone button and suddenly the air was full of 
verbiage.

"--and she only just came back from off-Island and was going to 
meetings and she met a nice guy and everything and it seemed like 
she was getting her life back together when suddenly *this* 
happens and people are saying suicide but they'd never say that 
if they knew her like I did--" Blessedly, Mulder hit the speaker-
off button and Doreen's voice ceased.

"Wow," Scully said.  

Doreen must have taken a breath because Mulder said, "I need to 
talk to Joe."  Another pause.  "*Chief* Joe, no kidding.  Well, I 
need to talk to -- . . . Doreen . . .  For crying out loud, Dori, 
would you just put me through to --  Thank you."  Mulder glanced 
up, looking slightly embarrassed. Holding his hand over the 
mouthpiece of the phone, he whispered, "Inbred."  

Scully looked away, trying very hard not to laugh.  She had long 
been accustomed to the odd combination of nostalgia and 
distaste Mulder felt toward the one-stoplight town where he 
was raised.  
 
After a few moments, he said, "Hi, Joe, this is Fox Mulder.  
Yeah, I heard -- that's why I'm calling.  Actually, I hoped 
you'd tell me Irv was just hitting the hash pipe and it was 
all a mistake.   No, he faxed us late last night -- early 
this morning, really."  Glancing up at Scully, he added,
"Listen, my partner's here, would you mind if I put this 
on speaker phone?  Great."  

Mulder touched the speaker button again and said, "Chief Luce, 
this is Special Agent Dana Scully."

"Hello, Chief," Scully said.  

"Good to meet you, Agent," Joe said.  His voice sounded slightly 
canned coming through the speaker. "So, Fox, what exactly did 
Irv want?  Don't tell me it was just to spare Patty the grief 
of telling you herself."

"He wants to bring the South Road Ghost into it," Mulder said.  

A second or so of silence followed, and then Joe said, "Aw, 
Hell."  

"Actually if there was a South Road Ghost he'd have called the 
right place," Mulder said.  "My partner was about to classify 
this as another X-File."

"Refresh my memory . . . an X-File is a what again?" Joe asked.

"We investigate paranormal phenomena," Mulder said.  He shot 
Scully a mischievous look and added, "You know, chasing ghosts, 
Big Foot, lake monsters . . ."

"Not all of which turn out to be what witnesses claim," Scully 
pointed out.

"Right, right . . . you did the monster-man thing, the Chernobyl 
guy Dori says washed up out of Nantucket Sound." Joe said.

Scully felt a surge of dismay that yet another person had read
her out-of context quotes printed in the Midnight Inquisitor.
A quick change of subject seemed to be best.  "Chief, I thought 
it was a little odd that Mr. Stuckey knew so much about the
manner of Kristie's death," Scully said. "He wasn't at the scene, 
was he?"

Joe sighed.  Scully imagined him rubbing his eyes in weariness.  
If he'd been up as late as Irv had, he wouldn't have gotten much 
sleep.  "No -- Irv took a job as an orderly at the hospital 
four nights a week.  When things get slow he hangs out in one of 
the ambulances and listens to the emergency band channels.   Gets 
all the good dirt on the neighbors that way.  He must have heard 
someone from Crime Scene Services making arrangements to transport
the body.   Jesus, he knew Kristie was dead before her own mother 
did, and the first thing that crosses his mind is that old ghost 
story.   Man, he's a creepy old SOB.  I'll have to see that he 
doesn't harass Mark and Patty.  I'm sorry he bothered you."

"No, not at all," Mulder said.  "If there's anything Agent Scully 
or I could do to help we'd be glad."  He seemed to hesitate a 
moment, then asked, "Do you have anything to go on?  Any 
suspects?  Dori was saying something about Kristie going to 12-
step groups and meeting a new boyfriend . . ."

"Yeah, there's a guy named Randy Akers she was seeing.  
We haven't talked to him yet -- apparently he was out last night.  
He's not a suspect at the moment.  Actually we don't have *any* 
suspects.  Right now this is just an equivocal death 
investigation," Joe said.

"Can you give me an idea what happened?"  Mulder asked.

"I can tell you Kristie left her parents' house sometime after 
12:30 a.m., Thursday, wearing a real light jacket and her mom's 
shoes.   It wasn't a nice night to go for a walk, either  -- 
just above freezing with falling sleet."

Mulder was chewing on his pen cap, something he did when he was 
concentrating and didn't have any sunflower seeds.  "She didn't 
have a fight, did she?  Anybody hear her talking on the phone?" 

"Her family says no.   Her youngest brother's still living at 
home -- it's possible the two of them got into it over something 
and he was too ashamed to say so.   Still, she had a car, she 
could have driven somewhere if she wanted to get out of the 
house.  Her mom says running off on foot in the cold like that 
is out of character for her."  Joe paused for a moment, then 
said, "The Herrons probably won't mind my telling you this -- 
it's not uncommon knowledge anyway.  Kristie got into some 
trouble over in Boston last year.  Drugs."  

Mulder made a soft noise of dismay.  

"She drew two years' probation, since she had no record and 
was able to give the DA's office some information on a guy 
they'd been looking for.  The judge let her report over in 
Edgartown provided she stayed with her parents.  It's only been 
about six months."

"And everybody's thinking the worst, right?"  Mulder asked.
Scully heard his own family's experience with Vineyard 
ostracism in the bitterness of his tone. 

"I never said that, Fox," Joe said.  "I honestly think she was 
done with the drug scene.  I do.  I'm just wondering if there was 
somebody in Boston who wasn't done with her.  Someone sure put 
her through hell Thursday morning.  She had a lot of what looked 
like knife cuts on her hands and a through-and-through stab wound 
to one leg."

"Defensive wounds?" Scully asked.

"Probably.   There wasn't the kind of mutilation you sometimes 
see with a victim who's crossed a drug lord, but maybe he was 
just gearing up.  I haven't discounted the possibility that she 
ran over the cliff in a panic while trying to escape," Joe said.

"Who's doing the autopsy?" Mulder asked.

"They're doing it in Boston, I don't know who specifically.  
Sergeant Tihkoosue from the Sate Police barracks in Oak Bluffs 
was going to attend, so he'd know as soon as anybody.   I can ask 
him if you want," Joe said.  

Mulder looked over at Scully.   He didn't even need to say the 
words.  "Could you give us just a minute, Chief?" Scully asked.
      
"Sure," Joe said.  Scully hit the phone's mute button.

"Mulder, the Massachusetts Chief Medical Examiner is Dr. Clarence 
Kreger.  He's got a teaching position at Harvard Medical School 
-- he's been an international pathology lecturer.  Any District 
Attorney would leap at the chance to work with him," she said.

"I don't care if he does 'pahk his cah in Hahvahd Yahd,' he 
hasn't seen the things you have," Mulder said.

"I thought you said there was no X-File here," she said.

"I said there was no South Road Ghost.  In case you hadn't 
noticed, a connection to my family isn't exactly the key to great 
longevity.  If there is anything strange about the way Kristie 
died you'll figure it out.  If you say her death was 
straightforward then I'll be satisfied.  Besides, if Kreger's 
schedule's as full as you say it is, he'll probably have some 
staff underling doing the autopsy.  I'd rather have you do this 
than some overworked path resident," Mulder said.

Still sitting on the edge of his desk, Scully bent her head, 
her hair forming a thin screen against his hopeful look.  
Neither spoke of his mother's death.  "Mulder . . .  some 
news comes better from someone unconnected with the family.
If I have to tell Kristie's parents something they don't want
to hear, it could put you in a very difficult position."

"They can't ask for more than the truth, Scully.   They shouldn't 
have to settle for less," Mulder said.  

She looked up at him.  Only two nights ago she'd been awakened by 
his bone-wracking sobs.  His mother had shut him out in death as 
she had in life, and it had wounded him in a way that simply 
being orphaned couldn't have.  He'd pulled Scully into a crushing 
embrace and asked, "Why didn't she tell me?"   As always, Scully 
had no answer.  She could only hold him until his ragged gasps 
quieted and he was able to sleep. Afterward she'd lain awake a 
long time, replaying Teena Mulder's autopsy again and again in 
her mind.   What if she'd missed some tiny forensic clue that 
would have allowed her to come to any conclusion other than 
suicide?

"I trust your judgment."  He spoke gently, as if to reassure her.  
"If you tell me bad news it's only because it's true."

Scully released her breath slowly.  "I'll volunteer and let the 
family decide," she said.  She hit the phone's mute button and 
asked, "Chief, are you still there?"

"Still here.  What's going on?" Joe asked.

"I'm a forensic pathologist," she said.  "Mulder thought I might 
be of help to the investigation.  I'm willing to do the autopsy 
if you and the family think my experience would be useful."

"She's investigated a lot of strange deaths," Mulder said.

"Well . . . no offense, but I think the State ME has seen his 
share of strange deaths too," Joe said.

"Not like Scully has.  Has Dr. Kreger ever seen a Level 4 
biological agent crawl out of a rock, through the seal of 
somebody's space suit and into a body cavity?" Mulder asked.

"Good God . . .  I hope not," said Joe.  "Look, if you really 
want to help, I can mention your offer to Kristie's parents and see 
what they think.  You should call Patty too -- she'd be glad to 
hear from you."

"I'll have to do that.  I appreciate you talking to me, Joe," 
Mulder said.  

As Mulder reached toward the disconnect button Joe said,  "Hey, 
Fox?  You know there's no hard feelings, right?  My uncle and I 
didn't have the same opinions on everything."

"Sure.  Talk to you later," Mulder said. 

"Yeah, bye," Joe said.  Mulder hung up the phone.

"What was that about?" Scully asked.

"It's a long story," Mulder said. "One of these complicated 
things that happens in small towns where people get cut off from 
the world during the winter."  He started gathering up the pile 
of bent cards and notes and pushing them back in his desk drawer.

"Such as?  Are we talking Donner's Pass or what?" Scully asked.  
She saw a flicker of amusement cross his face.

"Not quite."  He shut the drawer and looked up at her.  "Joey's 
uncle -- whose name was also Joseph Luce -- was the Chilmark 
Chief of Police back in the 70's.  He never thought much of my 
family's story about how my sister disappeared."

"He blamed you," Scully said.

"He blamed my father, actually. No charges were ever filed but we 
became personae non gratae with the neighbors pretty quick.  I 
had to listen to a lot of bullshit when I went back to the 
Vineyard to visit my dad.  At one point Joey actually accused me 
of helping to cover up my sister's murder, so I punched his 
lights out for him.  It didn't exactly endear me to the Island's 
premier law enforcement family."

"I bet not," Scully said.

"When my father was murdered, Joseph Luce, Sr., was Dukes County 
Sheriff," Mulder said. "Unfortunately he hadn't forgotten me."

"He called me," Scully said, remembering suddenly.  "He left 
about three messages a day on my answering machine when I was in 
New Mexico."

"He called me too.  He and Liz Hawley of the West Tisbury PD 
figured I was looking pretty good for the only up-island homicide 
in 20 years.  Then you managed to trace the gun back to Krycek and 
the investigation stalled out over a literal shadowy one-armed 
man.  I can imagine that went over real well with Sheriff Luce."  

"He couldn't have wanted you to be guilty," Scully said.

"No," Mulder said.  "It was the law of averages that bugged him.  
Do the Mulders: A., have the worst luck in history, or B., have 
connections to dangerous people they shouldn't?   I think he had 
us pegged as an organized crime family.  Might not have been far 
wrong, really."

"Mulder, that is completely unfair to your parents.  Your father 
died trying to expose the men who killed him," Scully said.

"Yeah," Mulder said, as if unwillingly conceding the 
point. "Joe called me after what happened with Roche.  He was 
with the Chilmark Police by then.  He wanted to know why I'd let 
a sociopathic child killer loose on his island.  I never called 
him back.  What was I going to say?"  

"The Luce family aren't your judges, Mulder," Scully said.

"No, but Cheryl Luce used to be Samantha's best friend.  Maybe 
Joey was mine -- I don't know.  We spent a lot of time at their 
house in the months before my sister was taken.  Home wasn't so 
great just then.  My dad wasn't working so hard to expose the men 
who killed him at the time."

"I'm sorry," was all Scully could think to say.  She still felt 
awkward at moments like this. She was a fixer by nature.  It was 
Mulder himself who'd helped her understand that suffering was 
normal, that a person could hurt without being broken.  She kept 
silent and hoped she was a soothing presence.

Finally he said, "I lied to you -- the Vineyard is haunted.  But 
only by the past."  He got up and walked out into the hall.  She 
repressed her urge to follow.  When he wanted her, he knew where 
she'd be.  

******

A few hours later Scully got a message asking her to go up to 
Skinner's office.  Mulder's presence was not requested.  Though 
she couldn't think of anything she'd done lately that would get 
herself in trouble, she went with a sense of trepidation.  When 
Skinner's secretary showed her in, she said, "You asked to see 
me, sir?"  //Please don't let this be about anything Mulder did . 
. .// she thought.  She hated it when their superiors tried to 
play them against one another.  

"Have a seat, agent," Skinner said, gesturing toward an empty 
chair.  This was never a good sign.  Scully smoothed her skirt 
under her and sat down.  "I just received a call from the Cape 
Cod and Islands District Attorney's office," Skinner said.  "They 
said you'd volunteered to do the autopsy of a young woman in 
Boston."

"Yes -- is that a problem?" Scully asked.  

"No.  In fact I think it's a wonderful idea," Skinner said.

"Sir?" Scully asked.  Something was up.  Skinner never called 
anything she and Mulder did "wonderful."  

"Agent Scully . . . there are people in the Bureau who don't 
appreciate the work you and Agent Mulder do.  They don't see its 
value.  This would be a good time for you to perform a service 
they can appreciate.  I can have you in Boston tonight so you can 
do the autopsy first thing in the morning.  Volunteering to do 
work outside of normal office hours will reflect positively on 
your next performance review," Skinner said.

As usual, Scully was left scrambling to read between the lines.  
"Is the validity of my and Agent Mulder's work being questioned 
more than usual, sir?" she asked.

"Why would you say that?" Skinner asked.

"You mentioned this would be 'a good time' to perform a service 
others can appreciate," Scully said.

"It's always a good time for that.  Your flight leaves at six."  
When she didn't move at once, he added, "If you need to pack a 
bag you might want to get going."

A few minutes later she was back in the basement, slamming the 
door to the office.  Mulder stood up behind his desk.  "What 
happened?  What'd he say?" he asked.

"We're in trouble," Scully said.  She pulled her purse from its 
usual place in a file drawer and dropped it on her desk.  

"For what?  I haven't even broken my cell phone lately," Mulder 
said.  He crossed the room to stand by her side.

"I don't know.  He was dropping hints about us needing to do PR 
work to appease the powers that be.   I get really tired of these 
guessing games.  Why can't he be straight with us for once?"  She 
retrieved her Dictaphone's batteries from where they sat charging 
on a shelf and tossed them into her purse.  

"He might be trying to do us a favor," Mulder said.

"Maybe.  I can never tell.  And he doesn't even ask me, 'Is a six 
o'clock flight convenient for you?'  It's, 'If you want to pack a 
bag, you'd better *go.*"  Scully recalled it was supposed to rain 
that weekend.  She strode toward their lopsided hat rack to grab 
her umbrella.

Mulder caught her by the wrist, gently turning her toward 
him.  "Hey . . . hey, calm down.  When was the last time you were 
in Boston?" he asked.

"It's been a long time," she said.  It was actually for his 
father's funeral in 1993, but she thought it best not to mention 
that.

"Well, when you get done with the autopsy I'll show you around.  
It's a great city if you don't mind homicidal drivers," Mulder 
said.

"Mulder, you're not going," she said.

"Yes, I am," he said.

"No, you're not.  Skinner made it clear he was authorizing one 
plane ticket.  It was only by being an Assistant Director of the 
FBI that he guaranteed me a flight out tonight at all."

"I can drive," Mulder said.   She thought he was trying not to 
laugh.  It really bugged her when he thought she was funny.  
"It's a six hour trip -- four, if I drive like I'm already in 
Boston."  He gently shook her wrist.  "Come on," he said.

"I'll be doing the autopsy into the afternoon and then we'll just 
have to turn around and come home," she said.

"Why?  You think somebody's going to tell on us if we don't?" he 
asked.

Scully found herself fighting a smile.  "I'll actually need to 
sleep before I do this autopsy," she said. 

"You'll sleep," he said.  He bent and kissed her gently just 
below her ear.  She was surprised and therefore vulnerable.  She 
felt her breath catch in her throat.  "Between bouts of 
screaming, wall-pounding sex."  He placed his next kiss low on 
her cheek.  If she let him go on long enough he'd make it around 
to her mouth. 

"We're at work," she pointed out, but she didn't back away. 

Mulder had always shown a perverse enjoyment of getting her 
excited in public places where the chance of release was nil.  
She turned and rested her hand against his cheek.  His pupils 
were widely dilated circles within rings of hazel-green; 
arousal was like a narcotic.  

Scully brushed her lips against his.  He tasted faintly of salt, 
faintly of the lemon he put in his tea.  When he tightened his 
arms around her ribcage she could feel the speed of his pulse in 
his neck.   Their physical relationship was very new and at times
its intensity was overwhelming.  

Their kiss was interrupted by the distant whirr of elevator doors 
opening and the squeal of unoiled cart wheels.  A lot of old but 
serviceable equipment was kept in the Hoover Building basement, 
and Bureau support staff were frequently sent to bring it up to 
the "inhabited" levels.  

Coming to her senses, Scully squirmed out of Mulder's embrace 
and brushed her tousled hair back behind her ears.  It wasn't 
even four o'clock yet, and the night seemed a long way off.  
"Okay, that's enough.  You're terrible," she said.  

For a moment there was a wild look in Mulder's eyes, but 
it soon faded to one of longing, like a man relinquishing 
something long desired. Then that was gone too and he became 
his everyday self, giving her his mock hurt routine.

"That's not what you said the other night," he said.  

She pitched a wad of paper at him.  Mulder picked up his coffee 
mug and started speaking to it.  "Did you like that, Cancer Man?  
Huh?  That turn you on?" His clowning did not completely 
dissipate the tension.  It was still there, like thunder in the 
distance.  

"Mulder, they are not bugging your coffee cup," Scully told him.

"You're right -- it's probably the electrical outlet that doesn't 
work."  He bent over to shout at the offending outlet, "Better 
than 'Celebrity Skin,' isn't it Krycek, you pervert!"

Scully rifled through filing cabinet drawers, picking up the 
things she would need in Boston.  She told herself to get the 
stupid grin off her face before she went down into the parking 
garage.  What was she so happy about, anyway? It never paid to 
get too happy.  Something was bound to happen and make things 
worse than ever. 

When she had everything she needed she stood on her toes to give 
Mulder a little kiss, a decent kiss, on the mouth.  "Goodbye," 
she said.

"See you," he said.  She felt his eyes on her as she went out the 
door.   Maybe she'd have time to take a cool shower before she 
got on the plane.

**********

As it turned out Scully did not spend the night screaming and 
pounding the wall.   She did dissolve into fits of giggles when 
Mulder scooped her out of bed and attempted to fold her into a 
fairly gymnastic sexual position in the tiny closet.  He hit his 
head on the mass of coat hangers and made them jangle.   She 
told him he had been alone with his porn collection for far too 
long. 

In the gray hour just before dawn Scully lay in bed with her head 
resting in the hollow of Mulder's shoulder.  He'd been asleep for 
more than an hour, but sleep eluded her.  She lay watching the 
green numbers on the clock as they counted their inexorable way 
toward 7 a.m.  //Typical.//  She placed her hand on his left 
chest, felt the slow beat of his heart below the ribcage.  

Her thoughts turned to Daniel.  Neither quite awake or asleep, 
her memories played themselves out as images and sensations.   

It seemed that she was once again an ambitious young pathology 
Resident, sitting in a lecture hall while Daniel addressed his 
first-year med students.   He strode back and forth before the 
first row of seats, sometimes climbing up into the risers.  All 
his notes were in his head, so he was free to make eye contact 
with as many students as possible.  He smiled; he joked with 
them.   A few of the less charismatic staff members derisively 
called him Dr. Elvis.  It didn't matter.  In a class of 100 
students, every one of them would go home feeling as if Daniel 
had been speaking to him or her personally.  

That afternoon he had been speaking about an outbreak of 
hemorrhagic fever in Bolivia.  Not exactly romance novel stuff.  
And yet the sunlight poured through the tall, narrow windows, 
gilding away the gray in his hair and flashing off the cuff
studs of his blue-and-white striped shirt as he gestured.  
He spoke so passionately that she almost felt as if she were 
in church, watching a fiery preaching of the gospel.  

Scully's first crush had been on a young deacon who helped 
celebrate youth Masses near the Texas naval base where her 
family lived in the late 70's.   

In Daniel's classroom  she felt like a wicked schoolgirl once
again, and relished every moment of it.  All she had to do 
was look attentive and innocent.  No one had to know about 
the desire in her heart.

Daniel knew.   They held one another's gazes too long when he 
said things like, "burning with a terrible fever," or "tossing 
and turning in bed."  He'd said, "It's nothing you'll ever 
forget, is it, Dr. Scully, watching a man literally eaten from the 
inside out, begging for relief with every breath?"

She'd said, "No, Dr. Waterston, it isn't."  

The elation, the sense of conquest, hadn't lasted.  He was 
married, of course.  His protestations about his unhappy marriage 
sounded weak even to Scully's besotted ears. 

She had given something away that afternoon in the lecture hall.   
Too late, she realized it was the part of herself that guarded 
her integrity and self-respect.    Those qualities were much 
harder to reclaim than they were to lose.

Her dream state shattered at the sound of the bedside clock:  " . 
. . fifty degrees and raining on this gloomy April Saturday.  
Approximately 800 customers in western Barnstable County are 
still without power due to the storm that blew through early 
Thursday morning --"  

Mulder moaned and rolled over to beat the alarm into silence.  
He squinted at the clock's numbers and said, "Oh, God.  I'm sorry 
I ever got you into this."

"Don't worry about it," Scully said.  "How can I resist the 
opportunity to perform a service the Bureau can 'appreciate?'"  
She slowly rolled up until she was sitting on the edge of the 
bed.  She wanted coffee.  Maybe that would dispel the troubling 
dream images in her head. 

"Thank you," Mulder said.  She turned and looked at him.  In the 
darkness his expression was unreadable, but he reached out and 
caressed the small of her back.  He clearly wanted the justice 
system to do its best by the daughter of his old friend, and he 
believed Scully was the best.  That kind of faith was sobering.  

"If having me do the autopsy helps the Herrons feel better, then 
it's the right thing to do," Scully said.  "I know what it's like 
to lose someone, and then feel like the whole system is working 
against you."

"You all right?" Mulder asked. 

"Yeah," she said.  "Just need to switch gears.  I have to be in 
pathology mode now."  

He seemed to accept her explanation at face value. "Girlfriend, 
you go *be* pathological," he said, swatting her lightly on 
the behind.

She got up and went into the bathroom.  When she turned on the 
lights they made her squint.  Soon she was under the spray of the 
shower, washing the musky scent of lovemaking off her body.  
//Mulder.  Not Daniel, not Jack.// she reminded herself.  //This 
is a different situation.  You're a different person.//  

She was afraid she wasn't different enough.

Scully did not like herself when she was in love.   Over and over 
she'd started by giving away her heart, and ended up giving away 
her soul instead.  

Why did her love always seem to turn to self-betrayal?  

Well for one thing, she tended to pick men who had other interests 
more compelling than she was.  Daniel had his wife, Jack had his 
own ambitions and career at the Bureau.  Mulder had his aliens.  
No, that wasn't fair -- Mulder had shown a marked preference for 
her over aliens on several occasions.  Of course, that wasn't 
exactly a ringing endorsement.  She could just hear Father McCue 
saying, //"Do you, Fox, swear to prefer Dana to aliens on most 
occasions as long as you both shall live?"//  She pressed her 
hands to her eyes.  "Oh my God, I am *nuts,*" she said.

*****

She decided to walk the few blocks to the ME's office rather than 
contend with Boston's tangled nest of one-way streets.   The 
morning was cool, and purple-gray rain clouds hung low in the sky.  
Except for a few pigeons, Scully had the wet sidewalks to 
herself.   The sound of her footfalls was like a meditation.

The night's fevered thoughts and desires fell away as she walked 
among the stately red brick buildings of Boston University 
Medical Center.  This was the realm of learning and reason.  //"Hic 
locus est ubi mors gaudet succerrere vitae" -- Here is the place 
where death delights to give aid to life.//  Here she felt 
competent and in control.  

When she arrived at the Medical Examiner's Office the door was 
locked and the windows were dark.  She glanced at her watch and 
found she was about 20 minutes early, so she composed herself to 
wait.   A few moments later the door opened.  A heavyset man 
whose pink face was splotched with spidered blood vessels leaned 
out.  Scully's overwhelming impression of him was that he was at 
a high risk of developing melanoma.  "You must be Dr. Scully," 
the man said.  "Hi, I'm Rob Conlin, the morgue attendant.  Come 
on in."  Scully noted the dropped r's and flattened o's of the 
classic Boston accent in his speech.

"Thank you," she said, following him inside.  "That's one of the 
friendliest greetings I've ever had at a morgue."

Rob had a slightly wheezing laugh.  "Oh, well, usually we have a 
secretary out here, but right now it's just you and me."

That worried her slightly.  "I am having a path assistant, aren't 
I?  And I thought the State Police detectives were coming."

"Sure, the police boys'll be here any time.  As to the PA, I 
don't know.  This was all arranged kind of suddenly.   Don't 
worry about it though, Dr. Scully, I'll hold the flaps while you 
sew," Rob said.

He showed her to the women's changing area, where she put on 
green scrubs and folded her clothes carefully into a locker.  The 
place smelled like Lysol with just a hint of formalin.  It was 
the smell of science and it helped focus her.  

When she walked into the body storage area itself she found Rob 
there, already suited up.  "We're doing C-3 today, aren't we?" he 
asked.  He checked the name card on the drawer.  "Herron, Kristie 
Ann?"

"That's right," Scully told him.

"Want me to get her out for you?  No sense waiting for the 
detectives just to get her on the table," Rob said.

"Sure, thank you," she told him.  Drawer C-3 made no sound as Rob 
slid it open.   In one smooth motion he lifted the silver-gray 
body bag from the drawer and laid it on a gurney.  Scully was 
impressed.  Due to lack of muscle tone, cadavers were not easy to 
move even when the decedent was light.  Most morgue attendants 
hauled and pushed bodies like sacks of potatoes.  Clearly, Rob had 
been at this job a while and knew his business.  

The autopsy bays were on the second floor, and since none had 
been assigned Scully appropriated one.  All the room's cabinets 
and counters were the same gleaming stainless steel as the 
autopsy knives.  The severity was relieved somewhat by a single 
window, a nice change from the hospital basements Scully was used 
to.  Unfortunately, the tinted glass made the day outside look 
even gloomier.  

Rob helped her weigh the body and get it onto the autopsy table.  
In extremis, Kristie Herron was 159 centimeters long and 102 
pounds, close to Scully's own height and weight.  Other than 
that, it was hard to say what the girl had looked like in life.

A series of catastrophic impacts had shattered her skull, causing 
her head to sag like a half-deflated balloon.   The body had 
clearly lain on its face for several hours.  Deep-red livor 
mortis colored most of what facial skin wasn't abraded away, 
except for odd blanched spots where some irregularity in the 
ground had provided enough pressure to keep blood from settling 
in the tissues.  Kristie was dressed as Joe Luce had described 
her, in a neon yellow windbreaker, blue T-shirt and jeans, and 
one inexpensive women's sneaker with no socks.  Her bare foot, 
which was perfect except for the livor on its anterior side, had 
silver-painted toenails.  The police had placed paper bags over 
both of her hands.

Scully gently probed some of the wounds with her gloved fingers 
while Rob stood by.   Suddenly he turned his head and said, 
"There's the back door buzzer.  That'll be the detectives.  I'll 
go let 'em in."  

Scully hadn't heard a sound.  It had been a while since she'd 
worked with an old-time morgue attendant like Rob -- the kind 
who'd spent 25 years learning the morgue's rhythms and who seemed 
to hear everything, see everything and know everything.  It was 
perhaps a bit disturbing to be with a person whose greatest 
comfort level was among the dead.   

A few minutes later, Rob led two men into the autopsy bay, 
one in plainclothes and one in the blue uniform of the 
Massachusetts State Police.  "You haven't started yet, have 
you?" the plainclothes man asked sharply.

"I'm just doing a very general external examination," Scully 
said.  //Don't let this guy start telling me how to do my job,// 
she thought.

"I'm Detective Ron Davis," the plainclothes man said.  "This is 
Sergeant Ken Tihkoosue from the Oak Bluffs installation on 
Martha's Vineyard."  Davis was a tall, balding man with a russet-
colored mustache. Ethnology was not Scully specialty, but she 
thought Tihkoosue's features looked Native American, perhaps 
Iriquois.

"Good to met you.  Special Agent Dana Scully, FBI," she said.  
She peeled off one of her latex gloves to shake hands.   Cops 
never hesitated to shake her hand when she was in the middle of 
an autopsy.  Civilians tended to stare down at her hand and look 
ill.  Trying to make conversation, she said, "My partner's from 
Martha's Vineyard."

"Really, what part?" Tihkoosue asked.

"He grew up in Chilmark and West Tisbury.  His name is Fox 
Mulder.  You might know him," She said.

Tihkoosue shook his head and said,  "By reputation only." Scully 
hoped Mulder's reputation on the Vineyard wasn't as bad as he 
thought it was.  

Despite her concerns, both police officers were helpful during 
the autopsy.  Tihkoosue photographed the body's hands while 
Davis held a small ruler next to the incised wounds.  The cuts 
were angry, red-brown furrows that ranged in length from a 
centimeter-and-a-half to more than seven.  Most were about half 
a centimeter deep, well into the muscle layer without involving 
bone.  In a way that was a shame, since cut bone retained a much 
more accurate impression of a weapon's blade than flesh did.  

"These are all consistent with defense wounds," Scully said.   
She moved her gloved fingers over the body's hands without 
touching them.  Paler subcutaneous tissue shone dully between 
the edges of Kristie's slit skin.  "Notice the roughly parallel 
cuts between the left wrist and the little finger.  That's a 
classic blade-deflecting pattern."  To illustrate, she swept her
left hand outward as if knocking away a knife with the side of 
her palm.  "The Y-shaped collection of wounds over here," she 
pointed to the much-cut webbing between Kristie's right 
forefinger and thumb, "was likely caused by blocking or grasping 
an edged weapon." It was almost as if she were teaching forensic 
pathology at Quantico again.   Her voice was confident, 
dispassionate, miles away from the emotional turmoil she'd felt 
that morning.  Even Davis had grown quiet and attentive.

"What about those diagonal cuts across the palms?  They look 
almost ritualistic," Tihkoosue said.  He pointed to a deep cut 
that ran across Kristie's right hand, then to its near mirror-
image on the left.   The two wounds angled away from the body at 
precisely the same degree, like the wings of a deadly butterfly.  

"Here," Scully said.  She picked up both wrists and rotated the 
hands 180 degrees.  When she held them palms up with the thumbs 
together, they approximated a blocking gesture in front of the 
abdomen.  "Pull the fingers back," she said.  Davis did so.  The 
wounds' inner edges met.  They were not two cuts but one, formed 
by a single slash across both hands.  "All the hand damage 
suggests the knife was held low or at a distance of several 
inches.   When a blade is closer people tend to block with their 
forearms," Scully said.  "Actually, I'm surprised there aren't 
more sharp-force injuries to the rest of the body."

"It's hard to tell with the head and neck in the condition 
they're in," Davis pointed out.  "You think the damage from the 
fall could have obliterated any obvious knife wounds?"

"I suppose it's possible.  The internal exam will tell," Scully 
said.   She doubted there were hidden knife wounds in the tissues 
of Kristie's throat.  The flesh there was abraded and torn -- 
cracked, more precisely, in the manner expected when a body 
struck a hard object with tremendous force -- but the wound edges 
were jagged and irregular, not the signature smooth cuts of a 
knife.  

She turned her attention to the only other sharp-force injury on 
the body, the through-and-through stabbing injury to the left 
thigh.  The entrance wound bore the purplish stamp of a hilt mark 
above the slightly squared-off superior edge.  Scully had been 
able to form a general picture of the weapon: a long, thin, 
single-edged knife that was honed quite sharp.  It would be a 
kitchen knife rather than a hunting or military model.  

The scenario developing in her mind was that of a crime of 
passion.  The knife was a sort that might be grabbed from a 
counter on impulse, the vicious wounds on Kristie's hands bore 
witness to the attacker's fury.  What had stopped him or her 
from delivering a lethal blow?  

There was a fine line between crime scene reconstruction and 
psychological analysis and Scully knew she should not cross it.  
Establishing motive was the duty of the detectives and the 
District Attorney.  Still, long association with Mulder had 
gotten her in the habit of asking "why" as well as "how."

"I want to look at her clothing again," she said.   

Davis set the ruler aside and went to open the paper bags that 
Kristie's clothes had been neatly folded into.  Scully exchanged 
her bloodied latex gloves for clean ones and followed him.  "What 
are you thinking?" Davis asked.

"The wound pattern's so unusual I want to make sure I'm not 
missing something," she said.  She watched as Davis laid out the 
jacket, T-shirt and jeans on a stainless-steel counter.  
Forensically, the jacket was the most useful.  Its rip-stop nylon 
resisted puncture by semi-sharp natural objects like roots and 
stones, but a fine blade drawn across it even lightly would fray 
and part the fibers.  Scully switched on the light beneath the 
overhead cabinet to get a better view of the fabric, which was 
crumpled and dried hard with blood and sea salt.  

She'd noted before the clothing was removed that it bore far more 
slash marks than the body did.  This was normal and could result 
from a number of things, such as near-misses or a blade passing 
through more than one layer of fabric.  What she wanted to verify 
was that all the cutting and scoring marks were in the middle of 
the body, between the approximate level of Kristie's breasts and 
her knees.  Scully ran her fingertips over the jacket's upper-
left chest, usually a prime target for an attacker wielding a 
knife.  Even probing and stretching of the cloth revealed no 
defects.  

"Is it possible the attacker was crouching or kneeling down?" she 
asked.  "Or maybe he has a disability of some kind, a limitation 
in the movement of his shoulder?"  She sensed Davis and 
Tihkoosue's glance at one another.   She looked up at them.

Tihkoosue said, "The man Kristie informed on to the DA in Boston 
is a mid-level coke dealer.  He took a bullet in the gut once and 
it wrecked his spine.  He uses a wheelchair now."

"I suppose that could account for this wound pattern, depending 
on the length of his reach and the nature of his injury.  How 
accessible is the crime scene location?" Scully asked.  From the 
photos they'd shown her the area looked very wooded and wild.

"To a man in a wheelchair?  It's not.  That's the problem," 
Tihkoosue said, shaking his head.  

"There are chairs designed to go off of paved surfaces," Scully 
said.

Davis leafed through the folder he'd brought and removed several 
crime scene photos.  He held them fanned in front of her like a 
hand of cards.   Even from looking at the partially-covered 
images Scully could see there was no track cut through the 
underbrush such as a heavy-duty wheelchair would make.  "Whoever 
Kristie met out in those woods, they didn't roll there," Davis 
said.  "We're keeping the guy in mind though.  His name is John 
McBer, but on the street they call him 'Frosty,'"

"The snowman.  Of course," Scully said.  She considered whether 
to discuss her findings in detail with Mulder.  One the one hand, 
his behavioral science background might help him make sense of 
the strange wound pattern.  On the other, Kristie was the 
daughter of his boyhood friend.  Hearing the grisly minutiae 
might be excruciating for him.  

In the end, Mulder made the decision for her.  Scully was 
examining tissue samples under a microscope when she heard his 
familiar footsteps in the hall.  She glanced up and saw that Rob 
had left his task of stitching the body's skin back over the 
skull.  He must have gone to answer the back doorbell.  Once 
again, Scully had never heard it ring.  

When Mulder appeared in the doorway, she darted past the 
detectives and planted herself in front of him, her 
hands pressed against the jambs.  "Don't -- it's bad," she said.  
Mulder looked startled at her protectiveness, but not as startled 
as the morgue attendant behind him.  Mulder had an FBI badge; how 
could Rob know he shouldn't have admitted him?

"I knew it would be bad," Mulder said.  He was wearing his off-
duty clothes, a black sweater and jeans, which made him seem more 
out of place, more vulnerable.  He put his hand on her shoulder 
and gently pushed her aside.  

"Help me cover her up," Scully snapped at Rob.  The attendant 
looked bewildered.  "He knew her," she said.  Rob hurried to grab 
a sheet from one of the steel cabinets.  The body block had been 
removed from beneath Kristie's back, and the great, Y-shaped 
incision in her torso closed.  But all of Rob's careful stitches 
could not repair her crushed skull or conceal the larval activity 
in her wounds.  

Scully and Rob draped a sheet over the body up to its shoulders.   
At least the covering gave the poor dead woman some dignity.  
Mulder gazed down at Kristie as he pulled on a pair of latex 
gloves.   His expression was almost puzzled, as if he were trying 
to connect the ruin on the table with the child he had once 
known.  

"She's somewhere better -- this isn't her," Scully said, trying 
to explain away the horror.  

Much of the dead girl's hair had been shaved away so Scully could 
examine her skull injuries.  What hair remained was shoulder-
length and had perhaps been light brown in life.  Mulder gently 
smoothed the strands away from Kristie's face.  "She was born in 
the summer of 1973," he said.  His voice had a strange, singsong 
distance to it.   "My sister fell in love with her at first 
sight.  She said she was going to baby-sit Kristie when she got 
older.  It was her turn to be the big girl.  She brought over all 
the baby toys she didn't play with anymore . . . started 
pestering my mom for a little sister."  Mulder cupped the side of 
Kristie's face and caressed her bloodied cheek with his thumb. 

He looked up at Scully.  His hazel eyes were pained but clear.  
"Homicide?" he asked softly.

Scully hesitated.  The mode of death might be complex, since it 
was unclear how Kristie had come to tumble off the cliff.  Still, 
the knife wounds had been no accident.  She gave him the short 
answer.  "Yes.  Homicide."    

He continued to stroke Kristie's matted hair for some moments.  
The room was silent.  When a car passed on the wet street outside 
the sound was an intrusion.   At last Mulder turned away and 
peeled off his gloves.   He looked at the detectives and said, 
"I'm going to help you find who did this."  

Davis held his gaze as if seeking for meaning there.  He turned 
to Scully with a wordless question in his eyes.

"Detective Davis, This is my partner, Agent Mulder," Scully said.

He nodded to Mulder and said, "Thanks, Agent.  I appreciate the 
offer."  He seemed respectful of Mulder's loss, but Scully heard 
politics in his voice.  The man thought Mulder was a nut.  

"You'll want me later.  Scully can tell you how to contact me," 
Mulder said.  He threw his gloves in the trash and strode out the 
door.

Everybody stared after him for a second.  Then the men all looked 
at Scully.

"He'll be all right," she said, suddenly uncomfortable.  It was 
as if the atoms in the air had picked up a charge.  What had been 
a slow, objective procedure performed in the name of science had 
become something else, something with the keen edge of a crusade.   

Mulder tended to have that effect on people.  

*****

Later, she and Mulder sat in a restaurant near Boston Common.  It 
was a quasi-Italian bistro that had apparently been something 
different and better when Mulder was young.  Even in 
midafternoon the place was kept very dim.  Candles in teardrop-
shaped glass holders sat on every table, giving off a dull yellow 
glow.

Mulder seemed particularly quiet and morose.  Scully let him be, 
as much from fatigue as consideration.  Few non-pathologists 
appreciated the amount of mental and physical energy it took to 
perform an autopsy under even optimal conditions, and that day's 
conditions had been far from optimal.  Her greatest desire was to 
finish eating and take a very long nap.  

"I visited my parents' graves this morning," Mulder said.  "Both 
of them, on opposite sides of the city.  Just the way they would 
have wanted it."

"I guess it's been a hard day," she said. 

"I'd never visited my dad's before," he said.

"You're kidding," she said, then regretted how insensitive that 
sounded.  He didn't seem to notice.

"I never saw the point of going. I met my father's spirit in the 
New Mexico desert . . . or maybe it was a hallucination.  I don't 
know.  In any case my dad's out *there* . . ." he gestured at 
some indeterminate location in the distance.  "Wherever 
semi-reformed Men In Black go when they die.  He's not under a 
stone in Parkway Cemetery."

Scully repressed her urge to lecture him on filial duty.  "I 
think he'd be glad you went," she said. 

"Maybe," he said.  An awkward silence of several seconds passed.  
Scully poked at the too-oily vegetable penne she didn't intend to 
finish.  Since it was Lent she was avoiding meat, but she didn't 
seem to be benefiting from it spiritually.  Maybe it was because 
Easter was so late this year that it didn't feel like Lent.  

Maybe it was because she was living in sin with her partner.  

Mulder gazed down at the table.  Actually he seemed to be gazing 
through it at some distant image she could not see.  "Albert
Hosteen called the vision I had 'the origin place.'  I saw my father
there, and I asked him whether Samantha was with him.  He said, 
'No.'"  Mulder shook his head.  "Why didn't they tell me?"

Scully thought Alex Krycek had answered that question in the most 
violent and cruel way possible, but she didn't say so.  It wasn't 
the answer to the question Mulder was really asking anyway.  "I 
don't know," she said.  "Mulder . . . do you want to go out to 
Martha's Vineyard?  Do you need to see Kristie's family and Joe 
Luce?  They seem to care about you."  She thought that at the 
moment, he could use all the family he could get.

"My sister is the JonBenet Ramsey of Dukes County," Mulder said.  
"You know what that means?  None of us was ever shown to be 
guilty of what happened to her, but we'll never be innocent -- 
not to the people out there." 

"Joe seemed to regret ever thinking you were guilty," Scully 
said.

"If so, he's a pretty lonely voice," Mulder said.  

They were both silent while he poked at his pasta marinara.  
The piped-in muzak was some cheerful tune played on a wheezy 
accordion.  Scully avoided looking him in the eye as she 
said, "I think you'd feel better if you helped."

He released a long breath, and some of the tension seemed to 
leave his shoulders.  "Kristie was a cute little baby, you know?
I didn't give a damn about babies at the time, but I could tell
she was cute.  Or maybe I just thought so because I had a 
thing for her mother. I don't know."

She nodded, then glanced up at him.  This time he looked away.  
She'd known him long enough to understand that he sometimes cast 
her in the role of his spiritual counselor.  Taking a page from 
his own list of psychological techniques, she kept her expression 
as blank as possible, knowing he'd read into it whatever he needed 
to see. 

He rubbed at his eyes, as if very tired.  "I should go out there.
If nothing else, I owe it to the Island people for letting Roche 
loose on them.  Kristie didn't meet with some ghost out in those
woods.  It was a flesh-and-blood guy that I should help put away
if I can."

Scully remembered the results of the autopsy and didn't quite 
know how to reply.  The investigator in her wanted to tell Mulder
all the ugly details; the lover and friend in her wanted to 
protect him as much as possible. 

Apparently misreading her reticence, he said, "I'm sorry.  I was 
going to show you around Boston."

"No -- it's not that."  She hesitated, but in the end she could
keep nothing from him.  "Mulder . . . Kristie miscarried at 
some point in the last several months.  The internal damage was 
considerable, though there's some evidence of medical 
intervention, which probably saved her life.  I found pitting 
typical of parturition scars on her pelvic bones.  That means she 
was at least into her second trimester when it happened.  The 
fetus might have been viable, at least at first."

Mulder looked puzzled.  "She lost a child?"

"I think Kristie suffered from placenta abrupta, the sudden 
detachment of the umbilical cord from the uterine wall.  
It's a common complication in pregnancy among women who abuse 
cocaine," Scully said.   

She could tell the moment he remembered the faxed letter from Irv 
Stuckey.  His expression became one of deep compassion.  He 
quoted Irv, "'What happened in Boston.'"

"Joe Luce said she'd been drug-free six months.  The scarring 
looked more recent than that, but people who've badly abused 
themselves heal slowly.   She'd damaged her heart, her arteries . 
. . it's amazing that she survived the birth, given the amount of 
hemorrhaging that was apparent.  A child born under those 
conditions would have a very poor chance of survival," she said.

"And the first thing that comes to his mind is the South Road 
Ghost story.  What a bastard," Mulder said.

"He may not have been the first to think of the story," Scully said.  
"If Kristie knew it as well, someone could have used it to 
frighten or confuse her.  She must have been emotionally fragile 
as it was.  Panic is as good an explanation as any for how she 
fell off the cliff, barring some undiscovered evidence that she 
was pushed."  

Mulder nodded.  He seemed lost in thought.  Scully continued, "If 
we do go out to Martha's Vineyard we'll have to remember to be 
particularly sensitive around the family on the subject of the 
child.  Since Irv Stuckey knew about the pregnancy I expect 
Kristie's relatives know too, but it's possible they don't.  Irv 
could have abused his access to hospital records or simply heard 
rumors.  Actually he's seemed entirely too involved with this 
case from the beginning."

"Irv gets the dirt on everyone in town and repeats it to make them
sound as bad as possible.  Since he has no good qualities, it's the
only way to make himself look better," Mulder said.

"Everybody has some good qualities," Scully said.  

He gave her a look that made it plain she could keep her comments 
on forgiveness and redemption to herself.  "Sorry," she said.  
Every so often she found herself turning into her mother, who was 
relentless in her pursuit of finding something pleasant to say about 
everybody.   She even liked Mulder, which for one of Scully's 
relatives was saying something.  

"At least I can tell Kristie's family that she was drug-free when 
she died.  All the blood tests were negative," Scully said.  

"Ironic, really," Mulder said.  "It's like the guy who gives up 
smoking and then gets hit by a speeding bus."

Scully wasn't about to argue with him when he was in this frame 
of mind. "Are we going out to Martha's Vineyard?" she 
asked.

He appeared to consider for a moment, and then said, "Yes."

"All right," she said.  

The rest of their meal was quiet.  Whatever was behind Mulder's 
silence was hidden from her.

********

A couple of hours later Mulder sat behind the wheel of his parked 
car, one of the few vehicles on the deck of the Woods-Hole-to-
Vineyard-Haven ferry.  Scully was asleep in the tilted-back 
passenger seat.

Rain ran steadily down the windows and Mulder didn't bother 
running the wipers to dispel it.  The glass had misted over 
inside from their breath, anyway.   Car motors had to be turned 
off during the crossing so turning on the heater was out of the 
question.  The ferry boasted a glassed-in shelter with padded 
bench seats, which were good for sightseeing but bad for napping.  
Scully had chosen the chilly crampedness of the car without 
reservation.  

Mulder fidgeted.  The forced inactivity worsened the restless 
ache inside him.  He wanted to turn on the radio.  He wanted to 
wake Scully up so he would have someone to talk to.  He felt a 
dull sense of . . .  what?  Dread.  Dread lay in his soul like a 
block of lead as they approached the Island.  

The rocking of the waves in Vineyard Sound and the slow chugging 
of the steam ship were too familiar, like an unwelcome caress.  
He had an eerie sense of the past overlaying the present.  

He hoped this wasn't a seizure aura.  Ever since Dr. Goldstein had 
drilled holes in his head as an aid to repressed memory recovery, 
Mulder had sometimes experienced near-hallucinatory flashbacks of 
his past.   Not all the flashbacks were of traumatic events, but 
the experience itself was disturbing.  Stress made the problem 
worse.  Scully was of the opinion that he suffered from minor 
seizure activity due to brain lesions.  

Whatever the ultimate cause was, Mulder felt that if he shut his 
eyes he might open them to find himself sitting behind the wheel 
of the rustbucket Nova he drove back in '78 and '79. On the 
way to the Vineyard to visit Dad.

Mulder had always felt a certain dread when returning to the 
Island after his sister disappeared.  He'd associated it with his 
father, with whom he had a conflicted relationship at best.   But 
Dad wasn't out there anymore, and the dread remained.  It must be 
something else then.   Mulder tried to focus on the present 
moment: the sensation of his fingers pressing against the 
plastic of the steering wheel, Scully's soft breathing in the 
seat next to him. 

He rubbed a hole in the windshield fog and turned on the car's 
electricity so he could run the wipers.  Cold air rushed in 
through the vents, and Scully stirred.  Mulder shut the useless 
heater off.  The outdoors was visible now, an endless expanse of 
iron-colored water beyond the ferry's white railing.  It might 
have been November rather than April.  A good day to stay 
indoors.

**
The flashback came on like a blow to the stomach.  

The car around him receded to dim awareness.  He was ten years 
old, maybe eleven, lying on the floor of Mrs. Luce's back room 
in Chilmark.  Rain fell from a leaden sky and ran down the windows.
The Luces had baseboard heat, which made even the thin, hard carpet
a cozy haven.

The air smelled like warm crayons.  The Mulder and Luce children 
lay sprawled on the floor, drawing pictures on the backs of old 
forms Joey's uncle brought over from the police station.  Mrs. 
Luce was in the kitchen, talking to herself.  Really she was 
talking to Mr. Luce, who was in heaven.  That's why Joey and 
Cheryl had an uncle instead of a dad.  Sometimes Cheryl talked to 
her daddy in heaven, too.  Joey didn't.  Instead he drew pictures 
of Jesus.  

Fox looked over at Joey's drawing.  It was of Jesus deflecting 
bullets with his hand like Superman.  He was protecting a group 
of cops from some bad guys.  Everybody in the picture was 
frowning and looking mad.  Crosses hemmed the drawing like a 
fence.  Fox sensed that Joey's SuperJesus pictures were about 
being scared.  They were about Mrs. Luce talking to the air in 
the kitchen, about what was on the front side of some of the 
forms they drew on.  

The children liked the murder scene investigation forms the best 
because there was a body outline you could color in and draw 
clothes on.  Cheryl and Samantha cut the paper bodies out for 
dolls for a while, but that bothered Mrs. Luce for some reason 
and she told her bother-in-law to quit bringing those over.   Fox 
and Samantha's mom said that was just as well.  

Fox was drawing a picture of the tree fort he and Joey were 
building out in the woods by the little cemetery along South 
Road.  Fox had told his mom they were going to spend the night in 
it, but she said no.  Samantha said she would be too scared to 
stay there all night because of ghosts, which just showed what a 
baby she was.  There was no such thing as ghosts, and anyway if 
dead people started to scare you, you could just talk to them 
like Mrs. Luce talked to Joey's dad.     

Samantha was doing one of her usual dumb rainbows-and-flowers 
drawings, but this was worse because she was copying off of 
Cheryl.  Or maybe it was the other way around.  "Do your own 
drawing," Fox told her.

"This *is* my own drawing," Samantha said.

"You're copying off of her," Fox said, pointing at Cheryl.

"We wanted to draw the same thing," Samantha said.  She glanced 
up and he saw the flash of anger in her pale green eyes.  (Had he 
forgotten that there was something in her as hard as gemstone)?

"Kids, be nice," Mrs. Luce called from the kitchen.  

Fox stifled his resentment at his sister's unoriginality because 
you had to act better in other people's houses.   He added a 
picture of a stupid-looking girl to his drawing.  

Joey was clearly concentrating hard as he drew details on the 
police cars, right down to the whip antennas.   Fox never 
questioned why a boy without a father in the house should feel 
afraid.  On nights when his dad was gone, which was a lot, his 
mom would pull the curtains closed on every window in the house.  
Sometimes she took the phone off the hook, and no matter how many 
times her kids hung it up again, she'd take it back off.  Somehow 
it was not something Fox or Samantha ever asked about.  Once, 
Fox's dad had shown him how to use the revolver he kept up high 
on a shelf.  Dad said he should never try to use guns until he 
was older, but he showed him how it worked anyway.  Fox was glad.  
He believed in bad guys like in Joey's picture, but he wasn't too 
sure he believed in SuperJesus.

The flashback was over as quickly as it began.  In its aftermath 
Mulder felt weak and sick.  Somehow the present still seemed 
unreal.  The weight and mass of his adult body felt wrong.  The 
opening of "Slaughterhouse Five" floated up from the dark well of 
his brain: "Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time."

Scully stirred.  Had he spoken aloud?  He reached out and took 
her hand.  Her small, manicured fingers felt very warm against 
his palm.   Her eyes fluttered open at the touch.  "Mulder?  My 
God, your hands are icy . . . are you all right?"  Whatever she 
saw in his face made her sit up straight.  She hooked an errant 
strand of her hair behind her ear as if to smooth away the 
vulnerability revealed by sleep.  She looked intently into his 
eyes -- a doctor now rather than a lover, probably checking the 
relative size of his pupils.

"I'm all right," he mumbled.  In a few minutes that would be 
true.   He knew the sense of dull shock, the faint unfamiliarity 
about her would fade, and with that knowledge came a sense of 
loss.  Perhaps the worst thing about being periodically thrust 
into the past was his reluctance to return.  He turned away from 
her and gazed at the fogged-over windshield.    

"You need to see a neurologist," Scully said.  She'd never 
articulated the accusation that underlay her words, but Mulder 
heard it.  She still hadn't forgiven him for drilling holes in 
his head in the first place.

"I don't need a neurologist.  It's emotional," he said.  If he 
really was having seizures, the Bureau would park him at a desk 
and the state would suspend his driver's license.   He'd rather 
be considered neurotic.  

"See a psychiatrist, then," she said.  "When you come out of one 
of those . . . trance states you look horrible, like you're going 
to pass out."

"I'm not going to pass out."

"What if that happened while you were driving?  You could kill 
someone."

"I'm fine," he said.

"Mulder, an altered state of consciousness with nausea and 
weakness is not fine," she said.

"I said I'm all right.  Would you drop it?"  

He saw hurt on her face, and then the shield of 
anger went up.  "Whatever," she said.  She turned to the 
passenger window, shrugging into the seat.  After a few seconds 
she dug a stack of papers out of her bag in the back seat and 
flipped through them as if looking for something.  Mulder could 
tell she wasn't reading.

His hands slid down the sides of the steering wheel.  He'd told 
her once that the night she slipped beneath the covers of his bed 
and kissed him awake was the happiest of his life.  For days 
afterward he'd lived in a cloud of bewildered euphoria, expecting 
to wake up from the dream at any moment -- probably in a cell 
somewhere with wires running out of his brain.  

How long had he waited for her to come to him?  He'd been like a
man who sits motionless with his arm outstretched, hoping a 
little wild bird would hop into his hand.  

Of all times, why had she picked now to fall in love with him?  
Now, when he'd lost everything else that made life worth living?  
There were days when he barely felt like a man.  She deserved so 
much better.  He looked over at her and saw she was still 
ignoring him.  Good.  All the more excuse to stare.

There was almost no trace left of the fresh-faced girl in the 
ugly blazer he'd first met -- the supposed spy sent by The 
Powers That Be to discredit him.  She was thinner now, sparer.
It was as if the cancer had worn away everything but the 
essential.   At times she seemed almost translucent, like an 
ivory comb after much use. 

He'd noticed the ugly blazers vanished after her sister died.  
That happened sometimes in families, where one sister was 
beautiful and the other went out of her way to be plain.   
Although Scully still grieved for Melissa, she'd bloomed when she 
was no longer in her sister's shadow.   Would something like that 
have happened to Samantha if Mulder had been taken instead?  Had 
she left qualities for him to inherit?   

The tightness in his throat was painful. "She was happy.  
Happier than I ever was," he said.

Scully looked over at him.  "Who?" she asked.  

"Samantha. There wasn't a lot in our lives to be happy about, 
even before . . ."  He did not say the words.  Let that memory 
sleep.   He swallowed past the tightness and tried again, "She 
enjoyed little things I missed."  

Samantha's dusty and water-stained diary was the most harrowing 
book he had ever read.  In it she described how she practiced 
loving things to make sure she remembered how: a blue willow
beetle, a dandelion, fuchsia nail polish dried to the side of 
its glass bottle.  A kid's treasures.  Junk.  She seemed 
afraid of loving anything bigger than she could hold in her 
hand.   Who could blame her?

"In my memories she seems so real to me," he said.  "More real 
than she did when we were growing up.  It's as if I know her 
better now than I ever have."

For a few moments the only sounds were their own breathing and 
the hypnotic humming of the ferry engines.  Scully reached over 
and touched his shoulder.  She knew what he meant about the dead 
being more present than the living.  She'd had that feeling after 
her father and Melissa died, but it was strongest after she lost 
Emily.  For months afterward, Scully met the child everywhere: in 
a church, in a car, in the faces of strangers' children.   Her 
sense of  Emily's presence was so strong that sometimes she felt 
sure the girl would be there waiting for her when she turned the 
next corner.   Scully believed in heaven but not in ghosts.  She 
considered her experience phantom pain, like that of a man who 
still feels the wounds in his amputated leg.                  

What could she say to Mulder? "It will pass?"  Part of him 
wouldn't want it to pass.  Of course he'd want to hold onto that 
emotional connection -- what else did he have?  He didn't even 
have a faith to turn to.  All she could think to say was, "You'll 
be all right."  She reached up and ran her hand over his hair.  
"You'll be all right."    

*****

Scully's first impression of the town of Vineyard Haven was of 
its eclecticness.  Modern glass-and-steel structures stood across 
the street from Victorian houses with an embarrassment of 
gingerbread carving along their eaves.  Old and new, commercial 
and residential, all seemed to have been mixed together.  Easter 
decorations were displayed on many doors, and here and there were 
a Hebrew Passover inscriptions in silver cardboard.  

On a less gloomy day the place was probably charming.  Still, 
Scully felt a faint sense of letdown. She thought it was 
probably because "the Vineyard," as residents called it, had 
acquired such a mystique of power and tragedy, first through its 
link to the Kennedy family, and then reinforced for her 
personally by her association with Mulder.  But in reality 
Vineyard Haven was quite like what she had seen of Cape Cod.  
Just a nice New England town in the rain.  

She watched the buildings: brick; stone; clapboard and concrete; 
as they passed, and tried to imagine how the town looked when 
Mulder was a boy -- the Vineyard Haven Samantha had last seen. 

Images from her own childhood came to her: little girls in pink 
swing coats and shiny black shoes led by the hand up the steps to 
church; blue-suited boys purposely stepping in the puddles that 
formed on the worn risers and being scolded in a whisper by their 
parents.  That was Easter as Scully had known it.

It seemed quite natural when they passed a church bulletin board 
that read, "Look, your king is coming to you: humble, and mounted 
on a donkey."  They had traveled most of a block before the 
context of that Bible quote sunk in.  

"Oh, God, Holy Week starts tomorrow," Scully said.  She dug for 
her planner among the junk in the back seat and confirmed what 
she'd just realized -- tomorrow was Palm Sunday.

"Is that a problem?" Mulder asked, glancing over at her.

"No.  Yes.  I don't know," she said.  Her family only demanded 
her presence on Easter Sunday, a full week away.  What really 
alarmed her was that Holy Week had snuck up on her.  Had it 
really been so long since she attended Mass?  She'd obviously 
given up the wrong thing for Lent.  Had she given up, say, her 
cell phone, she'd have been counting the days until Easter.   "Do 
they have a Catholic church out here?" she asked.  She'd made no 
arrangements, no inquiries.  

"Only when the Kennedys are in town.  The rest of the time it's 
the high school gym," Mulder said.  He must have caught her look 
of panic because he added, "Of course they have Catholic churches 
out here. Relax."

She leaned back against the seat, but could not relax.  Faith had 
meant so much more to her since she lost Emily.  During the worst 
of her grief she had attended Mass nearly every day.   Perhaps it 
was an exaggeration to call it a balm to her soul.  It was more 
like a tourniquet, something to slow the massive internal 
bleeding.  

Was she going to toss that faith aside now that things were going 
better?  She didn't want to be that kind of Christian.  In the 
dark days of early 1998, she had practiced a religious orthodoxy 
that was totally foreign to her former life.  She'd even dug out 
the ruby-glass and silver rosary her great aunt had given her on 
her Confirmation, a gift that had been reverently packed away in 
tissue paper and never used.  

She couldn't help glancing sidelong at Mulder.  Sleeping with 
your sort-of-atheist, angry-at-God partner was not compatible 
with Thursday night Mass and confession every first Saturday of 
the month.  When push came to shove, it was the Church she edged 
out of her life.  

In her heart of hearts, Scully was not convinced that God 
condemned everyone who bought a package of condoms or that the 
Blessed Virgin really needed prayers to undo the damage of 
affronts to her Immaculate Heart.   But she felt a need for 
connection to a wise, benevolent Being, and she was too much a 
Catholic to worship in isolation.  For her, history and tradition 
forged the connection between man and God.  She seemed to be 
slowly relinquishing that connection, and it frightened her.  

One obvious solution was simply to get married to Mulder.  
Presuming she truly repented her prior behavior, she would be a 
Catholic in good standing again.   She felt little doubt that 
Mulder *would* agree to marry her, at least once he regained his 
emotional balance -- or whatever passed for balance in his 
peculiar psyche.   Yet something in her sensed that rushing into 
marriage was not the best way to serve Mulder or God.  

Perhaps her problem was that she had never given all of herself 
to anything or anyone -- except Emily, who had left Scully's life 
almost as soon as she entered it.    

In her current situation she could use Mulder to distance herself 
from God and God to distance herself from Mulder.  How convenient.  
How safe.  

Jesus had not held back anything.   This week marked the 
anniversary of the day he gave his life, and she was afraid to 
give even her whole heart?  But she was a human woman, not God.  
She looked on emotional self-immolation with terror.

She sighed deeply and lifted one of Mulder's hands from the 
steering wheel, pressed his knuckles to her lips.  

"You all right?" he asked, probably surprised at the 
uncharacteristic impulsiveness of her act.  

"I'm fine," she said softly.  Lies like that kept him from 
getting too close.

****

Their destination was the Captain Nehemiah Nye House, an inn 
near the Wesquobsque Cliffs in Chilmark.  Mulder had explained 
that it was less than a mile from the scene of Kristie's death, 
but Scully was still surprised and dismayed to find its gravel 
parking lot entirely filled with police vehicles.  Few of the 
cars were marked, but the ramming bars and whip antennas were 
dead giveaways.  

Mulder ended up parking near a flooded ditch alongside the road.  
At least it had mostly stopped raining by the time they got out 
of the car.  

"I know the family that runs this place, or at least I used to.  
We'll see if that helps," he said. 

Nye House turned out to be like something out of a Jane Austen 
novel.  The lobby had clearly once been Captain Nye's drawing 
room, and it was arranged much as he must have left it.  The 
small cast-iron stove that once heated the room still stood in 
one corner, and the furniture arranged in the waiting area had 
the light, streamlined style favored in the early 19th century.  
A shining brass ship's clock hung on one blue-and-gray papered 
wall.  It was almost exactly how Scully would have decorated her 
own home if she'd had a lot more money and rather less 
practicality.

At the far end of the room sat a light secretaire desk, its 
surface covered in mounds of paper.  Scully noted the key rack 
hanging on the wall beside the desk was entirely empty.  Mulder 
walked up and rang the hand bell anyway.  After a moment a stout 
lady with short, salt-and-pepper curls came in through the room's 
rear door.  "Do you have a reservation?" she asked.

Mulder fished his Bureau ID out of his inner coat pocket and held 
it out to her.  The woman's back stiffened.  "I'm sorry, but I've 
told everything I know more than once.  You people really have to 
start talking to one another.  I have a business to run here."      

"Leigh," Mulder said.  

Leigh's glasses magnified her brown eyes, which made her look 
owlish when she blinked at him.   She took another look at the ID, 
glanced at Mulder's face, and her eyes went even wider.
  
"Well, *hello!*  Why didn't you tell me you were coming?  It's been 
so long -- here I was thinking you were another one of these 
mainland detectives.  I'm just about embarrassed to death," she 
said.  She walked around the desk and hugged him.  To Scully's 
surprise, he returned the embrace without awkwardness.  In her 
experience, he was uncomfortable with physical affection in all 
but the most intimate relationships.  

"I didn't know I was coming until just a few hours ago," Mulder 
said.  

Leigh stepped back and said, "Then you heard?"  Mulder nodded.  

"Isn't it awful?" Leigh said.  "I still can hardly believe it -- 
that poor girl.  The Island's really changed for the worse, Fox.  
More people coming and going all the time . . .  some of them not 
the sort I like to see around.   The traffic means more business, 
but I'd just as soon have it back the way it was 15 years ago.   
It was safer.  Speaking of which, it must've been at least that 
long since I last saw you."

"More like 20 years ago," Mulder said.  "The last summer I spent 
here was the one before I went away to school."

"Has it been that long?" Leigh asked.  "It must've been.  It 
must've been.   Tammy was just a little thing then.   Now she's 
grown with a baby of her own."  Leigh seized the opportunity to 
pull a photo album from amid the clutter on the desk.  "Here, 
this is a picture of my granddaughter . . ."

It turned out to be more than just "a" picture, but Scully looked 
through and praised them all.  Emily's death had left a dry ache 
in her that was soothed somewhat by talking about other peoples' 
babies.   As a result, Leigh Williams soon had a very high opinion 
of her and was determined to find room for her and Mulder in Nye 
House.   

Leigh looked mildly scandalized when Mulder explained that one 
room would do fine and neither agent had to be installed in 
Tammy's old room.  At that point Scully put her hand on his arm 
and drew him aside. "Maybe it would be better if we didn't stay 
together," she said quietly.  "This place is crawling with police 
officers.  It wouldn't reflect well on the Bureau."

"The Bureau?  The *Bureau?*"  Mulder looked appalled.  Leigh 
tactfully found something to fuss with on her desk.  In a low 
voice Mulder asked, "At a time like this you're worried about 
what the Bureau would think?  We're off duty.  Officially, I'm not 
even here."

"Nobody else knows that," Scully said.  She plead for his 
understanding with her eyes, not wanting to explain in the 
earshot of others.  She had not forgotten the whispers and icy 
stares of her classmates in medical school and the FBI Academy.  

*Scully slept her way to the top* had been the conventional 
wisdom.  The fact that it wasn't true, and that at least in Jack's 
case the affair was licit, hadn't made any difference.  There 
weren't many new lows for her career to sink to, but Scully 
didn't want to see a look of delighted disgust in her colleagues' 
eyes.  The look that said, "I don't have to respect you now, and 
I'm glad."     

"Fine," Mulder said.  "Whatever."

"I'd be glad to stay in your daughter's room, Mrs. Williams," 
Scully said.  Leigh clearly thought Scully had fallen from 
heaven.  

Mulder looked as if the whole conversation made him want 
to wash.

**********

Upstairs in his room, Mulder tossed his few packed belongings 
onto the shelves of the armoire, mostly for an excuse to slam the 
doors.   He knew that he was more upset at Scully than the 
situation really warranted.  

So she wanted to sleep downstairs.  So what?  It would be no 
different than when they were working -- which in fact Scully was.

No, this *was* different.  He needed her, and she cared about the 
Bureau's opinion of their personal life?  "Why are you 
surprised?" he asked himself aloud.  He dropped down on the bed 
and pressed his hands to his aching eyes.  Scully had always been 
skittish around issues of authority.  She'd flouted rules to come 
through for him before, but only after justifying herself by 
appealing to her conception of a higher law.  Apparently the 
current situation wasn't worthy of such an exception.

//Were you so stupid that you thought she'd change just because 
she started sleeping with you?//   Such a hope was truly pathetic 
-- the mindset of a neurotic fifteen-year-old.  The only response 
his exhausted mind could offer was, //But I love her.//  

If he'd learned anything during the last several months, it was 
that love, for all its virtues, was powerless to affect the 
actions of the beloved.   Christina Mulder, beloved mother, had 
taken her own life without so much as mentioning her terminal 
illness to her son.  Kristie Herron, beloved daughter, had chosen 
a dangerous life amid the drug culture of Boston that might have
directly or indirectly led to her death.  Scully would do what 
she would do, and his choices were to walk away or hang on and 
hope for the best.  Really, it was no choice at all.  "You 
could at least try to meet me closer to halfway," he said aloud.  

He lay down, and hypnagogic images swam before him when he shut 
his eyes.  He saw faces mouthing incomprehensible words.  He 
hadn't had any more sleep than Scully had, and his mind was 
considerably more troubled.  When he fell asleep it was to 
unsettling dreams -- a horror stalked him through familiar 
rooms.  The thing itself was never seen, but he recognized 
the sound of its slow footfalls as it followed him through 
the empty house.  Whatever it was had been with him a long time.

It was dark when the phone's ringing startled him awake.  He'd 
developed a horrific headache in his sleep and he groaned as he 
reached over to pick up the receiver.  "Hello?"

"Fox?" came a woman's voice.  Mulder struggled to place it.

"Yeah?" he said.

"It's Patty," the woman said.  Moments from the past, sharp and 
fragmented, spilled through his mind: a long, shining wave of 
chestnut hair; a young woman's soft laugh; a green-and-white 
bicycle with reddish Vineyard clay caught in its tire treads.  

"Patty . . . How are you?"  He regretted the words as soon as 
he'd spoken them.  //How do you think she is?// 

"You heard?" she asked.  He knew the emotion behind her nearly 
calm voice.  Grief left a person like the softened walls in many 
of the Island's oldest buildings, where cracks in the plaster merely 
hinted at the disintegration of the concrete behind.   One touch 
and the whole structure would crumble.

"I heard.  I'm sorry," he said.

"I don't understand it.  She was fine.  She'd had a little 
trouble and she was doing so well . . ."  Her words fluttered up 
and up, like frightened birds before a storm.  

"Do you want me to go over there?" Mulder said.

"It's late, Fox -- no," she said.

"You sure?"

"No," she said, very quietly.

"Give me twenty minutes," Mulder said.

*************

Scully was lying on the narrow bed, resting her eyes. The rooms 
the Williams family lived in were near the surprisingly modern 
kitchen, in what Scully suspected had once been the maids' 
quarters.  Tammy's room was quite small and her mother had 
apologized, explaining that lodging would be gratis if Scully 
chose to stay.   The little room lacked the romance of the guest 
areas, but she found something soothing about the teen-girl 
furnishings.

She was a good ten years older than Tammy, but the peeling 
posters of 80's pop icons, the grainy photos of prom night and 
graduation tucked into the mirror frame above the vanity, could 
have come from one of her own college dorm rooms.  She remembered 
a time when she'd had girlfriends, before shadowy men and the 
terrible light that haunted her dreams made her too afraid to 
befriend anyone.  For a few moments between sleep and waking, she 
felt her sister's presence very near.

Minutes later Mulder knocked on the door.  It had to be Mulder.  
In hotels, strangers had a polite little knock -- an I-hope-I'm-
not-disturbing-you knock.  Mulder just gave the door two sharp 
raps, the knock of a person who believes he has the right to 
enter, but knocks anyway for good manners' sake.  "Hang on," 
Scully said groggily.  She rolled off the bed onto her stocking 
feet.  When she opened the door the light in the hall seemed too 
bright, and she squinted up at her partner.  He had his coat on.  
"What is it?" she asked.

"I'm going over to the Herrons'," he said.

She knew it was as close to an invitation as she was going to 
get.  She glanced back at the bedside clock and saw it was after 
ten.  "Now?  You want me to talk about the autopsy results?" she 
asked.

"No," he said.  She waited for further explanation and got none.  
He just wanted her presence.

"Let me find my shoes . . ." she said.  She'd been dumb enough to 
bring nearly-new shoes and she felt all the tight spots as her 
feet slid back into them.  In her head, she heard what her sister 
would say: //Why do you follow him around like that?  If Mulder 
jumped off the Empire State Building, would you do it too?//  
Then she heard her own answer, //Probably.//   

Scully fought to repress a smile that was completely 
inappropriate for a condolence call.  Mulder clearly saw it
anyway.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said, lifting her still-damp jacket from where it 
lay folded over the vanity chair.  "Let's go."  

Scully did not know what to expect as they pulled up outside the 
secluded house near Menemsha Harbor.  Like many houses she'd seen 
on the western part of the island, the Herron's unpaved driveway 
wound quite a distance into the trees -- or maybe it was unclear 
where the driveway started and the dirt road stopped.  Scully was 
a little surprised at how undeveloped much of the land was.  When 
Mulder had told her his parents were next door when his sister 
was abducted, she'd thought of "next door" in terms of the 
cramped military housing units of her own youth.  Here, "next 
door" was not within the shouting distance of a young boy.  The
knowledge helped bring home to her how alone and helpless 
Mulder had felt as a 12-year-old all those years before.

Scully used the porch mat to scrape red, clayey mud off her shoes 
while Mulder rang the doorbell.  She heard footsteps inside, and 
a young man's face appeared briefly in the door's window.  There 
was no sound of a latch being undone before the door opened.   
The boy in the doorway looked about 17 or 18, tall but still 
gangly.  His hard, red-rimmed eyes seemed incongruous in his 
youthful face.  That was the magic of grief -- overnight it could 
make a high school boy look like a bitter old man.

"Yeah?" the boy said.

"I'm Fox Mulder.  I'm here to see Patty," Mulder said.          

The boy closed the door.  Scully heard him shout, "Mom!"

"Wonderful kid," Mulder muttered.  

"He's just lost his sister," Scully said, then realized how 
churlish it sounded to imply he didn't know what that was like.  
He kept his eyes on the door as if he hadn't heard.  

The misting rain was deceptively fine.  The air clung like a damp 
sponge.  In the short amount of time they stood on the porch, 
Scully began to feel wet all the way through and very cold.  
Soon the door was opened again, this time by a tall woman, 
perhaps ten years older than Mulder.  "Fox," she said.

"Hi, Patty," Mulder said.  

"Come in -- I'm sorry," Patty said, stepping aside to let them 
into the warm house.  She called out to her unseen son, "Matthew, 
what's the matter with you?   Why did you let them stand out in 
the rain?"  There was no reply.  "He's upset," she explained.  "I 
think the boys are looking for someone to blame -- it's hard with 
the police investigation up in the air.  Maybe they blame me, I 
don't know."

Scully tried to give her a reassuring smile, but she didn't 
feel very reassuring.  How many times had she played this exact 
role -- a bearer of bad news, intruding on other people's grief.

Once they were all in the foyer, Scully noted a brief moment of 
awkwardness between Mulder and Patty.   Apparently they were not 
so close that an embrace felt natural, but under the 
circumstances a handshake would have been barbarous.   Patty 
reached out her arm, almost apologetically, as to a sympathetic 
stranger.  Mulder took it and pulled her against him.   Suddenly 
all strangeness between them was gone.  She cried into his 
shoulder, and he spoke to her all the half-nonsense words that 
Scully had murmured to him so often since his mother's death: 
"You'll be all right.  You'll be okay.  You'll get through this."

"I won't.  I'll never be all right.  You don't know what it's 
like to lose a child.  It's like dying every second," Patty said.

Scully knew what it was like.  It was a memory she wanted to 
distance herself from.  She walked a few paces down a narrow 
hallway defined by the staircase wall on one side and the kitchen 
wall on the other.  Framed photographs hung on both sides, but 
the dim overhead light consigned many of them to obscurity.  It 
was just as well -- it helped Scully avoid the eyes of the Herron 
children, young and smiling beneath plates of dusty glass.   

She stopped before a picture of the young Patty Herron -- Patty 
Todd, Mulder had called her, the girl Fox and Samantha had known.   
She was quite pretty -- brown hair like a smooth autumn river 
framed a shield-shaped face and brown eyes.  The picture was from 
the bust up, but Scully guessed Patty had had the sort of lanky, 
athletic figure that Mulder preferred.   She imagined him as a 
too-tall grade-schooler, smitten with the pretty teen girl who 
thought of herself as his babysitter.  Scully wondered how he had 
felt the day Kristie was born, the day Patty tied herself 
irrevocably to the adult world, and to an adult man.  

She heard the creak of a floorboard as someone entered the hall.  
She looked up to see a tall young man whose brown eyes were the 
image of the young Patty Herron's.   The lower half of his face 
was obscured by what was probably the first real beard he'd been 
able to grow.  "You're Dr. Scully?" he asked.  There was a touch 
of challenge in his voice.

"Yes," Scully said.  "Mr. --"

"Herron.  I'm Rich Herron," the man said.  "You did the autopsy?"

"Yes," she said.  Mr. Herron, I'm very sorry for your loss.  This 
must be a difficult time--"

He seemed barely to have heard her.  "How did my sister die?" he 
asked.  

Scully knew the hopeless quest of a murder victim's relatives -- 
the desperate search for answers which brought no comfort.  "She 
fell," Scully said.  "She died from a head injury.  It was 
instantaneous; she felt no pain--"

"The police said she was stabbed.  Now she fell?  Nobody is 
giving us a straight answer," Rich said.

In defense Scully went into investigator mode.  "It's really very 
early in the investigation.  The police need time to be thorough-
-"

"Rich, please," Patty called.  She appeared at the other 
end of the hall, wiping her eyes with her fingers.  "Please come 
sit down -- I'm sorry," she said to Scully, gesturing toward 
the living room on the other side of the staircase.   

Scully followed her, trying not to feel the weight of Rich 
Herron's glare.  Once in the living room, she down on the 
end of a blue-and-white flowered couch.  A defeated-looking 
Matthew sat on a smaller couch with his hands clasped on 
his knees.  On a table beside him were a few nautical-themed 
knickknacks, including a model of a Banks schooner -- once an
emblem of New England.   Sailor's daughter that she was, 
Scully's attention was drawn to the other model ships in the 
room: an old-fashioned three-masted frigate, a second schooner,
and a sleeker modern racing yacht.  The pictures on the walls 
were of ocean views, except for one that 
showed the smiling Herrons on a dock, all wearing matching polo 
shirts and navy slacks -- a work uniform.  The family must have a 
business near the harbor.

Mulder sat down next to her and put his hand over hers.  His 
touch felt very warm and she realized she was still chilled 
through from the night outside.  Reflexively she glanced up to 
see if anyone noticed the display of intimacy.  Matthew met her 
eyes without showing any particular interest.  //Let it go,// she 
told herself.  There was being a private person, and there was 
being paranoid.  If she was too reticent to be close to Mulder in 
public, he'd think she was ashamed of him.  Still, it felt very 
strange to sit holding his hand in front of strangers.  

"Is there anything I can get you at all?"  Patty asked, as if it 
were quite natural to play the hostess under these circumstances.
   
Mulder's cousin Debbie had said the same thing over and over at 
his mother's hastily-arranged memorial.  Mulder himself had 
refused to speak to anyone in more than monosyllables.  

"We're fine, Patty," Mulder said.

Rich and a man who was probably his father walked into the room.  
Mark Herron couldn't have been much past his mid-fifties, but he 
moved as slowly as an old man as he sat down in an armchair.   
His hands, loose at his sides like a sleepwalkers',  bore the 
nut-colored tan that old sailors never lost.  Suddenly Scully was 
glad that her own father had not lived to see Melissa's murder.  

She looked up at Patty and said, "Mrs. Herron, I lost my own 
daughter two years ago at Christmas.  You're right -- it is like 
dying every second.  All I can tell you is that in time, it 
becomes more bearable."  She sensed Mulder looking at her.  Self-
disclosure was hardly her usual style.  Perhaps it was the somber 
mood of Lent that made her speak.  Perhaps it was this family's 
connection with the sea -- she didn't know.  

However, for the first time, some of the terrible vacantness left 
Patty's eyes.  Scully saw that her face, though heavier beneath 
her practical short haircut, was still pretty.  "Thank you," 
Patty said.  

Mulder pressed her hand between both of his, and she didn't pull 
away.  It was as if the wind were coming from a new direction -- 
suddenly she and Mulder were not the insensitive investigators, 
here to ask intrusive questions and give no information in 
return.

"Dr. Scully  . . . what happened to our daughter?" Mark asked.

"Mr. Herron, if anybody really knows what happened to her, 
they're not cooperating with the police.  All I can give you is a 
medical opinion -- a very incomplete answer," Scully said.  

"She says Kristie wasn't stabbed -- she fell," Rich said.

"An accident?" Patty asked.  She sounded almost hopeful.  

"I don't think so," Scully said, as gently as she could.  "She 
had experienced some sharp-force injuries, probably from a knife.  
The wounds were relatively minor, but they show that she met 
someone who intended to do her harm."

"She was afraid of knives," Matthew said.

Mulder turned toward him, and Scully sensed a new tension through 
her partner's skin, like a slack wire suddenly drawn taught.  
Spooky had a lead.  "Why do you say that?" he asked.

"From watching movies with her, mostly, or hearing campfire 
stories . . . the kind about maniacs, you know . . ."  Matt 
avoided mentioning "in the woods," but Scully understood, and felt 
cold inside.  "When it got to the knife part she could never 
watch," Matt continued.  "She'd kind of curl up and put her hands 
over her eyes.  She told me once she wasn't afraid of guns, 
because getting shot was quick, but a knife would be the worst 
way to die."  Patty made a soft noise as if her breath had been 
choked off. 

"Matt, did anybody else know she was afraid of knives?" Mulder 
asked.

"I don't know . . . maybe.  Probably.  She used to go to the 
horror movies when they came out, you know, but at the knife 
parts she'd turn away.  Some guys like that -- when a girl gets 
scared," Matthew said.

"Did she often date guys who liked it when she got scared?" 
Mulder asked.  

Scully watched the family's reactions as they made the 
connection.  Mark and Patty glanced at one another.  "We didn't 
like a lot of the boys she saw -- off-islanders, mostly, party 
guys," Mark said.  "Some of these people have a lifestyle you 
wouldn't believe."

"They're not all bad just because they have money," Matthew said.

"I don't care -- I didn't want them hanging around my daughter," 
Mark snapped. "We had her working with us down at the marina 
during the summers, and she'd meet these guys when they brought 
their boats in.  They'd start giving her that oily smile, and I'd 
try to discourage them . . . I suppose that just made them more 
attractive to her.   Maybe we should have taken her out of the 
boathouse altogether.  She wanted to spend those six weeks in 
Alaska -- do you remember?"  He glanced up at Patty.

Patty did not meet his eyes.  She said, "Mark . . ." 

Mark Herron's wave of pain was palpable.  Scully did not look at 
him, and she sensed that others did not either, until he cleared
his throat and said, "Anyway . . . we didn't let her go.  We 
needed her here, or we thought we did.  And then . . . then she 
was gone, and there was nothing we could do."  He pressed his 
great, square hand over his eyes and wept.

Scully felt sympathy warring with embarrassment for how the man 
must feel, or perhaps it was for how a man like her father would 
have felt if he cried in front of strangers.   From respect as 
much as discomfort, she kept her gaze on the toes of her shoes.  
Mulder did not seem to feel awkward.  He, more than any man she'd 
known, was comfortable in the presence of people in tears.   He 
pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and offered it, but was 
ignored.

Patty stooped to put her arm around her husband's shoulders, 
their heads pressed together.   The Herron brothers were still 
and silent, Rich standing like a guardian behind the couch where 
Matthew sat.  They were circling the wagons, as Scully's own 
family had -- as Mulder's strangely had not at his mother's 
memorial.  Teena Mulder's wake had not been so much a gathering 
of the clans as a collection of grieving persons who all just 
happened to be in the same room.  

At last Mark said, "I'm sorry," then got up and walked out of the 
room.  A spell seemed to have been broken.  Both Rich and Matthew 
immediately left as well, one heading for the kitchen and one 
walking upstairs.  Patty dropped down into the chair her husband 
had just vacated.  

"Are you sure it gets better?" she asked Scully.

"I turned to God," Scully said.  "It helped a little."  

"Patty, I know you've been over this before, but is there 
anything, or anyone, that stands out in your memory as being 
possibly related to Kristie's death?" Mulder asked.

Patty shook her head slowly.  "There was Brian Griffin, the man 
she was dating when they were arrested, but they convicted him 
under the three strikes law.  He's doing life in prison.  She 
was going to testify in the trial of John McBer, and I've told 
the police all I know about him, which isn't much.   I didn't 
think this new boyfriend, Randy, was much of a step up from 
Brian, but he never seemed threatening at all.  These last few 
months were so ordinary, Fox.  So relatively normal.  I wouldn't 
let myself hope at first.  She'd quit drugs and relapsed before -
- she'd never made it past 90 days.  But when three months 
passed, and then six . . . I began to hope.  I thought, 'She's 
finally making it.  God wouldn't take her from us now.'  I guess 
that shows you how much I knew."

"Unlike Agent Scully, I tend *not* to turn to God when things get 
bad," Mulder said.  "It's kind of like wearing a huge 'Kick Me' 
sign on your back."     

Scully worked not to take offense at his comment.  He made it no 
secret that he thought organized religion in general was stupid 
and Christianity even more so.  She was aware that he had his 
reasons.  Still, it wouldn't kill him to show her faith a little 
respect.

Scully looked up at Patty and said, "Kristie died drug-free, Mrs. 
Herron.  At least God let her have that victory."  

"Thank him for that," Patty said.  Some of the tension seemed to 
leave her body, but it left her looking even more broken and 
vulnerable.  Scully remembered the days after she lost Emily, and 
wondered if tension wasn't all that was keeping Patty together. 

"We don't want to overstay our welcome, but would you mind if I 
looked around just a little bit?" Mulder asked.

"You're welcome to, but the detectives turned the place upside-
down," Patty said.  "I went over her room again myself, looking 
at every scrap of paper I could find for a name, a phone number . 
. . anything." 

"We won't stay long," Mulder assured her.

At his request Patty led them upstairs to what had been Kristie's 
room. Once they were there, she left them.  

The place had already begun to have a vacant feel, probably because
the room had clearly been "processed."   The sheets were gone, 
likely sent to Boston for hair and fiber analysis.  That alone 
told Scully that the boyfriend was a suspect.  Depressions in 
the beige carpet showed that every item of furniture had been 
moved and placed back slightly wrong.  A few small, everyday 
traces remained of Kristie's life: two empty kitchen glasses 
on the desk near a fist-sized clutch of keys; a book splayed 
open under the bed, a smiley face, clearly old, painted with 
nail polish on the side of a bookshelf.

Mulder started poking around in the bookshelf. Scully stood out 
of his way near the door.  Before long she was leaning against 
the door frame, repressing an urge to slide down onto the floor 
and close her eyes.   When she'd volunteered to help, she'd had 
no idea this case would be so exhausting or emotionally 
harrowing.  The fact that Mulder was taking such an active 
interest in the investigation when he wasn't even part of it was 
starting to irritate her.  "What are you looking for?" she asked.  
When he didn't answer immediately, she added,  "Don't tell me, 
Let me guess.  You don't know."   

"Okay, You can guess.  I won't tell you," he said.

The silence stretched on.  Scully looked at her watch.  "It's 
nearly midnight," she said.  "We should let these people get some 
sleep."

"Give me two more minutes," Mulder said.  He was pulling out each 
of the books on the bookshelf and examining their spines.  In 
Mulder terms, "two minutes" could be interminable, so Scully gave 
up and began pulling out books too.  

"Tell me what I'm looking for," she said.

"A book where the dust jacket doesn't match the book inside," he 
said.

The third book she pulled out had a jacket that was slightly too 
tall, causing the paper to be crushed back over the cover.  "You 
mean like this?" she asked.  She slipped the jacket of an 
English-French dictionary off the book, and revealed the words, 
"Narcotics Anonymous" stamped in gold on the cover.

"Nice shooting, Tex," Mulder said.  "A lot of recovering addicts 
don't like to be seen carrying this around.  Even some ex-
alcoholics look down on the guys trying to kick coke or heroin.  
That's why you see decorative book covers or things like this."  
He took the book from her and opened it.  Inside the front cover 
were dozens of names and phone numbers written in a rainbow 
assortment of ballpoint pen ink.  One name, Brenda, was circled 
with a star next to it.   

Mulder flipped the page and found a note on the other side: 
"Happy 6 month anniversary, baby!  Never forget we're 
powerless.  Love, Randy."

"Joey'll love this," Mulder asked.   

"You're hot all right," she said.   He continued to page through 
the book.  Scully asked, "Can we go now?"  He looked down at her, 
seemed hesitant.  The discovery had revived his spirit and 
energy, and she knew he would have happily worked through the 
night.  "It's late," she said. "I *am* going to church tomorrow."

"Right -- right, okay," Mulder said, folding the book closed.  To 
his credit, he said goodbye to Patty and drove Scully back to 
Nye House without betraying any resentment.  But he was quiet on 
the slow, jostling ride through the rain.  Scully thought she 
knew what he was thinking.  Their work as FBI partners was as 
seamless as it could be, but to become true partners in a 
personal sense would require a lot of sacrifice and effort.     

When they got back to the inn he did not press her to come 
upstairs with him, and she was glad.  She needed time to sit with 
her thoughts and center herself.   Exchanging her damp wool 
blazer and skirt for her pajamas was like striking off a ball and 
chain.  As she returned from brushing her teeth in the Williams 
family's bathroom, she ran into Leigh.  The little proprietress 
was more than happy to give her a tourist guide that showed the 
locations of various island churches.  St. Paul of Tarsus in 
Vineyard Haven seemed to be marginally the most convenient, and 
Scully set her sights on the 11:30 service, somewhat less than 12 
hours away.   

Perhaps it was weariness that clouded her judgment, or else a 
deep ache for the glow of the Presence candle at Mass, but 
something impelled her to slip back into the bathroom and remove 
the little tea light in a glass bowl that was serving as a night 
light.  Cradling it in both hands, she carried it back to her 
room and set it on the dresser.  When she turned out the electric 
light, the mirror on the dresser reflected the little candle's 
illumination, doubling it.  Candlelight is the kindest of lights, 
and Scully was briefly surprised by her own image in the mirror.   
The half-light showed her skin smooth and translucent as a young 
girl's, and it lent a jewel-like depth to her eyes.  The 
reflected face seemed to have come from another time.  It was 
certainly worlds away from the Agent Scully who worked under the 
unforgiving glare of florescent bulbs, often up to her elbows in 
a body that even wild dogs would avoid.  

She turned away from the haunting image in the mirror.  It was no 
more she than the unflattering photo on her Bureau ID was.  She 
fished out of her purse the little cloth bag containing the 
rosary her great-aunt had given her many years ago.   She lay 
down on the bed and opened the bag.   The ruby-glass beads 
spilled out into her hand like so many little drops of blood.  
Some small, prideful part of her was still embarrassed to be 
carrying this symbol of Catholicism's medieval legacy.  The 
modern Church, the 21st century Church, had a renewed confidence 
in science and scholarship.  The orthodox faithful were engaged 
in debates about world politics and biomedical ethics at the 
highest levels.  That was a faith you could proclaim in public.  
The soft rattle of beads and whispered prayers in the dark were 
like the presence of an eccentric elderly relative  -- something 
that could neither be disavowed nor discussed with outsiders.  

And yet, and yet . . . .  There was something very soothing about 
the simple, repeated prayers.  Mulder, and Melissa, for that 
matter, had pointed out the rosary's similarities to Buddhist 
prayer beads and the practice of chanting the Sanskrit name of 
the Lotus Sutra.  The comparison used to annoy her, but after 
having experienced a profound sense of the Divine in a Buddhist 
Temple, it no longer did so.  If the Christian "peace which 
passeth all understanding" was related to the Buddhist 
Enlightenment, then so much the better for Christians and 
Buddhists.  

She ran her thumbs over the tarnished silver crucifix, trying 
to come up with some profound prayer intention that fit her 
somber assignment and the season.  Eloquence failed her, and 
the best she could do was offer up an anguished identification 
with Mary as the mother of a murdered child.  More in emotions
than words, she asked God to take care of Emily, Melissa, 
Kristie, and Kristie's poor baby, born too soon.    Suddenly 
it occurred to her to add to the list the murdered children of
Mary Brown, purported South Road Ghost. The thought surprised 
her, since she'd almost forgotten about the story that brought
her and Mulder out here in the first place.  

Maybe it was the primitive glory of the candlelight that inspired 
her, or the fact that the wind had picked up outside and was 
making a thin screaming noise in the trees.   In any case, her 
thoughts called up disturbing images.  Scully crossed herself and 
began a whispered recitation of the Creed of Nicea, more 
beautiful than the shorter Apostles' Creed: // . . . God from 
God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made 
. . .//  

The more than 36 hours she'd gone without good sleep caught up 
with her quickly.  The last thoughts she had before 
unconsciousness claimed her were the Creed's final words: //We 
look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world 
to come.//

Something awakened her deep in the night.  Scully lay with her 
heart pounding, her hands gripping the sheets.  The candle had 
gone out and the room was in darkness.   A dream?  No -- she had 
the dim awareness of a sensation, a sound, that had awakened her.  
She remembered the look of calm, inexorable madness on Donnie 
Pfaster's face, and fought panic.  Where had she put her weapon?  
On the chair by the desk -- too far to reach.  Had someone 
entered the room and picked it up, ready to use it against her?

She heard stumbling footsteps outside in the hall.  "Power's out.  
Where's the damn flashlight?  I thought you lit the candle in 
here, Leigh."

"I did," Leigh said.  

Scully glanced up at the dresser.  What had possessed her to take 
the candle from the bathroom?  

"Here -- Jim, don't just walk into things, stand still.  The 
flashlight's up in the cabinet somewhere."

Scully had a small flashlight attached to her keys.  Where were 
they?  Then she heard the noise that had awakened her -- a 
shriek, high-pitched and far away, but human and terrified beyond 
reason.  The cry trailed up and up, past the range of a woman's 
voice and far past that of a man's.  

//Oh, God, it's a child.// She rolled out of bed and onto her 
feet, finding her keys and the flashlight on the desk by touch.
With the light on she could see to open her bag and pull out 
clothes.  She pulled pants and a jacket on over her pajamas and 
stuffed her feet into her autopsy shoes, which were easier to 
run in than heels.  Finally she clipped her gun onto her 
waistband and strode out the door.  

"Agent Scully?" she heard Leigh call.

"There's somebody out in the storm -- I think it's a child.  
Tell Agent Mulder.  He'll know what to do," Scully called back.  
She didn't stop to answer more questions as she walked through 
the front room and out the door.  

The damp iciness of the wind nearly took her breath away.  She 
could see pellets of sleet in the narrow beam of her flashlight.   
A moment of indecision seized her -- should she wait for help?  
This was no night to become lost.  She glanced up at the inn, 
thought of Mulder and the other officers in there.  There were no 
lights in any of the windows.  As she hesitated she heard the cry 
again, and that answered her question.  

The sound seemed to be carried on the wind, which was coming from 
the south.  Holding her jacket closed with one hand and her 
little flashlight with the other, Scully set off across the 
sleet-encrusted meadow behind Nye House, heading toward the 
cliffs and the Atlantic Ocean.    


*****

Mulder was having a bad night.  Once the rush of starting a new 
investigation wore off, the miserable familiarity of his 
surroundings began to weigh on him.  The power outage denied him 
even the dubious pleasure of watching late-night TV as he lay in 
bed.  In darkness and silence, he was prey to his memories.  The 
last time he'd been on this island was when he'd inadvertently 
set Roche loose.  The time before that was the night his father 
was murdered.  His soul yearned for Scully and for his mother 
with a dual intensity that would have warmed the twisted heart 
of Sigmund Freud.  

It still surprised him that losing his mother was a heavier blow 
than learning his sister was dead.  It was the way his mother 
died, really.   

Teena Mulder had gone to the grave organized -- he'd give 
her that much.  She'd contacted a lawyer to help her get the right 
papers signed and the disposition of her estate all planned out.  
The nurse who'd come to the house during her final days even knew 
what clothes she wanted to be laid out in.  The one conspicuous 
lapse was her failure to inform her son that she intended to kill 
herself -- or even that she was sick.   He was angry at her -- 
in truth he was furious, and that was what was killing him.  She 
had no right to shut him out of the end of her life, as she'd 
shut him out of so many things she wanted to keep secret.  She 
hadn't even trusted him to pick where she'd be buried.  Maybe she 
expected that he wouldn't show up at her funeral, since he had 
missed his father's.  

Scully insisted that his mother had been trying not to burden 
him, that the over-planned suicide wasn't the rejection it 
seemed.  Maybe she was right.  Still, he doubted he could have 
been hurt more if his mother had actually tried to kill him 
instead.

This morbid train of thought was disturbed by someone banging on 
his door.  "What?" he called out.

"Fox?" it was Leigh.  "Fox, we've lost power due to the storm.  
Your partner says that she can hear someone lost out there, and 
she's going to help.  She said you'd know what to do . . ."

Mulder got up and walked to the door in his T-shirt and boxer 
shorts.  He opened the door and found Leigh there, holding a 
flashlight and looking small and owlish in her bathrobe.  

"She didn't go out there by herself, did she?" Mulder asked.  

"I think so.  I don't know.  She seemed to be in a hurry," Leigh 
said.

"Do you know which direction she went in?"  Mulder asked.  He did 
not like the idea of Scully wandering the countryside in this 
storm.  The up-island terrain was difficult enough under the best 
of circumstances.

Leigh shook her head.  "She just took her flashlight and left.  
She didn't look dressed properly for the weather," she said.

Mulder swore.  "Thanks for telling me.  See if you can get Joey 
on the phone and ask him to send some people who actually know 
their way around the woods out here," he said.

"All right.  What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I'm going to go find my partner before--" he stopped himself 
from mentioning the state of poor Kristie's remains after she'd 
fallen over the cliff.  "I'm just going to find her."   

*****

Scully struggled down a steep wooded hill about a mile from Nye 
House.  The heavy clay soil was little more than half-frozen mud, 
and her feet were continually sliding.  After considering the 
odds of a predator being loose in the woods, she carried her gun 
in her right hand.  She'd put away her flashlight to free her 
other hand for holding onto saplings and branches as she walked.  

At first she'd heard the child's cries on every strong gust of 
wind from the south, but as she traveled the voice seemed to grow 
more distant.   Now she was unsure if she were following a human 
voice at all.  The wind keening in the bare branches could sound 
human to someone who wanted to hear signs of life badly enough.  

She made maddeningly slow progress down the hill as she picked 
her way from tree to tree.   It occurred to her that she might be 
better off if she sat on her butt and slid.  

Unexpectedly, she got her wish.  A rock rolled under her shoe, 
then the muddy earth beneath her feet began to give way.   She 
grabbed the closest tree -- a dead pine sapling.  The trunk 
cracked off and fell with her.  

Sliding and tumbling amid a hail of earth and stones, Scully 
shielded her head with her left arm as best she could.  Branches 
scratched her and mud-clotted leaves struck her face as she tried 
desperately to keep the barrel of her gun pointed away from her 
body.  The weapon was ready to fire, a bullet lying in the 
chamber.

Her other worry was a great tree trunk, directly in her path.  
She scrabbled at the soil for a root, a stone, anything, but 
could get no purchase.   When she hit the trunk a flash of sparks 
dazzled her eyes, and her breath was driven out of her.  Dimly, 
she was aware of the little dead pine landing on her back.  For a 
moment she swum in darkness.

She lay dazed in the icy mud, feeling a dull pain in her ribs 
with every breath.   Several seconds passed before she became 
aware that her hand was touching something warm and damp.  Scully 
struggled to look up.   Among the pine's branches were eyes, too 
close together to be human, shining yellow in the faint, 
directionless glow of the sleety night.  The creature whined.  

She realized she lay beside a wet animal -- a large dog, its ears 
laid back and its belly pressed to the ground in terror.  She 
felt its muscles tense at her movement.  Suddenly the dog turned 
and bolted, showering her with wet leaves.  Shaken, she watched 
it tear away up the slope in the direction she had come.

Some irrational inner voice whispered that she'd come to a bad 
place, an uncanny place.  Scully firmly pushed that thought out 
of her mind.  Not even Mulder thought there were ghosts here.  
There might be violent people and treacherous footing in these 
woods, but the place itself was ordinary.   

She could just imagine what Mulder would say if he were here.  
//You practically killed yourself and all you have to show for 
it is a traumatized dog.   Terrific.//  She rolled painfully 
to her knees, then with an effort she stood up and combed the 
filth out of her hair with her fingers.   

Scully pulled her flashlight from her pocket and hunted for her 
gun, which the impact had jerked from her hand.  Before long 
she saw the glint of metal in the flashlight's beam.  She 
picked up her mud-covered SIG near the foot of the hill, and 
did what she could to clean the dirt out of its barrel.   Her 
stiff, shaking fingers were not suited to the job.  

She was peripherally aware of plastic tape flapping and rattling 
on the nearby trees.   In her near-exhausted state the noise 
didn't seem important, but eventually the rustling sound 
triggered associations -- the tinny static of two-way radios, the 
staccato lightning of flashbulbs.  She shone her light at the 
trees.   Their trunks were bound with yellow crime scene tape.

This was where Kristie Herron had died.  Scully had not expected 
to be this close to the cliffs.  How close had she come to the 
edge without noticing?   She hesitated, considered waiting for 
Mulder to catch up before continuing.   Even if the woods hadn't 
been physically dangerous, she would still have to consider the 
possible damage to evidence if she blundered around in the 
cordoned-off area.   She had just about made up her mind to wait 
when she caught the sound of ragged sobbing, carried on the wind.   
This time she was sure her ears were not deceiving her.  The 
noise was human.

"I'm Agent Scully with the FBI.  I'm here to help.  Where are 
you?" she called.  Her side ached with the effort of shouting.

She got a response -- a word with long, drawn-out vowels, she 
thought it was "Mama."  The accent was on the second syllable, 
giving the cry an oddly foreign sound.   Did the child speak 
English?  Mulder had mentioned the Vineyard's Portuguese 
population.   It didn't matter.  The caller's grief and despair 
were plain.  No mother, much less one who had lost her only 
child, could hear such a sound and be still.  

"Keep talking, sweetheart, I'm coming," Scully said.   She ducked 
under the crime scene tape and passed into the shadows of the 
trees.    She kept speaking as she walked, trying to encourage 
the child to make some sound, any sound.  Privately she prayed 
that her fall had done nothing to jam the workings of the SIG.  
She couldn't shake the feeling that the dog beneath the tree had 
been frightened by something else before she nearly ran over it.  
Thinking back, she realized that its eyes had not been on her at 
all.  It had been staring past her, at something in these woods 
at the bottom of the hill.

*****

Mulder strode across the frozen field, his Mag Lite casting a 
powerful beam ahead of him.  Scully's trail was fairly easy to 
follow.  The line of broken grass stalks and depressions in the 
sleet-covered ground led straight toward the South Road Burying 
Ground, and beyond that the cliffs.  Every so often he'd hunt up 
three rocks and place them in an arrow indicating the direction 
he'd gone in.  Joey, who'd once played a long-suffering Tonto to 
Mulder's Lone Ranger, would be able to follow those signs.  

Mulder couldn't figure out what had possessed his partner to do 
something this foolish.  A traveler lost in the woods?  Why didn't 
she call 911?  Why didn't she walk up the goddamn stairs where a 
dozen peace officers were sleeping, one of whom had spent the 
first 12 years of his life running around these very woods?  If 
Scully had not been the least supernaturally-inclined woman ever
born, he would have suspected her Irish sailor's blood of 
succumbing to the glamour of the Lorelei -- spirits that haunted 
cliffs by the sea and lured men to their destruction.    

This had to be about Emily.  Leigh had said she thought Scully 
mentioned something about a child.  She'd acted out of character 
at the Herrons' house, going out of her way to talk about her 
personal loss.  At the time Mulder had been touched by her 
openness.  He should have recognized that something powerful had 
to be going on beneath the surface for Scully to do something 
like that.  This was somehow about Emily and God and this being 
Easter and about sleeping with Mulder and him not being the solid 
Catholic guy she'd always envisioned herself with.  

He increased his brisk walk to a jog as he neared the woods.  He 
didn't need to fool around analyzing her trail; it was as 
straight as a beeline.  She was headed for the place where 
Kristie had been murdered.  He supposed that was logical in a 
certain way, if Scully was worried that someone else was in 
danger from the same predator.  

Yet the long-time paranormal investigator in him was uneasy that 
her track was as straight as a line on a surveyor's map.  There 
was a packed-dirt bicycle path that went roughly in the direction 
she wanted to go, but she had walked straight across it without 
swerving.  //Don't let this be another Skyland Mountain . . .// 
Mulder thought.  

Memories returned unbidden.  He recalled sitting across a Stratego 
board from his sister, bickering about what to watch on TV. A light 
came through the window, casting long shadows behind the game 
pieces. Samantha looked up, puzzled . . .

He shook his head, refusing to be drawn *there* of all places, 
but some part of his mind wouldn't let the image go.   Mulder 
plead with it:

//That was a long time ago.//

//Your neighbors all thought Chilmark was too insignificant for 
paranormal events to occur there, too.//

//This is different!  There's nothing *in* the South Road Burying 
Ground.//

//Before November 27, 1973, there was nothing in your living 
room, either.//

Mulder broke into a run.


*****

Scully pressed through a dense area of the forest.  The rain had 
not washed away all the snow here, and she found herself walking 
up to her ankles in powder-fine flakes, like the snow of 
midwinter.  The wind had died and she could hear the child's 
crying very clearly.  It only spoke one word, "Mama," again and 
again. There was such grief and longing in its voice that she 
feared she would find the mother lying dead in the snow, perhaps 
murdered by the same person who killed Kristie Herron. 

"Keep talking, honey," Scully said, though the child gave no sign 
that it heard.  The two of them had simply been reciting their 
respective litanies as she picked her way closer and closer.  
When she at last forced her way through a vine-filled thicket, 
she stood at the edge of a clearing.  Moonlight dazzled her eyes.   
It was as if the storm had never been -- a full moon shone among 
sailing clouds and turned the snow into glittering diamonds.   
She stared a moment, disoriented.  Three or four rustic buildings 
stood away to her right, and in the shadow of the largest one a 
figure huddled, small and pale against a big, dark stain in the 
snow.  

She ran closer and realized that there was not one child but two.  
One was a long-haired girl about three years old.  The other was 
a young baby, wrapped in a bloodied cloth and held clutched to 
the older child's chest.  It was clear the infant wouldn't live.  
Its throat had been slashed nearly through, but its eyes remained 
open and there was a continual wet wheezing sound as it tried to
draw breath.  A wound like that on a living body could only be 
seconds old.  Scully fired once into the air, to draw the 
attention of rescuers and to run off who or whatever had just 
done *that.*  

"You're all right.  I'm a doctor.  The other officers will be 
here any moment," Scully said, loud enough that anyone hiding 
nearby should be able to hear. Could she carry both children and 
still be able to use her gun?   She'd have to.  

The girl's gray eyes had the fixed stare of shock and her clothes 
were soaked in blood.  Whether it was hers or the dying baby's 
Scully didn't know, and there was no time to examine her.  Scully 
reached to scoop the children up but something checked her hand, 
too fast to have meaning for her. She felt a burning sensation 
followed by cold wetness on her fingers and looked down.  Her 
hand was bleeding.  

Slowly it dawned on her that the child was holding a long, thin 
knife.  "It's all right," she said, her mind too dazed to make 
anything of this except the girl believed she was defending 
herself.  Scully grabbed for the little elbow in what should have 
been an easy disarm, but instead the knife laid open the skin of 
her palm.  There was no time for this -- the baby was dying and 
the killer was still close.  "I have to get you out of here," 
Scully said, her desperation rising.

"No," the child said softly.  "Stay."  

The strange plea made her hesitate, and she was struck by the 
loneliness in the child's pale little face.  It was familiar, 
like an image from a half-remembered nightmare, and it echoed in 
the broken places of her soul.  

*****

After what seemed like an eternity of thrashing around in the 
briars, Mulder reached the South Road Burying Ground.  The tiny 
cemetery consisted of seven headstones, listing like drunkards, 
and two rocks. The enormous willow he remembered was still there.  
Scully was not.  

He was beginning to feel the stirrings of panic when a shot rang 
out from deeper in the woods.  Mulder wasn't enough of a firearms 
expert to identify the sound of a firing SIG, but when he heard 
the eerie whistle of the bullet he knew the weapon was no low-
powered hunting rifle.   "Scully!" he called out.  He struggled 
through the underbrush in the direction he'd heard the gun fire, 
trying to stay within the cover of large trees.  The last thing 
he needed was to get his head blown off.  

His flashlight beam illuminated little and made everything around 
it seem darker.  At this point the only reason to keep it on was 
the hope it might draw Scully to him.  Of course, it might draw 
other things as well.  No longer carefully tracking, he was 
moving as fast as he could through the undergrowth.  

The weaving flashlight beam began illuminating orange flags stuck 
in the soil -- evidence markers.   This was the spot Kristie had 
met her attacker.  A moment later the light revealed a bloodied 
shoe.  Over the shoe was a leg.  Mulder stopped short and angled 
the beam up.  There stood Scully, her face gray as a corpse's, 
watching blood run down her hands.

Mulder had the feeling he was looking at a dead woman.  He asked 
softly, "What happened to you?"

She looked up, and he saw her pupils were dilated even in the 
bright beam of light.  Her brows drew together as if she were 
trying to place him.  "She was just here," she said. 

"Who was just here?" Mulder asked.

"A little girl," she said.  She began looking at the ground 
around her.  "There was snow . . ."  She turned away from him and 
began to wander off among the evidence markers.  That alone was 
enough to convince him something was terribly wrong.  Scully had 
never fouled a crime scene in her life.  

"What is it?" he asked.  "What did you see?"

"There was a house . . . there were little children.  They were 
wounded, and I wanted to help, but I couldn't.  She wanted me to 
stay with her . . ."

"You're hurt.  You need to get out of here," he said.  He put his 
hand on her arm to draw her toward him.  She resisted at first, 
then turned and curled against his chest.  He took her hands in 
his own and balled them into fists, pressing the cuts on her 
palms closed.   Her fingers were as cold as death despite the hot 
blood that ran between them.

*****

Hours later Mulder sat by Scully's bedside in the ER of the tiny 
hospital in Edgartown.  Scully slept, and every so often an 
orderly would arrive to spread a freshly-warmed blanket over her.  
She'd been unwilling or unable to explain how she became injured out 
in the dark woods.  All he knew was that she'd found wounded 
children somewhere southeast of the graveyard and was reluctant 
to leave the scene, blood loss and hypothermia be damned.  She'd 
only consented to come away after Joe Luce and another officer 
arrived, and she'd kept her gaze toward the graveyard even as 
Mulder led her toward the road.
 
He reached out and touched her fingertips, the only part of her 
left hand that wasn't bandaged, and was relieved to feel that her 
skin was warm now. 

"What did you see out there?" he asked softly.  Deeply asleep, 
his partner did not reply.
 
He heard the sound of approaching footsteps.   This person was 
wearing hard-soled shoes, not the orthopedic footwear of the 
hospital staff.  "Fox?" came a voice.

"Joey," Mulder said.  He stood up and opened the curtain that 
walled off Scully's bed.  The first thing that impressed him 
about Joe Luce was how much he looked like the little kid he 
had known.  The big dark eyes were still there, and so was the 
hair that refused to take any kind of decent part.  The
stuff still sat on Joe's head like twists of brown winter grass.  
Afterward Mulder's mind filled in the unfamiliar.  Manhood had 
squared Joe's jaw and broadened his shoulders, and he wore a 
Chilmark Police Chief's uniform, just as his uncle had.  It was 
fitting, somehow.  

Joe had clearly just come from outside.  Half-melted sleet 
pellets rested on his shoulders and in his hair, and cold 
radiated from his clothes.  

"How's your partner?" Joe asked.

"She'll be all right," Mulder said.  "What did you find?"

Joe shook his head. "We didn't find any kids, Fox.  Some of the 
guys from Crime Scene Services came out with their dogs, and we 
still came up with nothing. That shot you heard -- you think it 
was from her gun?"

"I can look," Mulder said.  He walked over to the chair where 
Scully's things had been neatly folded.  He drew her service 
weapon out of its holster and examined it.  There were powder 
streaks around the barrel -- something Scully never would have 
tolerated for longer than it took her to get to her cleaning 
supplies.  "It was hers," he said.  Guessing Joe's next 
question, Mulder said, "Scully's not trigger-happy, and she 
doesn't imagine things."

Joe held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture.  "I'm not 
suggesting that," he said.  "I'm just trying to figure out what 
happened.  You sure she said there were buildings?"

"Yeah -- houses or little shacks," Mulder said. 

"That's what's bothering me, because there aren't any buildings 
out where you found her.  I know, because I've been combing those 
woods for days," Joe said.

"There's the Gelbemanns' place," Mulder said, without great 
conviction.  The house was several hundred yards to the east of 
where he found Scully.

"It's hard to see how she could have come from there," Joe said.  
"She'd have had to cross the creek, and there's no bridge.  We 
did check on the Gelbemanns just to be safe, but they never heard 
or saw anything.  There sure were no pools of blood around their 
house.  Did Agent Scully say anything else to you? Did she give 
you a landmark . . . anything at all?" Joe asked.  

Mulder gazed over at his sleeping partner and motioned for Joe to 
follow him into the hall.  He stopped at a spot that seemed far 
enough from the triage area to be discreet. "Scully told me the 
buildings showed up against the snow in the moonlight," Mulder 
said.  

Joe looked surprised and slightly embarrassed.  Mulder could see 
this news shifted his attitude toward the whole situation.  Sleet 
could pass for snow, but there had certainly been no moonlight 
out in the storm.  "I don't know what she saw out there, Joey.  
But if you knew her, you'd know that she wouldn't just imagine 
something like this," Mulder said.

"I believe you," Joe said.  

"If you did you'd still be out there," Mulder said.  

"Fox, the CSS guys are willing to switch off in teams until 
someone can do a flyover at dawn.  I'm on call if they need me.  
There's not a lot more we can do," Joe insisted.

"How do you think she cut her hands?  On a twig?" Mulder asked.  

"It's being taken care of," Joe said.  "Look, can I get you a 
cup of coffee or something?"

"I've got some," Mulder said, gesturing toward the Styrofoam cup 
of now-cold coffee sitting on the table by Scully's bed.  
"Where's Irv?"

"Irv?" Joe asked, looking surprised.  

"The little shit that got us into this in the first place.  
Scully said he seemed too interested in this case from the 
beginning," Mulder said.

"I'm not sure if he's working tonight.  This is his secondary 
job -- he and Emma still run that photography store during the 
day," Joe said.

"You're kidding.  They couldn't stand each other," Mulder said.

"They still can't.  Actually they're divorced, but they live 
together.  It's his photo business but he's running it out of her 
house.  I guess they figured putting up with each other was 
easier than dividing up the stuff," Joe said.

"If he's here I want to see him," Mulder said.  He went to the 
nurses' station and convinced the woman behind the desk to page 
Irv, and then Irv's supervisor.  As Mulder stood waiting for a 
response to the pages, he listened to Joe answer a staticky call 
over his two-way radio.  The reporting officer told him that the
dogs had found no other trails besides Mulder and Scully's.

"I thought you were off-duty," Mulder said, forestalling any 
comments Joe might make.

"Never," Joe said, as he replaced the receiver on its shoulder 
strap.  "I'm a full 25% of Chilmark's finest."

"Just like your uncle," Mulder said.

"I'm not my uncle," Joe said.

The phone behind the nurses' desk trilled softly.   The desk 
attendant took it and said, "I see.  Thank you."  When she hung 
up she said, "That was the transporter's room.  Irv Stuckey isn't 
scheduled to work tonight."

"Thanks," Mulder said, and turned to go back to Scully's bedside.  
Joe caught his elbow.

"Hey, Fox, c'mon.  If I don't get some coffee I'm going to keel 
over," Joe said.

Mulder repressed the urge to shrug Joe's hand off.  "Isn't Sue 
expecting you?" he asked.

"No," Joe said.  The bleakness in his voice made Mulder pause.  
For the first time he realized his former friend might have 
other reasons for not wanting to return home.

"I'm sorry," Mulder said.

Joe shrugged and looked away.  "These things happen. Three out of 
the four people on the Chilmark force are divorced now.  Our 
job's not exactly 'NYPD Blue,' but the hours . . . you know.  The 
sad thing is that now that I have court-regulated visitation, I 
think I see my daughter more often." 

Joey's words did a lot to dissolve the resentment Mulder had been 
feeling toward him. Mulder had felt in a one-down position due to 
his own personal failures, and in his mind Joe's confession 
brought them to the same level. "Coffee'd be great," Mulder said.  
He allowed himself a last look at Scully, still sleeping and safe 
for the moment, before walking past the nurses' station and out 
into the hall.

The hospital corridor was all gleaming white surfaces.  "The 
place looks better.  It used to be such a dump," Mulder said.  He 
remembered cracked floor tiles and walls painted sickly pea-green 
to the height of a child's eye-level. 

"They've done a lot with it.  They had to -- the Island 
population outgrew it. Every bed was filled all the time.  No -- 
wrong way," Joe stopped Mulder as he turned a corner.  "The 
cafeteria's this way now."  He pointed in the opposite
direction.

"Right," Mulder said, and followed him.  It was odd to feel like 
a newcomer here.  

The cafeteria was deserted except for a listless-looking family 
in one corner and a couple of maintenance guys hunkered over 
their soda cans.  Neither Mulder nor Joe spoke as they bought 
overpriced cups of oily-looking coffee and walked back out into 
the dining area.  To Mulder's surprise, Joe headed straight for
the glass doors that led outside.  Mulder followed him out onto a 
concrete slab with a few snow-covered tables on it.  This was the 
coldest part of the night, and the damp sleet had finally 
crystallized into tight little flakes that settled on their heads 
and shoulders.  Mulder blew steam off his coffee and gazed into 
the woods that began at the bottom of the hill.  

For a while the only sound Mulder heard was the wind in the trees 
and his own breathing.  There was a waiting quality to their 
silence, but it wasn't awkward.  Among people who have known each 
other more than 30 years, silence is also a form of 
communication.  

At last Joe said, "I'm sorry about what I said back when we were 
in high school.  About blaming you for what happened to your 
sister."

Mulder shrugged as if the incident no longer bothered him.  "I 
guess I shouldn't have slugged you in the head."

"No, I deserved it," Joe said.  He rubbed the eye socket that had 
taken the long-ago punch and said, "Nothing up there worth 
saving, anyway." 

"You were just repeating what you'd heard," Mulder said.

"The town's not against you, Fox.  It never was," Joe said.

"It was against my parents, then," Mulder said.

"No, it's just . . . it was so weird how it happened.  My uncle 
said it gave him a funny feeling.  He wondered how a stranger in 
a town of 600 people would go unnoticed.  Your house wasn't even 
visible from the road.  How'd some guy know there would be two 
kids home alone?" Joe asked.

"They'd been watching us a long time," Mulder said.  Though Joe 
stood just out of his field of vision, Mulder sensed his startled 
movement.

"You know what happened?" Joe asked.

"Yes," Mulder said.  The word came out very quietly, and at first 
Mulder wasn't sure Joe had heard. 

"It was bad?" Joe asked.  Mulder heard the slight break in his 
voice.  Samantha had been his friend, too.  

Mulder let his eyes fall shut against the memory of that dingy 
house on an abandoned military base.  Better to think about 
afterward, when he saw the lost children shining in the 
starlight.  "She's better off now.  She's safe.  They can't hurt 
her anymore," he said.

"Oh, Jesus.  Oh, Christ," Joe asked.  His job might not be NYPD 
Blue, but he was a cop.  He'd know there were child abductors and 
then there were child abductors.  

"It's all over now.  It was over a long time ago," Mulder said.  
He spoke as if to soothe, but whether he was comforting himself 
or Joey he didn't know.  

"I'm sorry, Fox.  I'm so sorry," Joe said.

"You knew, didn't you?  You always knew she wasn't coming home," 
Mulder asked.

"No.  I mean, when the weeks and months go by and there's 
nothing, not even a ransom note, you get a real bad feeling.  But 
no, I didn't know," Joe said.  

"After a while you wouldn't look me in the eye when I talked 
about her.  And you knew my family was involved.  I think you 
must be a hell of a cop, Joe," Mulder said.

"What do you mean, your family?" Joe asked.  Mulder looked over 
at him and felt gratified that Joe appeared truly shocked.

"It had to do with my father, with his work.  He knew they were 
going to take her, and my mother at least suspected.  I think my 
dad tried to fight them at first, but something changed his mind.  
Maybe he thought he was doing the right thing.  I don't know," 
Mulder said.

"That's why your dad was murdered?  Because of his work?" Joe 
asked.

"Yeah.  He wanted to tell me something, get it off his 
conscience, but they wouldn't let him.  My mother wanted to tell 
me something too, and I lost her in February," Mulder said.      

Joe set down his coffee on a snowy tabletop and put his hand to 
his head. "What are you telling me, Fox?  This is terrorists?  
Ex-KGB?  What?" 

"You don't really want to know," Mulder said.  He hadn't meant to 
give so much away.  

"Aliens," Joe said.  "You used to talk about aliens."

"I still do," Mulder said. "And I'm one of the few who wasn't 
silenced real quick."

After a few moments Joe asked, "Fox . . . do you think what's out 
there, what your partner met in the woods, is related to what 
happened to your family?" 

Mulder released a long breath that steamed in the cold.  "No. 
No, I don't think so.  I'm starting to think it may be 
paranormal, though."

Joe gave him a strange look as he asked, "You mean there's a 
real headless lady wandering around by the cliffs?" 

Mulder remembered wide-eyed, credulous Joey, the kid with a Cub 
Scout scarf around his neck and no front teeth.  He repressed a 
childish urge to mess with him.  "Scully didn't see any headless 
ladies," he said.  

"So this is what you do, right?  You investigate this kind of 
thing.  How do you stop something paranormal from killing 
people?" Joe asked.  

"That depends on what it is," Mulder said.  "It helps a lot if it 
has wrists you can handcuff.  Our record with spectral phenomena 
hasn't been that good."

"Terrific," Joey said, turning away again.  "I'm actually praying 
there's a homicidal maniac loose in the woods."

"Would you really believe me if I said there was something out 
there? Something not human?" Mulder asked.

"You? I might.  Yeah, I just might," Joe said.

"How come?" Mulder asked.

Joe seemed to consider this. "You always were a fucking freak," 
he said.

"Thank you," said Mulder, with no trace of sarcasm.  After a 
moment's hesitation he rested his hand on Joe's shoulder. 

Joe clapped his hand over Mulder's and said, "Go on back to your 
partner."  

"Sure," Mulder said.  He turned and opened the glass door, 
leaving Joey to his thoughts and the night.  

*****

Mulder found Scully awake when he returned.  She looked pale but 
seemed aware of her surroundings.  "Hi," he said.  "How you 
doing?"

"Better," she said. The unflattering fluorescent light made the 
dark circles under her eyes stand out.  She looked like she could 
sleep for a week.  

He sat down next to her and brushed his hand over her forehead.  
"You're not looking so good," he said.  "But then you should see 
that truck."

That only got the slightest flicker of amusement from her.  "They 
haven't found the little girl, have they?" she asked.

"No," Mulder said.  "Joey says they're working through the night.  
They'll find her."  Scully shut her eyes but made no reply.  
"What happened?" Mulder asked. "What did you see?"

"I told you," she said.  "I heard a child screaming out in the 
woods -- terrified, crying and crying.  I followed the sound all 
the way out to the crime scene area until I came to a house.  
There was blood all around it . . . and sitting in the snow was a 
girl, a very little girl holding a young baby in her arms, just 
weeks old.  Someone had almost cut its head off.  I fired in the 
air to scare off the attacker and tried to pick them up, but she 
had a knife and it cut my hand."

"Who had a knife?  The kid?" Mulder asked.  Scully nodded. 
"There's a little kid out there with a knife?" Mulder asked 
again.  The case was getting more bizarre by the minute.   

"She was trying to protect the baby . . . maybe not from me.  I 
don't think she was afraid of me; she wanted me to stay with her.  
I knew I had to get them out of there but she wouldn't let me 
pick her up.  I sat down with them . . . no, did I? I don't 
remember.  It seems like I was there a long time, and then 
suddenly you were beside me and I didn't know where I was."
Scully put her hand to her head as if trying set the chain of
events in a logical order.

Mulder hesitated, torn between pushing her for more information 
and letting her be.  He decided that he had to push if there 
really were dying children out there.  "Scully, Joe says that 
there aren't any buildings in the area where I found you.  He 
wants to know if you saw a landmark, anything else that you 
can--"

"I know what I saw," she snapped.  

"Okay, okay.  There was blood in the snow?" Mulder asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Lots of blood, arterial blood everywhere," Mulder said.

"Yes," she said again.  He bent and picked up one of her shoes 
from underneath the chair and held it toward her sole up.  There 
was mud caked between the white rubber treads but there was no 
blood visible.  Mulder turned the shoe right side up and showed 
her the rust-colored spots on the uppers.  This was not blood 
that had been churned up from the ground.  The round splotches 
were the kind made by blood that had fallen.  It was almost 
certainly from her own hands.

"Oh, God," Scully said.  "God."  She pressed her bandaged hands 
to her face.  

"It was dark.  You were confused," Mulder said.  

"The doctor wants to do a CT scan of my head.  I know why -- I 
told him I'd had cancer and he wants to see if there's a tumor in 
my brain making me hallucinate," Scully said.

Mulder hadn't considered that possibility.  The thought that she 
might be sick again was like an icy hand at his throat.  "It 
sounds like a good thing to check out," he said. 

"Mulder, if I have cancer that's metastasized to my brain then it 
doesn't matter if I have a CT done here or back in D.C. or 
nowhere at all," Scully said.  "I don't want to stay.  I want to 
go back to the hotel."

"So you're signing yourself out against medical advice?" Mulder 
asked.  He knew it was unfair to be upset about it.  He'd done 
the same thing many times. 

"He didn't say I had to stay.  My ribs are just bruised, and my 
hands aren't cut that badly.  Everything still works."  She 
slowly touched every finger of her left hand to her thumb.  From 
her expression he could see that it hurt her.
 
"I wish you'd have the CT done," Mulder said.

"Before all this happened I felt fine.  I had a check-up in 
February," she said.  She must have seen the worry on his face 
because she said, "I'll have it done in D.C.  I want to spend 
what's left of the night in a real bed."

"Okay," Mulder said, resigning himself to her decision.  He took 
her hand and lifted her swollen fingertips to his lips.  "I'll 
see if I can get your discharge papers."  He stood and walked 
over to the nurses' station.

It was unmanned just then, and as he waited he had time to think 
about his painfully divided feelings.   His first impulse was to 
believe everything Scully told him.  He could usually trust her 
perceptions more than he could trust his own, and yet in this 
case there was evidence that did not bear her story out.    If 
she was mistaken, if her mind truly had been affected by 
something unknown, then it was not these mystery children who 
were in danger. Instead, Scully herself was the person most at 
risk.  

In his mind's eye he saw Kristie's body on the autopsy table, and 
his fingers tightened around the edge of the nurses' station 
counter.  He directed a rare plea to Scully's God, //She believes 
in you.  She still trusts you after everything she's been 
through, and that ought to count for something.  I'd have told 
you to go to hell by now.   Prove that you're worthy of her 
trust.  Take care of her.//  

As always, Mulder had no sense that anyone was listening.  
   
*****

It was close to dawn when they left the hospital.  Scully's 
bloodied clothes were dry, but Mulder wrapped his own coat around 
her shoulders as an extra layer between her and the cold.  She 
curled up in the car's passenger seat with her face toward the 
window.

Neither partner spoke as they drove slowly back toward Nye House.  
The snow had stopped falling, but it blew over the road in weird 
little spinning flurries that obscured Mulder's vision.  These 
miniature blizzards were unpredictable and maddening.

His overtired mind began to imagine the elements had a will of 
their own.  The fitful wind seemed restless.  Visibility 
worsened in every intersection, and he started to suspect the 
night of an uneasy mischievousness just short of malice. 
The saner portion of his mind told him to pull over and rest 
before he put the car in a ditch, but some instinct warned 
him against stopping.  He looked over at Scully; she seemed 
relaxed.  Why was he anxious about parking along a quiet road 
on the outskirts of Edgartown?  

A shadow appeared in the headlights.  He pulled his foot off the 
pedal and hit the brakes, half expecting to hear a "thud" as he 
hit a dog or a baby deer.  But the shade dissolved the instant 
he looked straight at it.  Mulder blinked and tried to clear his 
head.  The dizzying swirl of snowflakes made it hard to think, 
much less focus on the road.  He could not shake the feeling that 
there was something outside the car.  

Scully sat up beside him, holding herself very still, as if 
listening.  "What is it?" he asked.  "What do you hear?"

"Nothing," she said softly.  In the dull-green dashboard light 
her expression was unreadable, but he sensed tension in every 
line of her body.

The watching silence seemed to grow louder.  "Yeah. I hear it 
too," Mulder said.  

Powdery snow swirled over the windshield.  Stray sleet pellets 
struck the glass like tiny, frustrated fists, as if to say: //In, 
in, in.  Let us in, in, in.//  

Slowly, like a child fascinated by fire but afraid of being 
burned, Scully lifted her bandaged fingers toward the windshield.  
The wind scoured the glass with ice dust as though it would wear 
away the barrier between itself and her.

"Don't," Mulder said.  He caught Scully's hand and pressed it 
down onto her lap.  The view went nearly white and gusts of wind 
made the car bob like a boat on a choppy sea.

"Mulder--" Scully said, gripping the dashboard with her free 
hand.

Mulder tapped the brakes, and the car's back end fishtailed 
toward the middle of the road.  He turned the wheel in the 
direction of the skid to try to stop the uncontrolled sliding. 
Tires squealed as he struggled to compensate for their 
still-powerful momentum, and the Ford barely skirted the edge 
of the narrow shoulder.  The back rotors made a whining noise
as one tire spun in space over the gully. Mulder downshifted 
quickly and the car lurched forward, sending up a shower of 
gravel.  After a bad moment when they seemed headed for the 
opposite ditch, he was able to guide the vehicle back into 
the right-hand lane.  

"Mulder, it's too icy.  Pull over," Scully urged.  

"No, that's what it wants -- to keep you out in the storm so it 
can have another shot at you," Mulder said.  Whatever the 
howling, blowing thing was, it seemed to have a special interest 
in Scully.  He wasn't about to stop and hand her over without a 
fight.  Instead he accelerated. 

"What are you *doing?*" Scully asked.

"Hang on," Mulder said.  In a low voice he added, "We'll see who 
blinks first."  

"Are you trying to kill us?" Scully cried.

He pressed the gas pedal, and the speedometer needle climbed past 
30, 35, 40 miles per hour.  Visibility was near zero; he was 
driving on sheer faith and desperation.  He spoke to the thing 
outside the window, "Go back.  Go back where you came from.  
She's not yours; leave her alone."

Scully screamed his name.  Brilliant lights flashed to Mulder's 
right and he heard the blare of a truck horn.  He glanced over 
and saw a big rig barreling toward them, just meters away.  Mulder 
hauled the wheel hard left and turned onto the intersecting road, 
barely ahead of the truck.  For a moment the 18-wheeler's 
headlights filled his entire rearview mirror.  

The car's momentum sent them hurtling off the road into a field, 
where frozen weeds lashed the Ford's sides as it jolted over 
uneven ground.  Mulder's teeth rattled as he brought the bucking 
car to a stop, facing north after having spun a full 270 degrees.  

His first thought as he shifted into park was that he hadn't done 
a bad job of rural combat driving.  Then he saw Scully huddled in 
the seat next to him, her bandaged hands over her eyes.  "Hey," 
he said, reaching out to touch her hair.  She tried to shrug his 
hand off.  "I'm sorry," he said.  "I'm sorry I scared you."  He 
got no response.  

"I was scared too," he admitted.  Could he explain to her why?  
What if she hadn't felt the hostile presence after all?  He 
glanced down the road in the direction the truck had gone.  The 
night-being seemed to have vanished with it, but Mulder didn't 
feel that his victory over it was conclusive.  "I thought I was 
doing the right thing," he said.

After a few seconds she scooted close and put her arms around 
him.  "You're okay," he told her.  "You're going to be all 
right."  

"What's happening to me?" she asked, her voice muffled against 
his chest.  

"You're going to be just fine," he insisted.  

"I want to stop up ahead," she said.

"Where?" Mulder asked, puzzled.  

She turned from him and pointed toward a building on the far 
corner, just visible in the blue-gray light of pre-dawn.  The 
marquis sign in front was a bright blur in a haze of drifting 
ground-snow, but its light was enough to illuminate a tall, white 
figure standing beyond it.  The pale form seemed to be draped in 
a heavy fabric which initially reminded Mulder of grave clothes.  
Then he recognized the silhouette's veil and gently inclined 
head.  It was a statue, probably a Madonna and child.  
  
"Sure," Mulder said.  He slowly made the bone-rattling drive back 
up to the road.  In his experience, spectral entities did not 
actually avoid churches, but it was probably a good idea for him 
to get out from behind the wheel until daylight.  The church 
seemed a better place to rest than an unsheltered spot along the 
roadside.  

When he pulled into the parking lot he asked, "Think we'll be 
able to find a spot?"  Scully gave him a thin smile.  The place 
was deserted.  The sign by the road identified the church as Our 
Lady of Refuge, and listed its earliest Mass time as 8:30 a.m., 
just over 90 minutes away.  "You don't want to stay for the 
service, do you?" Mulder asked.  

"No," Scully said.  "I just want a minute."  

He parked the car and then followed her up to the church doors.  
Ordinarily he would have asked if she wanted to be alone, but 
under the circumstances he didn't want her out of his sight.  She 
looked very pale and fragile under the gray bulk of his coat.  

The first two doors she tried were locked.  "It's still kinda 
early," Mulder said, when to his surprise the third door swung 
open at her pull.  "I guess they like early around here," he said 
as he followed her inside. The vestibule was dark and silent, its 
air filled with the chill of the snowy morning.  Mulder caught 
the faint wood-varnish smell he associated with churches, along 
with a smoky-pungent odor he supposed was incense.  

He'd been in law enforcement too long to feel comfortable in an 
unlocked and apparently empty building.  He eased the corner of 
his sweater up to make access to his weapon easier, and slipped
the safety off.  Hoping he wouldn't need the gun after all, he 
followed Scully into the darkened sanctuary by sound as much 
as by sight. 

Once his eyes adjusted, the sanctuary's layout surprised him; it 
was a small, boxlike affair with two straight rows of pews 
leading up to the altar.  The general effect was of a 30's-era 
Assembly of God church with statues of Mary and Joseph hanging 
roughly where the gospel choir ought to stand.  The blue sections 
of the tall, narrow stained-glass windows had begun to glow 
faintly, but the room's only significant light came from the 
ruby-colored Presence candle that rested on a shelf in the far 
corner.  

Mulder remained in the doorway as Scully walked down the aisle, 
lowered herself carefully onto to one knee, then rose and slid 
into a pew.  After a few moments he heard a soft "thunk" as she 
lowered the kneeler.  Her garments rustled as she knelt down. 

He stood and watched her with a mixture of tenderness and 
something akin to awe.  He had always been a little envious of 
her spiritual life. Even though he teased her about 
Christianity's more blatant contradictions, he would have liked 
to believe in her God, to have a connection to the source of 
inexhaustible comfort and strength she described.    

It was no mystery why people who detested religion were atheists.  
But Mulder desired to believe and could not, which was proof 
enough for him that such a God did not exist.  In his more 
paranoid moments he believed in another kind of transcendent 
being, one who heard prayers but did not answer, who watched the 
tortured writhings of humanity but did not act, or worse, who 
watched and smiled.  Maybe Scully would pray for him.  If her 
benevolent God existed after all, perhaps he would have mercy on 
Mulder for her sake.  

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the outer door 
opening.  Mulder felt the inward rush of colder air and stepped 
further into the sanctuary.  He rested his hand against his 
stomach, not far from the holster clipped to his waistband.  
//What if it's something I can't shoot?// he thought.  The small, 
shadowy figure that was Scully hadn't moved at all.  He wondered 
if she'd fallen asleep leaning against the pew in front of her.  

A voice called from the vestibule, "Hello?"  It was a man's, 
human and nervous-sounding.  Mulder relaxed a little.  

"Hello," he called back.  He returned to the doorway and found a 
bearded little man with thick glasses standing near the outer 
doors.  He was wearing sweat pants and an Edmonton Oilers 
sweatshirt, and in his hands he carried a flashlight and a mop 
which he brandished like a weapon.  

"The church is closed.  You shouldn't be here," the man said.

"I'm sorry -- the door was open," Mulder said.  "My partner was 
injured last night and she just wanted a few minutes.  We didn't 
mean any harm."  As an afterthought he pulled his ID wallet from 
his pocket and offered it to the man.

The man came forward hesitantly and shone his light on the FBI 
badge.  He looked back and forth between Mulder's face and his ID 
picture several times.  He did not appear to recognize Mulder's 
name, which in a way was a relief.  Mulder was fairly certain 
this church had been built after he became an adult and left the 
Island for good.  

"You're here because of that poor girl that died?" the man asked.

"Yes," Mulder said.  

"Well, bless you for that," the man said, seeming to relax.  "Is
your partner all right?"

"She will be," Mulder said.  The man looked past him into the 
sanctuary, and Mulder understood his wordless question.  "She's 
right in there," Mulder said.

The man leaned his mop against the wall and walked down the aisle 
toward Scully.  He put his hand on her shoulder and bent to speak 
to her softly, angling the flashlight so it didn't shine in her 
face.  Mulder heard Scully's whispered reply, "Yes, Father."

It hadn't occurred to Mulder that the little guy in the Oilers 
sweatshirt was the priest.  He immediately dubbed him Father 
Gretzky.  Whatever the man asked Scully next, she shook her head 
no. 

"Are you unable to take it?  I can give you a Host to take with 
you," Father Gretzky said.  

"No, Father.  Thank you," Scully said.

The priest seemed about to argue the point, but then relented.  
"If you change your mind, we have Mass at 8:30, 10, and 11:30 
this morning.  You can call for the Sacrament of Reconciliation 
at any time," he said. 
 
"Thank you, Father," Scully said.

The priest remained a moment, then lightly brushed her hair with 
his fingertips and turned to walk back up the aisle toward 
Mulder.  "I can give you a few more minutes, then I'll have to 
ask you to leave," he said.

"We won't be long," Mulder said.

Father Gretzky glanced back toward Scully, his expression one of 
concern.  "You're sure she's all right?" he asked softly.  

"She's tougher than she looks," Mulder said.  The priest nodded 
once, but didn't appear convinced.   

Dawn had come, pale and cold, by the time Mulder and Scully left 
the church.  "Did you just turn down Communion?" Mulder asked as 
he unlocked the car door.  She shot him a don't-you-start-too 
look.  Although no Catholic theologian, Mulder was aware that 
turning down the services of a priest on a high holy day was a 
very big deal, and not like Scully at all.  Suddenly he regretted 
all the times he'd twitted her about her faith.  The last thing 
he wanted to do was damage her relationship with God.  "That 
wasn't because of me, was it?" he asked.

"I told you once, Mulder.  Not everything is about you," Scully 
said.  

Mulder drew breath to argue with her, but then released it.  
She'd made it plain enough that she wanted him to butt out.  He 
popped the lock for her and she slid into the passenger seat.  
Both of them remained silent during the ride back to Nye House. 

*****

Late in the morning, Mulder awoke to the sensation of Scully 
shaking him.  "Mulder, wake up.  There's somebody at the door," 
she said, her voice husky with sleep.  He opened his eyes and 
looked up at her.  She sat up in bed next to him, wearing one of 
his button-down shirts.  The blue-and-white striped fabric had 
become as rumpled as the sheets lying bunched over her lap.  
Sunlight streamed from behind the closed curtains and backlit her 
tousled hair, giving her an irregular aura.  Mulder just 
stretched out and enjoyed the sight of her.  The sunlit morning 
almost let him forget the unexplained terrors of the night 
before, and there was nothing he wanted more than to spend the 
rest of the day in bed with her.

The phone trilled sharply.  With reluctance, Mulder rolled over 
and picked up the receiver.  "Mulder."

"Agent Mulder, this is Detective Davis from Yarmouth.  Can you 
come to the door?" the voice on the phone said.

"Yeah, hang on," Mulder said.  He got up and pulled on his jeans 
and a sweater.  With luck, Davis had caught Kristie's killer or 
rescued the two kids Scully saw in the storm last night.  Mulder 
didn't let his hopes get too high; he knew his luck tended to 
fall into the bad-to-none category.  

He opened the door to find the mustached detective tucking his 
cell phone into an inner pocket of his trench coat.  Davis' gray 
3-piece suit was immaculate except for the reddish Vineyard mud 
that clung to his cuffs and shoes.  Clearly he'd been up and busy 
for quite a while.  Mulder scratched his day-old growth of beard 
and felt like a slacker.  

"Sorry to have to disturb you, Agent.  How's your partner?" Davis 
asked.  Something in the detective's overly casual manner made it 
obvious he knew that Mulder need only turn around to ask.

Mulder could just feel Scully cringe, even though Davis hadn't 
said anything inappropriate.  In a way that made it worse -- 
someone with nothing to hide would have missed the embarrassing 
connotations of the question.  "She'll be fine.  How can I help 
you, Detective?" 

"A couple of troopers picked up John McBer outside Oak Bluffs 
last night, although he claimed to be Jim MacDonald at the time.  
They're holding him for driving under the influence," Davis said.

Mulder recognized the name of the drug dealer Kristie had been 
scheduled to testify against.  "Have you talked to him yet?" 

"No.  That's what I came to ask you to do," Davis said.  He must 
have read Mulder's doubtful look because said, "Chief Luce 
recommended you.  He said you'd been part of the FBI's Behavioral 
Science Unit and that you have a knack for interrogations."

"Joey said that?" Mulder asked.

"Actually he said that he'd known you since you were five years 
old, and that you were the greatest mind-fuck there ever was," 
Davis said.
 
Okay, that he could imagine Joe saying. "I take it McBer isn't 
desperate to confess to anything," Mulder said. 

Davis' brief smile didn't reach his eyes.  "You could say that.  
He's out on bond, charged with the murder of a narcotics agent in 
1997.  The case against him isn't great, but the prosecutor took 
it when Miss Herron turned State's evidence.  Now that she's dead, 
McBer knows he's got a good chance of getting off if he just 
keeps his mouth shut.  It all seems a little convenient."

Mulder ran his fingers back through his hair, trying to think.  
It had been a long time since he'd consulted on an interrogation.  
It had been a long time since anyone cared about his professional 
opinion on anything.  "Has he asked for his lawyer yet?"

"Not last I checked. All he knows is he was brought in for drunk 
driving and that the judge is almost certainly going to revoke 
his bond -- which was 3 million dollars, by the way," Davis said.  

"He posted that?" Mulder asked.  He tried to imagine the judge's 
reaction to the news that McBer had actually bonded out.  He was 
pretty sure he could guess the prosecutor's reaction.  The guy 
was probably ready to tear a phone book in half.  

"McBer's father used to own Youngstown Steel, but the family's 
not so rich they ought to have a spare 3 million lying around.  
I think he has some friends who are willing to pay up front to 
make sure he never has to say too much in court," Davis said.

Terrific.  Now McBer was a mob-connected drug dealer.  "You're 
right.  Those are about the longest odds on a confession I ever 
heard," Mulder said.

"If you're not comfortable just say so.  We can go ahead without 
you," Davis said.  Again, the words were neutral, but the way the 
detective looked steadily at Mulder made the statement into a 
challenge.  

Mulder wondered, did this man want his help that badly?  Or was 
it simply that the investigators had very little to lose?  If 
they gambled on the FBI's Least Wanted and everything hit the 
fan, they might just be able to shift some of the blame onto 
Mulder.  

He released his breath slowly and came to a decision.  "Okay.  
I'll need as much information on him as you can find.  If he's 
ever had a psyche evaluation done as part of a court proceeding 
or a prison intake, I'd really be interested in that." 

Davis nodded as if satisfied.  "I'll see what I can do.  How soon 
can you be ready?" 

"Give me 10 minutes to get rid of my Don Johnson look," Mulder 
said, running his hand over his beard stubble.

"Sure.  I'll call the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department and see 
what they can fax over," Davis said.  He retrieved his phone and 
walked toward the stairs dialing.   

*****

After Davis' question about her, Scully quietly retreated to the 
room's tiny bathroom.  She stood at the old-fashioned sink, 
unwinding the gauze around her hands while the two men talked in 
the doorway.  She felt very fragile, like a pane of glass.  If 
someone pushed her she felt she might fall to the floor and 
shatter.  

Scully looked at her reflection in the mirror with grim dismay.  
Her skin was very pale and dark circles stood out underneath her 
eyes.  The ashy contrast made her eyes seem too bright, as if she 
had a high fever.  She remembered what Dr. Neumann in the ER had 
said about getting a CT scan done.  Gingerly, she pressed her 
fingertips against the flesh around her eyes and nose, the area 
that had once concealed the tumorous mass.  Her examination 
caused her no pain or bleeding.  If the cancer had returned it 
might have gone somewhere else, perhaps deeper into her brain.  

The priest at Our Lady of Refuge had offered her the Sacraments 
of Communion and Anointing of the Sick early that morning, and 
her refusal of both seemed very strange even to herself.  If she 
was going to refuse the Sacraments, why had she gone to the 
church in the first place?  

She'd been seeking comfort, safety . . . no, it was more than 
that.  She'd been seeking a connection to something beyond the 
suffocating limits of everyday experience -- something like the 
power she had touched out in the woods.  Yet the Sacraments were 
so bound up with life's prosaic milestones that she feared they 
would pull her back into the circle of ordinariness, away from 
the numinous edge she was contemplating. 

When she shut her eyes she could still see the woods by the 
graveyard -- moonlight sparkling on new-fallen snow, the pale 
little figures huddled in a spreading dark stain.  "Stay," the 
girl with the knife had said.  Scully still felt the pull of her 
call.  The vision's icy desolation spoke to her in a language 
she'd never heard outside her own dreams.  The child's loneliness 
was Scully's own.  It reminded her of the words of the psalm: 
like "deep calling to deep."  

When Scully lost her daughter and any future chance of 
motherhood, it was like having half of herself cut away.  The 
tiny children in the woods had lost their mother.  They needed 
her.  The three of them fit together, like fingers into a glove.  
Despite all reason, Scully ached to feel those small, chilled 
bodies nestled against her own, filling the terrible space Emily 
left.

She heard Mulder come back into the room, reciting a line from 
"Mission: Impossible" to himself: "Your mission, Mr. Phelps, 
should you choose to accept it . . ."

"What was that about?" Scully asked.  Somewhat to her surprise, 
she sounded almost like her usual self.  

"Detective Davis just asked me to help interrogate John McBer," 
Mulder said.  "Getting a confession out of him is going to be 
like selling Perrier to a drowning man."  He walked into the 
bathroom and Scully moved over to give him space at the sink.  
"How are your hands?" he asked.

"They're fine," she said.

He glanced down at her bruised and stitched skin and said, "In 
that case 'fine' doesn't look too good." He unzipped the small 
traveling case resting on the back of the sink and pulled out his 
electric razor.  

There was something bizarre about the two of them sharing a sink 
while calmly discussing murder and mayhem.  Just another morning 
in the Twilight Zone for Mulder and Mrs. Spooky.  "I'll be all 
right," she insisted.  

"If you're not, will you call me?  It doesn't matter if I'm still 
in with McBer.  Davis says they can get along without me anyway," 
Mulder said.

"I'll call you," Scully said.

He stopped unwinding the razor's cord and looked down at her.  
"Promise?" he asked.

She managed the three-fingered Girl Scouts' salute with her 
unbandaged right hand.  "Scout's honor," she said.

Mulder reached out and gently folded her first and fourth fingers 
down so she was flipping him off. "That's what you're really 
trying to tell me, isn't it?" 
  
Scully smiled despite herself, and for the first time she felt 
truly present in the room with him.  "I'm not the one who said 
it," she said.  "I think you should talk less and shave more.  
You've got a lot of Perrier to unload." 

He seemed to relax at the change in her manner.  "So I'll throw 
in one of those little drink umbrellas," he said.  She slipped by 
him as he hunted for an electrical outlet hidden in the dizzying 
Victorian pattern of the wallpaper.  

Scully sat down in the little round-backed chair by the window 
and waited until Mulder's razor started buzzing.  Once he was 
occupied, she used her cell phone to call Martha's Vineyard 
Hospital and ask if any injured children had been admitted late 
in the night.  None had.  She wasn't all that surprised; she'd 
already begun to suspect that the bloody little girl with the 
gray eyes had been beyond human help for a long, long time.  

Scully hit the "end" button and sat with her hands in her lap, 
folded around the black rectangle of the phone.  The knuckles of 
her right hand were swollen and discolored, with a line of black 
stitches like barbed wire marching across them. She lifted her 
left hand and looked at the cuts across the palm.  They were 
nearly identical to the defense wounds found on Kristie Herron's 
body.  

She felt she understood that troubled young woman, who in all 
likelihood had given birth to a stillborn child.  Scully wondered 
if Kristie had also felt called toward the darkness beyond the 
graveyard.  Had she known the risks and gone anyway, hoping what 
dwelled out there would fill the hollow space inside her?  

Mulder's razor switched off, and Scully quickly replaced her 
phone on a trunk at the end of the bed, among her bloodied 
clothes.  There was no real reason to keep her activities secret.  
Why should it bother Mulder if she called the hospital?  

The truth was she wanted to avoid his questions.  She feared he 
would sense her thoughts and be horrified.  Then he'd hover 
around her like a mother hen and keep her from -- Scully shied 
away from thinking, //returning to the bloodied spot among the 
crime scene markers.//  She told herself Mulder's well-meaning 
attention would simply get in her way.  She had a personal stake 
in this investigation now, too.  There were people she wanted to 
interview, and Irv Stuckey was high on the list.  

She made herself very busy putting on the less-soiled articles of 
her clothing as Mulder came out of the bathroom.  "Are there any 
drug stores open on Sunday around here?  I want to get the script 
for antibiotics filled as soon as possible.  Having my hands get 
infected is the last thing I need," she said.  

He looked a little taken aback by her sudden hurry to leave.  
"Probably not around Chilmark.  You could try down-island, 
Edgartown or Oak Bluffs," Mulder said.  

"All right, I'll do that.  Are you riding with Detective Davis, or 
do you need the car?" she asked. 

"I guess I don't need it," Mulder said.  He picked up his keys 
from the little oval nightstand and offered them to her.  

"Thanks," she said.  She stood on her toes and kissed him gently.  
He said nothing, but she felt his eyes on her as she gathered her 
things together and headed out the door.  

"See you," he called.

*****

Mulder felt uneasy as he watched his partner go.   Something was 
bothering her and she didn't want to talk about it, that much was 
plain.  He repressed his urge to follow and badger her into 
talking to him.  //If she wants privacy that's her prerogative.  
She doesn't have to tell you everything,// he thought.  The last 
thing either of them needed was for him to turn possessive out of 
fear of losing her.  

He gathered the few things he would need for the coming police 
interview with McBer: the Narcotics Anonymous book Scully had 
found in Kristie's bedroom; his reading glasses; his cell phone.  
As he locked up the room and walked down the hall to meet 
Detective Davis, he tried to keep his mind focused on the task 
ahead.  Scully was better at staying out of trouble than he was.  
She said she was fine, and he'd have to take her at her word. 

Davis was standing at the foot of the stairs.  "I talked to 
Suffolk County.  Most of the information you want is in Concord," 
he said, naming the state prison just outside Boston.  "McBer was 
there between '93 and '95 for cocaine possession.  They had him 
on intent to deliver too, but the court reversed the conviction 
on appeal.  The arrest wasn't as clean as it should've been."  
Mulder walked beside the detective as they crossed the front 
room.  "This time it has to be done right," Davis continued.  
"They call that lawyer of McBer's 'Jaws,' and it's not just 
because he's a legal shark.  The guy mouths off to the media a 
lot and gets them circling around an investigation.  He's gotten 
a couple of acquittals by essentially putting the arresting law 
enforcement agency on trial.  I think it's only fair to warn 
you."

Oh, great.  Skinner was going to love this.  Mulder stopped at 
the front door and said, "Being the scapegoat's nothing new for 
me, but I think it's fair that *you* know I'm not officially 
working this case.  I'm just here with my partner."

"Actually, you are working," Davis said. "Your A.D.'s been 
enthusiastic about having you guys involved with this 
investigation.  He left us an off-hours contact number Friday 
afternoon, and I got your official participation approved five 
minutes ago."  

"Skinner did what?" Mulder asked.  Skinner hated bad PR, and he 
was willing to officially assign Mulder to a job like this?  
There was no question that Scully's misgivings were confirmed -- 
something big was about to go down in D.C.  

Davis' look of satisfaction was unmistakable.  Mulder figured he 
was happy to have the FBI between him and the first volley of 
crap that the media was likely to throw.  "A.D. Skinner said he 
has the utmost confidence in you.  Back in Boston you yourself 
said we were going to want your help.  You getting cold feet?" 
the detective asked.

Open mouth, insert foot.  "No," Mulder said. "Let's get going."  
He followed Davis out to the car, wishing he'd gotten more than 
five hours of sleep the night before.  //You used to love doing 
this kind of thing under pressure,// he told himself.  He'd 
seldom experienced anything like the adrenaline high he got in 
the BSU, doing work other people could "appreciate," as Skinner 
put it.  //Then again, there was the insomnia, the chain smoking, 
the broken relationships . . .//

Once Davis pulled out of the gravel driveway and turned east 
toward Edgartown, Mulder pulled his cell phone from his jacket 
pocket and set Kristie's NA book on his lap.  The book was still 
wrapped in a battered dustjacket taken from a French/English 
dictionary. 

Davis glanced down at it. "What is that?" he asked.

"My partner and I found it at the Herrons' house last night," 
Mulder said.  He opened the cover and revealed the handwritten 
names and phone numbers that dotted the blank first page.  "Have 
you spoken to Brenda, Kim, Amber, Jane, Lisa, Kevin--"

Davis glared at him and said, "No.  You might have let us know 
you'd found that." 

"It was a busy night," Mulder said.  "I'm putting my first bet on 
Brenda," he said, pointing to the circled name with the star next 
to it.  There were three numbers below, labeled "H," "W," and 
"cell."  He dialed the "H" number with his thumb.  

He listened while the phone rang and rang. "Come on, Brenda," he 
said.  Finally there was a click and the answering machine picked 
up.  Mulder hung up and dialed her mobile phone, fidgeting with 
the torn dustjacket while the phone rang.  "This reminds me of 
the night before Junior Prom," he said, which got no noticeable 
reaction from Davis.  Scully would have thought it was funny.  

At last a woman answered.  "Hello?" She said.  

"Hi --  is this Brenda?"

A static-filled pause followed.  "Who is this?" the woman asked.  
Mulder got the impression that if he gave the wrong answer she'd 
hang up and call the cops.  He supposed a lot of ex-addicts had 
people they'd rather not take phone calls from.  

"I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI.  I'm helping 
investigate Kristie' Herron's death and I wanted to ask you a few 
questions," he said.

"This is a federal case?"  For some reason she sounded pleased. 
"Then you nailed McBer." 

"What makes you say that?" Mulder thought he'd managed to keep 
the excitement out of his voice.  He wished to God he was 
recording this phone call.

"You don't *know?*  His connections to the 'Columbian export 
business,'" Brenda said.  She had a deep, husky voice, like that 
of a woman who'd long been a heavy smoker.  "I hoped you'd 
caught whichever one of them did it."

"So you think McBer ordered a hit," Mulder said.  Davis was 
trying to keep one eye on the road and one eye on him.  Mulder 
wondered what the detective would have paid for a speaker phone 
just then.

"She lived out here all her life.  Don't expect me to believe she 
walked off that cliff by accident," Brenda said.

"Did she say anything that made you think she was afraid?" Mulder 
asked.

"Yeah, she did.  When she called me Tuesday night," Brenda said.  

"What time?"

"6:30 maybe -- no, 7, because it was already getting dark. It was 
weird because just a couple days before she told me she wasn't 
afraid of him anymore, that she was looking forward to putting 
him away.  Then all of a sudden she tells me she's not 
testifying; she's backing out; she's calling the D.A. to tell him 
the deal's off.  I told her, 'Girl, this is your *life.* The D.A. 
can reinstate those charges against you as fast as he dropped 
'em,' and she said she'd rather go to prison than get shot in an 
alley.  I was sure McBer had gotten to her somehow.  I asked her, 
'Who called you, Kristie?  Who's threatening you?'  But she kept 
saying, 'Nobody, nobody, nobody.'  She never would tell me what 
scared her so bad, but I got her to put off calling the D.A.  I 
wish I hadn't, now."

"You couldn't have known what would happen," Mulder said.  

"No."  Brenda's brash voice had grown quiet.  "You'll get him, 
won't you?  He's not going to get away with what he did?"

"We're going to do everything we can," Mulder said. "Is there 
anything else you can remember, something somebody said, even if 
it didn't seem important at the time?" 

"I've been trying to think, but I can't come up with anything 
that would prove he did it.  It's just a strong gut feeling.  
Believe me, if I could hand him over to you on a silver platter 
I would," she said.  

Mulder thanked her and gave her instructions on how to contact 
him in case she thought of anything else.  He pulled a notepad 
from his coat pocket and scratched a few notations into it.  

Davis seemed to be having trouble focusing on the road.  "Well, 
what did you get?" he asked.

"Enough to make me really interested in what McBer was doing last 
Tuesday," Mulder said, not bothering to look up from the paper.  
He'd often claimed his inner child was a little shit, and he was 
enjoying the detective's fidgeting immensely.  

There was only one ferry company that made runs to Martha's 
Vineyard during the off-season, and Mulder dialed its number from 
memory.  It didn't take long for the receptionist to find a deck 
hand who remembered a man in a wheelchair driving a specially 
modified Ford Prospector van.  The van required a double-wide 
parking space so the chair lift could operate, an accommodation 
that might have been difficult on a more crowded run.  The van 
and its driver were so unusual that the ferry worker could give 
the exact time and date he'd seen them: Tuesday, April 11, at the 
10:45 a.m. Woods Hole to Vineyard Haven crossing.  

Mulder shared this information with Davis, who made a few calls 
of his own to determine Kristie's schedule on the 11th.  Before 
they reached Edgartown they had a critical window of time: 
between 6:10, when Kristie clocked out at her job at a grocery 
store in Aquinnah, and just before 7 p.m. when she arrived home.  
The drive itself should not have taken more than 15 minutes.  

By the time they pulled into the lot behind the Dukes County 
House of Correction, Davis had stopped giving Mulder those dry, 
knowing looks.  Clearly, Mulder had come a long way from the 
nutcase in the autopsy bay in the detective's estimation.  As 
they stepped out of the car into the cutting spring wind, Davis 
asked, "What did you leave the BSU to do, again?"

"I work on the X-Files Unit," Mulder said, shrugging his coat 
more squarely onto his shoulders.  "I chase aliens.  I thought 
they'd told you that."

"Aliens," Davis said.  He didn't seem sure whether Mulder was 
serious or not.

"Aliens, mutants . . . we get a pretty good variety of cases, 
really," Mulder said, leading the way toward the small, unmarked 
door in the back of the building.  The Dukes County Jail did not 
look like a lock-up.  One hundred and twenty-five years old, it 
had been built to resemble a whaling captain's house, complete 
with a fanlight over the door and imposing white columns at the 
corners of the front porch.   

Mulder hit the buzzer that would alert the jail staff that they 
were waiting.  He turned to Davis, who stood with his hands 
tucked into his armpits.  The bright sunshine gave hardly any 
warmth at all.  "I had a case similar to this once," Mulder said.  
"A quadruple amputee who was able to master the art of astral 
projection decided to settle some old scores by committing 
several murders.  I admit I was worried about how to get charges 
filed, but one of his victims solved the problem by getting up 
out of his hospital bed and shooting the guy.  It's sort of a 
story about overcoming obstacles."

To his credit, Detective Davis simply would not be shocked.  He 
squinted up at Mulder and said, "I suppose you're going to tell 
me McBer can do this too?"

"Of course he can't," Mulder said, "It's obvious the cuts on 
Kristie's body were made by somebody with limited strength and 
mobility.  You think that in his revenge fantasies McBer would 
give himself the same physical disabilities he has in life?  Come 
on.  That's why I classify paranormal phenomena by motivation 
whenever possible.  It saves so much time that might be wasted in 
empty conjecture."

Whatever Davis' reply would have been, it was forestalled when 
the door opened and a brown-shirted corrections officer leaned 
out.  "Agent Mulder and Detective Davis?" the officer said.  
Mulder and Davis produced their badges.  "Follow me," the c.o. 
said. 

The room beyond was a kind of wire-mesh cage with a bank of metal 
drawers along one wall for officers to lock their weapons in.  As 
they disarmed, Davis glanced up at Mulder and muttered something 
about the Justice Department that ended with, "Only under 
Clinton."  

The c.o. produced a jangling collection of keys and opened the 
door to the cage, then the ordinary wooden door that led to the 
jail's cramped office space.  Among the too-numerous desks stood 
large group of officers, some wearing the browns of the Sheriff's 
Department and some in the blues of the State Police.  Joe Luce 
caught his eye and nodded at him.  Joe was in civilian clothes, 
jeans and a sweatshirt printed with the logo of a local marina.  
He looked about as tired as Mulder felt.  

"Mr. Mulder," a woman said.  Mulder looked over and saw Liz 
Hawley, late of the West Tisbury PD, wearing the star-shaped 
badge of the Dukes County sheriff.  Hawley had been one of the 
people most interested in charging Mulder with the murder of his 
father.  She was a heavy woman and the close-fitting shirt and 
slacks of the Sheriff's uniform didn't suit her, but there was 
clearly muscle under her bulk.  Mulder wouldn't have wanted to 
tangle with her in a dark alley.  She was giving him a cold stare 
right out of "High Noon."  

"Sheriff Hawley," Mulder said.  

"Chief Luce here tells us that your background at the FBI may 
help us pull a couple of investigations out of the fire.  If you 
have any ideas, we'd sure like to hear them," she said.  

//And then one of the boys'll git us a rope . . .// "Give me half 
an hour with McBer's file. I'll be able to give you 
recommendations after that," Mulder said.  

Hawley said, "I hope so."  

Mulder pretended not to notice the chilly looks the local 
officers gave him while a c.o. went to pull McBer's information 
off the fax machine.  There were people who could see past the 
death of Mulder's father, but no Island cop was going to forget 
John Lee Roche or what had almost happened to an eight-year-old 
mainland girl.  Under the circumstances, Mulder accepted their 
hostility as his due.  

The returning corrections officer handed him a stack of papers 
about the thickness of a small phone book.  Mulder appropriated a 
desk for himself and settled his reading glasses on his nose.  As 
he read through the blurry third-generation copies, he began to 
piece together the strategy he would use with their murder 
suspect.  

Soon his apprehensions began to fade.  The case was not 
impossible, and as he would have told anyone who asked, he was 
very good at what he did.

*****

Scully did not get out of Nye House as quickly as she wanted to, 
mostly because there was nowhere to go.  Her phone inquiries 
revealed that every store east of Vineyard Haven was shut down 
between Saturday afternoon and Monday morning.  She had to ask 
Leigh for some gauze for her hands, which were throbbing despite 
the Tylenol-3 tablets the ER doctor had discharged her with.  The 
little proprietress not only produced a first-aid kit but would 
not hear of her leaving without clean clothing.  Most of the 
clothes Scully had with her were spattered with dried blood from 
the night before. Unfortunately, Leigh was about Scully's height 
but much heavier, while her daughter Tammy was considerably 
taller.  Scully stood quietly by while Leigh rummaged in Tammy's 
closet, coming up with dusty clothes the young woman hadn't worn 
since high school.  

Leigh was more than happy holding up both ends of the 
conversation as she reminisced about her youth and Mulder's 
childhood.  "He was a great favorite of my mother's.  She used to 
have him recite "Annabelle Lee" for her.  He could memorize 
practically anything if he read it once or twice."

"Not Poe's "Annabelle Lee?" Scully asked, holding up a shapeless 
white sweater.  

"Oh, yes.  I remember one evening we were out with our guests in 
the garden, watching the fireflies come out.  Suddenly I heard my 
mother say, 'Aha!' and I turned to see her pull Fox from a clump 
of her raspberry bushes, still sucking juice off his fingers.  He 
was about eight or nine years old, just a skinny little fellow in 
shorts with scratches on his knees.  Mother pretended to be very 
cross and explained that this was little Fox Mulder from up the 
road and that he'd been into her raspberries again.  She said, 
'Fox, I won't scold you on one condition -- you must recite 
"Annabelle Lee" for everyone.'  We thought she was joking and 
everybody laughed.  Then he actually began reciting it.  He got 
such a smile on his face when he saw how amazed we were." 

Leigh shook out a dusty pair of stretch pants and said, "It *was* 
funny, hearing a fidgety little boy with two of his teeth missing 
say things like, 'this maiden she lived with no other thought, 
than to love and be loved by me.'  I'm sure he had no idea what 
half of it meant.  'The sepulcher there by the sea' indeed!  He 
was simply glad for all the attention and that he wasn't in 
trouble."

Mulder had not retained that innocence for long, and Scully felt 
a pang of tenderness for him that was almost grief.   "He never 
told me that story," she said.  "He doesn't talk about his 
childhood much at all."

"He may prefer not to think about it," Leigh said. "For a while 
he was a terribly, terribly unhappy boy.  He did odd jobs for my 
parents when he came to stay with his father.  He'd had some kind 
of falling out with the children he used to play with, and there 
really wasn't much for him to do except get into trouble -- and 
he was very good at doing that.  Not that it was all his fault.  
There probably wasn't anywhere on the Island he could go without 
meeting with the kind of attention he didn't want.  

"Once I found him in reading a comic book in the loft of the 
utility shed.  The picture on the cover was horrible -- bloody, 
screaming people running away from some kind of spaceship 
shooting fire.  The way he was hiding with it made me think he 
wasn't supposed to have it, but he didn't seem to be enjoying it 
at all.  How can I describe the look on his face?  Like a man 
looking through the newspaper for an obituary he doesn't want to 
see.  He seemed truly frightened, which was odd because he was a 
great big boy and here it was broad daylight.  I didn't have the 
heart to tease him about it.  All I asked was, 'How can you sleep 
at night after reading things like that?'  He looked up at me and 
said, 'I can't.' I believed him.  His face was so pale and he had 
dark circles under his eyes.  Had it been any other boy I'd have 
thought he was into drugs, but somehow not Fox.  He was quite 
rational, quite lucid . . . just so very frightened when there 
ought to have been nothing to fear.  It was a little disturbing, 
really."  Leigh shook her head.  Her thick glasses magnified her 
eyes so that they looked like a sorrowful bug's. "I can't say I 
was pleased to hear that he'd gone off to England to study the 
criminally insane.  I hoped he'd grow out of this . . . morbid 
phase.  But he never has, has he?"

"Not exactly," Scully admitted.

"I know it can't all be my mother's fault, but I don't expect all 
that Poe at such a young age could have been good for him," Leigh 
said.

"I've never heard him complain about it.  Besides, Mulder finds 
what he does very rewarding.  Well, he usually does," Scully 
said.  There had been notable exceptions, the Siberian gulag and 
so on, not that she was going to mention such things.  Even still, 
Leigh did not seem overly reassured.

In the end Scully selected one of the least dusty-looking 
outfits, a pair of black stretch pants and an oversized white 
button-down that would have been the height of fashion in about 
1988.  She thanked Leigh profusely for her help but insisted she 
had to do errands before the pain in her hands and bruised ribs 
became too much for her.  Leigh let her go somewhat reluctantly.  
It seemed the detectives and technicians who made up the rest of 
Nye House's current clientele weren't any fun to talk to.  

As Scully walked out to the car in the icy sunlight, she wondered 
if Leigh had tried to tell stories about Mulder's childhood to 
the other officers, too.  For his sake, she hoped not. 

*****

The office area of the Dukes County Jail was starting to look 
terrible, which was exactly what Mulder had in mind.  At his 
direction, the other officers had removed all personal items from 
their desks and cleared a large space in the middle of the room.  
Mulder jostled some of the overhead fluorescent bulbs until the 
room's corners were enveloped in flickering dimness.  When they 
were done, the only bright light shone directly down on a bare 
desk in the middle of the room.  

Mulder stood back, admiring his handiwork.  Sheriff Hawley walked 
up to him and asked, "All right, Agent Mulder, what is this . . . 
haunted house supposed to accomplish?" She gestured at the dimly 
pulsing lights.  

Mulder couldn't resist milking her annoyance for just a moment by 
sitting down on the desk and polishing his glasses on the sleeve 
of his shirt.  "It's meant to put McBer off-balance.  He's a 
classic anti-social personality -- a born manipulator.  He can't 
take control of a situation if he can't figure out what's going 
on."  

"And sitting in the dark will keep him from taking control," 
Hawley said.  

"He won't be in the dark.  He'll be right here in the light with 
me.  You guys will be in the dark, able to see him a lot better 
than he'll be able to see you.  It'll drive him crazy," he 
assured her.  

She gave him a cold, hard look.  "You'd better be right," she 
said.

"I'm right."  Mulder turned to Joe, who was looking uncomfortable 
in his borrowed corrections officer uniform.  "I want you to do 
two things when you bring him down.  Let him know the OUIL is a 
misdemeanor. Treat it as a hassle between him and the judge that 
set his bond.  If he figures out how much trouble he's in he's 
likely to clam up and call his lawyer.  Then tell him how the 
detectives called in this crazy FBI man to talk to him.  Say I 
chase aliens.  Tell him I'm obsessed with serial killers and I 
sleep with bloody crime scene photos pinned to the ceiling over 
my bed. Whatever it takes to get him curious about me.  He's 
going to have to sit and talk to me to find out if I live up to 
my reputation." 

"Aliens and serial killers.  Got it." 

"Good luck, Igor," Mulder said.  He thought Joe repressed a 
smile.  Joey had been an inspired Igor to Mulder's Dr. 
Frankenstein, back in the days when their psychological 
experiments were designed to run off their tagalong little 
sisters.  

As Joe left to get their suspect, Mulder stood and set his folded 
his glasses down on the desk. Given the logistics of bringing a 
disabled man down the stairs, it would likely be at least five 
minutes before McBer arrived.  Mulder was under enough pressure 
without spending the time before the interview under the hostile 
gaze of Hawley and her deputies.  He excused himself to the 
officer nearest the door and walked into the hall.  

He had no particular destination in mind, but found he headed 
instinctively for the front door and the jail's oddly inviting 
front porch.  The desk guard gave him a look of dull surprise as 
he signed in and out at the same time.  "I'll be right back," 
Mulder said.

When he stepped out onto the porch, a gust of icy wind whipped 
his hair and flattened his clothes against his body.  He had to 
shade his eyes from the brilliant sunlight, but exposure to the 
elements felt real and good.  All around him lay Edgartown's 
empty waterfront streets.  Restaurants, inns, and boathouses 
seemed well-kept but abandoned, waiting until the tourist season 
to unbolt their doors.  Down Dock Street he could see the bare 
masts of boats moored at the public wharf, and beyond them, 
Katama Bay shining almost too brightly to look at.  

Home.  He'd forgotten how much he loved this island, with its 
summer crowds and its wintertime desolation.  It made him feel a 
fresh wave of remorse for Roche.  He didn't remember much from 
the three-hour reaming he'd gotten from OPR after that case, but 
he did recall the general theme of betrayal.  There was a long 
list of things he was supposed to have betrayed, which he should 
have paid more attention to since he'd been required to sign it.  
At the time, what had hurt most was that he had betrayed the 
trust of Caitlin and her mother.  He had also betrayed the 
Vineyard and the people who had once been like family to him.  
Perhaps McBer was his chance to atone.  

Mulder took a deep breath and released it, willing himself to 
learn from the mistakes he'd made.  Wanting something from men 
like Roche and McBer was like arming them.  He had to distance 
himself from his desire to make good.  //Don't think about what 
you want.  Think about what he wants,// he told himself.  He had 
to make McBer want to cooperate with him.  //Just like selling 
Perrier to a drowning man,// he thought.  He glanced at his watch 
and saw his grace time was nearly up.  With regret, he turned and 
went back into the jail.  

No sooner had he settled himself at the office's newly-central 
desk than he heard voices in the hall.  Joe opened the door and 
held it while a stocky, dark-haired man in a wheelchair pushed 
himself in.  McBer was still in his civilian clothes: cowboy 
boots, black leather jacket, jeans, and a black T-shirt.  His 
long ponytail and droopy mustache gave him a sinister appearance, 
but Mulder knew those would be gone at any future trial.  Without 
all the fashion statements, McBer would be a fairly handsome man 
in his early 30's, sitting in a wheelchair.  He might even manage 
to look harmless.  Mulder wondered if Jaws the attorney would 
stoop to replacing the sleek-bodied chair McBer was using now 
with a clunky hospital model.  Davis had been right -- any 
incriminating statements Mulder got out of this guy had better be 
so clean they squeaked.

"This is Special Agent Fox Mulder from the FBI -- the guy I was 
telling you about," Joe said.
 
McBer looked curious about him all right.  Mulder wondered 
exactly what Joe had told him.  He held his hand out.  "John," he 
said.  He'd decided that the false intimacy of calling McBer by 
his first name would be more demoralizing.

The man took his hand and grimaced at the coldness of his skin.  
"Jesus -- where'd they find you, the morgue?" McBer asked.  
Mulder had put his glasses on after coming in, and they'd fogged 
over very slightly -- on the inside.  He had hoped McBer would 
notice.    

"Actually I'm from D.C.," he said.  G-Men, especially spooky 
ones, weren't supposed to have a sense of humor.  "John, I want 
to ask you some questions. I'm going to need to tape our 
conversation, if that's all right with you."

"Fine with me, so long as nobody fools with the tape," McBer 
said.

"You can have your lawyer ask for a copy of it if you're 
worried," Mulder said.  He turned the tape on and told McBer his 
rights, then asked him if he understood.  He did.  If this case 
went to hell, it would not be because Jaws made a successful bid 
to suppress the tape on 5th amendment grounds.  

"Could you state your full name please?" Mulder asked.

"John Edward McBer."

"Your address?"

"2700 Pebblestone, Boston, 02108."

The early questions were meant to set a rhythm, to get McBer 
comfortable.  

Mulder's dry voice and the regular ticks of the tape recorder 
created a sense of hypnotic calm.  Although the suspect remained 
relaxed and cooperative, he stole occasional glances at the 
officers in the dim corners of the room.  Mulder was glad he 
couldn't ignore them.  They were present to suggest the weight 
and power of the justice system that lay behind the crazy FBI man 
with the tape recorder.  

"Do you know why you're here, John?" Mulder asked.  His tone was 
almost gentle.  People gave more interesting answers to a 
psychologist than to a cop.  

"He says you want to talk to me about some murder," McBer said, 
gesturing toward Joe.  "I guess you're supposed to be the FBI's 
expert on sickos.  Did you really catch a guy who put people's 
organs in a blender?"
 
Mulder blinked in surprise.  When had Joe heard of his 
involvement in that case?  "You mean James Sproule?  I didn't 
catch him personally; I profiled him.  I studied his crimes until 
I felt I understood him."

McBer looked somewhere between doubtful and disgusted.  "You 
understand a guy who puts organs in a blender?" 

"As well as anybody sane can," Mulder said.

"Uh-huh."  McBer didn't seem convinced about the "sane" part.  
"So why'd he do it?" 

"He thought he needed to drink bodily fluids in order to 
survive," Mulder said.

"And you understand that?" McBer asked.  Mulder shrugged slightly 
as if he didn't see what the problem was.  

"You're either a liar or a psycho," said McBer.

"I assure you that I'm neither," Mulder said.  He looked intently 
into McBer's eyes a little longer than a sane person generally 
would.  The other man appeared uncomfortable but did not look 
away.  Before McBer could figure out how to respond, Mulder 
switched topics.  "I have something I'd like you to look at," 
Mulder said.  He opened a manila envelope and brought out a 
picture of Kristie, clipped from her obituary in that morning's 
paper.  He pushed it across the desk.  McBer glanced at it but 
did not pick it up.  

"Do you know who she is?" Mulder asked.

"No." He looked at the picture too long for that to be true.

"Her name is Kristie Ann Herron.  Sound familiar now?" Mulder 
leaned forward with his elbows on the desk, moving a bit further 
into the other man's space.  

"Oh, her. She dated this guy I used to know.  I heard he went to 
prison.  I haven't seen her in a couple of years."  

The line sounded rehearsed.  Out of the corner of his eye Mulder 
thought he saw Davis writing something in a notebook.  He made a 
point of turning to look, and McBer looked too.  Good.  

"Kristie was scheduled to testify against you in a murder trial.  
Did you know that?" Mulder asked.

McBer managed a rueful laugh that sounded almost natural.  He 
seemed to gain confidence as he spoke: "Unfortunately.  Look, 
Agent Mulder, that case was garbage.  They've got a little bit of 
circumstantial evidence and the testimony of a cokehead.  I mean, 
if she had all the information she said she had, why didn't she 
go to the police with it three years ago, when this supposedly 
happened?  Why did she wait until she was facing time on 
possession charges before she told anybody?  She made it up.  To 
be honest, I'm surprised the prosecutor took the case -- unless 
she was paying him in kind, if you know what I mean."  

Cold fury made Mulder long to pick McBer up and punch his lights 
out, wheelchair or no wheelchair.  //Do not react.  Don't give 
him any emotional response at all.//  He thought of Scully 
sitting next to him during the Roche interview, sympathetic and 
rock steady.  The memory dissipated some of the rage and reminded 
him how to behave.  //Let McBer fling shit.  It's not going to 
stick.// His voice remained nearly neutral as he said, "If she 
made it up, it's strange she knew so much about the crime scene."

"Maybe she shot this narc.  Maybe she saw Brian do it and she's 
protecting him.  How would I know?  All I know is it wasn't me."  
There was a hostile look in his eyes that told Mulder they were 
treading on dangerous ground.  If he spooked McBer too much about 
the '97 murder charge, he'd take the 5th and call Jaws.  

Mulder backed off for the moment.  "When was the last time you 
saw Kristie?" he asked.

McBer shrugged.  "I kind of distanced myself from that crowd 
about two years ago.  I had a little bit of trouble back in '93, 
and some friends finally convinced me I had to watch what company 
I was in.  They'll take you down for just sitting in a car with a 
guy who's dealing, you know?"

"So you saw her last in 1998," Mulder said.

"I guess.  Maybe.  I mean I didn't really know her that well.  
It's possible there was a party or something and she was there 
and I just didn't notice," McBer said.

"Did you come out to the Vineyard to see her?" Mulder asked.

"No.  I came out to visit a friend, Chuck Penry in Vineyard 
Haven.  His number's 508-693-5767 if you want to call him."  
Mulder wrote down the number, along with a shorthand note about 
McBer's alternating vagueness and excessive helpfulness.  That 
was a classic sign that a suspect was on the defensive, seeking 
to direct the interrogation.  Whether or not McBer had sensed his 
reaction to the comment about Kristie, Mulder had not lost 
control of the interview.  

Without looking up from his notepad, Mulder asked, "When did you 
get here?" This was a critical question, and he didn't trust 
himself not to telegraph his interest if he looked McBer in the 
eye.  

He heard McBer's clothing rustle as he shifted position.  
"Yesterday."

"What time?"

"The afternoon -- I don't know.  You could ask Chuck.  Maybe he 
could tell you."  Mulder was pretty sure Chuck had been coached 
to tell him something or other.  He made a note to find out what 
Chuck Penry did for a living.  

Mulder opened his manila folder and removed two pages he'd 
printed out on Hawley's computer.  One was the web page of the 
Three Sisters Market where Kristie had worked.  The photo 
included a partial image of the store's parking lot, for which 
Mulder thanked any deity that might exist.  He was pretty sure 
McBer had approached Kristie there.  The other page was a 
calendar for April, 2000.  He'd circled Tuesday the 11th in red 
marker, and wrote "6:15 p.m." in the date box.  

As soon as Mulder set the pages down on the desk, McBer became 
very still.  He looked steadily at the picture of the grocery 
store, and Mulder could almost see the wheels of calculation 
turning in his mind.  "What's that about?" McBer asked, gesturing 
at the papers.

"Do you remember what you were doing on this date?" Mulder asked, 
tapping the calendar square with the red markings.  

"I was home," McBer said.

"Alone?"

"No, I was fucking every member of the Dallas Cowgirls 
cheerleading squad.  Yes, I was alone," McBer said.

Mulder sat back, taking some of the pressure off McBer by moving 
away.  His goal was to wear the man down slowly, not drive him 
into a panic that would make him refuse to cooperate.  "You 
understand you're not accused of anything but the drunk driving 
charge and the other charge in Suffolk County," Mulder said.  He 
consciously avoided the word "murder."  

"Yes." McBer seemed to relax a little.

"Your cooperation is purely voluntary -- this guy let you know 
that, right?" Mulder asked, gesturing at Joe. 

"Yes," McBer said.  

"If you can help us rule you out, then we can just drop this and 
it won't go any further," Mulder said.  

"Fine.  I've had nothing to do with her," McBer said looking at 
Kristie's picture.  Significantly, he didn't ask what Mulder was 
going to rule him out as.  

Mulder returned to safe questions for a while, asking how long 
McBer had known Chuck Penry, what the two had planned to do on 
the Island, and so on.  He pushed the printout sheets to a corner 
of the desk where McBer would have to turn slightly to see them.  
Even though they were out of his direct line of sight, the man 
clearly found them distracting.  

After a time, McBer stopped giving long answers to anything.  The 
scare of seeing the circled date was starting to work on him.  
Mulder decided it was time to close in.  "Do you know what 
happened to her, John?" he asked, pushing Kristie's picture more 
squarely in front of her suspected killer.

"She's dead," McBer said.

"When did you find out?"

"Friday."

"Did somebody tell you?"  Mulder got no immediate answer.  He 
prompted, "Was it in the newspaper . . .?"  

"It was in the paper."

Mulder wrote that down.  "Which one?"

"I don't know."

"They run this picture with it?" Mulder asked, pointing to the 
obituary photo.  

"No."

"A different one?"

"It might have been a different one."  Only a local paper would 
bother to run a victim's picture.  If Kristie's death had been in 
the Boston papers at all, the article would have been buried on a 
back page.  McBer hadn't quite admitted he'd been on the Vineyard 
before Saturday afternoon, but it was a start.  Davis was 
scribbling something again.

"Do you remember how she died?" Mulder asked.

McBer shook his head slightly.  "She fell over a cliff or 
something.  I don't know."  His failure to mention the knife 
wounds was the first indication of his innocence so far.  

Mulder leaned forward on the desk again, placing his folded hands 
at the top edge of Kristie's picture.  He spoke very gently, "Did 
you kill her, John?"

McBer didn't meet his eyes.  "No."

"Did you plan to kill her?" 

"No."

"Did you threaten her?"

"I never even saw her."  McBer spoke through his clenched teeth, 
looking away at the printed calendar with its red ink markings.

"You want to hear a theory of mine?" McBer looked up at him.  His 
expression probably mirrored that of the murdered narcotics agent 
as he'd watched the specially modified van roll slowly to a stop.  
"I think you came here from Woods Hole at 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday 
the 11th.  You saw your friend Chuck and you made some 
'arrangements' with him.  About 5:30 you got in the van, drove 
out to the Three Sisters Market in Aquinnah and waited for 
Kristie to get off work.  You parked behind her car and sat with 
the engine running." Mulder said.  He wasn't sure McBer was 
breathing.  The look of horrified fascination on his face told 
Mulder he hadn't missed yet.  He continued, "She came out at 
around a quarter after six, and you rolled down the window and 
called her name.  To soften her up you reminded her you knew her 
secret -- that she'd lost a baby last year in Boston.  Did it 
make her cry, John?"  

It seemed to take McBer a moment to realize he'd been asked a 
question.  "I don't know what you're--" he began, but Mulder cut 
him off.

"While you had her there, trapped and scared, you leaned close to 
her and said, 'You'd better call the D.A. and tell him the deal's 
off.  Otherwise you'll end up just like that narc.'"  Mulder 
leaned in and pronounced the words in a menacing whisper, as 
McBer probably had.  McBer's jaw dropped.  He looked as if he 
half expected Mulder to stick out a forked tongue at him.  "The 
threat involved being shot in an alley, didn't it, John?  Or was 
the place you shot the narcotics officer more like an access road 
between warehouses?"

"I didn't shoot anybody," he said weakly.

"Did you push Kristie Herron over a cliff?" Mulder asked.

"I didn't -- I can't.  How am I supposed to get to the edge of a 
cliff?" McBer asked, holding his hands out to indicate his 
wheelchair.  

"If you're telling me it's impossible, then you're talking to the 
wrong guy.  I see impossible things happen every day," Mulder 
said.  He consciously imitated Skinner as he sat back and glared 
at the man.  Skinner had a glare like a scalpel.

"You're crazy," McBer said.  He turned to Joe and said, "This 
guy's a psycho." Joe didn't look at him.  Mulder watched real 
horror cross McBer's face as he realized he might get away with 
one murder he'd committed only to have some nutcase FBI man get 
him convicted of another murder he hadn't.  

"Are you willing to take a polygraph to prove I'm crazy?" Mulder 
asked.  McBer looked uneasy but tempted.  "You haven't got much 
to lose.  We can't use the results against you in court." 

"A polygraph about what?" McBer asked.

"Kristie Herron.  Whether you killed her.  Nothing about the 
other charge," Mulder said.  Actually, he was worried that with 
three years to justify the shooting to himself, McBer could beat 
the box on the '97 murder.  

McBer seemed to consider his options.  "Fine.  I'll do it," he 
said.  Mulder heard uniforms rustling all around the room as 
officers could hardly contain their surprise.  

"Let's be clear about this -- you're cooperating voluntarily.  
You can call a lawyer at any time.  Understand?" Mulder asked.  
McBer nodded.  Mulder asked, "Could you reply verbally for the 
tape?"

"Yes.  I got it."  

Mulder looked up at Joe and said, "Go."  Outside McBer's line of 
vision, Joe gave him a thumbs-up.  

"Come on, Mr. McBer.  We're going to a room down the hall," Joe 
said, leading the other man to the door.  The polygraph 
specialist from the Sheriff's Department was already standing by 
with a list of questions Mulder had written.  The sooner this was 
done, the better -- before their suspect had a chance to change 
his mind.  

After McBer left, Mulder signed off on the tape and shut the 
machine down.  The interview had taken just over 40 minutes.  
That wasn't bad, even for him.  He hadn't even used up both sides 
of the tape.  To his gratified surprise, a couple of people 
started to applaud, but icy stares from several officers cut the 
clapping off quickly.  The quiet that followed was strangely 
awkward and people began a dignified push to get out of the room.  

Mulder took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.  Suddenly he was 
very tired.  He heard footsteps on the hard carpet near the desk 
and looked up.  Sheriff Hawley stood there, looking at him in the 
way Scully's brother Bill generally did.  Mulder thought of it as 
the "I'd like to squash you like a bug" look.  "Sheriff," he 
said.

"You sure know how to get what you want from people, don't you, 
Mr. Mulder?" she asked.  "I always wondered how you managed to 
stay on this side of the cell bars.  I guess now I know."  He 
couldn't think of any good replies, which seemed to intensify her 
contempt.  She turned on her heel and walked out.  

Soon Mulder was alone in the dimly lit office.  //Yeah,// he 
thought, //I really know how to win friends and influence 
people.//

*****

Scully parked in the tiny gravel lot behind Oriel Photography, 
the little housefront shop Irv Stuckey ran in Menemsha.  It 
didn't surprise her that the man had to take a night job.  The 
village seemed to consist of a few dozen houses clustered around 
the edge of an ocean inlet.  She doubted it was much of a tourist 
magnet even in summer.  At the moment the only signs of 
habitation were a couple of very cold-looking men standing on the 
dock that ringed the harbor, fishing through holes chopped in the 
ice.  

The photography shop was a squat, two-story gray house with an 
outdoor staircase that led to a separate entrance on the second 
floor.  According to Leigh, Stuckey and his ex-wife lived in the 
upper story.  Scully got out of the car and headed for the 
stairs.  She found it eerie to be in the middle of a town and 
hear nothing but the wind and the sound of gravel crunching 
beneath her feet.  It reminded her of Mulder's childhood 
nightmare about being the last person alive in the world.  She 
wondered how many year-round residents of Menemsha had the same 
dream.  

The cold made her bruised ribs ache as she climbed the weathered 
steps that zig-zagged up the back of the house.  A rusty coffee 
can full of cigarette butts rested on the landing at the top.  
Unable to find a doorbell, she tapped on the door's glass panel 
with her gloved fingertips. Fortunately, the pane was loose and 
it rattled loudly.  

"Mr. Stuckey?" she called.  "Mr. Stuckey, I'm Special Agent Dana 
Scully with the FBI."  She waited for several seconds but got no 
reply.  Had he even heard her?  The stitches on her knuckles 
prevented her from knocking, so she tapped again and said, "I 
work with Fox Mulder.  I'm here to talk to you about the South 
Road Ghost."

Scully thought she heard voices inside.  She was about to tap a 
third time when a gray-haired woman with a face like a bulldog's 
peered out of the door's little window.  She heard the rattling 
of locks being undone, and then the door jarred open a crack.  
The bulldog-faced woman was quite short.  She glared up at Scully 
and said, "Store's closed.  This is a private entrance." 

"I know, ma'am.  I'm looking for Mr. Irv Stuckey.  I was told he 
lived here." Scully showed the woman her badge and ID.

"You arresting him for something?" the woman asked.  She sounded 
hopeful.  

"He contacted my partner and me about a case.  I only want to talk 
to him," Scully said.

"A 'case?'" the woman asked.  Suddenly she seemed to make a 
connection.  "You're from Washington," she said.

"That's right, ma'am.  From the FBI's X-Files Unit," Scully said.

The woman scowled and said, "Oh, for Christ's sake."  She turned 
and bellowed into the house, "Stuckey!  The Mulder kid sent some 
girl to talk to you about your fairy story."

A muffled voice replied, "Would you just shut up and send her 
down, Emma?"

"He'll see you downstairs," Emma said, and slammed the door.

"Charming," Scully said under her breath.  There was nothing else 
to do but walk back downstairs and around to the front entrance.  

The sheltered front porch was probably nice enough in summer, but 
at the moment a cold wind coming off the water cut right through 
Scully's coat and her borrowed clothes.  Trying to keep her back 
to the weather, she tugged the string of the heavy iron pull-bell 
that was bolted to the doorframe.  It sounded like what it had 
likely been, a 19th century fire alarm.  She heard a man inside 
say, "All right!  All right -- keep your pantyhose on." 

A little man with wispy gray hair opened the door and squinted at 
her out of the house's dimness.  He was wearing button-down long 
underwear and bulky gray socks.  "Mr. Stuckey?" Scully asked.

"So you read my fax after all," he said.  

"Yes.  I'd like to talk with you about that," Scully said.

"Come in," Irv said, moving aside out of the doorway.  Scully 
walked past him into the shop.  The windows had all been covered 
with an assortment of curtains, blankets, and sheets, but light 
from the open door revealed an old-fashioned cash register 
sitting on a counter at the back of the room.  A couple of space 
heaters glowed orange but illuminated nothing.  Once she was 
inside with the door closed, the gloom was formidable.  

"Give me just a minute," Irv said.  He walked back to a 
curtained-off inner door and passed through it into some unseen 
room.  

As her eyes adjusted, Scully realized there was a camp cot near 
the space heaters.  Irv had clearly just gotten out of it, half-
tumbling its blankets to the floor.  Somehow knowing this room 
served as Irv's bedroom made her uncomfortable.  She ran her 
hands over the wall by the door until she found a light switch. 

When she flicked it on she found herself in a tiny photo gallery.  
The walls were covered with matted prints, and photography 
equipment rested on shelves behind the counter.  A camera with a 
long telephoto lens was mounted on a tripod in the corner.    

Scully looked over some of the framed prints.  Many were standard 
photos of local architectural detail -- wood-shingled Victorian 
house spires, delicate fanlights above lavender or teal-painted 
doors, a round window behind the wrought-iron railing of a 
widow's walk.  

The nature photos were more to her liking.  Most were in black 
and white, and they tended to have a stark, almost Japanese 
asymmetry to them.  One print drew her particular attention.  
It was of an ice sheet with an irregular hole punched in it. 
The water inside was the strange, luminous green of the 
ice-locked sea, and deep below its surface lay something dark.  
No matter how hard Scully looked at the dark shape she could not 
make out its outline.  A rock?  A spar?  It created a sinister 
impression, as if it were waiting for someone to remain too long 
by the hole.  She glanced at the title, written in pencil on the 
mat: "Window Through The Ice."  

She frowned and looked up at the other pictures on the wall.  For 
the first time she realized how many of them were of literal 
windows, and the telephoto lens in the corner took on a darker 
significance.  The only human subject in the whole collection was 
a young girl, or rather her eyes, which were opened so wide they 
reflected back a tiny, distorted image of the photographer.  
Scully looked for a few seconds before turning away in distaste. 
She had the feeling there was some subtle violence in the 
picture, as if Irv were trying to peer inside the girl.  She 
thought that if it had been up to her, she would have questioned 
Irv Stuckey very carefully after Samantha Mulder disappeared.

Soon the man himself returned from the back room, tucking the 
tails of his flannel shirt into his creased and faded jeans.  Two 
dogs followed him, an enormous black Lab and a little, curly-
haired mutt.  The mutt trotted boldly up and sniffed Scully's 
shoe.  

"Step in something?" Irv asked.

"Not that I know of."  Normally she liked dogs, but she was 
starting to make up her mind not to like Irv's.  She didn't 
appreciate this one getting its wet nose all over the navy 
leather of her pump.  

"Hey, Meatloaf, back off," Irv said.  The dog scooted back 
slightly on its stubby legs, wagging its tail so hard its whole 
butt wiggled.  "Looks like you've been having some adventures out 
here, Miss Scully," Irv said.

Scully didn't like his little smirk, and she fixed him with as 
cold a look as she could manage.  "What makes you say that?" she 
asked.  She'd purposely kept her gloves on her bandaged hands in 
order to conceal the kind of adventures she'd been having.  

"You're wearing someone else's pants," Irv said, chuckling.

"Excuse me?"  She briefly considered slapping him.  Federal 
agents weren't allowed fits of ladylike indignation, which was a 
pity.  

"Come on now, look at you.  You've got on your tailored coat and 
your hair done just so.  You got on shoes that match your 
handbag, but none of it matches those baggy black pants.  They 
give you elephant knees, girl.  You take a spill in the bog and 
have to go slumming at the church bazaar?" Irv asked.  

Scully willed herself to stay professional and preserve some 
dignity.  "I can't remember the last time a man paid so much 
attention to my outfit, Mr. Stuckey," she said.  She didn't know 
why she was surprised.  All around her was evidence of Irv's 
relentless gaze. 

"Oh, I notice all kind of things," he said.  He smiled at her 
like an evil gnome.  

She was determined to steer the conversation back to the case.  
"I'd like you to explain some of the things in your fax, like 
what you meant about 'what happened in Boston,'" Scully said.  

"Oh, that.  The Herron girl had a child that died -- it was the 
dope that did it in.  I don't think she ever did tell her folks.  
A shame, the parents always seemed decent.  Of course, you never 
can tell," Irv said.  

"And how do you know all that?" Scully asked.

His smile broadened.  "I've got ways and ways," he said.  

"And I've got ways of reporting you for obtaining medical records 
under false pretenses," Scully said.

She was gratified when that wiped the grin off his face.  "I 
never did," he said.  "It's part of her police record.  The 
hospitals report these women when they come in pregnant, higher 
than a kite.  They throw some of 'em in jail, but not pretty 
girls with folks on the Vineyard, I guess."

"You wrote away for her police record?" Scully asked.

"Sure.  Sunshine laws are the best thing that ever happened to 
this country.  Sometimes they want you to pay through the nose 
for copying, but it's usually worth it.  I'm sure Fox would agree 
with me," Irv said. 

Scully thought the comparison did Mulder a great disservice.  
"Mulder doesn't go prying into the police records of his 
neighbors," she said.

"Oh, yes he does.  That boy never could leave a secret alone.  
Being an FBI agent and all, he doesn't even have to pay.  I bet 
on his off-hours he does nothing but pry.  Well, almost nothing 
but," Irv said.  Scully pretended not to see his knowing little 
leer, but it irked her. This was exactly the kind of subtle 
harassment she dreaded having to face from her co-workers, much 
less people she was interviewing.  
 
She gave him her best icy glare as she tried to drag him back on 
track.  "Explain to me about the South Road Ghost."

Irv shrugged.  "What's there to tell?  They say women who've 
murdered their children hear Mary Brown calling to them from deep 
in the woods.  It's always a wild night in winter, and some say 
you can hear the voices of those dead babies crying in the wind.  
If a woman follows the voices she'll be found slashed to death 
the next day.  I once spoke to an old down-island woman who knew 
someone it happened to.  Deaf lady -- never heard a thing in her 
life but her own dead child calling her name.  She went out into 
the woods around the graveyard and never came back."

Irv's smirk returned as he said, "You know, you ought to ask Fox 
about it.  Ask him what his mama heard out in those trees.  After 
all this time they won't find that girl of hers, not above the 
sod, anyway."

"Mr. Stuckey, that is enough," Scully snapped.  She was surprised 
at the depth of her anger at him; she was nearly shaking with it.  
"The rumors you've spread have caused his family a lot of pain.  
It's been 26 years, and it's time to stop."  Leigh Williams had 
told her how Mulder had gone from a friendly little boy to a 
withdrawn and unhappy adolescent.  How much of that suffering was 
Irv Stuckey directly responsible for?  

His pale blue eyes widened a moment at her vehemence, but he 
wasn't off-balance long.  "You're protective, aren't you?" he 
said slyly.  "I expect he likes that.  He always did have a thing 
for mother-figures.  I suppose that's only natural, Teena being 
the way she was.  Tell me, is he an enemas and plastic pants 
boy?"  

"What?" was all Scully could think to say.  Irv had gotten so 
inappropriate she hardly knew how to respond.

"Well, never mind -- it was his father who made him the time-bomb 
he is, anyway.  I'm surprised the FBI lets him walk around armed 
with all those excessive force citations in his file," Irv said.

"Where did you --" Scully began, then she realized she knew. "You 
made a FOIA request for the contents of his personnel file." 

"He's a federal employee.  His file's a public record," Irv said.  
"You'd be surprised at the kind of information you can get if you 
ask: probate records, filings with friend of the court . . ."  He 
gave Scully a look as if she was supposed to read something into 
that.  "Of course, they always ink out the names of minors.  Fox 
has a juvenile record in Connecticut, for instance, but it's 
sealed.  Oh -- you didn't know that?  Ask him about Fairfield 
County Juvenile Court sometime, or about the time he poisoned the 
cat.  I think that's what set old Sheriff Luce sniffing after 
him, more than anything else."

Scully forced herself to keep her mouth shut while she recited 
one of the Fatima prayers to herself, the one about people who 
needed God's mercy.  //You have too little respect for this man 
to let him enrage you,// she thought.  When she spoke it was 
deliberately, but without anger.  "Mr. Stuckey, what did you call 
us out here for?  If it was just to assassinate my partner's 
character, then you're wasting my time and yours."

"I called you out here to find the truth," he said.  "Isn't that 
what you people do?  I've seen your file too, Miss Scully.  
You're a scientist who's lately become interested in . . . how 
did they put it, 'extreme possibilities.' If there's something 
out there, you have to *know.*  Or do 'Texas killer bees' not 
ring a bell?"     

"I wouldn't be in such a hurry to get that information if I were 
you," Scully said.  "People have died because they knew too much 
about what's in those files."

"You're lovely when you're threatening, but I'll take my chances,"
Irv said.  "And since we're talking about the South Road Ghost, 
I wanted to ask you something.  I know you tried and failed to 
get custody of a child who died in 1998.  You claimed she was 
your daughter, though your personnel file says you have no 
children.  Last night when you were out ruining your real 
clothes, did you hear her calling you?"

Scully felt the blood drain from her face.  For a moment she had 
no words to respond.  Irv smiled, clearly enjoying her helpless 
outrage.  When she finally found her voice, it was only to say, 
"Go to Hell."    

She walked out of the house and slammed the door behind her.  By 
the time she got to the car, she was crying.  It was one thing to 
slander a grown man like Mulder, but to taunt Scully with her 
daughter's death was too cruel.  Who had Emily ever hurt, that 
Irv Stuckey should gloat over her fatal illness?  Scully's 
tires shot up arcs of gravel as she peeled out of the parking 
lot, determined not to give Irv the satisfaction of seeing her
cry.  As she turned into the street she saw his hand twitch a 
curtain closed over the window.

*****

The overcrowded Dukes County Jail could spare no space for a 
break room, but it did have two vending machines in a stairwell.  
Mulder had gotten his first real meal of the day out of those.  
He sat on the stairs, finishing off a soggy chicken salad 
sandwich and a Pepsi.  He hoped that the caffeine would help 
nurse his adrenaline rush along for a little while longer.  He 
could already feel the bone-deep fatigue that would set in once 
that energy wore off.  

There was a fair chance that the interview he'd just done would 
only be round one.  If the polygraph poked holes in McBer's story 
he might want to try and explain them away, and Mulder wouldn't 
deny him the opportunity.  In his experience, just about every 
suspect who remained talkative after a bad polygraph convicted 
himself.  

He glanced at his watch and saw that it was after three.  He 
wondered what Scully was doing.  The last time he'd seen her he'd 
gotten the distinct impression she was trying to get rid of him.  
His phone was in his jacket pocket, lying on the steps beside 
him.  He dug it out and dialed her cell number.  After several 
rings a cheerful voice told him, "The cellular unit you are 
trying to reach is turned off or out of the service area."  

Mulder punched the "off" button and told himself not to read too 
much into that.  Maybe she was sleeping.  Probably Darkest 
Chilmark didn't even have a cell tower.  Still, he couldn't shake 
the mental image of her wandering over some godforsaken up-island 
ridge, her injured hands tucked into her pockets for warmth, 
searching for something she didn't want to talk to him about.  
He'd done similar things before.  

It didn't mean he had to like it when she did them.  

His thoughts were interrupted when Joe opened the door to the 
stairwell.  Mulder stood up, dusting crumbs off his lap.  "How'd 
it go?" he asked.  He suspected that McBer and his accomplice 
had plotted against Kristie but were prevented from carrying out 
their plan by paranormal events.  Conspiracy to commit murder 
could still draw a life sentence in Massachusetts, however.

Joe seemed weary as he said, "McBer passed all the questions 
about the homicide.  The box said he was telling the truth when 
he told us he didn't kill Kristie and didn't know who did."

Mulder nodded.  That fit with his earlier assessment of paranormal
activity.  "What about meeting her and making threats?"

"He flunked."

//Got the sonofabitch.//  He felt a surge of energy, but the feeling
was more grim than satisfying.  Vindication was always bittersweet 
when you were a prophet of doom.  "What about the contract part?  
You get him on hiring a killer?"  

The other man shook his head.  "That one was inconclusive.  What 
we've got is good enough for a warrant -- when the State Police 
go through his phone records maybe they can establish a 
connection to somebody."

Mulder had his doubts, but he agreed it was worth a shot.  "Does 
McBer want to talk to me some more?"

"I think that's about that last thing he wants.  When I left he 
was asking to call his lawyer.  I think Davis is done with you 
for the day.  Speaking of which, you know what time it is?"  Joe 
pulled his pager from the pocket of his borrowed uniform and 
looked down at the screen as if it might bite.

"It's about quarter after three," Mulder told him.

"Oh, man . . ." Joe said, pushing the pager's display-change 
button again and again.  "I had this thing turned off in the 
interview room.  My sister's going to kill me.  I'm supposed to 
be home by now.  Someone has to stay with my mom while Cheryl 
goes to work."  

"Your mom's not sick, is she?" Mulder asked.  He had always liked 
Mrs. Luce.  

Joe gave him a strange look.  "It's just the MS.  The same thing 
she'd had for 20 years."

Mulder hadn't known she had anything.  He tried to recall what he 
knew about multiple sclerosis, which wasn't much.  "Is it bad?" 
he asked.

"Your dad didn't tell you any of this?" Joe asked.  

"My dad and I didn't talk much," Mulder said.  For years Mulder 
and his father saw each other only at weddings and funerals, and 
then it was pretty much just funerals.  It got so whenever Mulder 
heard his father's voice on the phone he wondered who had died.

"That's too bad," Joe replied.  He seemed about to ask a 
question, but something in Mulder's expression must have made him 
change his mind.  He looked away. "Anyway . . . I need to give 
Tom Brennan back his uniform.  This thing is driving me crazy."  
He tugged at the jail officer's too-tight shirt.  

"Hey, Joe?" 

"Yeah?" 

"You think your mom would mind if I went out there?  Just to see 
her . . . you know.  It's been a long time."  

"No, she wouldn't mind."  He looked surprised but not displeased 
at the request.  "She'd probably like that." 

Mulder was glad.  He hadn't gotten over his own mother deciding 
that she never needed to see him again.  He wanted somebody's 
mother to be happy to see him.

*****

Later, the two of them sat in Joe's blue Mercury, driving west on 
Rural Route 1 toward Chilmark.  The first several minutes were 
quiet and awkward.  Somehow the close confines of the car made 
all the things unsaid between them harder to ignore.  Mulder 
spent the time watching the familiar, oddly-named cross streets 
go by: Quenomica; Old Purchase; Dark Woods Road.  

He broke the silence as they passed Martha's Vineyard Airport, 
roughly the halfway mark.  "So, tell me about your mom," Mulder 
said, looking over at Joe.  

"Her health was really pretty good until recently," Joe said.  He 
kept his gaze on the road, which probably made talking about this 
sort of thing easier. "Actually she used to drive a van a lot 
like McBer's until her coordination got so bad she couldn't stop 
at red lights anymore.  That was scary as hell.  She spun out on 
bone-dry pavement and put the van into a ditch."  Joe shook his 
head.  He had a slightly distant look in his eyes, as if he were 
seeing the accident all over again.  "Cher and I had this whole 
care plan all worked out, but we were still thinking 'someday,' 
not 'today.'  It didn't matter -- none of it went the way we 
thought it would, anyway.  We both ended up moving back to the 
old house again, if you can believe that."

Mulder tried to imagine himself moving back in with his mother at 
the age of 38.  The idea was sobering.  Joe continued, "We're 
lucky that Cheryl's a visiting nurse.  Between me and her and her 
co-workers at VNA, Mom's got pretty close to round-the-clock 
care.  Not that it always helps.  The other week she accidentally 
put her hand down on a hot burner.  The whole thing is making her 
nuts -- she's been on her own since my dad died in '66, and now 
all of a sudden she's dependent.  Sometimes I think she hates us 
for trying to taking care of her.  You know you try to prepare 
yourself for the role reversal when your parents get older, but 
until it happens to you, you have no idea."

"I guess not," Mulder said.  His own mother had chosen to die 
rather than reverse those particular roles with him.

Joe glanced over, seeming embarrassed.  "I'm sorry -- I didn't 
mean you personally had no idea.  You just lost your mother.  Of 
course you do."  

"No.  My mother's death was kind of . . . sudden," Mulder said.  
He was unable to keep the edge of bitterness out of his voice.

"Oh."

Awkwardness again.  Mulder gave conversation another shot.  "I 
was wondering, how did you find out about me profiling James 
Sproule?" he asked.

"Your dad told me," Joe said.

"You sure?  I don't think I ever talked to him about that."

"Of course I'm sure.  He showed me the guy's mug shot in the 
paper.  I said Sproule looked like a librarian, and he agreed 
with me.  I was sure I'd never have pegged him."

"My name didn't come up in the article, did it?" Mulder asked.  
He didn't see why it would, since he hadn't made the actual 
arrest.  On the other hand, he didn't see how else his father 
could have known -- at least not through legitimate news sources.  

"To tell you the truth, I didn't read it.  Your dad stopped by 
the station while I was trying to do about five other things. I 
looked at the picture, said the guy looked like a librarian, and 
said good for you -- you caught a maniac."

"Did you and my dad talk often?" Mulder asked.

"Not all that often.  Every now and then."  

Mulder nodded.  He preferred to think his dad never talked to 
anybody except at funerals.  He didn't want that treatment to be 
especially for him.  

"Is it a problem?" Joe asked.

Mulder turned to the window so his face wouldn't give anything 
away.  "He didn't talk to me."

They passed groves of tupelo trees and frost-covered cranberry 
orchards without speaking.  At last, Joe said, "I was worried 
about that."

"About what?" Mulder asked.

"Sometimes I got the impression he hoped I would relay messages 
so he wouldn't have to call you himself.  I told him I wasn't the 
person he should be talking to.  I told him we weren't in 
contact, but it didn't seem to make a difference."

Mulder kept his gaze focused on the landscape outside.  With 
studied nonchalance, he asked, "What did he say?" 

"Different things.  Positive things, mostly.  He thought a lot of 
you."

Mulder wanted to believe what Joe said was true.  He wanted to 
believe a lot of things about his father.  Finally he asked, "You 
still have a funny feeling about my dad and my sister's 
disappearance?" 

The question seemed to make Joe uncomfortable.  "I don't know, 
Fox . . ." 

Mulder turned and glared him.  "You 'don't know?'  You guys 
practically ran my family out of town, and you don't know?"  

"I was ten years old when you lost your sister.  I didn't know 
what I thought about anything.  We had that fight in what -- 
1978?  It's been over longer than either of us was alive at the 
time.  Can't you drop it?" 

"It's not over," Mulder said.  He returned his gaze to the window 
and added, "It will never be over."   Not so long as he 
remembered her.  

"The part about me being a smartass fifteen-year-old is over," 
Joe said.  "Thank God we don't have to stay the people we were 20 
years ago."

The thought of two grown men, approaching middle age, scrapping 
like schoolboys in a sandlot was ridiculous.  Joe had a point.  
Mulder glowered at the junction between earth and sky until he'd 
convinced himself that he was angry at fate and not the man next 
to him.  Scully would tell him to relax: //Relax, Mulder.  You 
can go kick Fate's ass another day.//  He felt some of the 
tension leave his muscles.  "Sorry."  

"It's all right," Joe said.  "And I'm not jerking you around.  I 
really don't know how to answer your question.  None of it makes 
sense to me.  Logic tells me it's not real likely your sister 
would vanish the way she did without your family being involved, 
but I saw what happened to your parents after they lost her.  It 
was killing them.  The police interviewed you guys separately, 
together, the day after it happened, six months after . . . .  
I know you've seen the interview transcripts because I'm the one 
who mailed them to you after you wrote for them under FOIA. The 
only story that changed was yours, and you went from remembering
nothing to talking about bright lights and who-knows-what.  Even 
that makes no sense at all.  I can't explain any of it."

Mulder didn't want to argue anymore.  Joe's words made him feel 
very tired.  "Welcome to my life," he said.

*****

The first several minutes at the Luce house were chaos -- Cheryl 
had to get to work, her kids were supposed to be at their 
father's, Joe offered to take them but didn't know who would stay 
with his mother, and Mrs. Luce kept insisting she did not need a 
babysitter.  Mulder's offer to stay at the house was accepted 
with a gratitude that surprised him.  He wasn't sure if this 
meant old grudges had truly been forgotten or if domestic turmoil 
had driven the Luce family to acts of insanity.

At any rate, he and Mrs. Luce soon had the house to themselves.  
The two of them sat at the scarred oak dining table, he in a 
slat-backed chair, resting his chin in his hand, she in an 
electric scooter, running purple chenille yarn through a tabletop 
loom.  Sam Cooke's "You Send Me" played faintly from a radio in 
the kitchen.

"So what's that going to be?" he asked, gesturing at the purple 
fabric that was taking shape.

She smiled as if the question amused her.  "Maybe a placemat, 
maybe a scarf.  Depends on how quickly I get tired of weaving it.  
Really it's just something to do with my hands."  Despite Joe's 
concerns, she looked perfectly healthy.  Her blue eyes were clear 
and alert, and she carried herself like a young pine: as if her 
resiliency more than made up for any strength lost to lack of 
straightness. Still, Mulder hadn't been quite prepared for her 
white hair or the way the bones in her hands stood out.  It 
wasn't lost on him that the kitchen radio had a knitting needle 
taped on as an antenna extender.  He wondered when she'd given up 
knitting.

"You know I still have those mittens you made me," he said.  
Well, in a sense he still had them.  He suspected they were in a 
box buried in a storage unit in Greenwich, Connecticut.  

She looked up at him.  "Which ones?"  Then she seemed to 
remember.  "Oh! The ones where I let you pick the colors."  Five-
year-old Fox had picked every color she had, including the ones 
he'd never heard of: sepia, saffron, vermilion, aubergine.

"They matched everything," he said.

"Except each other.  That's right."  

"I'm surprised you were so nice to me, considering," Mulder said.  
At age five, he'd been just as fond of asking impossible 
questions as he was at age thirty-eight, and he'd been less 
tactful at the time.  

"You were a good boy," said Mrs. Luce, as if laying to rest
persistent rumors to the contrary. 

"Sure, good at driving you up a wall."  

She spoke in a comfortably distracted way as she tapped the 
newest row of yarn into place: "Mm -- you had an edge to you, 
yes, but I always thought there was a lot of anxiety behind that.  
Your mother seemed to be the same way: very intense, very -- 
anxious to please, maybe?"

Mulder smiled a little, remembering that side of her.  "She had a 
greater interest in conformity than I did.  I used to embarrass 
her." He remembered her reminding him to keep his inquisitive 
streak in check as she zipped up his jacket: "Don't ask about the 
accident or bother Mrs. Luce with questions.  She has enough to 
worry about as it is.  Remember, you're there to be polite and to 
help make Joey feel better.  If he or Mrs. Luce wants to talk 
about the funeral they'll let you know, so don't bring it up.  
And Fox, do not ask questions about why God kills people before 
taking them to heaven or what it's like to be dead."  Budding 
investigator that he was, the hush-hush treatment of death and 
dying had merely obsessed him with the subject.  

Trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible, he asked, "How 
well did you know my mother?" 

She paused in her work, perhaps hearing something significant in 
the question.  "Reasonably well, though I can't say we were 
close.  We never talked about much besides our children.  Why do 
you ask?"

"I guess . . ."  He ran his fingertips over a dent in the table.  
Somehow, it was easier to talk when he wasn't looking at her.  "I 
guess because lately I've been wondering how well I knew her."    

He heard her set down her shuttle.  "Has something happened?"

He hoped he'd said this enough times that he would stay calm when 
talking about it.  "I lost her recently."  The tremor was minor, 
but he could feel the telltale stillness inside of him, like 
something was in free fall.  He briefly considered not going on.  
When he spoke again, his voice broke like glass: "She never told 
me she was sick."  

The pressure building in his chest was probably a sob, but he 
never found out if he contained it.  A seizure-vision kicked in 
instead.  The sensation of reality shifting was physical, like 
falling onto a slab of concrete and passing straight through.  

He was five years old, leaning with his back against the Luces' 
front door.  The house smelled like funeral flowers.  Mr. Luce's 
shoes, caked with dried mud, rested on a sheet of old newspaper 
beside him.  The shoes made Fox uneasy.  He didn't think they 
should be there.  

Flowers were sitting in vases and jars all over the house, but he 
couldn't talk about them because he wasn't supposed to say 
"funeral."  He wasn't supposed to say "dying" or "dead" or 
"killed" either, but those words stayed in his head and worried 
him.  What if he got confused and said something bad by accident?  
No, he should say 'by mistake' -- he wasn't supposed to talk 
about accidents, either.  

He had said and done some bad things at the funeral and his dad 
had taken him out and smacked him.  He was ashamed of that.  He 
hadn't been able to explain that the church was a bad place for 
him to be and that staying there had been like not being able to 
breathe.  He thought Mr. Luce might feel the same way inside his 
wooden box.

Fox heard grownup footsteps on the stairs and fought the urge to 
suck his fingers like a baby.  He wrapped his hand around the 
doorknob instead.  Mrs. Luce came downstairs, wearing jeans and a 
ponytail like a teenager, but with a laundry basket balanced on 
her hip like a mom.  

She stopped on the last step and asked, "What's the matter?" 

"Whose shoes are those?"  Fox asked softly, although he was sure 
he knew.

She looked at him a moment, then turned to look out the window at 
the squirrels snatching seeds out of the birdfeeder.  Fox worried 
that she'd walk right by him without speaking.  Sometimes his mom 
did that after he asked a bad question.  That hurt his feelings 
worse than any spanking ever hurt.  

Instead, Mrs. Luce put down the basket and sat on the stairs.  
She looked like she might want to cry.  "Those are Joey and 
Cheryl's daddy's shoes," she said.

Fox's own daddy's shoes were in the same place at home.  "Is he 
here?" he asked, still very quiet.

She shook her head.  "No."  She spoke so softly it was almost not 
a word. 

"Then why are they here?"  He didn't understand how a man could 
line up his muddy shoes neatly by the door and then walk away 
forever.  How could there still be muddy shoes after a father had 
died?  How could everything look just the same?  

"They bother you?  You want me to get rid of them?"  She seemed 
to dislike him just then.

Fox nodded slowly.  He did not want to make her angry.  It was 
only that a man who was dead and in a box should not have his 
shoes waiting for him by the door. It was too sad to think 
they'd wait and wait and he'd never come home to wear them.

"Fine."  She got up and walked to the edge of the newspaper, but 
then she just stood there.  Fox got the idea she was thinking 
about leaving the shoes there and sending him home instead.  
Finally she picked them up, newspaper and all, and tossed them in 
the closet.  She shut the door as if there were a wild animal on 
the other side.  "Is that better?"  

Fox was too upset to answer.  He wished she would send him home.  
This house had a crushing feeling in it even worse than at the 
funeral.  He gave in to his babyish desire and sucked the two 
middle fingers of his left hand.  

Mrs. Luce started to look less angry and more sad as she watched 
him comfort himself.  "Is this about your daddy?"  Her voice 
reminded him of the way a top jittered and shook just before it 
fell down.  "Are you scared your daddy will go away and not come 
home?"  Fox nodded.  

Light footsteps sounded on the wooden floor.  Joey had given up 
playing alone in the back room and stood near the dining table, 
twisting the hem of his shirt in his hands.  "Come here," Mrs. 
Luce said, holding her hands out to both children.  

She sat on the stairs and pulled them into her lap.  "It was an 
accident.  It was an accident with a little tiny boat out on the 
big water.  Joey's daddy didn't mean to leave us.  He made a 
mistake and took the little boat out farther than it could go.  He 
didn't do it on purpose."  Fox curled into the hollow of her 
shoulder and wondered why she kept saying that.  It had never 
occurred to him that a parent would die on purpose and leave his 
child.  

Mrs. Luce rocked them. "What happened to Joey's daddy isn't going 
to happen to me, and it isn't going to happen to your mommy and 
daddy, Fox.  We're going to be here for a long, long time, until 
you're all grown up and you don't need us so much anymore."  It 
would have been easier to believe if she wasn't crying when she 
said it.   

Mulder's awareness returned to the present-day in sections.  The 
sensation of his body hunched over the table came first.  Mrs. 
Luce's voice, reedier than he remembered but still soothing, 
formed a bewildering bridge between the past and the present.  

"Fox, what is it?  What's the matter?"

At first he thought he was crying.  Then he realized he wasn't -- 
he was trying not to be sick.  He sat with his eyes closed, his 
forehead resting on his balled fists.  Sam Cooke was still 
warbling in the background: " . . . you thrill me, honest you do, 
honest you do."  The flashback must have lasted only seconds.  
This was not one of the waking nightmares of PTSD -- those 
happened in real time.  This was something electrochemical -- 
something deep.  He could almost hear the thin whine of Goldman's 
drill as he'd prepared to tunnel into Mulder's cerebral cortex, 
rooting for memories.  He'd found some, all right.  He turned his 
thoughts away from the vision of C.G.B. Spender pulling his 
mother close.

Mulder knocked the chair over as he got up.  "Sorry," he 
muttered.  He walked into the kitchen and turned on the tap, 
rinsing the sick taste from his mouth with handful after cupped 
handful of water.  

Mrs. Luce's electric scooter buzzed as she came up behind him.  
"Are you all right?  I don't understand what's happening.  Should 
I call the hospital?"

He shook his head.  He knew he owed her some kind of explanation.  
Which one should he give her -- the holes in his head or the 
alien virus that was slowly re-writing the genetic code in his 
brain?  No contest -- it was neither.  

Between rinsing and spitting he said: "'S a head injury -- old 
one.  I'll be all right.  Just gimme a minute."  

"For God's sake, Fox, are you seeing a doctor?" 

"Yeah."  Since the beginning of March, actually.  Oh, Scully's 
God would put a big, black mark in the book next to his name for 
that one.    

When he was finally done washing his mouth out, he soaked a dish 
towel in cold water, wrung it out and went to sit back down.  He 
placed the towel on the back of his neck.  "I'm sorry," he said.  
He was dimly aware that he'd been apologizing to her since the 
seizure hit him.  

"Don't be sorry.  What can I do for you?"  She positioned her 
scooter next to him and sponged his neck and forehead with the 
dishcloth.  

He interrupted her by shaking his head.  "Just tell me . . . did 
she love us?"

"Did who love you -- your mother?"  

He nodded.  

Mrs. Luce sat back as if to better read his expression.  Mulder 
wondered what she saw there that seemed to concern her so much.  
"Of course she loved you.  Of course.  Why would you even ask 
that?"

"She had this whole other life . . ." 

"A woman's life doesn't start when her children are born, you 
know," she said.

"It's not that.  There's this man, his name is C.G.B. Spender."  
Mulder hesitated to tell her the rest.  It seemed especially 
wicked to impugn the character of a woman who was no longer alive 
to defend herself.  He remembered how his mother had slapped him 
in her hurt and outrage. //"I am your mother and I will not stand 
here and listen to your accusations."//  

//I have to know,// Mulder thought, maybe making justifications 
to himself, maybe to the spirit of his mother.  "I know Spender 
was around when I was young.  I've seen pictures of him with my 
parents.  He told me . . . he came right out and told me he's my 
father.  He implied that he's Samantha's, too."

Mrs. Luce rested the damp rag in her lap.  There was horror in 
her expression, and compassion as well, but no shock, Mulder 
thought.  Definitely not shock.  Perhaps Churchill had looked so 
when Paris fell.  

"Bill Mulder was your father." She spoke firmly, as if reminding 
him of a duty he had forgotten.  "He fed you.  He clothed you.  
He saw that you got an education."

"I'm not denying that.  I'm not saying I'm not grateful.  It's 
just -- what if it's true?  Forget not knowing who my father was, 
I'd feel like I hardly knew who my mother was," Mulder said.

She looked at him hard.  "Bill Mulder was your father."  Her 
words had a finality to them, like a door closing.

That front was clearly futile, and Mulder turned away from it.  
"There's other things," he said.  It was hard to talk while 
looking into that steady blue gaze, so he got up and wandered 
over to the door to the kitchen.  The radio had started playing 
that damn Shirelles song: "While I'm far away from you my baby, 
I know it's hard for you my baby . . ." The last fucking thing he 
was in the mood for.  

"I think my mother knew what was going to happen to Samantha.  
Not that she could have stopped it, but she knew.  And she never 
told me.  She let me spend all those years looking."  He kept his 
gaze on the little window over the sink.  The orange berries of 
an ash tree growing outside were the only spot of color against 
the late winter landscape.

He heard Mrs. Luce sigh.  "The past is what you make it, Fox.  
Why make it terrible?"

He spoke as if he hadn't heard.  "The last thing she said to me 
was, 'There's so much I've left unsaid, for reasons I hope one 
day you'll understand.'  Actually, she said it to my machine.  
She didn't even wait for me to get home . . ."  His disordered 
mind offered up sensations: the smell of cold ashes, a leaky gas 
line making his eyes water.  He remembered the picture frames 
lying around empty but not the tableau on the couch.  //Please, 
God, don't let me have seen that . . .//  He knew she'd used a 
plastic bag -- probably got that idea from "Final Exit."  It was 
always bad when they used plastic.  He remembered what had been 
left of Ed Paulsen when they finally caught up with him in that 
cabin outside Marquette -- and what wasn't left.  Plastic was 
like a little greenhouse.  //Dammit, Paulsen had been dead for 
weeks.  This is different.//  He had a dim mental image of the 
blue-and-white couch and felt sick.  He'd probably seen.  //Oh, 
Scully . . . why didn't you keep me out of there?// 

In tears, he turned to Mrs. Luce, hoping she'd distract him from 
what he couldn't remember seeing and never wanted to see again.  
"She'd -- she'd taken the pictures and things, you know?  She 
burned 'em in the trash basket.  I mean, why would she do that?  
Like . . . like s-she wanted to wipe out everything to do with 
her life, or maybe just about Samantha and me . . ."

"Fox, slow down.  I don't understand."  Mrs. Luce held her hand 
out to him, the way she had when he was five and afraid of Mr. 
Luce's shoes.  

He walked by her and sat down.  She rubbed his shoulder in little 
circles.  When he felt calmer he continued, "My mother . . . she 
committed suicide, Mrs. Luce.  She had cancer, but that's not how 
she wanted to die.  I guess it was her right.  Maybe I wouldv'e 
seen it her way in time, I don't know.  But she never told me.  
She had the will and the papers all drawn up, she bought a 
goddamn grave plot and she never told me.  I didn't figure into 
this carefully thought-out plan.  I mean, we'd had some 
arguments; I accused her of some things.  But I thought it was 
mostly okay between us.  Now I don't know.  Do you think . . . do 
you think she'd do this to hurt me?  Because I sure have a hard 
time seeing it any other way."

"I wish I knew what to tell you."  Mrs. Luce took his hand in her 
free one, and Mulder noticed the brown burn marks on her fingers, 
as Joe had described.  He covered her fingers with his own.  "I 
just can't reconcile what you're telling me with what I knew of 
your mother.  She cherished you . . . .  I didn't know anyone 
who listened to her children the way your mother did.  It 
wasn't in fashion at the time.  She'd point out things and ask, 
'What is that, Fox?  What do you think it does?'  And she'd 
really listen to your explanation, whether it was right or
not.  I thought, 'That's really smart.  She's teaching him to 
think.' It sounds so obvious now, but it wasn't then.  

"I suppose it sounds wrong to say you were in love, but mothers 
and children are in love, in a very innocent way.  The two of you 
were obviously mad about each other."

Mulder bent his head, remembering a time when he and his mother 
were in love, when she was the sunlight at the center of his 
little universe.  Then something had gotten in the way, whether 
it was C.G.B. Spender or a multi-national abduction conspiracy or 
just the mismatch of personalities that sometimes happened 
between parents and children.  But after a while Fox's questions 
and hypotheses stopped being cute and became threatening, and his 
mother didn't want to listen anymore.  Maybe that was why he felt 
so cheated by her death.  Some people were able to recapture the 
tenderness of their early years at the end of their parents' 
lives, when the care-taking roles were reversed.  His mother had 
not been interested.  Did she not trust him?  Did she really not 
love him?

Mulder looked up and said, "Mrs. Luce?  Do your kids a favor and 
let them take care of you.  Maybe you don't need it, but they 
do."  

She drew breath as though she meant to argue with him, but then 
her expression softened, as if something, maybe pity, had 
persuaded her to let the dispute go.  He hoped it wasn't pity.  

Mulder's hair really wasn't long enough for her to brush it out
of his eyes, but she made the gesture anyway.  "I'll keep that 
in mind," she said. 

For a while he leaned with his chin in his hand, done crying, 
mostly, and just looked at her.  The mushy 50's song on the radio 
made him feel like they were two teenagers in a soda shop: "Life 
can never be exactly like we want it to be.  I can be satisfied 
just knowing that you love me  . . ."  

On second thought, the goofy-teen feeling was different.  He got 
that sometimes with Scully.  He and Mrs. Luce were more like a 
mother and her four-year-old, almost-lovers for an afternoon.  
Silly.  Well, maybe not so silly.  Perhaps long acquaintance with 
this sensible, self-reliant lady had influenced his choice of a 
woman who could take out a flesh-regenerating mutant with a 
defibrillator.  And Scully had done it in 4-inch heels, for God's 
sake -- the thought still gave him cheap thrills.  

He'd really been pretty fortunate in the women in his life;  
maybe letting go with grace was one way to show appreciation.  
"You remember telling me that you and my parents would still be 
around until Joey and I didn't need you so much anymore?" Mulder 
asked.

She blinked at him.  "I said that?" 

"So when exactly did you expect that to be?" 

"I . . . suppose I assumed that you wouldn't remember it by the 
time you were old enough to know what a lie that was."

Mulder broke into a rare laugh.  "That's what I thought."  He 
began to feel, if not comforted, then at least a grief that was 
closer to love than abandonment.  

The Shirelles continued their mildly annoying lullaby: "Each 
night before you go to bed my baby, Whisper a little prayer for 
me my baby . . ."  

Maybe it was time to start tying up the loose ends of his 
mother's life.  For instance, he hadn't gotten her a tombstone.  
He didn't know what date to put on it.  Scully had written 
"February 6 or 7" on the death certificate.  She was a 
conservative pathologist who refused to go out on a limb with 
time of death estimates, and in this instance her carefulness 
irked him.  

//Fine, I'll just put '2000.'  Let 'em guess.  'Christina Mulder, 
1941 - 2000.'  No, wait, she had 'Teena' on her license.  Did she 
change it legally?  I don't know.  Hell.//  Actually, he was 
pretty sure the name had originally been Krystina, sister of 
Katarin and Margrieta, who had quickly become Teena, Kathy and 
Margie for the same reason their mother gave up the Jewish 
religion in favor of a pale sort of Protestantism.  Europe had 
not been good to their family.

//So we've got the religion, the death date and the name all in 
doubt.  Phenomenal.//  What *did* he know about the woman he'd 
lived with for nearly eighteen years?   Mrs. Luce said she'd 
cherished him.  

Maybe.  

While he brooded, the Shirelles song, insubstantial as a kiss, 
drew to its end: " . . . and tell all the stars above, This is 
dedicated to the one I love."

It would have been funny, if only he hadn't started to cry.

*****

Scully slept deeply in Tammy Williams' girlhood bed.  She'd taken 
her Tylenol-3 before going to sleep, and the dopey, sluggish 
feeling insinuated itself into her dreams.  

She dreamt she was standing in Skinner's office, trying to 
present a complicated scientific argument about alien viruses 
while drunk.  She slurred her speech and kept dropping her laser 
pointer so that it rolled under AD Kersh's chair.  Worse, her 
extended family had dropped by and a crowd of them sat at the 
back of the room, looking horrified. 
 
Scully steadied herself by holding onto her AV cart and did her 
best to reconstruct a line of reasoning that had seemed so cogent 
the night before.  All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep, 
but there were reports to give, her reputation to preserve, if 
possible.  She avoided her mother's eyes, with their look of 
scalding hurt.  

Aiming her laser pointer at the blurry slide image on Skinner's 
wall, she said, "So this . . . this right here, is analogous to 
human RNA, and it, you know, transcribes backwards into DNA, but 
with three base pairs instead of two."  She looked up woozily and 
discovered that the slide did not show a strand of alien RNA, but 
instead an entire human chromosome.  Mortified, she said, "Wait -
- this is the wrong image.  Hang on."  She pushed the slide 
advance button but the carousel rotated backward.  A picture of 
Bethesda Naval Hospital appeared on the wall.

"Are you telling us an alien virus built *that?*" asked Nickerson 
from the Budget Department.  The bureaucrats sitting around the 
conference table all chuckled.  Skinner touched his fingertips to 
his forehead and looked pained.  

"No -- no, of course not.  I've just got the wrong slide on the--
"  She tried turning the carousel by hand, but only managed to 
pop it off its stand and send it crashing to the floor.  Scully 
grabbed for it and lost her laser pointer.  The little metal 
cylinder bounced on the carpet and rolled.  //Please don't let it 
stop at Kersh's feet . . .// It did.

He scooped it from the carpet and held it out to her.  "I believe 
this belongs to you, Agent Scully?" His voice was soft as a 
bullet clip sliding into place.

"Yes, sir.  I'm sorry . . . I'm a little disorganized."  Her 
words were a slurred mess.  

"I can see that," Kersh said.  

Her baby nephew cheeped in the corner.  Scully looked up at her 
parents, seated beneath Skinner's picture of the Attorney 
General.  Her father wouldn't look at her.  As she watched, he 
unclipped the orange visitor pass from the jacket of his Naval 
uniform and let it drop into his lap.  Her mother held his arm, 
whether seeking to give or receive comfort Scully wasn't sure.  
Margaret Scully's look was like an accusation, but one filled 
with sorrow and pity that her daughter had come to this.  

Scully moaned and stirred under the covers, becoming dimly aware 
of the throbbing of her injured hands.  Trying to wake herself 
was like dragging her body out of quicksand.  At last she opened 
her eyes, dry and swollen from the dusty pillow.  The room was in 
the half-shadow of late afternoon.  Her sleepy gaze took in her 
jacket and gun, laid over a chair, the black canvas case 
containing her laptop that rested on top of the dresser.  Symbols 
of authority and trustworthiness, assuring her that she was not 
the bumbling wretch of her dream.  But even as she regained full 
consciousness, the bone-deep feeling of shame would not leave 
her.  

She examined the emotion like a wound.  Where had it come from?  
Why did it feel so deep?  Irv Stuckey's words came back to her: 
//"I know you tried and failed to get custody of a child who died 
in 1998."//

No.  She wasn't going to let him make that her fault.  Emily had 
gotten the best mothering Scully was capable of, the best care 
medical science could offer.  She sat up and felt the room wobble 
around her.  The dust must have irritated her sinuses and caused 
drainage to back up into her ear canals.  She rooted around in 
her purse, looking for the meclizine HCl she sometimes took for 
motion sickness.  After several dizzy, nauseated seconds of 
frustration, she dumped the bag out on the floor.  The Chapstick-
shaped container of meclizine bounced out amid a hail of extra 
batteries, charge card receipts, and trial-size toiletry items.  
The little heap formed a sad sort of autobiography on the rug.  
Scully dry-swallowed a motion-sickness tablet and leaned back 
against the wall.

Lord, she really did feel drunk -- bad drunk, up at 5 a.m. after 
a night of too-sweet wine drunk.  A dirty, shameful feeling.  She 
recalled that she'd contaminated the scene of Kristie's death 
last night while trying to aid two phantom children.  No doubt 
the Troopers who'd searched the woods had some things to say 
about her today.  Yet humiliating as that was, she'd been acting 
in good faith.  Looking foolish was not a cause for true shame. 

This was something deeper, worse.  She remembered Emily's case 
worker, Susan Chambliss, explaining the reason behind her custody 
recommendation. //"You're a single woman who's never been married 
or had a long-term relationship. You're in a high stress, time 
intensive, and dangerous occupation . . ."//  Chambliss' smile 
had been compassionate, but the hard, distant look in her eyes 
suggested suspicion, both of Scully's motives and her abilities.  
Under that sweetly rejecting gaze, Scully saw herself as 
Chambliss must have seen her: a self-obsessed career woman who 
wanted to use a vulnerable little girl to fill some gaping 
emotional need of her own.  Not quite a monster, but a threat.

Inside, Scully was still protesting that it wasn't true.  She had 
survived her own near-fatal illness and had become stronger for 
it.  She'd had something to offer Emily that more "suitable" 
parents didn't -- empathy from personal experience.  She'd 
willingly entered that dark tunnel again, relived the experience 
"through the eyes of a child," as Chambliss had put it, in order 
to give Emily everything she could.  

Some self-punishing inner voice whispered, //And look at how it 
ended -- a little white coffin in St. Mary's, full of sand.//

Scully got up, nausea or no nausea.  She'd be damned if she'd 
lie around and let Irv Stuckey's words go to work on her again.  
She'd cried most of the way to Edgartown, where she'd forced 
herself to calm down so she could shop for essentials like a 
normal person.  

She'd finally found an open pharmacy and "Oscar's Dry Goods 
Store," which was much less quaint than it sounded and 
outrageously expensive.  Since it was just about the only open 
store in town, it could afford to be.  One wall was largely 
devoted to the sort of items that campers might need at the last 
minute, and Scully had picked out a pair of khaki fishing pants 
and a navy polo shirt with an embroidered lighthouse and the 
words, "Edgartown, MA" on the left breast.  The outfit was too 
expensive and would make her feel like a tour guide, but it would 
have to do.  

She pulled her new clothes out of their plastic bag and set 
herself to clipping tags and getting dressed.  The pant legs were 
too long and she had to roll them up.  Terrific.  The teenage 
camp counselor look.  Well, maybe Mulder would get off on it -- 
you never knew.  

He claimed to find her sexy when she woke up in the morning, 
despite the fact her hair was usually wild as a burning bush 
and she tended to sit half-conscious among the tangled sheets 
for a while, blinking in the lamplight like a lost subterranean
creature.  She had no idea what he saw in her then.  Certainly 
not something out of "Some Girls Do: Part III."        

She slid her feet into her blood-spattered orthopedic sneakers 
without having much of an idea where she was going.  Out.  Away 
from the cops who probably thought she was nuts and the Islanders 
who knew too much about Mulder, and about her by association.  

She attached her holster to the elastic waistband of her pants 
and thought about how Mulder must have felt in the days when this 
house was his refuge from public opinion.  The poor kid 
practically couldn't leave his front porch without running into 
people who knew everything there was to know about him, or who 
thought they did, anyway.  Talk about a way to raise a paranoid.  

That idea led back to Irv's accusation about the cat, and then 
once again to Emily.  //He's a hateful little man.  He has an 
evil mind, and most of what he says isn't true.//  But some of it 
was true.  Even Irv's lies were maybe just a little bit true.  
Just enough to hurt.

Scully threw her coat on.  Her cell phone had dropped out of her 
pocket and lay on the rug under the chair.  She looked at it and 
hesitated.  Mulder was worried about her, and the two of them had 
been out of contact for hours.  Actually, she'd had the phone 
turned off for much of the day.  She told herself she ought to 
call him, or at least take the phone with her.  

Ought to, but wouldn't.  Scully wanted to be alone, without 
having to answer questions, without having to grit her teeth and 
listen to advice.  At this point, even, "How did your day go?" 
would make her want to scream.  She left the phone where it was, 
hoping he'd understand.  After all, he knew what it was like to 
ache inside and to have other people's eyes following him, just 
watching and knowing.  

By the front door she ran into Davis and Tihkoosue -- almost 
literally.  Tihkoosue pushed the door in just as she was reaching 
for the knob.  "Uh -- sorry, Dr. Scully," he said, his dark eyes 
widening in surprise.  He glanced down at her hands with their 
bandages of clean white gauze.  "How are you doing?"

Scully stepped back to allow him and Davis into the room.  "I'm 
fine, thank you," she said, giving him a smile she hoped was 
briskly professional.  From the expression on his face, she 
gathered she looked ghastly.  "I wanted to tell you, I appreciate 
the work you and your men did last night." Better to bring the 
fiasco of the search up first.  Tap dancing around the subject 
would only be worse.  

"Sure -- no problem," Tihkoosue said.  "I just wish we'd been 
able to be more, you know, productive."  

He didn't say what would have been more productive, like 
sharpening pencils or alphabetizing his cereal cupboard, but the 
conversation ground to a miserable halt.  Davis broke the silence 
by saying, "We had a break in the case today.  Your partner may 
have helped us catch our man."

"He did?" Scully asked.  

Davis looked like a batter who'd expected a fastball and got 
pitched a turnip.

"I mean -- he did.  That's good," Scully said.

It was too late.  The detective's expression had shifted to the 
almost-neutral look of veiled speculation.  "That surprises you?" 
he asked.  She wondered if he'd start an office pool betting on 
when the nice young men in the clean white coats would finally 
come to get her.  

A hot, prickling feeling spread over her face and neck.  "No.  
Mulder's very good at what he does.  It's just --"  It was just 
that she'd so given herself over to the idea that Kristie's 
ordeal, like her own, had been at the hands of something more 
than human.  "It's just that was fast, that's all.  Even for 
him." 

"Oh," Davis said.  She figured he'd put his money on two weeks or 
less.

Tihkoosue cleared his throat and said, "So, uh, you're not going 
out again, are you, doctor?"  

They thought she was too big a dimwit to be allowed out alone.  
Scully tried to get mad instead of feeling embarrassed.  There 
was dignity in anger.  She gave them a chilly smile and said, 
"I'm sure you have work to do.  Don't let me keep you."  Her tone 
was curt enough, but she was pretty sure every blood vessel in 
her face was telegraphing how ridiculous she felt.  

She put her hand to her head as she walked out onto the snow-
dusted porch.  Tihkoosue's voice was still audible as she 
descended the steps.  "What was all that about?" he asked.

"I dunno," Davis answered.  "At first I thought *he* was nuts, 
and then--"  His words were muffled as he pulled the door shut.  

Scully headed for the field behind the house and the woods 
beyond, where there would be no people, no questions, no curious 
eyes.  As she tromped over the frozen grass, she passed garden 
furnishings she'd missed the night before: bare rose trellises; a 
bench-swing; a low, thorny thicket that was probably a descendant 
of the raspberry bushes Mulder had gotten into as a child.   

If Leigh's version of events was truer than Irv's, Mulder's 
childhood had been fairly happy until his family all but 
disintegrated when he was twelve.  By then he'd have been old 
enough to understand the extent of his loss, but too young to 
have any power to change things.  She told herself she pitied 
him.  

But as she left the garden for the wide-open field, she began to 
realize that pity was not what she was feeling at all.  Out under 
the inverted blue bowl of a winter sky, no ready help within 
shouting distance, she was envious of Fox Mulder.  She envied him 
the space he'd always had around him -- physical space to 
explore, his adventurous spirit unhindered by his would-be 
protectors, and the emotional space he'd succeeded in setting up 
between himself and the expectations of others.  If Mulder wanted 
to spend Christmas Day getting drunk and watching Three Stooges 
movies, no one was going to stop him.  She was sure he never, 
ever had nightmares about being embarrassed in front of his boss.    

By contrast, Scully's sense of self had been formed by a trinity 
of great institutions: her family, the Catholic Church, and the 
U.S. Navy.  She was still half-convinced they owned proprietary 
rights to her self-respect, and if she ever broke ranks she would 
become someone awful.  Actually, upon occasion she really had 
become someone awful, as when she'd spent more than a year trying 
to live down to Daniel Waterston's expectations.  It was 
difficult -- the emotional equivalent of foot-binding -- but 
she'd almost succeeded.  Most of her love affairs had been like 
that, like spending so many months wearing too-tight shoes, 
hoping she'd shrink into them.  Really, she only felt whole and 
sane when she was alone.  

She met no one as she followed the shallow trough of a bike path 
that skirted the edge of the woods.  Leigh had told her it was 
the longer, less difficult way to reach the little graveyard 
Mulder had found her in last night.  In her current mood, the 
isolation of the clearing with its leaning headstones was what 
she wanted.  

She nearly passed the graveyard before she noticed it.  The crime 
scene tape had been taken down, depriving her of a landmark.  
What caught her eye was the tallest of the headstones, a flat, 
narrow rectangle of slate that leaned sideways as if the earth 
had partially swallowed it.  Once she knew where to look, the 
other headstones, mostly broken, became distinguishable from the 
weeds and juniper canes around them.  

Last night's snow had obliterated all signs of the officers who'd 
tracked back and forth between the crime scene and the road.  If 
she hadn't known better, she'd have assumed she was the first 
visitor in a hundred years.  As she walked over to the tall 
headstone, the only sounds were her feet crunching the ice-coated 
snow and the soft "pee-whit" of a nuthatch.

Snow covered the top of the stone and adhered to its face, but 
Scully resisted the temptation to brush it off.  Somehow, the 
idea of imposing her sense of order on the place felt 
disrespectful.  She crouched down and found the worn inscription 
was still readable.  Across the top the name "Cartwright" was 
carved in heavy block letters.  An entire family was listed 
below, both with and without dates: Ezra, 1785; Wife, 1797; 
Thomas; John, 1772; Serena, 1774; Mary, 1780; and an eroded word 
at the bottom that might simply have been "child."  

How degrading, she thought, to spend eternity labeled simply as 
"Wife," -- or "child," for that matter.  Worse, Mrs. Cartwright 
had survived her husband by twelve years.  Had Ezra and his 
children waited that long for a tombstone, or was it carved 
sometime beforehand, already bearing the word "Wife" and lacking 
only a date?  How had Mrs. Cartwright felt while looking at her 
one-word epitaph, knowing that her identity would melt away with 
her flesh?  Poor "child" had neither a name nor a date.  The 
thought of that little spirit enduring centuries of well-meaning 
prayers essentially addressed to "occupant" was dismally lonely.  

Scully remembered the gray-eyed child from the night before, her 
hair tangled, her clothes soaked in blood.  //"Stay,"// she'd 
said.  And Scully had wanted to stay.  After all, they had so 
much in common.  One was exiled to the world of anonymous souls 
by fate, the other by choice.    

Susan Chambliss' words came back to her: //"You're a single woman 
who's never been married or had a long-term relationship . . ."//  
Scully bent and pressed her fingertips into the snow, seeking the 
shock of ice crystals against her skin, an assurance she was 
still part of this world.  

//Emily . . .// Scully had pushed away the people who wanted to 
love her, choosing to seek independence and the illusion of self-
sufficiency instead.  And when she'd finally met someone she 
was willing to give up that freedom for, she'd been found 
unworthy.  What if she *had* loved Emily in a self-serving, 
shortsighted way?  Chambliss had called her medical decisions 
into question.  Perhaps she'd pursued treatment too aggressively, 
or not aggressively enough.  

Scully shied from her worst fear as from meeting a corpse in the 
dark, but now it confronted her.  What if she'd made some weak, 
selfish decision that caused Emily to die?  

//"It's always a wild night in winter, and some say you can hear 
the voices of those dead babies crying in the wind,"// Irv had 
said.

The iodine smell of the San Diego PICU came back to her. In her 
mind, she heard the rushing sound of the self-contained air 
recirculation system that kept the quarantine area under negative 
pressure.  Emily lay in the room's only bed, a child unconscious 
and bathed in sweat, but solid and warm and real.  

Now, gone.
  
Scully repeated the words she'd whispered behind her paper mask, 
"I'm so sorry." 

//"I know you tried and failed to get custody of a child who died 
in 1998. . . . "//

The feel of Emily's cheek beneath her fingers, so soft, but hot 
as an oven door, was the most real thing she could recall.  It 
felt more real than this snow-covered graveyard, more real than 
the weight of her body pressing down upon the balls of her feet.  
"Forgive me, Emily." 

//"Last night when you were out ruining your real clothes, did 
you hear her calling you?"//

The shame of her nightmare pierced her.  It was as if Susan 
Chambliss' unspoken accusation had been transformed into a 
scarlet letter and sewn onto Scully's clothing.  The letter would 
be "M" for murderer.   God knew she'd never meant to hurt her 
little daughter, biological, adopted, or both.  She'd never meant 
to hurt her parents by being difficult and distant.  Her 
decisions had all seemed inevitable at the time.  Maybe that was 
every damned soul's excuse as it stood trembling before the gates 
of Hell.  

In a voice hoarse from tears and fatigue, she prayed, "Lord Jesus 
Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.  Lord Jesus 
Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner . . ." 

She resisted the urge to move, to find somewhere less grim in 
which to pray.  Everything considered, it felt only fitting that 
she seek solace in the same environment she'd chosen to spend her 
career in: alone among the dead.

*****

As Mulder scraped his shoes off on Nye House's coconut fiber mat, 
all he wanted to do was take a shower and go to sleep beside 
Scully, preferably after making gentle, tender love.  No Stupid 
Spice Channel Tricks tonight.  In fact, he might be willing to 
settle for watching old movies on TV and falling asleep with his 
head in her lap.  

When he opened the door he found a few State Troopers standing 
near the front desk, talking in lowered voices.  Their 
conversation stopped the moment he entered the room.  Mulder 
ignored them and walked down the hall marked, "Employees Only 
Beyond This Point."  Tammy Williams' old room was the first one 
on the left.  

There was no answer at his knock, and when he opened the door, he 
saw that Scully's coat was gone, but her cell phone lay beneath a 
chair.  A closer inspection revealed that she'd left her purse 
but taken her gun.  "Your partner's gone out," one of the 
officers called.  Mulder didn't like the strange emphasis the man 
put on "out."  

He had a pretty good idea where she'd gone.  //Scully, don't do 
this to me.//  In the last 24 hours, he'd slept less and cried 
more than was good for his sanity.  The last thing he needed was 
to be chasing her over the empty hills with who-knew-what loose 
in the woods. 

The men in the front room gave him curious looks as he wearily 
headed back out the way he came.  As he'd feared, his car was 
parked in the gravel lot, its hood cold.  A line of footprints in 
the snow led from the Inn's front door toward the field behind 
Nye House.  They were wavy-soled orthopedic sneaker prints -- 
Scully's autopsy shoes.  

Mulder walked across the frozen field thinking -- what?  That 
when he found her, he'd grab her by the shoulders and shake her 
until her teeth rattled?  He'd send her to her room with no TV?  
Sure.  She'd shoot him first.

Mulder's anger slowly drained away as he hiked across the frozen 
field, leaving nothing but cold fear in its place.  Scully was 
practically all he had, and he was afraid he wouldn't survive 
losing her.  

He found her crouching in front of the old Cartwright tombstone 
in the South Road Burying Ground, her head bent, whispering to 
herself.  He was able to catch the sibilants in "Jesus" and 
"sinner."  

"Hi," he said.  

She jumped a little at the sound of his voice.  Scully brushed 
her cheeks with her fingertips before she turned to face him.  
"Hi."  

He walked over and crouched down next to her.  Gesturing at the 
tombstone, he said, "Ezra doesn't say much, but he's all right."

She dug in her pockets, presumably for a Kleenex. "I just needed 
some time alone." 

Mulder nodded, but didn't take the hint to go away.  He didn't 
think she needed to be alone out here, with her own and Kristie's 
blood spattering the trees not fifty yards away.  When her search 
for a tissue was unsuccessful, he gave her his clean 
handkerchief.  The one he'd dried his own tears with was in his 
back pocket.  "I used to come out here when I was a kid.  Joey 
and I had a tree fort over in that willow."  He pointed to a 
massive gray willow tree, now more dead than alive, which still 
had the remains of boards and some raveling ropes fastened to it.  

"Must've been nice," she said.  She blew her nose and folded the 
handkerchief neatly.  Mulder knew Scully's childhood had spanned 
seven states, and that if she and her siblings had built forts, 
she no longer knew where.  

"We had a good time," Mulder said.  He didn't bother asking how 
she was doing, since he knew the answer would only be "Fine."  He 
rubbed her back with his hand.  

"Mulder?"

"Mmm-hm?"

"Did you ever poison a cat?"

He looked over at her, saw the earnestness in her mascara-smudged 
eyes.  "What?"           

"I talked to Irv Stuckey today, and he said I should ask you 
about the time you poisoned the cat.  He said that was what sent 
Sheriff Luce 'sniffing' after you."

"Irv said . . . ?  Irv's an asshole," Mulder said.  After a 
moment he stood and walked a few steps away, fighting a powerful 
desire to go out to Menemsha and wring Irv's neck.  "I never 
killed anybody's cat."  He'd meant the statement to be a firm 
denial, but to his dismay he sounded hurt and resentful, like an 
eleven-year-old wrongfully accused.  

He heard the snow crunch beneath her feet as she stood and came 
over to him.  Scully threaded her arm through his and rested her 
head against his bicep.  "What happened?" 

He looked over at the broken tombstones, like jagged teeth 
sticking out of the ground.  This was not a story he much liked 
telling.  "Ah . . . hell.  I was rotten kid.  I knew I'd be in 
trouble if I hit my sister, so I mentally abused her instead.  
Sometimes when I got mad at her I said I'd do things . . . 
to her dolls or to her cat.  Never poison -- it was Baroque 
things, 'The Pit and the Pendulum' stuff.  It made her scream.  
I guess that's what I wanted."  He felt Scully's body tense 
against him, and he looked over, asking a wordless question.  

She shook her head against his arm.  "It's nothing.  It's just I 
had a rabbit once.  I called him Peter.  As in Cottontail.  A 
stupid name, but I was six.  My brother kept threatening to skin 
and cook him."

Mulder nodded, avoiding her eyes.  "Maybe your brother feels kind 
of bad about it now."

"Maybe."

"Kids say things, you know?"   

"Yes." 

"My sister's cat turned up dead at the bottom of the basement 
stairs one day."

Scully ran her bandaged hand up and down his forearm.  "That 
must've been awful."

"The cat had blood running out of her mouth.  She was an indoor 
cat and this was in March -- nothing outside to chew on, 
poisonous or not.  Samantha ran upstairs crying and told our mom 
the stuff I'd been saying.  Mom just lost it.  She took my dad's 
belt to me -- the worst whipping I ever got from her.  Didn't 
matter that I said I hadn't done anything.  I think she wanted to 
believe that I poisoned the cat, because it was better than the 
alternative."

For a moment, the chilly afternoon was so quiet.  There were no 
car noises this far out, not even the distant roar of airplane 
engines.  The only sounds were the wind and the calls of the 
birds.  Scully kept rubbing his arm. "Someone came in and did 
it," she said. 

"Yeah."  The word was almost a sigh. "This was early in the year 
we lost my sister. I think my father was fighting the Syndicate 
at the time, so they sent him a little message. 'Hand over one of 
your kids for our Project, or next time it'll be more than just 
the cat.'"
  
"That's horrible."

"I couldn't convince my mom I hadn't done it.  Before long I even 
had my sister believing me, which is saying something.  I guess 
your sister always knows if you're lying or not."  

Scully's sharp intake of breath was somewhere between a laugh and 
a gasp of pain.  He figured her bruised ribs were hurting her.  
"Melissa and I sounded exactly the same way when we lied.  I 
always knew."

"Well, Samantha knew.  She was--"  He decided not to describe 
that scene, himself lying across his bed, in more pain than he'd 
known existed, begging his mother for mercy while she blistered 
his behind and told him he'd done something very, very wicked.  
Samantha had stood on the other side of the bedroom door and 
shouted, "Don't you hit my brother!"     

"Anyway . . . she knew," Mulder said.  

He felt Scully shifting position as she looked up at him, but he 
kept his own gaze on a stand of black trees in the middle 
distance.  Almost three decades later, he was still ashamed.  Not 
so much because he'd been punished, but because his own mother 
thought him capable of doing such a thing.  Knowing what he did 
now about the sort of children who tortured animals, the 
accusation was actually worse.   

"Did your mom ever believe you?" Scully asked.

"Eventually.  It helped that my dad believed me, or at least he 
believed my sister.  Or maybe he knew something we didn't.  I 
don't know."  One of the braver things he'd done as a child was 
to stand in his pajamas in the middle of the living room, risking 
another spanking by simply being out of his room, and insist to 
his father that he hadn't killed the family cat.  Bill Mulder had 
looked a little gray around the lips as he'd stood in his damp 
raincoat, confronted by the whole family yelling at him.  He'd 
turned Fox around and sent him back upstairs with a surprisingly 
gentle nudge.  //"Go on up, son.  I'll talk to you later."//

"Cats do sometimes just die, you know," Scully said.

"You'd think that would have occurred to someone.  It sure didn't 
seem to occur to my parents, at least not as the most likely 
possibility.  There was something wrong, Scully.  Something they 
weren't going to tell me about.  They actually had the cat 
autopsied.  I mean, how weird is that?"

"When it's an animal, the procedure's usually called a necropsy, 
but it's not so unusual," Scully said.

"There was blood inside of her.  Or something.  My parents 
weren't very forthcoming with information.  The vet said she'd 
definitely eaten something poisonous, but he couldn't say what."

"No.  Isolating a toxin is hard enough now, and with the methods 
they had back in the early 70's it would have been worse. 
Probably even the FBI lab couldn't have identified the poison 
precisely.  If whatever the cat ingested had cleared her stomach, 
there was really no way for the vet to know."

Scully's tone was kinder than her clinical words implied.  He 
turned toward her and rested his cheek against the smooth curve 
of her bangs.  "Once my mom was sure I hadn't killed the cat, she 
wouldn't let my sister and I eat anywhere.  We had to come home 
from school for lunch.  She'd taste our food before she gave it 
to us, that sort of thing.  I think this may have been when the 
neighbors first realized that something was really wrong with us.  
It was about that time when Joey's uncle started telling Mrs. 
Luce that maybe her kids shouldn't play with us anymore.  I 
actually think he kind of liked me when I was little, it's just 
he could sense something really bad was coming down and didn't 
want his family involved.  I guess I can't blame him."

"As a law officer, it was his job to help you," Scully said.  
"You wouldn't turn away from a family in a desperate situation 
like that, would you?"  

"No."  Mulder mouthed the word more than he spoke it. "But I 
don't have kids to protect, you know?  If it was between a 
neighbor family and my own niece and nephew . . . I don't know.  
Anyway, people remembered what happened to the cat when my sister 
went missing.  I was the only other person home when it happened, 
and they figured I was already a pet-poisoning junior psycho."

"You weren't," she said firmly.  "I hope your mother apologized 
to you."

"She did, in her way."  She'd cupped his face in her hands, a 
gesture somewhere between a caress and a restraint to keep him 
from looking away.  //"Fox, if you didn't do this thing, I'm 
sorry."//  She'd scanned his eyes, probably both hoping and 
fearing to find innocence. 

//"I didn't, Mom.  I swear I didn't."// He'd been crying as he 
said it, afraid this would only make him seem guiltier.  *"If* 
you didn't," she'd said.  

"Did she comfort you?"

He nodded, rubbing his cheek against Scully's hair.  "She let me 
curl up in her lap while we watched some stupid nature show."  
Actually he'd lain with his head and shoulders in his mother's 
lap while his drawn-up knees sweated against the plastic-covered 
couch.  

Scully sometimes held him like this, because their size 
differential and the conventions of the sexes prevented him from 
sitting in her lap.  As a child, the reason had been quite 
different.  Fox had a seam of blisters where his buttocks met his 
thighs, and another cluster on his left hip, where the belt had 
snapped around.  Sitting in anyone's lap was quite beyond him.  

His mother had stroked his hair while they watched a bear stalk 
an otter community in too-vivid 70's Technicolor.  Samantha would 
normally have seized the chance to bump her big brother aside so 
she could assert her baby-of-the-family right to snuggle with 
Mom, but she climbed into their father's lap instead. She'd 
understood that Fox and his mother needed a chance to make up 
with one another.  Bill read a newspaper around the little girl.  
   
Hurting, sleepy from crying even though his bedtime was an hour 
away, Fox turned toward his mother and twisted the ends of her 
long, dark hair in his fingers.  The nature show announcer boomed 
behind him: //"Olivia nips and claws her kits away from the 
bear's snapping teeth."//  

The conversation Fox hadn't had with his mother that night 
remained one of the most powerful moments in their relationship.  
She'd rubbed his back through the terrycloth of his bathrobe and 
hadn't said: I'm so sorry I hurt you.  I would have forgiven you 
even if you had poisoned the cat.  I'm desperate to protect you 
and I don't know how.  

He'd looked up into her green eyes, big as a child's in her 
pretty face, and hadn't said: I forgive you because I know that 
you're scared.  Actually, I'd forgive you anything.  

"What're you thinking about?" Scully asked.  She slipped her hand 
beneath the folds of his coat and rested it in the small of his 
back, two of her fingers pressing against the waistband of his 
trousers.  She'd been taking tease lessons from him, wicked 
thing.  

"Nothing.  A long time ago," he said.  Better to turn the 
conversation back to her.  "What're you thinking about?"

"Nothing.  The last days.  Religion."  

The hand almost over his ass said otherwise.  He wondered if he 
were a magnet for people who sent mixed messages.  Between his 
relatives, lovers, ex-lovers, co-workers, and shadowy informants, 
the mind games got a little excessive.  

"That tombstone says, 'Resurgam,' or, 'I will rise again,'" she 
said, pointing the toe of her sneaker at one of the broken 
headstones.  Actually only part of the "s" and the "urgam" were 
left.  

Mulder, who tended to look at all things on the Vineyard with the 
eyes of childhood, had always had a vague assumption that 
"Surgam" was some kind of family name.  The Oxford grad in him 
was disgusted.  

Feeling a little too vulnerable to confess his ignorance, he 
said, "That guy's pretty confident for someone with a big rock 
over his head."       

"It's ironic, isn't it?  The first headstones were weights to 
keep the dead from walking, and now we carve messages about the 
Resurrection into them."

//I love you, I hate you, come here, go away . . . story of my 
life.//  "Those rocks right there are probably headstones too," 
Mulder said, pointing at two granite mounds beneath soft caps of 
snow.  

"Wow.  They didn't even rate a slate slab.  I can see the TV 
special right now: 'It's your headstone, Charlie Brown.'  'I got 
a rock.'"

Mulder had a twisted mental image of the Grim Reaper handing out 
all the good tombstones before Charlie Brown got to the front of 
the line.  "You're sick," he told her.  "I knew I liked something 
about you."  He kissed the top of her head. "This used to be a 
family graveyard.  Those rocks are probably covering poor 
relatives, servants, kids, maybe."  

She made a small, disgusted noise in her throat. 

"The 18th century didn't have the same ideas about kids that we 
do."

"I know."  

Mulder considered asking her whether she wanted to talk about 
what she'd seen last night, but there was something closed and 
self-protective about her.  At every chance she could, she'd 
turned their conversation back to him.   

"C'mere.  I want to show you something," he said.  He took her 
hand and led her toward the ruined foundations that lay a little 
to the east of the graveyard, not far from where he'd found her 
last night.  The structure had fallen down so long ago that a 
maple with a trunk the diameter of a woman's forearm grew inside 
what had once been solid walls.  At the moment, snow covered even 
the crumbling fieldstone wall base, but the building's outlines 
were hinted at by straight, contiguous gaps in the weeds and 
other vegetation.  The effect was a little eerie, as if the 
memory of the house had so impressed itself upon nature that even 
the grasses still respected boundaries that had long since ceased 
to exist.  

Mulder kicked at the approximate location of the wall base until 
the tip of his shoe struck rock.  He bent and cleared the half-
frozen mud and clotted leaves away until he exposed a low, flat 
chunk of Massachusetts brownstone.  

"There," he said with satisfaction.  "This was a house, a 
farmhouse from back before the Revolutionary War.  It belonged to 
the family buried back over there.  Actually, the cemetery used 
to be named after them before people forgot who they were and 
South Road became the major landmark.  On really old maps it's 
called the 'Brown-Cartwright Grave Yard.'  If you're curious 
about it, you can visit the Dukes County Historical Society.  
Lots of the little old ladies around here are grave-hunters.  
You'd be surprised."

Scully looked around wide-eyed, as if the place frightened her.  
"What happened to the people who lived here?" she asked.

"I think the house burned in about 1790-something.  I'm not sure 
about the family, but I can tell you there are still plenty of 
Browns and Cartwrights on the Vineyard," Mulder said.  He dug in 
the cold dirt along the wall line until his fingertips touched 
something hard and rough.  When he tugged it out and brushed the 
mud off, he found it was a jumble of rusted metal.  "Sometimes 
you find spoons out here, or old nails, or -- here's a nail here.  
You can tell it's original to the house because the head is just 
a kind of hammered-down section.  It looks like a miniature 
railroad spike."  He plucked the little chunk of twisted iron 
from the mass and held it out to Scully.  "See how the sharp end 
just kind of withers away?  That's because it was burned.  
Occasionally you find lumps of melted glass out here, too."  

She stretched her fingertips toward the object but then pulled 
away, as if it were still hot.  She looked up at him and asked, 
"Where did Irv's story come from?  I mean the South Road Ghost 
story."  

He sprinkled the twists of rusted iron back onto the ground and 
wiped his fingers on the hem of his coat.  

"The truth?" he asked.  "There's a book in the county library 
called 'Haunted Martha's Vineyard.'  Every Island child I knew 
checked that book out at some time or another, usually around 
Halloween.  That's where I got it from.  That's probably where 
Irv got it from.  As far as I know, there's no other record that 
the South Road Ghost ever existed."

"So what did I see, Mulder?  There were little children dying -- 
they were there and then not there.  You think I made the whole 
thing up?" Scully asked.

"No.  I don't think you made it up.  I think you saw something, 
probably even something paranormal.  All I'm saying is that this 
being may not be what it first appears.  I'll be honest -- I'm 
suspicious of a good story, where everything is explained and 
everything makes sense.  Real life just isn't like that.  So when 
someone tells me that this awful mom kills her kids and then 
she's doomed to walk the night inflicting vengeance on wayward 
women, it's a just little too neat.  It sounds like somebody's 
idea of poetic justice, exactly the kind of thing that people 
would invent.  

"Scully, if there is something out here . . . calling you, it may 
be choosing to present itself as part of a good story.  I mean, 
what attracts us more than the idea that the world makes sense?  
Because if we can understand the world, we can control it, and 
then we never have to get hurt again.  Right?"

She looked away toward some point on the horizon.  "You don't 
understand," she said.

"Then explain it to me." She didn't reply.  "Explain it so I can 
help you," he urged.

"Mulder," her voice was infinitely weary, as if she'd crossed a 
great distance to speak with him.  "This is just one of those 
things that isn't about you."

"If it's about you, it's about me." 

That was clearly the wrong thing to say.  Scully actually seemed 
to flinch.  

"Don't shut me out," he pleaded.  He felt about eleven years old, 
tormented unjustly, and yet desperate to be comforted by his 
tormentor.  Why did he most need the people he loved right after 
they'd hurt him?  

"It's okay," she said.  Her eyes remained distant but she held 
out her hand.  He took it in both of his own.  "It's okay.  
Things haven't changed between us.  This isn't about you. It's 
about me."

"You realize that's the second-biggest lie in the world after 
'the check is in the mail?'"

She pulled him close and held him.  "I'm not going anywhere."

"If I lost you, I just -- I wouldn't deal with it well."  He 
hugged her so tightly he could feel the bones of her shoulder 
blades pressing his forearm.  

He felt more than heard her gasp of pain.  "Mulder, don't."

Too late, he remembered her bruised ribcage and released her.

She pulled back from him.  Twilight came to the woods first, and 
in the dimness her pupils were very wide.  The shadows made her 
eyes seem infinitely deep, like black water locked beneath black 
ice.  What lay in that darkness was apparently not for him to 
know.  She placed two cool fingertips over his lips.  "Just 
don't."

He looked away first.  "Sure."

She slipped her arm through his.  "Come on.  It's cold, let's go 
back." 

He walked with her, guiding her steps along the quickest path 
back to the Inn.  They cast long shadows away to their right as 
they crossed the snowy field.  Lights had already appeared in 
some of Nye House's windows.  

"Mulder, can I ask you something?" she asked.

He glanced down at her, grateful to be distracted from the dread 
that had begun to dog him.  "What is it?" 

"Do you have a juvenile record in Connecticut?"

At first her question confused him.  "Do I have a what?"

"Irv told me to ask you about Fairfield County Juvenile Court 
sometime," Scully asked.

Mulder had a mental flash of himself at 15, staring at his too-
shiny wingtips and listening to a judge talk to his father.  "You 
know, I hate Irv.  Did he tell you how many books I never 
returned to the library, too?  Somewhere I have one from 1987."

"No.  Well, he asked whether you were into enemas and plastic 
pants," she said.

"That figures.  I hope you told him 'Yes.'"

She looked appalled.  "Of course I didn't.  I didn't think his 
question was even worth answering."

"By getting upset you just confirmed the idea in his mind.  You 
should have told him, yeah, I'm into plastic pants, and peanut 
butter and farm animals, and looking at posters of Freddy Mercury 
while I engage in autoerotic electric shock with the toaster.  
Then he wouldn't know what to believe."

"Sorry. I guess I'm not as up on my perversions as I should be," 
she said.

"Stick with me, kid.  I'll teach you everything there is to 
know."  He thought she tried to repress a smile.  "You already 
know the Juvenile Court story," he said.

She shook her head.  "No I don't."

"Yes, you do. You just didn't recognize it because Irv tried to 
make it sound worse.  Remember the third case we worked together 
-- maybe the fourth, when we were in Idaho staking out the guy 
who could telekinetically turn his microwave into a MAZER?"

"Oh . . ." He saw the glimmer of recollection in her eyes.  

The over-humid car with its persistent fried-food smell was 
permanently etched into his memory, as was the white curve of 
Scully's chin and throat, fuller then than it was now, backlit by 
halogen streetlights.  "You asked me if I thought I was capable 
of killing someone, and I said yes, because I'd been ready to 
kill Eric Magnus in the 10th grade."

"That's the kid you went after with -- what, a roll of dimes?"

"It was quarters." Eric had been the first one to wrap his fist 
around a roll of currency in order to harden the impact of his 
punch, but Fox had learned fast.  "He was the 'Chester the 
Molester' kid," Mulder said.  The older boy discovered early 
in Mulder's Greenwich High career that if he wanted to pick a 
fight with the weirdo Vineyard kid, all he had to do was whisper, 
"Who got your sister, Freak?  It was Chester the Molester."

"You didn't say they arrested you for that," she said.

"Yes, I did.  Remember me and Eric got into it on the street 
behind the school, and then somebody called the cops?  When 
the officer asked, 'What's going on here?' Eric said, 'Nothing,' 
and I said, 'I'm going to kill this motherfucker.'"   

"Oh, that's right . . . .  I forgot you have that Eagle Scout 
quality -- always honest," she said.  She pulled her arm loose 
and slipped it beneath his coat, tucking her fingertips into the 
top of his back pocket.  A good reason never to keep it buttoned, 
he thought.  He put his arm around her waist, and as they walked 
he could feel the muscles of her hip working.

"So after that they brought me in.  From their perspective, who 
started it wasn't important.  I was the one who threatened to 
kill someone.  

"Back then, every case with an underage defendant went to 
Juvenile Court.  I felt pretty lousy standing there in front of 
the judge, even though he spent most of his time telling off my 
parents."  

Mulder could still hear the gravelly voice of the Honorable Peter 
Shamsideen saying, //"Mr. and Mrs. Mulder, I am very sorry for 
the loss of your daughter.  But you must remember that you have a 
son who needs you."// Fox had kept his hands jammed in his 
pockets, even though he'd been told not to do that, and had been 
very close to crying, even though he'd been told not to do that 
either.  When Judge Shamsideen said, //"Young man, I hope you 
succeed in making something of your life,"// Fox had only managed 
a soft, //"Yessir."//  Mulder wasn't sure if being senior agent 
on the X-Files Unit would count as a success in Judge 
Shamsideen's opinion or not.    

"My sentence was therapy and community service -- the therapy 
really *was* a sentence, but the community service wasn't.  One 
of the cops had taken a certain liking to me, and he helped fix 
it so that I spent my unoccupied time at the police station, 
typing, taking out the trash, snooping through their case files, 
that sort of thing.  That was my introduction to forensic psyche, 
for what it's worth.  I was sitting at Detective Nagle's desk 
when I read an article in the 'Law Enforcement Bulletin' about 
Brian Murphy teaching behavioral science at Oxford -- the only 
place in the world teaching it at the time, besides Quantico.  So 
really, trying to kill Eric Magnus with a roll of quarters was 
the best thing that could have happened to me."     

By this time they'd reached the front porch of Nye House, its 
worn boards dusted with snow and shielded from the lit room 
inside by lacy half-curtains.  Maybe it was the location or the 
topic of their conversation, but Mulder felt like a teenager 
walking his girlfriend home.  

He looked down at her and saw her pupils were wide in the honey-
colored late afternoon light.  He bent and lightly touched his 
lips to hers, a tentative kiss that quickly turned hungry.  Her 
mouth had the faintly inorganic taste of lipstick.  He knew 
he'd have "Evening Rust #7" or whatever it was all over his 
mouth in a minute, but he didn't care.

After several seconds he pulled away and said, "Stay with me 
tonight.  I won't sleep well if you're alone."

Something in her face closed like a flower.  "Mulder . . ."

"Please," he said.  Begging anyone but her would've been 
intolerable.  "Why does it matter so much what other people 
think?"  

Her glance toward the covered window was so brief it probably 
hadn't been a conscious decision, but he caught it. Whatever 
she saw inside, it wasn't enough to make her move away.  

Scully looked up and ran her fingertips across his cheek, and he 
felt the slight drag of her skin over the stubble he developed 
late in the day.  The look on her face was almost sad.  "Okay," 
she said.  "Okay, I'll stay with you."    

He hoped that sorrowful look wasn't one of martyrdom.  He'd 
almost rather she leave him than stay with him out of pity.  
Almost, but not tonight.  Right now he was too needy, too tired 
and confused.

She lifted her face to kiss him and he bent to meet her more than 
halfway.  Her hands rested lightly on his elbows.  This time her 
kiss was schoolgirl-chaste, but he felt a powerful response 
gathering from his skin inward.  It was like sensing the momentum 
of an incoming wave by the way the tide drew back from the beach.

He did not prevent her from stepping away.  "Let's go in," she 
said.  The spark in her eyes was not schoolgirlish at all.  That 
was a look that could lead a man to damnation, and make him 
expect to enjoy the trip.  Perhaps her earlier manner had been 
tenderness rather than pity.  He hoped to God it was tenderness.  

As he took her hand and led her inside, the front room was 
blessedly empty.  The door shut softly behind them.   

*****

Scully went to gather some things from Tammy's room while
Mulder went upstairs.  Once there, he pulled three candles from 
a decorative wall sconce and fashioned makeshift holders for 
them out of 35 mm film canisters.  At first the candles all 
leaned dangerously to one side, a problem Mulder solved by 
wedging sodden cotton balls into the canisters around their 
bases.  He placed these unorthodox constructions on the edge of 
the old clawfoot bathtub, where the rested precariously.  Then he 
turned on both bathtub knobs and sent water coursing through 
the old-fashioned, saucer-sized showerhead.  Standing 
in his undershorts, he folded his arms and looked over 
his handiwork approvingly.  //I am the MacGuyver of sex.//

He heard the soft *click* of the outer door opening.  An 
instinctual paranoid, he disliked not being able to see who had
entered the room.  Still, under the circumstances his moment of
anxiety was tempered with anticipation.

Then Scully walked into the bathroom, her black carry-on bag 
slung over her shoulder.  Mulder held his hands out and caught 
the bag's strap as she let it slide down her arm.  

"I suppose it's too much to hope for that this is full of lacy 
underwear and sex toys," he said.    

Her smile was enigmatic.  "Maybe.  I guess it depends on how you 
feel about things like hairbrushes, toothbrushes, first aid kits 
. . ."

He pointed out his film-canister candleholders and said, 
"Anything can become a sex toy if you put your mind to it."

"Wow," she said.  She walked over to examine his creations.  A 
fine mist of shower-water landed in her hair as she bent to poke 
one of the canisters.  It wobbled on the rounded tub lip.  

"I hate to tell you this, but those canisters really aren't 
stable enough to stay there," she said.

"So?  What's the worst they do, fall in and set the water on 
fire?"  He expertly deflected the play-swat she aimed at his 
behind.  

A brief scuffle of tickling and squirming ensued, which ended 
with Mulder's arms wrapped tightly around her waist.  They stood 
still, looking at each other.  He rested his forehead against 
hers, his pelvis pressed against her belly.  

Sometimes Scully looked at him as if she had forgotten herself, 
as if she could get lost in his eyes.  At the moment she was not 
giving him that look.  There was tenderness in her face, but also 
a strange regret.  It was the look of a lover seen through a 
train window, and it chilled him to the bone.

"Hey, where are you?" he asked.

She shook her head.  The strands of her bangs felt like raw silk 
drawn between their skin.  "It's nothing."

He pulled her against his chest.  When she wore flat shoes, the 
top of her head nearly tucked under his chin.  It made her seem 
little.  Physical issues aside, Scully was not little.  In fact, 
he was the one feeling small and helpless at the moment, and he 
held her as if to keep her from fleeing.  

"Tell me what you want, Scully.  Anything."  His voice was husky 
from desire and emotion.

For an instant, she was too still.  He thought she was trying to 
decide what to tell him.  "Just you."  The words were right.  Her 
thumb caressing the small of his back was right.  Her manner 
still felt like a careful imitation of normal -- a white lie.  

The truth was he wasn't capable of giving her what she wanted.  
The longing she wouldn't speak of had something to do with Emily 
and her family and Catholicism, plus a host of other things that 
probably added up to the normal life she'd lost.  A life that was 
the antithesis of everything related to Spooky Mulder.      

//If this was the movies, this is where I'd tell her to leave me 
and go back to the life she had.//  He tried to imagine himself 
standing with her in Martha's Vineyard airport, quoting Humphrey 
Bogart: //"If you don't get on that plane now you'll regret it . 
. ."//  

He couldn't tell Scully that.  //Nothing strokes a guy's ego like 
knowing he would have ruined the end of "Casablanca."//

He felt her hold around his waist slacken, and with some 
reluctance he let her go.  She rested her hands on his hips and 
looked up at him with an expression of such kindness.  Not what 
he wanted to see.  He would have preferred passion, desire, 
adoration . . . something empowering.  He could have used a 
little empowering just then.  

Through the thin fabric of his shorts he could feel every curve 
and hollow of her hands.  "What do you say we go set the bathtub 
on fire?" Scully asked.

That coaxed a grin from him.  "I thought you'd never ask."

Mulder helped her out of her rather surprising ensemble of khaki 
pants and a navy polo shirt with the word "Edgartown" blazoned on 
it.  The hand-sized bruise on her right side made him wince; it 
was a velvety-black color one generally didn't see on a living 
body.  He bent and kissed it very lightly, the way a man might 
brush his lips over the petals of a violet.  

She held still as he unwound the bandages on her hands.  "Do you 
need to keep your stitches covered in the shower?" he asked.  Her 
right hand had been wrapped around her gun last night, and only 
sustained cuts on the knuckles.  The left one had been slashed 
repeatedly across the palm, which probably left it too painful to 
use.  

"If I'm careful it'll be all right.  I'm not looking forward to 
trying to wash my hair one-handed, though."    

Scully hardly looked grubby, but he wanted to bathe her, to 
extend some small tenderness that would make her feel clean and 
good.  "Just your luck -- I happen to be fully certified to wash 
hair," he said.  

"I knew there was some reason your parents sent you to Oxford." 

"No, that's what I used to do in the X-Files Unit before you came 
along.  The alien/mutant thing was just a front."  He knelt down 
to untie her shoes. 

"I see -- that's why all the guys upstairs are so upset with us.  
You closed the salon down," she said.

"They're not all that upset.  Look at all the good I did 
Skinner."  Finished with her shoes, he undid the snap at the 
waist of her pants and drew down the zipper.  Scully placed her 
hands on his shoulders, then tilted her hips forward until the 
pants slid off of their own accord.  Her lavender bikini briefs 
with the little white stripes appeared new.  He looked up at her 
and said, "Cute."

"Thanks," she said.  "The finest Oscar's Dry Goods Store had to 
offer."

"I can't wait to get rid of them."  He eased the waistband of her 
panties halfway down over the curve of her bottom and kissed her 
inside the hollow of her hip.  She had the musky-sweet scent of a 
woman ready to make love.  It reminded him of rumpled sheets and 
warm skin and the snug feeling of lying in bed with the door 
locked and the phone unplugged.  

The side of his hand fit perfectly into the crease between her 
thigh and groin.  Mulder stroked her, his thumb making little 
circles over the firm nub beneath her panty fabric.  She pressed 
forward against his hand, but he kept the caresses gentle and 
lazy -- he had all night.  If *that* didn't make her forget 
whatever dark thing had been haunting her, nothing would.  

She sighed and leaned more heavily against his shoulders.  He 
looked up past her breasts to her face, and saw the unfocused 
look of profound pleasure in her eyes.  "Good?" he asked.

She shifted position slightly, guiding him to the spot where she 
wanted to be touched.  "Very good," she said.

"Just wait -- it gets better."  He slipped his thumb underneath 
the elastic edge of her panties and caressed her, skin against 
skin.  She made a soft sound, somewhere between satisfaction and 
longing.  

It was such a relief to see the sad, distant look gone from her 
face that he was willing to forego anything else.  "If this is 
enough, we don't have to go any farther," he asked.  

She shook her head, causing the ends of her hair to trail across 
his forehead.  Scully rested her hand over his own and guided him 
into pulling her panties low enough for her to step out of them.  

"I don't want it to be over with before we even start.  I want to 
take my time with you," she said.

The thought of what she might do sent a rush of pressure to his 
groin that raised his cock form about three-quarters mast to the 
full ready position.  Forget taking time -- he would have been 
happy to bend her over the side of the tub and thrust into her 
there and then.  Instead, he slid his boxers off in one, fluid 
motion and then set about lighting his wobbly candles.  The 
flames flickered as if unhappy about being asked to burn in the 
misty edge of the shower spray.

Scully switched the lights off, and suddenly they were in their 
own little world of shadow and golden light.  He held her wrist 
instead of her injured hand as she got one leg over the high edge 
of the tub.  Mulder climbed in after her and drew the shower 
curtain, shutting out an Island full of gossiping photographers, 
murderous, wheelchair-bound drug dealers and things that cried in 
abandoned graveyards late at night.  

Seeing Scully naked by candlelight almost took his breath away.  
She stood with her back to the lights, which cast a glowing mist 
all around her and made her shadow seem like a living, trembling 
being.  Here, of all places, where he'd worked out back as a 
teenager because he too angry and socially inept for jobs that 
involved mingling with the guests, she made him feel a little 
shy.  

His erection was pointing at her like a compass needle at a 
lodestone.  He reached out and cupped her breasts with his hands, 
a bit hesitantly, as if he were approaching some revered object.  
He made a feeble attempt at humor, "So . . . you come here 
often?" 

"I hope to," she said.  

That got him laughing like a schoolkid, and the momentary 
awkwardness shattered.  

The soap was in a wire mesh basket hanging over the tub lip, and 
Mulder pulled it out to rub it between his hands under the shower 
spray.  The moment he caught its half floral, half medicinal 
scent, he knew what it was: Kirk's Castile Soap, the only brand 
that could be coaxed into lathering in the ultra-hard up-island 
water.  

It made him recall the chill of late summer at the Quonochontaug 
cottage, when he and Samantha would curl up together for warmth 
as they went to sleep in the loft.  The sharp ends of her newly-
washed hair, smelling of Kirk's Castile Soap, would prickle his 
face and neck as he lay awake listening to the crickets.  

Mulder fetched a deep sigh as he gently washed Scully's injured 
side.  

"What?" she asked.  He could feel the tension in her body; even 
the slightest pressure on that bruise must hurt.

He shifted his attentions to her lower back.  Scully's body was 
wonderful -- firm but yielding everywhere.  "I was just thinking 
how no one feels lonely the way a child does.  Adults can hope.  
A kid who's always been lonely doesn't know there's anything to 
hope for."

A woman who knew him less well might not have seen through the 
apparent non-sequitur.  Scully reached back and caressed his hip 
with her fingertips.  "You know now," she said.

He kissed the wet tendrils of hair at the back of her neck.  "I 
know now."

Whether it was from fatigue or melancholy or a sort of sensual 
lassitude, Scully remained unusually passive as he bathed her.  
Mulder took the opportunity to explore her body, which never
got boring no matter how familiar it became.  He ran his 
fingertips over the delicate lines or her shoulder blade, down 
her back and over her bottom, then stopped to stroke the sensitive 
skin at the top of her thigh.  She bent forward just slightly to 
give him better access.   

Mulder sat down on the edge of the tub, which bunched up the 
shower curtain and sent his candles wobbling dangerously.  Crazy 
shadows darted back and forth across the ceiling.  But sitting 
down put him in an ideal position to kiss her breasts, which he 
did with slow, thorough intentness, running the tip of his tongue 
around and around the contracted flesh of her nipples.  The water 
beads on her skin had the familiar, mineral tang of up-island 
water.    

There was nothing new for Mulder about being horny in a Vineyard 
shower, smelling Kirk's Castile Soap and tasting iron in the 
water, but it did feel very strange to be a grown man in this 
environment, sitting next to a grown woman who was ready to make 
love with him.  It was as if his sweaty adolescent fantasies had 
belatedly come true.  He looked up at her and said, "I keep 
thinking somebody's going to bang on the door and tell me to quit 
using up all the hot water."  

Her eyes lost their preoccupied look and she smiled.  "Or else 
they have to use the bathroom.  That was always the problem at my 
house -- as soon as you got in the shower, somebody had to pee.  
It's good to be an adult with your own life, isn't it?"

Mulder was still amazed that he was in the shower with a real, 
live woman who would allow him to fondle her breasts.  "So who's 
an adult?  Let's say your parents are out, and they think we're 
studying . . ."

She laughed and gently took the soap from him.  It had really 
only been getting in the way of his groping, anyway.  "This place 
is getting to you, isn't it?" 

"Yes," he said, watching her work up a lather in the palm of her 
right hand.  He didn't know what she planned to do with that, but 
he had his hopes.  

When her hand was full of soap suds she wrapped it around the 
base of his cock.  He felt his breathing stop, his whole body 
tense with anticipation.  

She paused and asked, "Exactly how old are you right now, 
mentally?"

Here in Chilmark, about to use Kirk's Castile Soap in a manner 
unintended by the manufacturer?  "Fourteen?" he guessed.

"Great," she said.  "I'm going to jail for molesting your inner 
child." She began to stroke him, and pleasure blossomed like a 
white-hot flower.  He heard himself make a small noise, neither 
quite a groan nor a sigh.  

"Well see -- he's just a virtual child, so you'll only go to 
virtual jail . . ."  

Her gentle stroking went on for a while, without increasing in 
intensity.  As she'd promised -- or threatened -- she was 
taking her time with him.  Before long he wished she wouldn't.
He couldn't help bracing his hands against the tub lip and 
thrusting up into the snug enclosure of her hand.  The sharp
movements were bad for the stability of his candles.

Scully glanced at them and said, "You know, those aren't the only 
things that are going to fall over if you're not careful."

Realizing she was right, Mulder slid down the enameled wall and 
sat on the tub's floor.  Scully coaxed him into lying back.  The 
bathtub was a cast-iron claw foot model from approximately the 
1930's, and it took up far more than its fair share of space in 
the little bathroom.  Mulder could nearly have stretched to his 
full length in it, but he lay with his knees drawn up, giving 
Scully a place to sit.  The water on the tub's floor was slightly 
too cool to be comfortable, but at this point he hardly cared.

She resumed the hand job she'd been giving him, this time using 
the thumb of her free hand to massage the skin just beneath the 
swollen head of his cock.  That was one of his most sensitive 
spots, and the pleasure began to branch up through the nerves of 
his lower back, down into his buttocks and his inner thighs.  
Every muscle in his body insisted on pushing him forward and up 
toward the source of that exquisite feeling. 

"*God,* Scully . . ." Intense pleasure, like intense pain, tended 
to give the world surreal quality.  Mulder was aware of the 
sensation of cold on his wet skin, the wobbling shadows on the 
ceiling and the rushing sound of the shower, but these were 
things of no relevance, as easy to ignore as the droning of a 
television in a back room.  What was real was the pleasure Scully 
was giving him, pleasure in spite of the frustrating, helpless, 
slippery feeling of lying on the tub floor, in spite of the 
crushing neediness he'd suffered from all day.  Or rather, she 
could take that helplessness and that neediness and turn them 
into something that felt good.  

He struggled his way up into leaning on his elbow and pulled her 
toward him, wanting to feel more of her than just her hands.  
"Hold on," she said, and scooped up enough water in the palm of 
her hand to sluice the soap suds off him.  She climbed over his 
legs and got into an awkward position straddling his hips.  The 
bathtub was not the most convenient place for lovemaking, but 
neither of them suggested moving.  

Mulder looked up into her eyes, their irises just a sliver of 
blue around the black pupils.  With her wet hair slicked down 
against her scalp, her face looked more delicate somehow, more 
vulnerable.  "Talk to me," he said, surprised at how husky-
breathless his voice sounded.  He hoped he wasn't giving her that 
obscene phone caller vibe.  "Tell me what you're gonna do."

She seemed to hesitate.  Sometimes she'd talk dirty to him and 
sometimes she wouldn't.  He wasn't sure if her reluctance was a 
"nice girls don't" thing or a Catholic thing or some combination 
of both, but she would often stoop to indulge him.  

Too late, he remembered that the week before Easter was a big 
deal to Catholics and that she was supposed to go to church that 
morning.  "You don't have to," he assured her.  His wasn't trying 
to be offensive.  He just liked hearing the raw words that seemed 
so much more like real sex than the Lifetime Channel phrases you 
could bring out before polite adult company: "being intimate," or 
"having intercourse."    

Scully leaned forward until she rested on one forearm placed 
above his head.  Her skin felt wonderfully warm next to his.  The 
soft slickness of her vulva was pressed right against his cock, 
and the pressure without friction was driving him crazy.  

She kissed him at the spot where his jaw met his neck, and then 
again right below his ear.  "Mulder," she said gently, "I'm going 
to fuck you.  You need an orgasm, and I'm going to give you one.  
You're going to come so hard you won't be able to stand up." 

That was all he needed to hear -- he was already thrusting 
against her, his hands gripping the underside of her bottom and 
pressing her down against him.  She protested, "Mulder!"  One of 
his thrusts knocked her flat against him again.  
 
"Sorry," he said, managing to gain enough control to hold still.

"With stitches in my hands I don't move very fast," she said, 
carefully using the tub edge to pull herself up. 

"I'm sorry," he said, with more feeling.

"It's okay."  She settled herself on his hips again.  "You're 
cute when you're horny."  She gazed at him tenderly, as if he 
were a naughty but beloved child.

He looked her up and down, taking in the smooth curves that made 
up every inch of her, the way her fair skin turned golden in the 
candlelight.  "You are . . . way more than cute," he said.

As if suddenly bashful, she broke eye contact with him.  Scully 
was funny that way -- there was far more of the vulnerable little 
girl in her than she liked to admit.  At that moment, Mulder was 
so in love it hurt.  

She pushed herself up onto her knees and took the base of his 
cock in her hand.  He worked himself up onto his elbows so he 
could see her slip two fingers between her legs and spread 
herself to receive him.  He loved watching her do that.  It never 
did seem possible that the thick, red-purple shaft of his 
erection would fit into her, but it always did.  As he watched, 
she guided the head into herself and slowly lowered her hips.  

A shiver ran through his body as his cock pushed its way in 
against the tight-fitting walls of her vagina.  When she'd 
caressed him with her hand it was like feeling trickles of 
ecstasy, but this flooded him all at once.  For a moment he 
considered thinking about baseball, reciting recidivism 
statistics in his head, anything to delay the shattering climax 
that was imminent.  

Then she started an easy, rocking motion and there was no longer 
a decision to make.  He lay back down and tucked his thumb up 
against her clitoris, hoping this would improve the experience 
for her.  She shifted position slightly to increase the friction 
against his hand.

The orgasm began as a burning seed at the base of Mulder's spine.  
He found himself thrusting upward to meet Scully's hips, faster 
and more forcefully than she'd been making love to him.  He heard 
her ask, "You're close, aren't you?" 

The burning expanded until his whole body was gripped by a near-
blissful tension that was almost too much to stand.  He thrust 
hard enough to bounce Scully against the ridges of his pelvis, 
release hovering just out of reach.  She was speaking to him but 
he'd stopped focusing on the words.  

He was on the knife's edge between ecstasy and torment, the 
muscles in his lower back burning, when she reached down and 
caressed the side of his face.  Whatever it was she said, her 
tone was very kind.

Then the outside world stopped, and all he could think as a pent-
up sea of tension poured out of him in burst after burst was that 
she'd said she would give him what he needed and she'd done what 
she said.  

Once it was all over, he realized that the shower water had 
turned cold.  Scully was still cupping the side of his face with 
her hand.  "Good?" she asked.

He meant to say yes.  Instead, a deep, inarticulate ache that had 
no single source crept up on him.  It occurred to him that she'd 
been saying she loved him while he came.  

To his embarrassment, he started to cry.  

Scully moved off of him and scooted out of his way.  "It's okay," 
she said. 

When Mulder sat up he saw sparks and whirling dark spots.  
Clearly, his blood was not currently nourishing his brain. 

She rubbed his back with her small, warm hand.  "It's okay," she 
said again.

He wasn't sobbing hard, but the tears came from cracks in the 
foundation of his soul.  "You know . . . you should be careful 
when you say nice things to me," he said.

"You need to hear them," she said.

Need.  There was that word again.  The simplest things became 
dangerous once you brought need into it.

Oddly, the situation reminded him of a conversation he'd once had 
with Langly. The hacker had explained a technique that involved 
flooding a data input program with more information than it could 
process, including a line or two of command code.  Sometimes the 
input software would inadvertently suck that fragment of code 
deep inside itself, where it would do something the original 
programmer never intended, such as spitting out a password file.  
Mulder had said at the time that the process sounded similar to 
what he'd occasionally done to suspects on a psychological level.

It was essentially what Scully had just done to him.  At a moment 
of sensory overload, she had said some things to him that went 
far deeper into his psyche than they should have.  He wasn't 
supposed to feel loved in those deep, broken places.  It did bad 
things to him, like dredging up the feelings of a lonely young 
boy who'd seen a lot of broken promises and needed a lot of 
things he didn't get.   

"Penny for your thoughts," she said. 

He wiped his eyes with his fingers and said, "Not worth a penny.  
Just thinking of the Lone Gunmen."
 
Her look of mildly horrified surprise allowed him to laugh and 
shake off some of that ancient, corroding grief.  

Soon blood returned to his less fun, but more vital, organs and 
he was able to stand up and shut the water off.  He drew the 
shower curtain aside and held his hand out to help her out of the 
tub.  "Come on," he said, "I want to make you a very happy 
woman."

They dried each other off and he led her to the bed in the other 
room.  Slate-colored light leaked in over the top the heavy 
curtains.  They lay down and he kissed her for a little while, 
her head cradled in the crook of his arm, while he caressed the 
hot, slick spot between her legs.  Scully ran her hand over his 
back and squirmed to ensure her most sensitive places stayed in 
contact with his fingers.  

He began kissing his way down the front of her body.  Giving 
Scully oral sex after he'd already come inside her wasn't really 
his favorite thing to do, but for her he was willing to do it.  
He slowly moved up the inside of her thigh until he reached the 
delicate flesh of her vagina.  He started giving her little, 
nibbling kisses.  To him, her quiet sigh was as good as  
standing applause.

Her favorite technique involved him holding his tongue still 
while he used his fingers to move her clitoris against it.  
Generally it didn't take too much of that to get spectacular 
results.  He gave her firm little clit a preliminary lick and 
said, "Looks like you've got an early birthday present coming.  I 
guess you must have been a good girl."

"I guess so," she said, sounding a little breathless already. 

He began pleasuring her in earnest, paying attention to the way 
her body tensed, the way her back arched up slightly from the 
bed.  He knew she was on the edge of orgasm when he felt the 
tremor in the muscles of her thighs.  The position he was in 
was not terribly comfortable, but he made an effort to stay 
just as he was, since it was clearly giving Scully the effect 
she wanted. 

She had been running her fingers through his hair, but she was 
very still now, her fingertips pressed against his head as if she 
were giving a benediction.  "Mulder . . ."  Her hips tipped up 
another fraction of an inch, her knees fell slightly farther 
apart, leaving her utterly open and vulnerable.  

He loved it when she called his name at moments like this, 
although there wasn't a lot he could do to reply.  He told 
himself just to hold still, to keep the pressure and speed of his 
caresses constant, because at any moment --

Her whole body went into shuddering spasms and she cried out 
softly.  Mulder cupped one of her feet with his hand just so he 
could feel her toes curl.  He thought it was adorable that her 
toes curled up like a happy baby's when she came.  

Once the aftershocks ceased, she squirmed away from his mouth.  
She was usually painfully sensitive afterward.  He crept up next 
to her and pulled her into his arms, loving the foggy-sweet post-
orgasmic look in her eyes.   

She curled against him like a cat and kissed him hard.  Somewhat 
to his surprise, Mulder found himself starting to respond to her 
again.  Not bad for a thirty-eight-year-old guy who was tired to 
the marrow of his bones.  It went a long way toward repairing the 
ego damage done by his coming so quickly and becoming emotionally 
unglued.

He coaxed her into crawling under the covers with him, where they 
lay in a contented tangle.  He was half-asleep when she asked, 
"You know I'm not going to leave you, don't you?"        

He winced a little, wishing she hadn't brought that topic up at 
all.  The truth was he really didn't know for certain.

"I know people have abandoned you in the past, but I won't."

He wanted to believe that.  Mulder shifted position until he 
could rest his head in the hollow of her shoulder.  She toyed 
with his hair awhile, running the short strands between her 
fingers.  

The last thing he was aware of before he succumbed to fatigue was 
that she lay gazing up at the ceiling, apparently too preoccupied 
to sleep.  

*****

Scully lay awake for some time, replaying the events of the last 
few days in her mind.  Soon she would have to get up and 
re-bandage the cuts on her hands, but she didn't want to wake 
Mulder, who was profoundly asleep against her shoulder.  With 
her thumb, she traced the orderly line of bone in his spine.  Other
than Emily and maybe her little brother Charlie, Scully didn't 
think she'd ever felt so protective of anyone.  

She watched shadows on the ceiling shift with the changing angle 
of moonlight that filtered over the top of the curtains.  Strange 
to think the white-painted ceiling beams had been in place before 
her great-grandparents were born, likely before her ancestors had 
ever left Ireland. Before that, the beams had been trees.  Deep 
at the center of those trees were growth rings that formed before 
Europeans ever came to America, and the cells inside those growth 
rings contained organic molecules that had been part of even more 
ancient animals and plants.  Perhaps the molecular remains of 
Jesus' contemporaries were lying deep in the wood overhead.  To 
accept the premise that matter was neither created nor destroyed 
was to accept that one really owned nothing, not even the atoms 
in one's bones.  The thought gave her an eerie sensation of time 
collapsing in on itself.  

Her hands had really begun to throb. She turned and kissed 
Mulder's forehead, then carefully extricated herself from his 
embrace.  He stirred but did not really seem to wake.  After 
dressing and caring for her injuries, she went downstairs to 
retrieve her laptop.  Soon she had set up a makeshift desk for 
herself on the table near the window in Mulder's room.  

If she wasn't going to sleep, she might as well write up 
Kristie's autopsy protocol.  She plugged the serial jack of her 
digital recorder into the back of her laptop and watched as her 
dictated notes flowed onto the screen.  During the autopsy, she'd 
indicated that the through-and-through wound to Kristie's thigh 
was "consistent with" a single, forceful knife thrust.  Such a 
finding would indicate an assailant with a lot of upper body 
strength.  Of course, the wound was also consistent with a 
scenario in which Kristie slipped and fell forward onto a sharp 
object being held upward at an angle.  This might happen if she 
were pursuing a much smaller, weaker person who was backing away 
from her.  Such apparently minor details would influence the 
prosecutor's decision about what, if any, charges would be filed 
against John McBer and his theoretical accomplice.

Scully absently rubbed at the line of stitches on her left palm.  
The pattern of wounds across Kristie Herron's hands had been 
nearly identical.  Yet even assuming her own experience was what 
it seemed, it was still possible that what happened to Kristie 
was unrelated.  She decided to ask Detective Davis for copies of 
the autopsy photographs in the morning.  Maybe the hilt mark on 
Kristie's thigh would offer some information.

She organized and reorganized the autopsy data without coming to 
any conclusion that would bear up under the requisite burden of 
proof.  If nothing else, Scully thought, she ought to be used to 
*that* after more than seven years. At last she wandered over to 
the window and drew the curtain aside.  The frozen field sparkled 
in the light of a near-full moon, and beyond that the woods stood 
like a ragged line of still, gray figures.  No, perhaps not 
entirely still. Was it her imagination, or did something pale 
occasionally flicker around the bases of the trees?  The shifting 
shadows held her gaze for a long, long time.

      
*****

Mulder dreamt he was in the kitchen of his boyhood home, cutting 
out sugar cookies with Samantha.  The girl was the 14-year-old 
he'd seen in his starlight vision and he was his adult self, but 
somehow this seemed only natural.  The only mystery was why 
they'd spent so much time apart.  

The trick to making sugar cookies was to roll the dough out while 
it was still very cold, and Mulder had to stand up and throw his 
back into rolling out the near-frozen mound.  Samantha was doing 
more chatting than cutting, commenting on the more eccentric 
cookie cutters as she lifted them one at a time from the large 
bowl in front of her.  The Mulder siblings had liked to root 
through summer-end garage sales for peculiar cookie cutters and 
hoard them in anticipation of the holidays.  It got so Christmas 
wasn't the same without cookies shaped like Friar Tuck or the 
head of Mayor McCheese.

Despite her apparent distraction, Samantha had two full cookie 
sheets in front of her, one balanced awkwardly on the other.  She 
struck one with her elbow as she reached across the table for 
their dented fleur-de-lis cutter, and only her quick grab saved 
it from clattering to the floor.

Mulder set the rolling pin down and held his hands out to her. 
"Here -- I'll give those to Mom," he said.  Samantha handed him 
the sheets, and he turned to set them on the counter.  

Mrs. Mulder shut the oven door and stood up.  She moved with a 
strange, slow stiffness.  

"Mom?"  Mulder asked.

He realized her hair was dark and wet-looking.  When she turned, 
her features were a corpse's, bloated and blackened almost beyond 
recognition.

*****

Mulder cried out and sat up in bed.  For an instant he was 
disoriented, unable to recognize the room faintly outlined by the 
glow from Scully's laptop.

"Mulder?"

He turned to find Scully at the window, moonlight shining through 
the filmy fabric of her nightgown.  She seemed to be standing too 
close to the glass, as if she were a lover watching in eager 
anticipation of her beloved's return.  He looked away, unable to 
bear the freezing feeling he got when he looked at her.

"What is it?  Did you have a bad dream?"  He heard her bare feet 
padding across the carpet. Her fingers were cold when she put her 
hand in his arm; she'd been standing at the window a long time.  
Chill radiated from her as from an open grave.

"Mulder?"  She asked again.

He reached up and seized her, crushing her against him.  
"Whatever's out there doesn't need you.  *I* need you."

"Mulder, stop it!  You're hurting me."  He did not immediately 
yield to her struggles.  Something dark and desperate in him 
refused to let her go.  

When he finally released her, he sat forward and rested his 
elbows on his knees, ashamed.  She was a luminous figure in his 
peripheral vision, lifting her hand to her injured side.  "What's 
the matter with you?" she asked.

Everything.  Everything was the matter.  "Scully . . . can I ask 
you something?"  His mouth felt as dry as ash.

Whatever she heard in his voice made her speak more gently.  
"Sure . . . what is it?"  He felt the bed springs shift as she 
sat down.  

There was an odd humming feeling in his head.  "When we went to 
my mother's apartment, did I see the body?"

Silence.  //She doesn't know what to say.//   

"You don't remember," she said.

Mulder swallowed against the burning at the back of his throat.  
"Maybe I do now." 

Scully began to talk too quickly in that clinical voice she used 
when she wanted to distance herself from something. "Repression 
is a normal psychological defense mechanism.  I know when I came 
home from the hospital after my sister--"

Mulder tuned her out.  Disjointed images flashed in his mind.  
Socks.  White socks beneath the cuffs of loose teal slacks, 
resting at one end of the couch.  Scully arguing with one of the 
cops: //"Leave him alone.  He's upset."//

//"What the hell is he doing here?"//

Another officer spoke: //"He flashed a badge at the door.  How 
was I supposed to know he was her son?"//

The smell of death was already strong, overpowering the chemical 
smell from the leaky gas line in the oven.  A smell like things 
left on the beach after storm breakers receded; like oysters with 
gaping shells.

Her hands lay folded on her stomach, relaxed as if in sleep.  The 
only clue to what had occurred was the faint greenish tinge to 
the skin on top and the deep red color just visible on the 
underside of her fingers.  The tissues had begun to swell just 
slightly, causing her thin gold watchband to impress a groove 
around her wrist.  The hands of the watch still twitched forward, 
impervious.

//"Mulder, come on.  Let's go.  Let's let them finish up in 
here."//  Scully had tugged at his arm, urging him toward the 
door.  He remained, immovable.

His mother had not been dead long, 36 hours, 48 at most.  Yet her 
head, encased in a plastic bag secured with a rubber band, seemed 
to belong to a corpse dead far longer.  Her expiring breath had 
filled the plastic with moisture and microbes soon went to work.

Beneath her mercifully closed eyes her eyeballs had gone flat, 
forming deep hollows in a face otherwise swollen like a drowning 
victim's.  The deterioration was such that Mulder had at first 
allowed himself to hope it wasn't his mother after all.  Surely 
this was not the woman who had left a message on his answering 
machine only days before.

But her identification had been laid out neatly on the arm of the 
couch, and a scar she'd gotten while washing out a glass that 
broke made a familiar checkmark-shape across her knuckle.

Other memories intruded on his recollection of the scene: the 
smell of gun powder; the hot, sticky feeling of his father's 
blood seeping through his clothes, the pool of it spreading and 
spreading.

Mulder felt his bowels turn to liquid, and he quickly got up out 
of bed.

When he returned, he felt shaky and sweaty, as if he had been ill 
for days.  As an afterthought, he drew over the wastepaper basket 
just in case he threw up.

Scully was buzzing around him, turning on lights, fetching him 
water.  She located a thermometer in some inner pocket of her bag 
and coaxed him into putting it under his tongue.

He obliged her, though he doubted he was feverish.  He shut his 
eyes against the glare of the lamp and simply felt himself 
breathe.  There was something satisfying about hearing the air 
rush in and out of his nostrils -- proof he still belonged to the 
land of the living.

Mulder felt no emotion he could identify, which was fine with 
him.  It was as if his heart had broken, and then the sharp 
slivers had been wrapped in thick cotton batting to prevent them 
from doing any more damage.  For the second time that night, the 
world disintegrated into a collection of disjointed sensations -- 
the pressure of his body against the cotton sheets, Scully's feet 
patting on the carpet, the almost-inaudible hum coming from her 
laptop.

Before long she disturbed him to take thermometer out of his 
mouth.  "97.8," she said.

Ah.  So this was just shock.  Nothing remarkable about that.  He 
heard her pick up the glass of water from the bedside table.  "I 
want you to drink as much of this is you can," she said.

He was tempted to ignore her, but he made himself drink the 
thing.  He didn't enjoy it.  He hurt when he moved, though not 
physically.  The pain went deeper than that.

Scully made him drink another glass of water before she shut out 
the light and got back into bed with him.  She wadded the 
blankets around him and coaxed him into sitting curled against 
her with his head on her shoulder.

To his dismay, she started to pray over him: "Hail, Holy Queen, 
Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope, to thee do 
we cry, poor, banished children of Eve . . ."

"Please don't do that," Mulder said.  As far as he was concerned, 
prayers were for funerals, and he wasn't dead just yet.  

She fell silent and rested her cheek against his forehead, as if 
very weary.  He could tell from the way she was holding him that 
she was afraid for him.  She pressed the coverlet against his 
shoulder as if she were stanching the blood from a wound.  Some 
sick, childish part of him was glad. He tried telling himself he 
did not need attention that badly, but it didn't work.  He was 
well beyond the point of reasoning with himself.  //This would be 
a really good time for Scully's God to exist.//  "Tell me a 
Sister Spooky story," he said.

"Mulder . . . that's not what you need to hear right now," she 
said.  Sister Spooky, known to the rest of the world as Sister 
Mary Carnahan, IHM, had been a veritable encyclopedia of bizarre 
Church trivia.  Most of her stories involved things like 
miraculously preserved tongues and statues that bled.  At times, 
Mulder knew his interest made Scully uncomfortable.  He'd had to 
assure her he wasn't simply picking her brain for a Catholic 
version of "Ripley's Believe It or Not."  Sister Spooky's world 
was filled with mystery, and in mystery there was hope.

"It is.  It is what I need to hear," Mulder said.

She sighed and was silent for a few moments.  "The only one I can 
think of is completely inappropriate," she said.

"I don't care.  It'll do fine," Mulder said.

"It's got death in it," she warned him.

"Even better."

She took a deep breath and said, "Well, according to Sister Mary, 
Death takes the form of a man in a broad-brimmed hat.  Underneath 
the hat is a skull, and the eye sockets are dark.  He's blind, so 
when he wanders the streets at night, he goes sniffing at the air 
to find his way.  You can hear him coming because he pushes a 
heavy cart full of the bodies of people he's come to take away.

Mulder curled more closely against Scully, like a child moving
closer to the camp fire during a ghost story.

"Once, a long time ago, Death could see.  He was walking through 
the Irish farm country one evening when St. Peter came down to 
earth and started walking beside him.  All the sensible farmers 
were already in their houses, but one farmer and his servant were 
still mowing hay.

"At the sound of Death's cart, the farmer dropped to the ground 
and whispered for his servant to do the same.  But the servant 
was a simple man, and he kept mowing and singing.

"Death was angry that the man was not afraid.  He pointed his 
bony finger at him and said, 'You.  In eight days that fine voice 
of yours will be stilled.  I advise you to get shriven now, 
because once your eight days are up I will come for you.'"

"But the servant only sang louder, and that made 
Death even more angry.  'Very well, you had your chance,' he 
said.  'You should have seen the priest when I bade you.  Instead 
you will come with me now, with all of your sins on your head.'

"Then St. Peter stepped in and said, 'How dare you wish such a 
death on an honest man doing honest work?  Remember, you were 
made to chasten man, not to rule him.'  And he struck the glowing 
fires out of the creature's eyes."

Scully lapsed into silence, and for time the only sound was the 
hum of her laptop.  "That's a great story," Mulder said.  

"It's not great.  It's kind of twisted.  I think some of the 
parents went to the priest after Sister told us that one," she 
said.  He wondered if her own parents had complained.  The story 
must have made quite an impression on her; Mulder suspected she 
was quoting parts of it verbatim.

"I liked it.  Thank you," he said.  Somehow the idea that Death 
had limitations was very comforting.

She patted his thigh through the thick blankets.  "Think you can 
sleep?"

Unconsciousness sounded like a very nice idea -- if only he could 
keep from dreaming.  "I think so.  Can you?"

She hesitated a moment and he knew she'd heard his unspoken 
reproach.  No more lurking at the window and frightening him.  
"Yes, I think so," she said.

They settled back down into bed, and this time Mulder's sleep was 
untroubled by dreams.

*****

Full sunlight was shining over the top of the curtains when 
Scully woke up.  She felt better rested than she had since 
leaving work on Friday.  Slowly it dawned heard this was wrong.  
It was Monday morning, and agents who expected to miss work were 
supposed to call in by 8 AM.  She sat up on the edge of the bed 
and phoned Skinner's office, leaving a message with Kim.  If the 
AD was as "enthusiastic" about keeping her and Mulder out of 
Washington and out of trouble as he claimed, then he would 
understand.  She let Mulder sleep as she dressed.  The events of 
the past few days had likely been even more harrowing for him 
than they had been for her.   

She took the room key from the nightstand and slipped out of the 
room, hoping there was still something left of the continental 
breakfast buffet downstairs.  Scully hesitated briefly on the 
landing, listening to the sound of law officers' voices.  She 
could feel the bracing fresh air even where she stood on the 
stairway -- men must have been going in and out the front door 
for some time.  The investigators were packing up and going home: 
scene processed, suspect in custody, case closed.

The thought made Scully uneasy.  She didn't doubt that John McBer 
had meant little good to Kristie Herron.  Perhaps he even planned 
to kill her.  But had he actually committed the murder?  

For that matter, to what extent had Scully's own inexplicable 
experience colored her view of the facts and Kristie's murder 
case?  The whole situation made her position extremely difficult.  
The young woman's family certainly deserved some satisfaction 
from the justice system.  But then, if he was innocent, so did 
John McBer.

She continued down the stairs and found officers in civilian garb 
chatting next to their packed bags, and brushing crumbs from 
cheese danishes off their shirt fronts and mustaches.  Two 
teenagers, a boy and a girl, wearing crisp white aprons, cleared 
mostly-empty trays of fruit, pastries and muffins from a long 
table.  

Detective Davis, wearing khaki slacks and a tweed blazer, stood 
right by the remaining tray of little muffins.  Scully braved the 
possibility of his curious blue gaze as she grabbed a paper plate 
and began loading a basic breakfast for herself and Mulder on it.  
She couldn't help glancing up at the boy server as he reached 
for, then drew back from, the tray she was picking at.  The kid 
was skinny and pimply-faced, probably about 17 years old.  His 
name tag said "Josh."  Scully glanced up at Josh and couldn't 
help imagining a young Mulder, awkward and silent and sad, 
working in his former neighbors' inn because they were the only 
people who would tolerate him.

Josh looked up at her and she saw his eyes were dark rather than 
green-gold-brown.

"Hi," Scully said, smiling.

"Hi," the boy said, and immediately found something else to do on 
the other end of the table.  His co-worker, a girl whose nametag 
said "Nicole," rolled her eyes and started brushing crumbs off 
the tablecloth.

Scully forced herself to seem as disinterested as possible as 
detective Davis stepped up beside her.  

 "Agent Scully, it's good to see you up and around again." 

She managed a tight smile and consciously refrained from fussing 
with the bandages on her hands.  "Thank you," she replied.  "I 
wanted to ask you whether I could examine the photos of Kristie 
Herron's autopsy." 

Davis looked mildly surprised.  "Sure.  I have no problem with 
that.  But may I ask why?"

Scully swallowed, debated whether to demur or to be upfront about 
her questions concerning John McBer's guilt.  McBer might indeed 
be a poor excuse for a human being, even a murderer, but he was 
not necessarily Kristie's killer.  "I want to study the wound 
pattern again, specifically the sharp-force wound to the thigh.  
I want to be sure about the angle of attack before I write up the 
protocol."

"The angle of attack?"  Davis asked, frowning.  "I thought we 
were pretty clear that the attack was a thrust from someone 
sitting or kneeling low to the ground, perhaps in a chair.  What 
happened to make you change your mind?"

"I haven't changed my mind.  Not exactly," Scully said.  "It's 
just that I want to explore all possibilities."

"Possibilities?"  Davis echoed.  Suddenly he held his hand out as 
if he wanted to usher her away from the crowd.  "Can I talk with 
you?  Privately?"  he asked.

She blinked at him, trying not to show that she was at all 
concerned.  "Yes, I suppose so," she said.  She walked with him a 
short distance to the lace-covered window near the corner with 
the pot-bellied stove.

"Listen, I'm not good at politics, and I can't think of a politic 
way to say this.  Dr. Scully, I don't want this to be repeat of 
the LaPierre case," Davis said quietly.

The statement stunned Scully into silence.  Amber Lynn LaPierre 
was the little girl Mulder believed had "vanished into 
starlight."  The case was still wending its way through the court 
system, but the defense was making a big deal of "an FBI 
profiler's" dismissal of the LaPierres as suspects.  

"Excuse me?"  Scully asked.  "I don't think I understand."

Davis looked pained and glanced away toward the window, is if 
Scully were forcing him into territory where he didn't want to 
go.  "Look, we all have tough breaks in our lives.  I've had 
mine, you've had yours, and Agent Mulder has had his.  But as 
professionals, we have to make sure those breaks don't cloud our 
judgment about a case.  I know you lost her daughter two years 
ago--"

"You what?"  Scully asked, louder than she'd meant to.  Heads in 
the room turned.  She felt heat spreading across her face.

Davis looked apologetic.  "Patty Herron mentioned you stopped by 
the other night; she said you'd lost a child.  I'm sorry to hear 
that.  I really am.  But reading supernatural elements into this 
case is not going to bring that child back."

There was a dim singing in Scully's ears and she felt a powerful 
urge to slap him.  Her voice shook slightly when she spoke: "You 
don't know what you're talking about.  Agent Mulder and I have 
always conducted our cases with the utmost professionalism . . ."

Davis held up his hands, a disarming gesture.  "I'm not trying to 
be offensive.  I'm just trying to make sure this case gets the 
best investigation possible.  The Herron family deserves that 
much.  You agree with me, right?"

Despite his assertion that he was no good at politics, Davis had 
backed her into a corner.  "Of course," Scully said.  
 
"Okay.  I can have the photos sent up to you in a few hours.  
That all right?"  Davis asked.

"Yes," Scully said, not liking how quickly he was giving in.  She 
sensed he was throwing her a bone.

"Good," Davis said, giving her a conciliatory smile. 

Scully moved away from him quickly, heading upstairs with her 
paper plate laden with fruit and muffins.  Maybe it was her 
imagination, but she felt every eye in the room on her as she 
exited.

She found Mulder awake, sitting naked with his legs folded up 
under him among the tangled sheets on the bed.  He still looked 
sleepy and a little dazed.

He blinked at her as she came in.  "What's wrong?"

Scully set the plate down on the nightstand and sat on the edge 
of the bed.  "I was talking to Davis.  He said Patty told him 
about Emily, and that I shouldn't let what happened affect my 
'professionalism.'"

Mulder held his arm out to her and she allowed herself to be 
coaxed into lying down with him, the warmth of his body pressed 
against her back.  She felt his lips brushing the back of her 
neck as he said, "Davis is an ass."

She exhaled deeply, feeling some of the tension leave her body.  
She realized that she was still very tired.  "He's not.  He's not 
an ass.  He's just an ordinary detective trying to do his job, 
and he doesn't want 'Mrs. Spooky' messing things up for him."

"Is that how you think of yourself now?"  His tone was regretful.

"I don't know," Scully said softly.  She hardly knew what to 
think of herself anymore.  Seven years ago she had been very like 
detective Davis -- skeptical, conventional, good at her job, up 
to a point.  Since then everything had changed.

"You are Dana Scully.   You're a good investigator, a good 
doctor.  And you're a good friend," he said.

She couldn't quite help fishing for more.  "A friend?  That's all 
I am?"  

"What, you want the part about being the bright light around 
which my otherwise dim and twisted universe revolves, too?"

She lifted his hand to her lips, suddenly very grateful for him.  
"I'm glad you're doing better this morning," she said.  His 
request for a story about death last night had frightened her 
little.  Maybe if they played their cards right, only one of them 
would be crazy at a time.

"I'll make it through, one way or another.  And so will you," he 
said.

At that moment she believed him.  "Mulder, can I ask you 
something?"

He must have heard the faint tremor in her voice because he 
pulled her closer.  "Sure."

"Did I make a mistake with Emily?  I mean by stepping into the 
role of her mother so quickly, pursuing such aggressive treatment  
. . ." she could feel Mulder shaking his head.

"You loved her.  Every choice you made was based on that.  That's 
not wrong," Mulder said.

It took a few seconds before she could get the words out: "She 
didn't love me back."  Tears she'd been stifling for too long 
flooded her eyes and ran down either side of her nose.

"Hey," Mulder said, then tugged at her shoulder until she rolled 
over and curled against his chest.  "You don't know that."

"She didn't love me the way I loved her," Scully said.  No one 
could deny that.  Emily had at best tolerated her.  The little 
girl had allowed herself to be held, but would neither snuggle 
close nor push Scully away.  It was as if her biological mother 
were an inconsequential environmental variable, like the weather.  
It was this horrible truth that whispered to Scully in her 
nightmares and which Irv Stuckey had played upon so successfully.

Mulder sighed, and Scully felt him try to mold his body to hers, 
as if trying to absorb the shock from some impact.  "Everyone and 
everything she'd ever loved had been taken away from her.  She 
was probably afraid to love anybody after that.  She needed more 
time.  It's just that time's the one thing she didn't have." 

Scully cried for several minutes, exploring the sharp edges of 
the broken place inside her.  She thought she had done a fairly 
good job of healing after two years.  Would that broken place 
ever go away?

Once she was done crying, she lay with her head in the hollow of 
Mulder shoulder.  "Irv Stuckey said something yesterday," she 
said.  She felt his muscles tense.

"What?" he asked.  
 
Scully had already told Mulder all the shameful things Irv had 
said about him, but not the final part about Emily.  That had 
been too horrible to speak of.

"He said . . . he said he knew an old down-island woman who told 
him a story about someone who was killed by the South Road Ghost.  
A deaf woman.  And he wanted to know if I heard Emily calling 
me."

"He said that to you? I'll kill him." 

Scully didn't like the tension she could feel building in him.  
Mulder was impulsive enough at times to make her worry he might 
really do something foolish.

"I need you to do something else for me," she said, hoping to 
harness that emotion to some constructive goal.  "Can you find 
out who this deaf woman might have been -- if anyone's still 
alive who might have known her?  It's just . . . it's something I 
need to know." 

"This whole South Road Ghost thing has gone way too far.  The 
story about Mary Brown is a story to scare kids, Scully.  
Whatever's out there in those woods does not represent payback 
time for mothers who make bad choices.  It has its own reasons 
for doing what it does.  People have taken it and twisted it to 
prop up whatever social moral they happen to be selling.  That's 
what really bothers me about situations like this.  Some real 
tragedy happens, and suddenly fifty armchair moralists have to 
leap up and co-opt the facts to fit their own prejudices."

The passion in his voice was such that Scully suspected he wasn't 
speaking only of the South Road Ghost and Kristie Herron.  She 
remembered what Irv had said, //"Ask him what his mama heard out 
in those trees."//   

"Mulder, I would feel better if you asked," she said.

The momentum of his rant could not be stopped so easily.  "We all 
live our lives in a complex, bewildering gray area, but as soon 
as we're dead, everything's supposed to become a 'Friday the 
13th' allegory for moral transgression."  

She tried another tack.  "Aren't you at least a little curious to 
find out what this thing is, if it's not what it seems to be?"  

Curiosity was his Achilles heel, and they both knew it.  She felt 
him exhale, as if releasing some of his outrage.  "I can ask," he 
said.  "But I'm not curious enough to lose you over it.  I don't 
think we should spend another night out here."

"No," she assured him.  "I just have a few things to tie up.  I 
need access to the photos from Kristie's autopsy to finish the 
protocol, for one thing."

Mulder raised up on his elbow to look at the clock.  It was a 
little after 11.  "Probably the place for me to start is the 
Dukes County Historical Society in Edgartown.  They're a lot more 
reliable than Irv Stuckey is."

"Would it be possible for you to run me up to the store before 
you go?" she asked.  "I need some things to help check out a 
theory."

In fact, she wanted a long, sharp, serrated knife, some 
children's modeling dough, preferably Play-Doh brand, and if 
possible, cut-proof Kevlar gloves.  Whether or not the autopsy 
photos showed anything conclusive, the knife and the Play-Doh 
would help her replicate the wound pattern.  

The store clerk and everyone else in town would probably think 
she was a nut, but then, as Mrs. Spooky, she wouldn't want to 
disappoint them.

*****

Later, Mulder dropped Scully back off at the inn with her bag of 
peculiar purchases.  She'd explained the forensic uses of Play-
Doh to him long ago.  Unlike clay or most generic children's 
modeling dough, the Playskool brand had a very high surface 
tension that caused it to tear at the edges of a puncture rather 
than deform, much like human skin.  This made it a useful, if 
crude, medium for re-creating the pattern of wounds.

He watched her walk up the steps of Nye House, knowing that she'd 
spend the afternoon busily slashing at Play-Doh and dictating the 
results onto her recorder.  An eccentric investigative method 
perhaps, but at least it was cleaner than the experiments 
attributed to Sherlock Holmes.  He was supposed to have stabbed 
pig carcasses with a fencing foil.

One she was inside, Mulder pulled out of the gravel drive, which 
was muddy and much-rutted now from the rain and the unusually 
high volume of traffic over the last few days.  But at the moment 
all the storm clouds were gone, and the afternoon was shaping up 
to be a fine one.  The sunlight had the silvery clarity that 
seemed to belong only to the Atlantic Northeast in the spring, 
and as Mulder made his way along the dirt track of Rural Route 
1, he noticed that the canopy of bare branches overhead was 
beginning to develop tiny green leaf buds.

Seasons changed more slowly out on the coast, and this spring had 
been colder and wetter than many.  And yet, there was only so 
long that winter could last.  After one of the hardest winters of 
his life, Mulder was more than ready for spring.  

The Dukes County Historical Society was a collection of buildings 
along an Edgartown side street, only a few blocks away from the 
jail he'd visited yesterday.  He parked his car in the near-empty 
lot behind the Gale Huntington Library, a two-story building done 
in the same square, black-and-white Greek Revival style that had 
been once so popular with whaling captains.  The library 
building, which also housed a maritime museum, was a modern 
imitation of an old house, but truly old structures dotted the 
Historical Society grounds around it.  Gray, shake-sided Thomas 
Cooke House stood off to one side, looking much as it had during 
the youth of King George III.  

As Mulder got out of his car and started up the walkway toward 
the library, he found that Cooke House both drew and curiously 
repelled his gaze.  It was not an especially attractive building, 
square in front but with a steeply sloping back that gave it a 
slightly barn-like appearance.  Its curtainless windows reflected 
the early afternoon sun, giving the panes a blank, staring look.  
Even the replica of an 18th century kitchen garden, which would 
brighten the place in the coming months, was currently brown and 
dead.

In all likelihood the house that had once stood by the South Road 
Burying Ground had been nearly identical to this one, with the 
exception of the rough fieldstone base that still remained among 
the weeds.  It occurred to him that there might be something 
unwise, if not actually unhealthy, about Vineyarders' attachment 
to the past.  What did it say about a place when three-quarters 
of the houses in town were built by the dead?  

He walked up the damp brick steps to the library's front door.  
Despite its house-like exterior, the inside was clearly that of a 
public building.  A black, rubberized mat lay over the shining 
wooden floorboards and a rack of informational pamphlets stood at 
the foot of the grand staircase, which was currently cordoned off 
with a velvet rope.  Mulder had no business upstairs in the 
maritime museum anyway, so he turned left into what he recalled 
was the library's reference section.  

The place was largely as he remembered it, with bookshelves 
running across the width of the room and glass display cases 
standing along the walls.  A few computer terminals were new 
additions, but the room had the same familiar smell, one of 
bookbinding glue and dust and the faint musty scent that rose 
from the radiators.  A hushed smell.  It made Mulder think of 
autumn leaves and damp sneakers and the great wooden card catalog 
cabinet that had once stood in the corner.  He recalled being 
very pleased when he was tall enough to look down into the 
topmost drawer.  Until then, he'd needed a chair to access 20% of 
the alphabet. 

He wondered what made computers so much better than a card 
catalog file, anyway.  Nobody's card catalog ever crashed and 
died when the power went out.    

At the moment the library seemed deserted, so he walked up to the 
information desk and rang the handbell.  After a few moments a 
petite middle-aged lady in a denim jumper walked out of the back 
room.  Her gray hair had been cut in the same quasi-military 
style seen on statues of Roman soldiers -- the same crummy 
haircut Mulder's father had given him every summer of his 
boyhood, as a matter of fact.  It probably looked better on the 
librarian.

"Can I help you?"  the lady asked.

"Yes--I hope so," Mulder said.  "I'm hoping to track down the 
source of a story.  One related to Mary Brown and the South Road 
Ghost."

The librarian smiled at him and said, "You're looking for 
'Haunted Martha's Vineyard' by Vinton Marsden.  It might be 
checked out -- it's very popular with the kids."

"I know--I've read it.  I used to come here a lot.  My name's Fox 
Mulder."  Somewhat to his relief, the woman's face showed no 
recognition.  

"I'm Sue Bugay," she said, and shook his hand.  

"Actually I was looking for a living source, a person.  A friend 
of mine told me a woman living somewhere down-island might know 
something about the story.   Apparently a deaf woman died many 
years ago after meeting with an entity out in the woods outside 
Chilmark."

"An entity . . .?" Sue blinked at him for moment from behind her 
glasses.  "Well, there's--" he got the impression she was 
deliberately omitting a name, "there is a woman in our Island 
Oral History Project who tells a story something like that.  Can 
I ask why you need to know?"

Mulder pulled his badge out of his coat pocket.  He hadn't wanted 
to rely on the symbol of authority to get information, but he 
supposed he could understand Sue's reluctance.  He showed her his 
ID and said, "It's possible the event she remembers is relevant 
to an open murder case."

Sue's eyes went wide.  "Not that poor girl who fell over a cliff 
last week?" she asked.

There weren't a lot of homicides on the Vineyard, so there was no 
point in being evasive.  "Yes, ma'am."

"But that can't be.  The story Mrs. Langmann tells happened 
before she was even born, and she's over 90 years old.  There 
must be some mistake," Sue said.

"I'd like to speak to Mrs. Langmann, if that's possible. Is there 
way I could contact her?"  Mulder asked.

Sue looked a little embarrassed at having given away the woman's 
name.  "I'll call her and ask her if she's willing to contact 
you," she said, and walked back into the other room.  Apparently 
she wasn't thrilled at the idea of sending a nut with a badge and 
a ghost story off to bother a little old lady.  

Mulder wandered among the shelves, brushing his fingertips over 
the book spines.  Some of the titles were new, but many were 
familiar to him from years ago.  On impulse, he tugged out a book 
called, "Old Families of the Lower Cape and Islands," and 
examined the card tucked into the inside pocket.  According to 
the date stamps, the book had been checked out a dozen times 
between 1959 and 1983.  Somehow it was nice to see the faded 
numbers at the top of the card.  If something as insubstantial as 
an index card could still be in good condition after 41 years, he 
might stand a fighting chance after all.  

He slipped the book back into place and examined a volume about 
clothing worn at about the time of the Revolutionary War.  Mulder 
was contemplating historical female undergarments, which 
apparently consisted of canvas, whalebone, steel and leather, and 
imagining the inconvenient contortions that would be required to 
get Scully out of such a thing, when Sue returned with a name and 
address written on a slip of paper.  He shut the book firmly and 
put it away.

"The woman you're looking for is Amelie Langmann.  I just spoke 
with her granddaughter, who says it's all right for you to come 
out.  Mrs. Langmann is completely deaf, so she doesn't use the 
phone.  You'll have to meet her in person.  For the next few 
hours her great-grandson should be there to translate."

Mulder scanned the paper she'd given him and saw that the address 
was a rural one, south of Vineyard Haven.  "Thank you," he said.

She seemed to hesitate as he turned to leave. "Mr. Mulder?  

Mulder stopped as he carefully talked the paper slip into his 
wallet.  "Yes?"

"There's . . . something else you might want to look at."  She 
went into the back room again and returned carrying a large book.  
The pages looked as if they had been hand-cut to varying widths 
and then stitched together, giving the edges a rippling look.  

Sue set the book down on the information desk and said, "This is 
a family Bible dating to the  1740s.  The Chilmark courthouse 
burned down in 1826, so family effects like this are the only 
existing record of the town's early history."

She sat the book down on the desk and gently opened the leather 
cover.  The pages inside had turned a mellow brown at the edges, 
but Mulder could still glimpse the printer's information near the 
bottom.  The book had been manufactured by some company in 
Boston, or what looked like "Bofton," with the antiquated long 
"S."  

Sue turned the first page over and revealed a complicated 
genealogy written in several different hands on the back.  
Carefully ruled lines connected the names of parents, children, 
stepchildren, half brothers and sisters born a generation apart, 
and others whose relationships were not immediately clear.  
Scanning the page, Mulder saw that the genealogy began with a 
marriage in 1742 and ended with a death in 1927.  Most of the 
dead had tiny black crosses painted next to their names, making 
him wonder about those who did not.  Were they lost but not known 
to be dead?  Dead but presumably not resting in peace?

"If there was a historical Mary Brown, this may be her," Sue 
said, not quite touching the paper as she pointed to a black spot 
on the family ledger.  One Robert Brown had apparently married a 
woman in 1773 whose memory the family was not eager to keep 
alive.  His wife's name had been obliterated with a bar of black 
ink.  

"My family feels the same way about me," Mulder said.  

If Sue was amused, she didn't show it.  "You can see that Robert 
and his two children died in the same year, 1777.  This younger 
one is unusual in that he or she was entered into the family book 
without a name; there's only the single date."

Mulder shifted his position a little so he could see past her 
pointing finger.  The record showed that the Browns' first child 
was a daughter, Susannah, born in 1774 and just three or four 
years old when she died.  The second child was memorialized with 
only a date and a tiny cross.  

"Why would they do that -- record that a baby was born but not 
write down its name?" Mulder asked.

Sue shook her head.  "Perhaps it died so young it never got one, 
although in that case it would be strange to record its birth at 
all.  I expect that someone just felt especially bad about the 
fact that it died."

"And maybe Mom and Dad weren't around to name it by then," Mulder 
said.

"That could be."

Mulder glanced up at the librarian and asked, "Where did this 
come from?"  

"It's mine," Sue said, straightening up.  She pointed at the 
entry on the bottom of the page: Maria Flint, b. July 1888, d., 
December 1927.  "She was my father's mother."

For the first time Mulder realized he was talking about more than 
folklore -- this was family history.  As tactfully as he could, 
he asked, "Did any family traditions survive?  Any information at 
all about the woman whose name was blacked out?"

Sue shook her head.  "I can tell you that the earliest written 
record of the South Road Ghost story was from about 1850, in a 
letter from a woman to her cousin on the mainland.  She mentions 
the story as if it's already quite old -- a headless woman 
condemned to wander the cliffs on stormy night's after murdering 
both her daughters."

"The second baby was a girl?"  Mulder asked.

"Maybe.  That's the only detail that gives the story any 
credence, really.  Society's imagination tends to default to male 
-- even more so in Victorian times than now."  Suddenly Sue 
seemed to realize what she'd been implying and backed away from 
that precipice.  "It's all just folklore, really.  I'm sure the 
real Mary Brown, if she existed, would hardly recognize herself 
in the stories that have grown up around her."

"Thank you," Mulder said, for once seeing no reason to force 
someone out of her comfortable beliefs into the world of extreme 
possibilities.  After all, he found it comforting to imagine that 
the Vineyard was very ordinary, too.  He copied down the relevant 
information from the book's frontispiece and walked back out to 
the car.

*****

Half an hour later he guided his car over the deeply pitted 
gravel drive leading up to Mrs. Langmann's house.  It was a white 
Victorian with pale yellow shutters, the paint peeling slightly 
from the sides.  Turned-wood posts which held up the overhang 
above the front porch hinted at the house's age.  People 
sometimes faked Victorian gingerbreading of the kind that hung 
from the house's eaves, but nobody bothered with carving wooden 
posts anymore.

As Mulder walked up the steps to the front porch, a shaggy gray 
cat lifted its head from the mold-spotted lawn chair seat it lay 
on.  It blinked its yellow eyes at him, then fled when he rang 
the doorbell.  Footsteps sounded inside and a teenage boy opened 
the door.  The kid's slouch and oversized clothes gave the 
impression that he'd been picked up out of the lost-and-found at 
the local bus station.  

Mulder bit back the first comment that came to mind, about what 
the kid was doing a wearing Marlon Brando's pants.  Did it mean 
he was getting old when he felt like making fun of teenagers' 
fashion sense?  //Nah.//

"You the guy who's here to see my O.G?" the kid asked.

Mulder couldn't help giving him a sharp look.  As far as he knew, 
"O.G." was a gangland term meeting "original gangster."

"Your O.G.?"  Mulder asked.  The boy opened the rusty screen door 
and let Mulder into the house.  

The kid looked a little embarrassed by Mulder's scrutiny.  "My old 
Grandma," he said.

The front room was small and square, lit only by the sun through 
the windows.  A worn rug partially covered its bare hardwood 
floor.  The furniture had the spare, slightly space-agey look 
popular in the early 60's, and a quick glance revealed that the 
television had knobs and rabbit-ear antennas.  Mulder wondered if 
Ed Sullivan or Lawrence Welk would automatically appear if he 
turned it on.

The kid led Mulder back into the little kitchen, where modern-
looking appliances sat next to older things on the gleaming 
counter.  Whether Mrs. Langmann used her modern conveniences was 
doubtful -- the bowl of an electric bread-kneading machine was 
stuffed full of what looked like magazine clippings, and what 
appeared to be an honest-to-goodness wooden kneading trough sat 
with a cloth over it on a sturdy aluminum table.

The kid muttered an invitation for Mulder to sit in one of the 
aluminum-legged chairs and then wandered out the back door, 
presumably looking for his great-grandmother.  Before long the 
door opened again and a truly ancient little woman walked in, 
wiping garden dirt from her hands on a dishcloth tied at her 
waist.

Mulder stood and asked, "Mrs. Langmann?" then suddenly felt like 
an idiot for speaking aloud to a deaf woman.  

He needn't have worried, because she answered, "Yes?"  Apparently 
she read lips.  

He held his hand out to her and she pressed it gently between her 
cool, knobby fingers.  "I'm Fox Mulder.  Susan Bugay suggested I 
meet with you," he said.

Her great-grandson had followed her into the kitchen, and he 
signed a translation of Mulder's statement with surprising 
deftness.

"Oh!  You mean about that girl that died," the old lady said.  
She spoke with the flat, slightly throaty tones of the longtime 
deaf.  

"Yes, ma'am.  I wanted to speak to you about the South Road 
Ghost."

She peered at the boy as he translated, showing no surprise at 
Mulder's request.  Her heavy-lidded eyes were a pale, clouded 
blue, and Mulder wondered if she weren't partially blind as well.  
"Jeff, be a love and fetch us another chair," Mrs. Langmann said.

Jeff headed back into the living room, and while he was gone Mrs. 
Langmann washed the rest of the garden soil from her hands at the 
sink.  She seemed to be in no hurry; Mulder supposed that being 
more than 90 years old put the passage of time in perspective.  

Jeff returned carrying a straight-backed wooden chair with a 
cushion tied over the seat.  He set this down by the table, and 
Mrs. Langmann perched on the edge of it.  She drew her kneading 
trough to her and lifted the cloth off.  Mulder and Jeff sat down 
in the other two chairs, with the boy sitting between the two 
adults.

Although not patient by nature, Mulder decided to let the old 
lady begin her story in her own time.  Mrs. Langmann began 
punching and folding her dough.  "So you think the ghost did for 
that poor Herron girl," Mrs. Langmann said at last.

"Some people think so," Mulder said.  Mrs. Langmann glanced up at 
Jeff's translation.  

"What did she see?"  Mrs. Langmann asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"The girl.  Out in the woods -- what did she see?" Mrs. Langmann 
glanced up from her kneading, apparently waiting for Jeff to 
translate Mulder's response.

"I don't know.  She died before anyone could ask her."  Mulder 
hesitated before bringing Scully into the discussion, but saw no 
way around doing it.  He supposed news of her experience would 
have traveled fast, anyway.  "A friend of mine saw children, or 
what she believed to be children, during the storm early Sunday 
morning.  She said they were bleeding, crying for their mother."

Mulder thought Jeff looked a little uneasy as he translated that 
for Mrs. Langmann.  "Ah," the old lady said.  "Folks see 
different things, you know.  The headless lady gets all the 
attention.  I've known people who went out there looking for her; 
they think she's some kind of tourist attraction, I guess.  They 
never do see anything but the wind and the rain, and maybe the 
inside of a police car if they get too bold about trespassing.  
That's because the South Road Ghost isn't the kind of ghost you 
can go looking for.  It's the kind that comes looking for you."

"Why?" Mulder asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the 
table.  "Why would it look for someone?"

Mrs. Langmann glanced up at Jeff and said, "Nobody knows that.  
Nobody living, anyway.  I can tell you that it calls those whose 
roots aren't deep in this world, usually folks who have already 
lost more than they can bear.  I suppose those people are easy, 
since they're halfway into the next world already."

"I've heard you knew someone who met it," Mulder said.    

Jeff translated, and then Mrs. Langmann returned to her kneading 
for so long that Mulder feared she had decided not to answer.  
When she spoke at last, her words seemed like the ramblings of 
the senile.  "I went deaf of a fever when I was six," Mrs. 
Langmann continued.  "At the time, the only formal education 
available for me was the deaf school on the mainland, but the 
very thought of being sent away terrified me.  It terrified my 
mother, too, because I was the only child she had.  In the end, 
my parents brought in Miss Emma Stoy to be my tutor.  

"Miss Emma was a spinster lady, and a good friend to me until she 
died.  She may have saved my life when I was a newly married 
woman.  My Edward became terribly sick with the influenza when we 
were six months married.  I was just nineteen and very silly.  I 
swore to Miss Emma that if Edward died, then I would die too.   
When she heard that, she cried, 'For shame!  For shame!'"  Mrs. 
Langmann raised her hands from the trough to show the signs Miss 
Emma had made.  Her sharp motions appeared to startle Jeff.

The old lady continued, "Then she told me the story of her sister 
Pearl who died.  Pearl was born deaf, and Miss Emma learned to 
sign to her from a young age."  

Mulder sat very still, listening intently without taking notes, 
which were largely unnecessary for him.  Some people found this 
disconcerting, but Mrs. Langmann seemed hardly to notice.

"Pearl went to the very same deaf school I was so anxious to 
avoid, and she hadn't thought much of it.  In fact, she was far 
more interested in a certain young Mr. Watkins than she was in 
her studies, so as soon as she could she left school and was 
married.  She and her husband set up housekeeping just outside 
Vineyard Haven, and before long they had a little daughter, Rose.  
Pearl adored that child.  For a time, she and her husband and 
their little girl were very happy.

"One day when Rose had only just begun to get around well on her 
feet, Pearl left her sleeping in her cradle while she went out to 
hang the wash.  While she was gone, the baby fell into the fire.  
Pearl never heard what was going on inside the house; how could 
she?  The old dog began running around and around the yard, 
around and around and around until he just crawled under a tree 
and lay still.  He heard that baby, all right.  But Pearl could 
make nothing of what he was carrying on about."  Mrs. Langmann 
continued to beat her dough, her hands moving in a slow, steady 
rhythm.

"She never knew until she smelled smoke and saw flames through 
the window.  She ran inside with the wet washing, tried throwing 
everything she could over the fire, but she couldn't find her 
daughter.  

"Neighbors finally pulled her out of the house.  Nobody could go 
in until after the foundation cooled.  In the end, there was 
hardly enough of that child left to bury."

Mulder recalled Samantha and the other children who had all but 
dematerialized.  He pressed the crease of his thumb hard against 
the semi-sharp underside of the table's aluminum edging, hoping 
the pain would act as a distraction.  This was not a time to 
think of the poor, thin bones pulled from Addie Sparks' shallow 
grave.  Not a time to think of the horrors underneath Santa's 
North Pole Village off Route 74 or what Kathy Lee Tencate never 
found of her son, Dean.  He straightened up in his chair and 
glanced at Jeff, not quite daring the boy to see something 
besides calm professionalism in his eyes.

Mrs. Langmann continued, "Afterward, Pearl took to her bed.  
Sometimes she told Miss Emma she heard her baby crying for her.  
Since Pearl had never heard a thing in her life, Miss Emma was 
puzzled, and Pearl explained that when she said 'heard' it was 
more like 'felt,' a trembling in the breastbone, like when 
thunder comes."  Mrs. Langmann pressed her flour-covered fist 
against her own breastbone. 

"One night Pearl went tearing off into the woods near the 
Wesquobsque Cliffs.  The local men started a search party, but 
they never found her until morning.  Somebody had slashed her 
throat, her face, her hands . . . certain folks thought she'd 
done it to herself in a kind of frenzy, but they never did find 
the knife."

Mulder recalled Scully lying in the emergency room with bandages 
wrapped around the pale skin of her hands.  For his sanity's 
sake, he put that image from his mind.  "What do you think 
happened?"
 
Mrs. Langmann barely glanced at Jeff's translation.  She replied 
as if she hadn't seen it at all.  "Miss Emma got me to understand 
that sometimes, you got to let go.  When someone you love is 
going to that other side, you can hold their hand until the last 
moment, but when the time comes, you got to let go.  If you 
don't, then they'll take you too.  It's not wise to call into 
that dark space beyond, son.  Something might hear you.  Maybe 
not what you're expecting."

Jeff's hands had fallen into his lap.  As if coming to himself, 
he suddenly began to speak and sign at the same time, "You're 
just joshing about something out there hearing you, right, O.G.?  
It's a joke, right?"

Mrs. Langmann didn't answer.

Mulder glanced at the boy and asked, "Hey Jeff, could you get us 
a pen and a piece of paper?"

The kid got up and hurried from the room as if glad for the 
excuse to go.  Mulder pulled a pen and a notepad from the inside 
pocket of his coat.  He wrote down, "My friend had a daughter who 
died two years ago.  Can't have any more children.  Afraid it was 
all her fault."  He pushed the pen and pad toward Mrs. Langmann.

She scanned his note and asked, "Who says she can't have any 
more?"

Mulder wrote at the bottom of the page, "Doctors."

"Huh." Mrs. Langmann said.  That single syllable was apparently 
enough to convey her opinion of doctors.

Once it became clear she would not elaborate, Mulder wrote on a 
fresh page, "How can I help her?"

"Don't leave her alone," Mrs. Langmann said.  "If you want to 
protect her, don't leave her alone.  If this thing out there 
wants her bad enough, it'll start by tearing her away from her 
friends, her family, her God.  Everything that keeps her anchored 
in this world.  Alone, a soul is a weak thing, especially a 
grieving soul."

Mulder thought of how Scully had uncharacteristically turned down 
the Sacraments at the church on Sunday morning.  "Is this thing 
evil?" he wrote on the notepad.

Mrs. Langmann glanced at it but kept rhythmically punching her 
dough.  "Hard to say.  Could be mean, spiteful.  Could just be 
sad, lost between here and there and looking for company.  That's 
the kind of company your friend doesn't need to keep."

Mulder looked down at the paper in his hands, suddenly feeling 
powerless and lost himself.  The recollection of Scully standing 
at the window in her filmy nightgown returned to him with an 
unsettling clarity.  

Mrs. Langmann continued, "Just don't leave her alone, especially 
not come nightfall.  Going to get cold again -- snow, they say."

Mulder shut his eyes, thinking of Scully back in Nye House with 
the long knife and the Kevlar gloves.  He decided it was time to 
go back there.  Now.

*****

Scully sat at Tammy Willams' small vanity table, watching the 
pages of her autopsy report churn slowly out of her portable 
printer.  The clinical 8" x 10" autopsy photos spread around her 
laptop contrasted bizarrely with the pictures of smiling kids in 
prom night finery tucked into the frame around the mirror.  

Her experiments with modeling dough suggested a scenario in which 
Kristie fell forward onto a knife blade held at about the same 
level as the entry-wound.    One way to interpret that data was 
to conjecture that the young woman had fallen while pursuing a 
smaller, armed person.  If Scully used her knife and a handful of 
Play-Doh to replicate the motion of a person stabbed while 
backing away, she got a different pattern entirely.  Such a crude 
experimentation method would never be admissible in court, but 
her results were enough to make her feel a great deal of doubt 
about the prosecution's version of events.  McBer's defense 
lawyer would love this.  Detective Davis would not be happy at 
all.   

Personally, Scully had mixed feelings about her conclusions.  
McBer was without doubt a despicable person who had no reason to 
wish Kristie well.  He might even have planned to kill her, and 
what was worse, if he were allowed to go free he might harm 
others.

//Don't think about doing this for him.  Think about doing it for 
the truth,// Scully told herself.  Then she answered her own 
thought: //Uh-huh.  Since when did the truth become a murderous 
drug dealer in a wheelchair?//

Coming up with no answer for that, she sighed and stared at her 
slow portable printer as it churned out pages of her autopsy 
report.  Apparently the Bureau considered pathetic printing speed 
to be a Faustian trade-off for the convenience of being able to 
pack the device in a carry-on bag.  

Try as she might, she had not been able to shake the depression 
that had settled over her early Sunday morning.  She reminded 
herself this was Holy Week -- her mother would be baking egg 
bread and the choir at St. Mary's would be practicing the 
Alleluja Chorus for a triumphal Easter service.  Even the thought 
of April sunlight streaming through the church's stained glass 
failed to cheer her.  It was as if something inside her had gone 
dead.

Scully watched the printer inch out line after line of text for a 
few more minutes, then got up and walked out into the empty front 
room.  The sun shone through the lace curtains and brought out 
rich, amber tones in the polished wood floor.  By daylight, the 
woods across the road were stately rather than menacing, their 
branches fringed with pale green leaflets.  She groped toward 
Scriptural references that had comforted her in the past: //This 
is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.//  

She felt not the slightest lifting of the shroud over her heart.  
St. John of the Cross had written about something like this . . . 
the Dark Night of the Soul.  She'd tried unsuccessfully to get 
Mulder to read that book, hoping he would identify with the 
saint, an unfortunate man of integrity who had refused to bow before 
the repressive paranoia of his superiors.  Mulder had managed to 
put off reading it for years.  She'd privately smiled at him, 
thinking she'd never met a man so desperate not to have a 
conversion experience.  

And yet here she was, as blind as Mulder had ever been -- perhaps 
more so.  Scully heard the stairs creak beneath a light tread and 
looked up.  Leigh was walking down with a basket of folded sheets 
on her hip.  The proprietress looked a bit apologetic and said, 
"You got a phone call earlier.  It didn't seem urgent, so I 
didn't disturb you."

"Who was it?"  Scully asked.  Who even knew she was here?

"Patty Herron.  She just wanted to know why the police were 
delaying the release of Kristie's body.  She said that as far as 
she knew, you'd completed the autopsy Saturday."

There was only one reason for Davis to delay the release of 
Kristie's body.  He was going over Scully's head and having the 
autopsy redone.  //"I don't want this to be repeat of 
the LaPierre case,"// he'd said.  Scully gave Leigh a smile that 
was probably as brittle as glass and said, "I'm afraid she'll 
have to ask Detective Davis that question."

Leigh looked puzzled, but before she could reply Scully turned 
and walked out outside.  The afternoon was cool but clear, 
beautiful except for the angry singing in her ears.  She'd seen 
skepticism of her conclusions before.  Other pathologists had 
reviewed her test results, and victims' families had challenged 
her conclusions.  That came with the territory and was only to be 
expected.  But this was the first time a state agency had 
withheld remains from a grieving family expressly to recheck her 
work.  

She strode around to the back of the house, where she dropped 
down into a mostly dry slat-seated bench swing with a view of the 
woods beyond the meadow.  Somewhere, a woodpecker knocked on a 
tree.  Scully bent forward and rested her forehead in her hands, 
trying to hold onto her rage and sense of injury.  Anger was 
lively, and lively was good.  

The feeling soon drained away, just the same.  What did it matter 
whether Scully's colleagues respected her, or when Kristie's body 
would be released, or if her autopsy report ever saw the light of 
day?  Scully's story would one day end just like everyone else's: 
beneath a tilted headstone in a weed-choked graveyard.

A bird splashed in the garden's cement birdbath, and Scully 
looked up.  The little creature cocked its head to one side and 
gazed at her with eyes as shiny and dark as beads.  "You want to 
trade places?" she asked.  "I'll be the little bird and you be 
the FBI agent with a career circling the drain."  The bird 
cheeped at her, fluttered its wings, and flew away.

"That's what I thought," Scully said.

She sat looking toward the woods beyond the meadow until she 
became chilled and drew the lapels of her jacket closer across 
her chest.  The wind was steadily growing colder, bearing the 
first hint of snow.

*****

Mulder drove well in excess of the speed limit over the 
washboarded up-island roads, though he knew his FBI badge 
wouldn't be a get-out-of-ticket-free card here on the Vineyard.

//"Don't leave her alone,"// Mrs. Langmann had said.

He pulled into Nye House's driveway amid a spray of mud and 
gravel, then ran up the slightly-cockeyed wooden steps.  The 
front room was sunny, silent and empty.  

When he opened the door to Tammy's old room, he found Scully's 
printer running, but Scully herself gone.  Her purse was still 
slung by its strap over the back of the white-painted vanity 
chair.  A brief check of the Williams family's quarters turned up 
no one.  

Mulder headed back outside again, afraid to find Scully in the 
old graveyard, crouching by the tombstones -- or worse, to be 
unable to find her at all.  But as he rounded the corner of the 
house he saw her sitting on an old swing bench, rocking herself 
absently as she gazed out at the woods. After a moment, his panic 
subsided. 

The swing's chains creaked in a soothing rhythm as he walked up 
beside her.  The brisk spring wind had reddened her cheeks and 
blown her hair until it resembled tufts of copper-colored prairie 
grass framing her face.  He dropped down onto the seat next to 
her.  "Don't go," he said.  He wasn't sure if it was his words or 
simply the squeak of the overhead swing hooks that caused her to 
look over at him.

She blinked as if awakened from a dream.  "What?  Mulder, what 
are you talking about?" 

"I saw the old lady Irv told you about," he said, digging the 
notes he'd made at the Historical Society from his pants pocket.  
For himself, he didn't really need such notes, but long 
partnership with Scully had taught him that she liked to have 
data she could hold in her hand.

As he explained what he'd learned, she gazed down at the 
scribbled notes he'd given her.  When she repeated the name of 
Capt. Brown's oldest child, "Susannah," the distance in her eyes 
chilled him.

"Scully . . . you can't help them," Mulder said.  "Whenever they 
needed -- or need -- you can't give it to them."  When she didn't 
reply, he pressed, "They're not Emily.  Scully, you don't owe 
them anything."  He could hear the edge of fear in his voice.

"You don't understand," she said softly.  

Mulder's frustration was so great that he had to get up and pace 
across the muddy, brown lawn.  "I understand," he said.  He 
understood completely, and that was what scared him.  He had been 
willing to give up everything for Samantha, and he was selfish 
enough to hope that Scully wasn't willing to do the same for her 
lost daughter.  "I understand that you think they need something 
from you."  

The corners of her mouth tensed as if in mild exasperation, but 
she did not reply.  Mrs. Langmann's words came back to him-- 
//"It's not the kind of ghost you can look for.  It's the kind of 
ghost that comes looking for you."//  

"No," he said, comprehension slowly dawning.  "They don't need 
something from you.  You need something from them." 

"You're not making any sense at all," she said.  The look of 
annoyance on her face was at least a sign of life.  

Having found a plausible theory, he was unwilling to let it go.  
"Folklore is full of stories about ghost children who come back 
to haunt their parents.  In Scandinavia they call them Utburds, 
in Russia they're Navky.  These are kids who died nameless or at 
the hands of their parents.  We always assume they come forward 
in time with us, still calling for the help and attention they 
never got.  What if that's not true?  What if there's something 
inside us that stays back with them?  Maybe guilt and grief keep 
us from letting go of these children and lead us backward in 
time.  Perhaps some people are so wounded that they don't have 
the will to return to the present."

Scully's expression approximated her old look of wry skepticism.  
"Mulder, that's insane," she said.  "Time does not go backward, 
no matter how much we want it to.  That's the whole problem -- 
that's why people grieve.  The Second Law of Thermodynamics . . 
."

Mulder waved away her explanation.  "You're thinking of going out 
there again, aren't you?"

She cut her speech on thermodynamics short, as if his words 
surprised her.

Mulder believed he knew her true thoughts, even if she wouldn't 
admit them to herself.  After all, he'd had similar, secret hopes 
for years.  "You think those entities have something you need, 
and you'll keep going out to them until you find it.  Fine.  
Fine, go ahead, I have no right to stop you."  He sat down next 
her, weary from anxiety and lack of rest.  "Just take me with 
you.  Mrs. Langmann said that the most dangerous thing for you 
was to be alone right now.  She said that this thing will try to 
call you away from everyone who loves you."

Scully met his eyes as he said the last words, and then she 
looked away toward the trees.  After a moment that felt like 
hours, she released a long breath.  "Yes," she said.  
"Come with me."

*****

Mulder drove with Scully to town, where they picked up flares, 
flashlight batteries, and knit gloves to cover Scully's injured 
hands.  If the store's gray-bearded proprietor was interested in 
any of their purchases, he didn't show it. Neither did Scully, 
who wandered through the aisles like a woman lost in thought.

Mulder was encouraged when she wanted to stop by the church on 
the way back, although she asked him to wait in the car and 
wouldn't tell him what she went in for.  As she returned, Mulder 
scanned her face for some sign of inner peace, or resignation, or 
anything at all that would give him a view into her world and 
leave him feeling less shut out.  

Cold air came in with her when she opened the car door.  She did 
not meet his gaze, and instead looked out into some middle 
distance as she groped for her shoulder belt.  Her manner was not 
cruel; it was only as if she were alone.  

It was almost full dark by the time their car bobbed its way into 
Nye House's rutted driveway.  Pellets of sleet bounced off the 
windshield and formed a swarm that coursed through the headlight 
beams.  Mulder pulled into the near-empty gravel lot and shut the 
car off.  Beside him, Scully was drawing on her new knit gloves 
over her protective Kevlar ones.  Something about her 
businesslike eagerness unnerved him.  

Mulder considered turning around and driving back to Vineyard 
Haven.  Two more ferries would run back to the mainland tonight, 
and he could have Scully safe in Boston by midnight, whether she 
was a willing traveler or not.  

He sat with both hands resting on the steering wheel while the 
cooling engine block ticked.  As Scully pocketed extra batteries 
and ejected the magazine of her gun to examine it, Mulder looked 
down at the ignition key.  What would happen if he hauled her out 
of here against her will?  Perhaps she would forgive him in time; 
perhaps she would even agree it was the right thing to do.  

But he suspected she'd come back.   And she'd come back alone, no 
longer trusting him to accompany her.  Mulder's hands slid to the 
bottom of the steering wheel.  "This is payback time for the 
Bermuda Triangle, isn't it?" he asked.

"Of course not."  She finished checking her equipment and opened 
the car door.  "Are you coming?" she asked. 

Not knowing what else to do, he unfolded himself from the 
confines of the car and stepped outside, where a layer of fallen 
ice crystals crunched beneath his feet.  He made sure his own 9 
mm was securely clipped to the waistband of his jeans.  He 
doubted it would do any good to shoot at the beings that waited 
out there, but he felt better armed.  

"Let's go," he said. 

Side by side, they walked away from the inn's circle of light, 
toward the silver-gray expanse of the frozen field.  For a time 
the only sounds were their footsteps and the faint tapping of the 
sleet falling all around, like a skeleton rain.

Mulder repressed his urge to lead her toward the bike path that 
was an easier, more roundabout way into the woods.  Scully seemed 
certain of the path she wanted to take, and he followed her lead.  

The terrain began to drop as they entered the trees.  They were 
descending into a valley cut by millennia-worth of spring runoff 
water, and he knew the soil would grow softer and more 
treacherous as they neared the bottom.  Yet Scully descended the 
steep slope with confident speed, and it was Mulder who skidded 
in the leaf-choked mud while struggling to keep up with her.  He 
swore under his breath as he found he could not keep an eye on 
her and his footing at the same time.

She stopped briefly about midway down the steepest part of the 
slope, her foot braced against the semi-exposed roots of a small 
maple.  "This is where I heard it," she said as he caught up with 
her.

Mulder stopped and listened.  The sleet continued to patter down, 
and every so often, last year's dead leaves would stir in the 
wind, making a wild, rushing sound.  But that was all.  "You hear 
it now?" he asked.

She hesitated, then said,  "No." Scully continued down the slope, 
with Mulder laboring in her wake.  

The valley had not changed much since his boyhood.  If he 
remembered correctly, this pocket of land was entrusted to the 
Dukes County Historical Society and forbidden to developers.  
Still, he did not recall the wet black trees being this tangled 
and thick, or the sting of the sea air this fierce. He had the 
strange sense of walking on a parallel Vineyard, a wild, 
thicketed island where whalers had never come and no wealthy 
mainlanders visited.

He continued to follow as Scully picked her way among the low-
hanging branches and the juniper canes.  They passed the tiny 
cemetery on the right, and Mulder was somewhat relieved to see 
the space between its tilted stones was silent and empty.  

A few dozen yards further on, the old house foundation came into 
view.  Even in the semi-darkness of the ice-filled night, the 
stone base could be seen as a collection of dark lines lying 
among the ice-coated weeds.  "So what now?"  Mulder asked, 
turning to Scully.

He was alone.  

Looking back, he saw that his own footprints were the only track 
visible for a long way.

****

Once again, Scully stood at the edge of the clearing that 
surrounded the small house.  Moonlight shone down upon the snow 
and turned the house's weathered shingling to muted silver.  In 
the deep shadow by its side, two small, pale figures huddled.

"I came back," Scully said.  Somehow, the temperature seemed less 
bitter than a moment ago. The infant's gasps were as dreadful as 
she remembered, and ambient moonlight reflected as pale pinpoints 
in the older child's eyes.  

"Did you think I forgot you?"  Scully asked.  The snow crunched 
softly under her feet as she walked closer.

The girl made a quiet sound, like the cry of a wounded bird. 
Scully held her hand out to the child, ready this time for the 
slight shifting of the cloth over her hand.

The knife flashed up from beneath the fabric folds, and Scully 
caught the blade in the V between her forefinger and thumb.  The 
impact made her wince although her Kevlar gloves protected her 
hand from the edge.  

The child's strength was tremendous, and Scully found herself 
struggling to keep the blade pushed down and away.  Her breathing 
sounded loud in the still air.

"She left us," the girl said at last.  Her speech had such an 
odd, flat sound, not any American accent Scully was familiar 
with, and yet no European accent either.

"I know.  I'm sorry," Scully managed.  The exertion caused her to 
take deep breaths, and the air was thick with the smell of blood.  

If fighting against Scully was any struggle for the girl, she 
didn't show it.  Her bloodied face was calm, her gray eyes clear 
as late winter ice.  "She left us.  But you won't."

"No," Scully said.  "No, I won't leave you."  The terrible 
pressure on the blade began to subside, and the girl let it drop 
into the blood-spattered snow.  "Susannah," Scully whispered.

This time, the child did not resist as Scully gathered her and 
the infant into her arms.  Their skin was so cold -- colder than 
the surrounding air, but they curled close and did not pull away.  
Scully sat in the snow with her back against the house's wall, 
both children lying in her lap.

*****

Retracing his steps, Mulder discovered Scully's track in the new-
fallen sleet not far from the graveyard.  She had walked into a 
small thicket, but there her prints became muddled and seemed to 
disappear.  

He began searching in a spiral pattern outward from the thicket.  
He was sure that less than five minutes had passed since he last 
saw her ahead of him, not nearly long enough for her to travel 
out of earshot.  Any yet, even when he called her name so loudly 
it echoed off the valley wall, he received no reply.  He tried not
to think about the black-and-red clay cliffs rising hundreds of 
feet from the surf less than half a mile from where he stood.  

Sweeping his flashlight beam over the ground revealed nothing of 
use.  The weeds of the forest floor all had delicate straws of 
ice hanging from them, obviously undisturbed for days.  

It was as if Scully had simply vanished off the face of the 
earth.  Mulder had a nightmare sense of history repeating itself.   
His spiral searching pattern grew more oblong than circular, 
stretching toward the South Road Burying Ground and the ruined 
house.  Such a small patch of land.  Scully would be there; she 
had to be.

She was not.  Flashes of what increasingly seemed like 
desperation rather than intuition led him from the graveyard to 
the house foundations and back again.  Each time he reached one 
location and found it empty, he would become sure that Scully 
waited for him in the other, safe and probably irritated with him 
for wandering off.  Each time, he was disappointed.  

Before long his footprints had stitched a great zigzag pattern 
between cemetery and house, obliterating any traces Scully might 
have left.  When it sunk in that his "search" was only pacing 
that did more harm than good, he stopped by a tree near the stone 
foundations and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his 
eyes.  

There was no reason to panic.  He had only failed to find Scully 
because he had not yet looked in the place she was at.  Every 
time he looked somewhere and did not find her, he narrowed his 
search.  He was a good searcher; he'd made his career at the FBI 
by finding things no one else could.

Yet he had never found the things he wanted most.  One by one, 
the objects of his quests had all slipped beyond his reach.  
  
He shouted for his partner before the terror creeping up on him 
could truly take hold.  "Scully!" 

Though it felt good to release his nervous energy, calling her 
was no more effective than before.  He began pacing again, 
circling the stone foundations this time.  He had to move in 
order to think.  Ghosts had motives like anybody else, and 
therefore their behavior should be predictable within certain 
limits.  Days ago, Scully had categorized the paranormal events 
here as a Revenge Haunting, dismissing the differential category 
of Reenactment Haunting for somewhat arbitrary reasons.  Properly 
speaking, the situation had characteristics of both types.  The 
entities Scully had discovered were filled with rage, and yet the 
object of their rage was inaccessible to them.

//Join the club.//  

The creatures that haunted this area needed a specific type of 
person to play the opposing role in their drama -- a wounded 
person with loose ties to the world of the living, a mother whose 
spirit had nearly followed her child's into the other world.  
How could he get such an entity to look for him?  As a 
childless man, he was far from its preferred victim.  

So many times, he had drawn killers out by simply seeming 
interested in them, appealing to their vanity.  Perhaps 
reenactment haunting, like some reenactment killings, was a 
performance art whose creators craved an audience.

Mulder called out, "Susannah!"

Half-frozen branches clacked in the wind, sending down a new 
scattering of sleet, then all grew quiet.  A strange, listening 
silence followed while the name seemed to hang in the air. Mulder 
had the maddening feeling that the ghost's world lay behind a 
thin veil, and if he only knew where to place his hand, he could 
draw it aside and step through.  

The sense of being trapped between worlds was eerily familiar, 
and he remembered that he carried a portal to the past within his 
head -- the faulty synaptic connection that would periodically 
rip him out of his everyday reality.  Could he induce a seizure?  
He'd never tried, but here, of all places, it should be possible.  
Mulder shut his eyes, and the thudding of his heart seemed 
louder. Clammy sweat had accumulated on his upper lip and he 
wiped it off with his fingers.

How did his seizures begin?  Usually with a powerful emotion in a 
familiar place.   Concentrating, he thought about climbing the 
gray willow to drop maple-seed helicopters as a child . . . or 
being a teenager hunkering down among the tilted headstones in 
the muggy August heat, hating the town that had rejected him.  
But none of the memories he conjured up produced the strange 
sense of dislocation in time.  

"Fuck Irv," he whispered.  "Fuck him and his South Road Ghost."  
If only the little shit hadn't been so eager to upset Scully with 
his ugly stories of lost children and poisoned cats --

The terrible sensation came over him of falling against a solid 
barrier and passing straight through.

He was eleven years old, curled against the side of his bed, 
crying.  

His mother had beaten him.

He was crying for his mother.

Samantha, loyal in her own way, had to be removed from his 
doorway in order to keep her from coming to him, but it wasn't 
her he wanted.    

His mother had been cruel to him.

He needed his mother.

The pain of his tightened throat intruded on the vision, and it 
soon dissolved around him.  Mulder grabbed a tree for support and 
rested his forehead against the coolness of the bark.  As usual, 
the seizure's aftermath left him nauseated and gagging, and he 
shut his eyes against the dizziness.

//This is not helping her.//   Grief and illness had left him too 
weak to be the rescuer Scully needed.  He groped in the deep 
pocket of his coat for the flares he'd brought.  Maybe he could 
draw a rescue party.  And yet, he knew that men with flashlights 
and two-way radios were not enough to save her.  Fighting 
sickness, he bargained with any power that could hear.   //Leave 
her alone.  You can have me instead.  I'm the one who drilled a 
hole in my own head.  I deserve to be taken -- she doesn't.//

Slowly, became aware that it was not only the seizure making him 
ill.  There was also a smell -- one he'd learned to identify far 
later than age eleven.  

It was blood.

The image of Kristie Herron lying on the autopsy table flashed in 
his mind.  But the moment he opened his eyes, the smell of blood 
faded.  He was all alone in the ordinary woods.  

Mulder took a step away from the tree, holding an unlit flare in 
his hand.  "What do you want?" he shouted at the thing that slunk 
among the stones out here, waiting to take unhappy young women 
away.  "How many people have to die before you're satisfied?"

The dry, clinical profiler voice that had guided him through 
thousands of investigations told him:  //You know what they 
want.//

Mary Brown's daughters had died waiting for their mother.  She'd 
killed them, and yet they waited.  The two centuries' worth of 
rage they carried was eclipsed by their need.  

If Mulder could not get into the ghosts' world by stepping into 
Mary Brown's place, perhaps he could get there by stepping into 
Susannah's.  He called the child's name again, seeking the 
vision-place where the present and past ran together.  As before, 
the wind swirled fiercely, and  Mulder could almost hear angry 
denial in the sound: //"Go away,"// it seemed to say.  //"She's 
ours now."// 

When the wind died again, the otherworldly sense faded with it.  
These were the woods of his childhood -- dark, eerie, but 
essentially familiar.  Perhaps for once, familiarity was too 
great an anchor to the everyday world.  It could be that he knew 
the stone house foundation, the woods, and the graveyard so well 
that they kept him from seeing what was truly there.  After 
hesitating a moment, Mulder shut his flashlight off and put it 
and the flare away. 

The icy night's diffuse luminance seemed to have vanished.  He 
was in utter darkness, and he felt a powerful urge not to move.  
Motion would cause noise, and that would bring . . . something.   
He was certain that something was near, watching him with empty 
holes in a pale, dry face.

Mulder stood motionless, his chest feeling almost too tight to 
breathe, while he waited for the thing to make some noise and 
betray itself.  

When his eyes began to adjust to the scant light, the thick 
shadows resolved once again to the shapes of old logs and briar 
bushes.  His fear faded.

But there *had* been something there.  With dull dread, he 
thought the key might be blindness.  There were apparently only 
two doors to the cold, bloody world that Scully had slipped into.  
One was for mothers driven half mad by grief.  The other one, the 
little, cramped door, was for dying things.  Susannah and her 
sister had entered through that door, clawing against it like 
wounded animals in their terror and desperation.  Perhaps Kristie 
and the other dead women had drifted out if it on their way to 
the next world.  

If Mulder truly wanted to enter Susannah's reality, he would have 
to force his way through that little door by becoming as helpless 
as the dying, as frightened as an abandoned child.  His throat 
felt very dry as he swallowed.  

His cell phone was inside his inner coat pocket.  He could call 
Joe up, have him bring his officers out to search the place 
properly.  And when dawn came, they would find Scully's body 
curled in some icy hollow, or smashed at the foot of the cliffs.

Mulder closed his eyes.  The smell of blood returned, and grew 
stronger.  Once again, he became sure he was being watched.

An mournful baying sounded in the near distance.  He jumped, then 
identified the sound as the cry of a wolf.  Whatever lay bleeding 
nearby was attracting a beast that had been extinct on the 
Vineyard for over 150 years.  

Mulder cupped his hands around his mouth and called, "Scully!"  

He heard a strange, shuffling half-step a few yards to his right.  
His eyes snapped open involuntarily as he turned.  In his 
peripheral vision he glimpsed a silvery-gray wall, and beyond 
that a pale figure that swayed as if its forward momentum had 
been abruptly checked.

Once he faced the thing directly, it was gone.  He was alone 
again by the foundations of the long-ruined house.  The freezing 
wind turned the sweat on his face and throat into icy droplets.  

//Shit.  Holy shit.//

He recalled the horror stories he used to tell Joey Luce about 
the things that lurked deep in the woods.  At each gristly 
detail, Joey's eyes would get bigger and bigger . . .

//That's crap.  You know these woods.  You know the paranormal.  
Nine times out of ten, ghosts are only dangerous if you're afraid 
of them.//

But he was afraid.  There had been something wrong about the pale 
thing standing by the wall.  Its lower portion had swung like 
sodden curtains, yet the upper part seemed to freeze motionless 
too quickly for the energy of that swinging, dragging fabric.  It 
was as if a mannequin had been filmed walking in stop-motion 
while its clothes continued to flow in liquid real time.

Mulder had no desire at all to close his eyes again.  //You have 
to.  Think about Scully.//    Scully in his Knicks shirt and 
pajama bottoms, curled on his couch on a sunny Saturday morning.  
Scully gently waking him from his nightmares, taking away the 
worst of the terror and grief.  He shut his eyes and called his 
partner again.  

He heard no sound but the rushing noise of the wind for some 
time, and then the shuffling step came again, nearer this time.  
Mulder struggled to sweep away the coat folds that covered his 
gun.  He drew it and took a triangular stance against the thing 
that moved toward him, only to strike a solid wall with his foot 
and lose his balance.  He fell against a hard, knobby surface.  
When he  lifted his hand to touch it, it felt like the jutting 
wooden panels of an old, shake-sided house.   
//This is it.  This is the structure Scully saw.//

The thing to his right shuffled nearer, and Mulder backed away, 
keeping his unarmed hand against the wall for guidance.  His 
fingers brushed a corner and he turned it, relieved to be out of 
the shuffling thing's line of sight, if indeed it could see.  The 
smell of blood was strong now, and as he backed away, eyes shut, 
he feared putting his foot down on something wet and cold, with 
stiffening hands and an awesome grip.

*****

Scully huddled against the rough-hewn shingles with both children 
in her lap.  The air around her seemed to grow milder, even warm, 
and she shrugged out of her coat, easing the plastic bottle from 
its inner pocket before wrapping the garment like a blanket 
around the wounded girls.  She had filled the screw-cap soda 
bottle with holy water from the church's baptismal font.  
Catholic doctrine forbade baptism of the dead, but how could she 
call these children dead, when they gasped for breath in her 
arms? Awkwardly, she poured some of the water into her cupped 
hand.  The liquid felt as warm as bathwater.  Nestled against her 
shoulder, Susannah gazed at her activities with calm uninterest.

As she had once been taught to do by Sister Mary, Scully 
administered the only Sacrament permissible for a lay Catholic to 
perform in cases of emergency.  Splashing the dying infant's head 
with water of three times, she said, "I baptize you, Maria, in 
the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit."  She'd 
chosen the name after some deliberation.  It was the name of an 
Italian child who'd converted her own murderer on her deathbed, 
and who had become an unofficial patron saint of wronged girls.

Having no idea of the religious practices of Susannah's family, 
she refilled her cupped hand with water and recited an alternate 
prayer for the older girl, "If you have not already been 
baptized, I baptize you, Susannah, in the name of the Father, and 
the Son, and the Holy Spirit."  

The holy water made rivulets in the blood on the girls' faces, 
but had no other obvious effect.  Scully shut her eyes and 
released a long breath.  She had no idea what else to do for 
them, and she was so tired. 

*****

Mulder continued to back away along the wall, away from the thing 
that shuffled after him.  His fingers traced the openings of a 
door and small-paned windows, once, then twice.  He'd circled the 
entire building, and Scully was not there.  

The fear crept upon him that he was in the wrong spirit world -- 
the one in which Mary Brown wandered the cliffs with her head 
held high like a lantern, eternally separated from her daughters.  
The wolves' cries had grown increasingly close and then stopped 
altogether.  Every so often now, he heard a light footfall off in 
the trees.  The knowledge that wolf packs, even if starving, 
almost never attacked adult humans was scant comfort.  Mulder 
supposed everything was starving during the winter of 1777.  Even 
if he managed to shoot one of the animals with his eyes shut, 
would it fall?  He doubted that any amount of firepower would 
stop the pale, shambling thing that followed him.

He turned a corner to the shorter side of the rectangular 
building, and heard a soft tick along the front as if his pursuer 
were brushing frost-hardened fingers against the window panes, 
following him by touch even as he backed away by touch.

Mulder heard snow-covered leaves crunch under his feet as he 
struggled to keep the house between himself and whatever flaking, 
limping nightmare crept after him.  "Scully!" he shouted, for the 
dozenth time.

This time he got a response -- "Fox?"

It was his mother's voice.

He stopped in his tracks, his mouth suddenly dry.  He nearly 
called out, "Mom?"  But the word died on his lips.  He stood 
still as the slow footsteps rounded the side of the house.  Was 
it his imagination, or did they seem steadier, less stiff, then 
they had before?

He heard the slow drag of something, fabric, pulling around the 
corner.  His mother's voice said again, "Fox?"  It was a gentle, 
welcoming voice.

He had railed at a God he did not believe in for not giving him 
more time with her -- time to ask questions, to say goodbye.  Was 
this the answer to his unacknowledged prayer?  He stretched out 
his hand, then hesitated.  Would his fingers contact the soft 
warmth of his mother's body, or flesh as hard and stiff as 
cracked leather?

He remained still, listening to the crunch of icy leaves as the 
footsteps drew closer.  The sounds stopped about an arm's length 
away, and he felt something cold in front of him.  Waves of chill 
came over his outstretched hand as if he held it next to a block 
of ice. 
 
He was sure that if he reached out any farther he would touch 
fingers, a wrist, an arm.  His breaths came in ragged gasps and 
cold air burned in his lungs.   He wanted the gentle touch he 
remembered, wanted to hear his mother say his name.   
If this was not what he had prayed for, how badly did he want the 
approximation?  Something heavy and damp, like waterlogged 
fabric, brushed against his ankle.

Not that badly.

He backed away, fumbling in his pocket for his flashlight.  If 
Scully could see into this world at all, perhaps the beam would 
draw her.  He kept his arm against the house's wall as he 
continued moving away from the stumbling thing with his mother's 
voice.  Its footsteps continued after him, surer now, as he spoke 
out loud to someone -- perhaps Scully, perhaps Susannah, perhaps 
himself.

"She can't come to you here.  It's no good waiting anymore -- you 
have to move on.  You have to get up and move."

As before, the only reply was the shuffling footsteps that 
followed him.

*****

Scully sat in a sunlit field with Emily, Susannah, and the infant 
she'd named Maria.  All three little girls were pink and healthy 
as they played in the long grass.  In daylight, Susannah's hair 
was the color of straw, and Emily's eyes had a lively sparkle 
that Scully had never before seen in her.  Both girls giggled as 
Susannah showed Emily how to make play teacups out of scoop-
shaped leaves.

Scully sat in a loose T-shirt and shorts, her confining FBI 
clothes shed like a rusty suit of armor.  This was what she had 
wanted all along.  Not recognition, not approval, not even the 
"answers" that neither science nor religion had ever wholly 
provided.  She only wanted to *be,* on her own terms, for herself 
and those she loved. 

With wide-eyed fascination, baby Maria reached up and grabbed a 
strand of Scully's hair in her small, chubby fist.

Then the sweet moment was spoiled by a man's urgent voice: "You 
have to get up and move."  

For an instant, fear lanced through her.  She had forgotten 
something important -- something terrible.  She struggled to 
remember, though she sensed whatever it was would destroy her 
happiness.

The truth came slowly, like the door to a crypt swinging open.  
Someone was dead.  A wave of lightheadedness came over her.  Who?  
Who was dead?  
  
Memories came crashing down one after another.  Her father . . .?  
*Yes.*  Her sister?  *Yes.*  Her daughter?

On the verge of an anguished cry, Scully looked down and saw 
Emily gazing up at her with puzzled, sea-blue eyes. 
  
The horror began to fade.  How could Emily be dead when she was 
here, playing in the grass? Susannah tugged at Scully's sleeve, 
seeming impatient with her older playmate's foolish imaginings.  
Scully turned her attention to the children again, somewhat 
disoriented from the shock.  

The distress soon passed, and she was engrossed in the children's 
game again.  Susannah smiled up at her impishly as she poured 
dewdrop "tea" into Emily's leaf cup.  The baby cooed and batted 
at strands of Scully's hair.

Quiet and peace returned, until the same male voice distracted 
her.  "Follow the light if you can see it, Scully.  You can't 
stay here."  Hearing fear in that voice triggered old reflexes.  
She moved to grasp for something at the small of her back -- her 
gun.

No.  She didn't carry a gun anymore.  *She did.*  She distinctly 
remembered cleaning and re-loading it before she --

Images tumbled through her mind: the inn; the hospital; the 
tender sorrow on Mulder's face as he stood by the autopsy table 
in Boston.

"Mulder?" she asked.  The reality around her blurred and 
dissolved like a chalk drawing in the rain. 
 
Numbing cold struck her and she struggled to rise, bewildered by 
the sensation of lying face down in a cold, wet pool.  "Mulder . 
. ." Saying his name required enormous effort this time.  Had she 
only thought she called him before?

She forced her eyes open.  The sunny field was nowhere to be seen 
-- all around was dark. Scully lay in a sleety patch of mud 
without her coat on, her left hand soaked in a puddle of spilled 
holy water.  Her limbs barely obeyed her as she tried to push 
herself up onto her knees.  

She lifted her head and felt the frozen tips of her hair drag 
against her throat and jaw.  She squinted through the darkness, 
disoriented, and thought she glimpsed a light through the trees 
ahead.  She began to crawl toward it.

A cold hand caught her arm, bringing her up short.  Scully looked 
down and saw round eyes shining in a small, pale face.  
She had no sense of the mouth moving as the soft voice spoke -- 
in fact, the lower jaw seemed to have fallen away.
"She left us.  Don't leave us, too."

Puzzled by the creature's powerful grip, Scully placed her hand 
over the tiny forearm, trying to pull it away.  There was bone 
beneath the tattered fabric. "You're death," she murmured.  This 
was the part of her dream that she had not wanted to acknowledge.  
This was what the secret thing she had longed for -- a guide to 
the other world where her own child waited.  "You've come for 
me."  

The sound of Mulder calling her name seemed to grow more distant. 

Gazing into the small being's eyes, she saw an invitation to come 
away into the unknown.  There would be no more pain, no more 
fear.  She had only everything to lose, and compared to what she 
had already lost, what was everything?  She reached up, brushed 
her fingertips against the twine-like strands of hair.

"Follow the light if you can see it!" Mulder called. 

Mulder.  She looked up, saw a flash of light among the black 
tangle of the trees.  He would be all right without her, she told 
herself.

*He wouldn't.*  

If anything, his losses had been greater than her own.  She 
remembered his dull, shocked manner at his mother's funeral.  
What would happen to him if her lost her as well? 

And what would happen to her, without her friend, her gadfly and 
protector?  What would the afterlife be without Mulder there, 
alternately mocking and spinning theories?

"It's not time," Scully said, gently pushing the creature at her 
side away.  It cried out like a stricken thing, and she felt its 
bony hands catch at her arm.  "I'm sorry.  It's not time."  

She dragged herself through the icy mud, though the effort was as 
wearying as swimming through tar.  Her hand brushed rough stone, 
and she heaved herself over the block, rolling down the other 
side with the thing still clutching at her.  She was so close 
now, only a few yards away from the light.  She rolled a few more 
feet, then lay exhausted.  

The dead creature, an Utburd, Mulder had called it, a Navky, 
crept up on top of her chest and gazed down at her.  The 
expression on its ruined face was not one of hate but of terrible 
longing.  "Mulder . . ." Scully called weakly.  "Mulder."

*****

"Mulder."  
Mulder hesitated as the dead woman's footsteps continued to draw 
closer.  Was this another trick?  First his mother's voice and 
now Scully's . . . 

"Mulder," the voice came again, very desperate.  He felt he 
couldn't take the chance of not responding.
"Scully!" he called.  

The response was a rustle of leaves in a direction he hadn't 
heard before -- directly to his left, within the confines of the 
ghost house.  He turned the beam of his flashlight and dared to 
open his eyes.

Scully lay on her back at the center of the rectangle of stone.  
A long shadow lay across her body.  Mulder could make out the 
bell-shape of a long skirt, a nipped-in waist, angular 
shoulders, and above that, nothing. 

He flicked the light toward the figure, and stepped back from the 
sight of  -- what?  The thing was gone --  his flashlight beam 
illuminated only trees.  

Had he only imagined the elongated, gray object held up in a 
withered hand?  It had been something too stretched-out to 
be a human head, unless death had knocked the jawbone loose from 
its moorings and then pulled leather-like skin down with it.
He did not feel it was best to think about that particular 
extreme possibility.  Instead, he ran to Scully's side, lifting 
her from the sleet-covered mud.  She twisted the folds of his 
coat in her gloved fingers, but did not open her eyes.  Mulder 
rested his cheek against her forehead and brushed ice crystals 
from her hair.  

Once Scully was steady enough to stand, he slipped his arm around 
her waist and helped her walk.   They left behind the house 
foundations and standing stones, traveling toward the lights of 
the waiting inn.

*****

Later, Mulder sat on a chair next to his bed in Nye House, 
watching Scully sleep.  Her hair was still dark with dampness, 
and he gently brushed it away from her forehead.  

Joe's sister Cheryl turned the lamp down to its lowest setting 
and began putting her thermometer and blood pressure cuff back 
into what she'd referred to as her "bag of tricks."  Cheryl had 
agreed to stop by on the way home from her second-shift nursing 
assignment.

"She should be all right," Cheryl said.  "If she seems worse 
during the night -- groggy or disoriented, take her over to the 
hospital."

"Thank you," Mulder said.  

As Cheryl finished packing up her belongings, she asked, "Fox . . 
. what did you see out there?" 

Mulder looked up at her.  She had grown up to be a tallish woman, 
a little heavy around the hips, but pleasant-looking with her 
short auburn curls and wide-set dark eyes. "Nothing," he said 
truthfully.

"Nothing?" she echoed.  He could understand the edge of disapproval
in her voice.  Nobody wanted to hear their town had been turned 
upside-down by "nothing."

"Cheryl . . . ."  He rubbed at the old bullet wound in his 
shoulder, buying time to think as much as massaging away a dull 
ache that sometimes set in with the cold. "What if I said that 
sometimes the dead have more control over our lives than they 
should?"

Her face seemed to close off from him, as if her thoughts were 
very private.  He supposed the dead father she'd never known had 
cast a long shadow over her life.  "Ghosts.  You think it was 
ghosts," she said.

He almost gave her a foolishly equivocal answer about how there 
were many kinds of ghosts, not all of them paranormal.  Instead, 
he told her the unvarnished truth.  "Yes."

She zipped her bag and slung it over her shoulder, not meeting 
his eyes.  "What should I tell Mark and Patty?'

It was a good question.  Mulder seldom had to live with the 
fallout of the paranormal bombshells he dropped into people's 
lives.  He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.  "I 
don't know.  Tell them that it doesn't matter what I think.  Tell 
them I'm nuts.  Just --"  Mrs. Langmann's words came back to him.  
"Just don't leave them alone."

Her face retained its shielded expression, but she nodded.  

He continued quickly before he lost the will to say what he 
needed to say next.  "Listen -- Cheryl, I never did sell that 
place of my dad's." 

She gave him a curious look.  "I always assumed that meant you 
planned on moving back with us someday."

He shook his head.  His official excuse for not selling the 
house, other than procrastination, was that there might be 
secrets hidden among his father's things.  But Bill Mulder's 
former associates had had seven years to comb the place for 
anything they didn't want his son to find.  The reality was that 
despite the terrible memories he had of that house, he had not 
been ready to let go.  "What if I sold the house and gave the 
proceeds to your mom?"  

Cheryl's eyes went wide.  "You can't do that," she said.

"Why not?"  

She seemed appalled, but unable to come up with a good reason.  
"Because you can't.  He left that house to you."

"I'll never live in it.  I don't have any family who need it.  
Would it help you and Joe to enjoy the time you have with your 
mother, instead of scrambling to make ends meet?"  

She appeared torn.  He sensed that once her confusion wore off 
she would find his offer difficult to refuse.  "Fox, why don't we 
talk about it tomorrow when you're -- when you're feeling 
better."  He had thought she was going to say, "When you're 
sane."

She rested her hand on his arm, and for a moment he thought she 
was going to kiss him on the cheek.  Instead she looked 
embarrassed, and then hurried from the room.  

To Mulder's surprise, cutting the last tie with his childhood 
home was more of a relief than a loss.  Whatever griefs and 
struggles he would face in the future, they would at least be 
*different* ones.  

Aching with weariness, Mulder got up to turn off the lamp.  He 
crept into bed and coaxed Scully into pillowing her head on his 
shoulder.  She curled against him like a cat; like a liquid 
filling all the hollows of his body.

"Mulder?" she asked.

"Hmmm," he answered.

"Did you really not see anything out there?  Nothing at all?" she 
asked.  Mulder had thought she'd been asleep.  When he didn't 
answer at once, she disengaged herself and raised up on one 
elbow, as if searching his face for signs of validation, evidence 
that she wasn't crazy.

Mulder didn't have the emotional energy to give her evidence just 
then.  He shut his eyes against the image of that long, gray 
shadow, and found it waiting for him behind his eyelids as well.  
"I don't want to talk about it," he said.  

She seemed to accept that and settled down against him again.  
"Do you think it was evil?  The thing that you saw?"

//Damn.//   There was no lying to her.  "I don't know.  Maybe."
 
"I don't think Susannah was evil.  Just angry and lonely.  She 
was willing to do whatever it took to fill that emptiness inside 
her."  Scully sighed, and he felt her draw in on herself 
slightly, as if curling around some too-vulnerable place.  "I 
guess I understood what that felt like."

Mulder thought of the nights he'd spent staring at flickering 
images on the TV, waiting for dawn to come so he could go to work 
and feel like a real person again.  "Me too."  She wrapped her 
arm around his chest and hugged him tight.  

"Remember when you were talking before -- about children who came 
back to haunt people because no one gave them names?"

It took a moment for his exhausted brain to make the connection.  
All his folklore studies seemed so dim and far away.  "Yeah, I 
guess so."

"What happened after someone named them?"

His mind groped through the confused jumble of half-sleep, 
remembering an Oxford don who'd droned on and on about liminal 
rituals and compound beings.  "Mostly they disappeared.  Never 
heard from again."

She was silent, and at first he thought she had fallen asleep 
again.  "I gave them names.  Or I gave the baby a name, anyway.  
I gave Susannah her own name again, in case someone hadn't -- I 
mean not officially.  Not in a church."

It occurred to him she was speaking of baptism of the dead -- an 
ancient pagan practice long condemned by the Catholic Church.  
He'd been accused of New-Age, anti-Christian sentiment before, 
not least by Scully herself, but he remained carefully neutral 
toward her lapse of orthodoxy.  "So what happened?" he asked.

She was quiet a long time, and then said softly, "Nothing.  
Nothing that I could tell."

"Ah."  He ran his hand up and down her back, feeling the smooth 
rippling of her spine under his fingers.  "Even if you weren't 
able to see a change, it may have meant something to her that you 
tried.  Sometimes even the attempt to help means a lot."  

She curled tighter against him, as if to seal off the memory of 
her helplessness in the face of the ghost-child's pain.  "You did 
all you could -- for Emily.  For Susannah."  He might easily have 
added, "For Samantha."  Letting go and moving on were not lessons 
he was very well qualified to teach.  

Scully's silent tears were hot against his chest.  Mulder blinked 
back the water in his own eyes, clearing his throat repeatedly.  
One of them had to be the strong one.  

"So," he said, his voice not nearly as steady as he would have 
liked it, "When we elope, how about the Grand Canyon for the 
honeymoon?" he said.

"*What?*" 

He was pleased at having momentarily startled her out of her 
sorrow.  "We could, you know, ride burros and buy carved cedar 
knick-knacks."

"*Mulder,*" she said.  The exasperation in her voice was a hint 
of the old Scully, an edge he could work with.

"I'm tired of the past, Scully.  It's like a trap that sucks you 
in until you just . . . drown in it.  I want to talk about my 
future.  With you."

She didn't reply, but she lifted his hand and twined their 
fingers together.  He considered her silence as good as 
encouragement.  "No burros, huh?" he asked.

"No burros."

"What about Yellowstone?" he asked.

"Paris," she said dreamily.

"But at Yellowstone we could watch the Old Faithful geyser.  It 
would be educational," he said.

"I could stuff you *in* the Old Faithful geyser.  Think how 
educational that would be."

"You wouldn't really do it," he said.

"Try me."

They spun fantasies for a little while longer, and then fell into 
companionable silence.  Mulder found himself lulled by the sound 
of her breathing, and even the fitful gusts of wind outside could 
not dispel the sweet sleepiness coming over him.  

Just as he was about to slip into unconsciousness, she asked 
again, "Mulder?" 

"What?" he murmured.  

"Thank you."

He caressed the small of her back with his thumb.  They didn't 
often say they loved one another, just as they rarely displayed 
affection in public.  They had other ways to say exactly what 
they meant.

"Anytime," he said.

********

EPILOGUE

Superior Court Building
Cape Cod, MA

Justice Francis Steeh was not happy about the criminal complaint 
that had landed on his desk that morning.  "Why are there two 
autopsy protocols in here?" he asked, rifling through the thick 
stack of forms, diagrams, and reports.

The lead detective on the case, Ron Davis, cleared his throat and 
said, "We were concerned that the initial autopsy, done by an 
acquaintance of the family, might not be as unbiased..."

Steeh glanced at the protocol's header and interrupted him.  
"This wasn't done by some county coroner, detective, this woman 
is an FBI pathologist.  If you didn't like her, the time to 
object was before, not after.  Why should the taxpayers have to 
pay twice because of some jurisdictional dispute?"

Davis opened his mouth, but the defense lawyer, a chubby media-
hound named Hubb, cut him off.  "Your Honor, we intend to request 
suppression of the second autopsy for precisely that reason -- "

"You can make all the motions to quash you like if this thing 
goes to trial," Steeh interrupted.   "Right now I'm not seeing 
any probable cause at all."

The Commonwealth Attorney, a thin, pale man, who looked as if he 
might be suffering from ulcers, spoke up and said, "The defendant 
did score "deceptive" on polygraph questions related to his 
presence on Martha's Vineyard, Your Honor."

"Evidence which you can't bring before a jury, anyway," Steeh 
pointed out.  Peering down through his bifocals, he ran his index 
fingers over passages in the two nearly-identical autopsy 
protocols.  "Detective Davis, I may be missing something, but the 
only difference I see here is that Dr. Scully says a particular 
wound was 'consistent with a fall on to a sharp object' and Dr. 
Kreger says it's 'consistent with' a stabbing. You had the whole 
autopsy redone for *that?*" 

Hubb broke in again.  "And that is exactly why the second report 
should be dismissed.  My client--"

Davis didn't let him finish.  "Your Honor, we have reason to 
believe that John McBer is a danger to the community," he said.

Steeh glanced up at Hubb, who was clearly fuming at not being 
able to run his famous mouth.  "Mr. Hubb, where is your client 
right now?"  Steeh asked.  

"Concord Correctional Institution, Your Honor," he said, looking 
unhappy.  From a man like Hubb, brevity spoke volumes.

"For what?" Steeh pressed.

"Alleged murder, but the case has no merit . . ."  

Steeh turned to Davis and the Commonwealth Attorney.  "I don't 
think you need to worry about John McBer getting out anytime 
soon."  The detective's head only got redder.  "If you collect 
more evidence on him, bring this back to me, but not until then."

"Thank you Your Honor.  You've made the right decision . . ." 
Hubb began.

As the defense counsel continued to babble, a yellow Post-It note 
fell out of the file.  "What is this?"  Steeh asked.  When he 
held the paper close enough to read, the scribble across it 
resolved itself into writing.  It said:  "Fetch -- 300.19 (?)  
Returns from dead to take living away.  Be careful if you call 
for dead friend/loved ones.  Don't know who might answer."

"Detective, what is *that?*"  Steeh asked, holding the note out 
stuck to one finger.  Davis glanced at it and winced.

"Ah -- that's a note from the profiler in the case, Agent Mulder.  
He's a little bit..."

Steeh finished for him.  "Preposterous.  This entire case file is 
preposterous."  He stuck the note back in the file and closed it, 
then pushed away.

"Next case!"

But as the day wore on, Steeh found his thoughts returning to the 
words on the Post-It note.  A devout Catholic, he had attended 
Masses for the Dead all his life. Yet it had never occurred to 
him that fervent prayers to raise Mother or Aunt Mildred from 
Purgatory might raise something different, and less human, in 
their place.  

After the last defendant of the day shuffled off in chains, Steeh 
descended to the tunnel that connected the court and the county 
lock-up, where active files were stored in a hot little room not 
much bigger than a walk-in closet.

The McBer case lay in the middle of a tall stack marked, "To be 
filed."  Feeling slightly foolish, Steeh flipped it open and 
examined the note again: "Be careful if you call for dead 
friends/loved ones.  Don't know who might answer."

The longer he thought about such things, the more conscious he 
was of the building emptying out, and of the young woman lying 
dead on Martha's Vineyard, victim of an unknown assailant.

//Old fool.  Senile old goat.//  

He was a justice of the peace, for heaven's sake, not a credulous 
child.  He slapped the McBer file shut and worked it into its 
place between other folders in a tightly-packed metal cabinet.  
The cabinet door banged shut.  Steeh shut off the lights and 
locked the file room, then strode away down the hall, his 
footsteps ringing in the empty corridor.

Within a few weeks the unsolved case would be nearly forgotten, 
moved first to the State Police station in Yarmouth, then to a 
central depository in Boston.  It would remain there, unsolved, 
unclosed, one yellowing folder among thousands, a nightmare lying 
far back in institutional memory.  Gathering dust. 

In the dark.

*****

THE END