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.
*****
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.
*****