Night had wrapped the cult settlement in darkness and silence for hours when Mulder woke up from a straight couple of hours of blissful sleep. He stayed still a moment, taking in all the sensations wrapping him as he was laying on their narrow cot: the warmth of Scully's skin against his whole right side, the smell of her hair when turning his head, her steady and comforting breath, the weight of the blanket on his lower body.
Scully was deep in her quiet sleep and Mulder wished he could rejoin her in seconds with a simple incantation; breathe her skin in, palm her belly, kiss her neck and whisper her name, then fall into the sweet oblivion of the night hours. But, against the will of his heart, his mind had woken him up and wouldn't let him rest by the doubts, questions and oddities that had been raised and not unraveled.
So, in soft and silent gestures, he got out of the bed, put a minimal amount of clothes on and stepped out of their shelter. The Guardians and Preservers of Deep Valley had been very welcoming, unexpectedly charming and cooperative, harmless hosts who had given them a solid meal and a tiny but cozy guest cabin to spend the night.
Mulder wandered through the whole settlement, a large clearing that had been converted into a kind of campsite, a dozen cabins here and there, and a bigger one sheltering the common facilities in the middle. From the start when they had settled the cultists had been tolerated by the locals —people, officials and whoever owned this part of the land— on the condition they would leave the place clean as soon as they were ordered to do so. They had agreed.
As Mulder had understood the oral contract between the lines, the so-called Guardians camp was serving as a buffer zone, preventing curious or inquisitive people from continuing their way towards Deep Valley. The track he and Scully had followed stopped just before the camp, and, all around the settlement, no single path heading to Deep Valley was to be seen but signs hanging up on trees warning about the danger of exploring the woods from there.
Mulder recalled the geographic and geological characteristics of the zone as they had studied it by the Gunmen's: a single way to get in unless you had solid alpinist skills and were prone to challenge vertigo, following a road that existed once, a now virtual path extending the track they had driven on. It was the road used by the researchers that were sent in the Valley, and that had been destroyed a couple of decades ago by a series of local disasters —caused by nature or the hands of men, that was hard to tell from the lore. There could be another means to reach Deep Valley, by helicopters; but even that option seemed uncertain as no safe place to land seemed to exist.
The Guardians and Preservers were a mix of ecologists claiming the right of nature to live its life away from humanity, and of shamanists worshiping the trees and plants that were unique to this region. They were tripping on leaves and on a regular basis, trying to decipher the big mysteries of Life and Beyond via messages that were whispered and transmitted by all the green beings from the core of Deep Valley to them. Mulder thought it was a clever way to keep people at bay; let them happily trip and, after a few days or weeks, they wouldn't want to explore further but stay or get back to their usual life, oblivious or contented about what they had seeked out.
Concerning Lori and Roy, yes, they had stayed a couple of days in the settlement, had experienced a few green mystical trips then weren't there anymore. Nobody knew precisely how and when they left the camp, their sudden departure a bit of a mystery as they had no vehicle. Chief Gruff was regularly visiting the Guardians, checking their safety and inquiring about potential visitors —Mulder wouldn't be surprised if the Chief was himself monitored and under the orders of a higher level of powerful men. Gruff came by recently, asking a few questions about Lori and Roy, but mostly persuading everyone they had left the region by foot and were now far away. So, it wasn't a concern anymore; Lori and Roy, a very sympathetic, curious and smart couple, might have chosen to discover more of their true nature, now engaged in a walking trip after the revelations of their green-induced trips.
On his wandering thoughts, Mulder reached a small isolated and hidden round clearing, away from the cabins, that seemed to be the threshold of a corridor of less dense bushes and trees in the direction of the North —straight towards Deep Valley. He hadn't noticed it when they had made a round with Scully as the sun wasn't yet set. Maybe it was more noticeable now under the shadows and faint lights than it had been earlier in plain sight.
Mulder stepped back to the entrance of the alcove and wondered if he would have to leave white pebbles to find this hidden place tomorrow morning. In the direction of his sight he mentally marked and memorized two aligned and noticeable distant spots; he decided that it would suffice. Contented by his discovery, he was about to get back to Scully when something held him back to the small clearing, a feeling or a hunch. He reentered, stood still and closed his eyes. That's how he noticed the surprising silence that was surrounding him. There should be sounds, rustlings and cries from the nocturnal life that should prosper in this wilderness; another oddity.
A chill suddenly ran down his spine and he felt the urge to urinate; coldness had eventually caught him through the thin layer of his T-shirt. He indulged in his need, amused by the fact he was finally marking the place like an animal. Then, as if there was a correlation, two brightened circles were staring at him from a lower level a few feet away, as he was zipping his pants up.
"Hey, buddy," Mulder whispered, very softly, to the two eyes that had caught a faint beam from the sky or the camp.
The animal didn't move, neither did Mulder.
"You've come to see me, or what?" he continued.
The animal moved forward, a few inches in the direction of Mulder.
"I wish we could communicate, buddy. I'd have a lot of questions for you," he said.
"You should try our magical leaves to reach its spirit," a voice said in Mulder's back.
On this, an orange whirlwind ran through Mulder's legs and disappeared into the night.
"It was a fox, by the way," the voice said. "And, if you want my advice, you should try to follow its path."