Title: The Woods
Author: Amperage
Written: January 1995
Rating: PG-13 if the board were feeling licentious, rated R if they weren't.
Disclaimer: I give credit where credit is due, of course, and am theiving from Chris Carter and Ten-Thirteen productions. Cecila is my own creation however.

Summary: In the winter, rain drives the last of the leaves from their capricious hold on barren trees. The bright and the dark mingle under the shaking and the winds in the woods. Into this world children are sent as sacrifices to the dark Mistress of the land, and into this world Mulder and Scully must go to find the killer.

Lake Charles Regional Airport
Lake Charles, Louisiana
Tuesday, 2:05 p.m.
February 1995

Fox. He looked like a Fox somewhat. His eyes glittered, but he moved too heavy. He was more of a wolf, one the other wolves have driven away. Dana. Cecila wrinkled her nose, watching them, watching as the Fox signed his name to a car rental agreement. Salt Water, the smell of life and decay mingled. For some reason, she smelt Dana as salt water. Fox smelt like forest humus, rich and pungent. They had been called here by Sheriff Adams. To find the killer. 3 children now.

Cecila touched her flat stomach again, through the linen material of her creamy suit skirt, walked away from them, her heels clicking on the tile. But the killer was the baby's father. Cecila remembered her violation as a fluttering of wings, of a Swan and Leda, but this time he was the human and she the bird. She could not give him to them, to anyone.

Not yet. She did not know his face, though she knew his soul.

She was aware, getting into her Cherokee, clicking the gear box to get the engine to turn over, that Adams thought she knew something, that she would have to deal with the two. She was also aware that he was attracted to her, and a little bit more than in love. But to have sex with him would be to play Lolita. He had been her father's best friend, after all.

Answer their questions, she told herself, pulling out of the small parking lot. But say nothing they do not ask for. Phrase your answers so they do not think. She glanced in her review mirror, saw Fox and Dana putting their luggage into a Taurus. Fox would be hard to keep at bay.

Keep him at bay but keep him in close range so that when Cecila's job was done, Fox and Dana could have him.

Woods outside Sugarville, Louisiana
Tuesday 5:00 p.m.

They went out to the bier, out in the swamp land, in the mature forest, where it flooded after heavy rains, on Cecila's land. Adams' Cherokee took them to within 3000 feet, and they tromped the rest of the way over this season's collection of oaken leaves. Cecila sat in a tree, watching.

They discussed what happened. Fox was silent. He looked, he gaged, he thought. Dana asked the questions, Dana saw what she was trained to. Fox saw things differently. Cecila probed a little. Bright lights. Figures in doorways. No. No, that was the global. She did not want his global patterns. She wanted something before. Something smaller. Something that hid in the corner of nightmares, something that did not play center stage.

Strong hands. "Stay away from my papers. Do you understand?" A jerk. Pain and then later Momma and the doctors. A new story. Fox fell down the landing stairs. Pain. Dadda took him for ice cream and taught him how to fly a kite. Cecila could not identify the figure who hurt him, but she knew it was the same person. But Mulder's mind did not see it that way. He did not remember who sprained his wrist, or who broke his arm, or who left the belt marks on his buttocks. Who would later <<<later, center stage>>> hit him so hard blood ran out his ear. Until Sam, all he remembered were the stories he told himself about the pain and the stories he and his daddy read. He would read a halting chapter, then Dadda would read. Sitting close on the sofa. He remembered after Sam was born, he and Dadda would go out, go to the cafe for breakfast. "Just us men." The wardrobe. He'd gone into the wardrobe. Where the lion was good and the children talked to fauns.

She probed Scully. Saw dreams and nightmares. Saw strong men taking her, pressing their bodies against her. No. No. There. A child, an empty room, left and forgotten. Sister Margret said she had to stay there until she called for her. Now school was over and no one was there. Dana sat on the dark bench. Waited. Cried. Until Daddy. Held her. She cried. Sometimes Dana thought hell would be like that.

Waiting, crying in the dark.

They were discussing. Mothers were raped, then their children taken. Found smothered, bodies left in flowery biers. That was all. None of the women could identify him, at all, except that he was built powerfully. There was a girl. 16 years old. Her parents were dead, these were her woods, all of them; she knew something, Adams didn't know what.

Cecila crept away, knowing that they would be visiting her.

She killed a young rabbit because Adams liked such game and set it to drain on her sideboard in the little portable building she had bought to serve as a home. Her old home, a proud victorian, set on a hill, was rented to a doctor and his family.

They had the house and 5 acres, and they payed 850 dollars a month for the privelege. Cecila had 300 acres and her cabin and 400 dollars more from interest on all the money she had put together from her parent's accounts and their death settlements. She was comfortable on her 1200 a month, even after she salted money away.

She let the coffee brew, took off her Hi-tec boots, curled in front of the space heater, let Kat sit on her in tabby comfort.

Adams was surprised at her new hair, but did not say anything.

"You weren't in school," he said.

"No," Cecila agreed. "I had an appointment in Lake Charles."

"What for?"

"Woman stuff," Cecila replied, hoping it would hold him.

He nodded and introduced them. "Special Agents Mulder and Scully. This is Cecila Lansdowne."

Adams went to her little kitchenette, got down four cups, the equal and the sugar, some creamer. Cecila let the agents take seats on her old, overstuffed couch. She sat on a large pillow and curled herself cross legged. Fox watched her eyes. Scully considered her small home. One room with a tiny partioned bathroom. The floors, walls and ceiling were plyboard, stained and polyurethened. The furniture had come out of the attic; Cecila had left her mother's decorator things for the new family.

She had a couch, a little daybed of iron and two big chairs. They took up plenty of room. Adams brought the coffee over.

"All three bodies have been discovered on your property." Fox said in a low voice. He was used to getting the right answers.

"Yes," Cecila said, matching his tone to hers, her green eyes to his brown, "but I own over three hundred acres of old forest and I do not have it posted." She watched as Adams set the coffee down on the low chest that served Cecila as a table and as a desk. She snagged her cup and began sipping, using the mug as a buffer between them.

"Have you seen anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"Have you seen the killer?"

"Yes. But I don't know him."

The three, seated on chairs, exchanged looks. "You cut your hair recently. your school photo shows long hair."

Cecila waited.

"When did you cut your hair?"

"Five days ago." They had found the body three days ago. Cecila found it before then, when the child had not been stiff and still smelt of life.

"What happened?"

Cecila shrugged. "It needed cutting."

"How long have you had long hair?"

"Always."

"So you just cut it? No reason at all?"

Cecila was silent. "I had to cut it off," she replied, not elaborating.

The Fox sighed, stared directly at her. "Did he raped you?"

"Yes." Cecila replied. Tell the truth, but volunteer nothing.

"He raped you?" Adams' voice, shaky with panic.

Cecila turned; her back had been to him. "Yes." She turned back to Fox, who had made some signal for Adams to be calm.

"Could you tell me what happened?"

"I followed him. I thought I could follow him and find out where he lived. Who he was. Why. But then...it was like falling." Cecila closed her eyes. Impossible to explain. He had not been real. He had not been human for that moment. She had not been real. "And then he was just there. He held me down against the mud and raped me. I couldn't move. I just..." The beating of wings, the faltering sounds.

The tapestry of bare branches against the winter sky. She opened her eyes. "And then, just as suddenly, he wasn't there."

"What did you do?"

"I went home." Kat had snarled at her, had not known her. But the woods on that long walk, the woods had known her, had treated her as one of their children. She had not known herself, only felt weary and dirty and tired. There had been pain, and blood running down the insides of her thighs. Sobbing so hard she could not breathe. The feeling that she would never be clean. She could feel it yet and steeled herself against the revulsion.

Fox nodded. This story did not frighten him. He watched Cecila's face, her strong hands relaxed around the coffee cup. "When you got home you cut your hair?"

"I took a shower until all I had was cold water, and then I kept showering until I rubbed my skin red and raw. I dried my hair and braided it. Then I cut it," Cecila explained.

"Why did you cut it?"

"I needed to." She did not volunteer more.

"Do you know why he is doing this?"

"No." A half-lie. "Not exactly."

"What do you know about why?" Fox rephrased.

"I know he wants something from the woods. He...the children were a symbol. He did not wrap them in beirs. He wrapped them in altars. It was customary in some cultures to smother a child who was a sacrifice. It does not scar the body." She was telling more than she ought. But this one had played before. And she had not told everything.

"Who is he sacrficing to?"

Cecila spread her hands. She had suspicions, but they circled her brain like vultures and would not come close enough for her to pin one down and discover what it was made of.

"You need to come down to the hospital." Adams told her gently.

"No," Cecila replied.

Adams frowned. "I can call Jessica," he said. It was clearly a threat.

"It is over. I do not want to go." Cecila replied, turning to stare at him. "I have my emancipation papers. I am an adult. She cannot make me go where I do not want to."

"You're endangering yourself."

"How?" Cecila replied levelly. There was a child in her that no one should know about.

"Cecila," She felt Adams' hand, trembling on her shoulder. "Cecil would want you to come in."

She turned to face her father's best friend, shook her head no.

"You were raped, there could be tearing," Dana said.

Cecila shook her head again.

"Were you a virgin?" Dana asked softly.

"Yes."

"Then you need to be examined."

Cecila closed her eyes, opened them. "Can you? If I go to the hospital. You examine me?"

They exchanged looks. "I'll stay with you through the whole thing."

"There is nothing for a rape case now," Cecila said softly. "I am only a little sore, as girls say they are after their first time. He did not want to hurt me, only show me that he was more powerful than I was."

She bit her lip. She had told more than she meant again.

"Regardless."

Cecila shook her head.

Adams looked over Cecila's head. "We can take her to Doctor Ellison's office. He won't mind if you perform the exam."

"I'm not trained to..." Dana trailed, looked down at Cecila, who made her figure small, still, and pitiful.

"All right. What if I assist?"

"You can do it. You know you can." Cecila replied in a soft, child's voice. "I don't want anyone else. Please." She released something of the emotions she had been stifling since the rape in that'please, and Dana found herself agreeing to it, to allowing Cecila to maintain what small amount of dignity she could.

They let them have a little examining room. Scully helped Cecila hang her legs over the stirrups, draped a great white sheet over her legs.

It was clear she had not done this very often. But she put the speculum in and made a good exam.

"We should take a pregnancy test." She told Cecila through the curtain when it was over as Cecila attempted to clean the lubricant out of herself using the paper gown.

"No," Cecila replied. "It was not the time."

"You're sure? I think it would be a good idea."

"No," Cecila replied. She put on her blue jeans, her dark wool sweater, slipped into her boots, tied them with the old knotted shoestrings, emerged. Dana stared at Cecila, at the face made childish from an inexpert hair cutting; they were the same heighth, but Cecila seemed smaller right now. Her face had the soft lines of a child's.

Dana put an arm around Cecila, pulled her over to the little chairs.

They sat, Cecila's head against Dana's chest. Listening to the gentle heartbeat.

"It must have been horrible for you," Dana said.

"It was...it was hard," Cecila replied. "I wanted to be strong. He desecrates my woods."

She felt Dana's head nod. "What aren't you telling us?" she asked.

Cecila did not stiffen. "What do you mean?"

"Mulder thinks you're not telling us everything."

"Oh."

"Of course Mulder also thinks that Clinton's move to the right is probably the result of an alien mind implant. But he knows his job."

Dana let go of Cecila's shoulder, pulled her to sit upright. "Sheriff Adams' says your parents died violently."

"6 months ago now," Cecila replied.

"He also said that things weren't always...perfect."

"They loved me," Cecila replied. "No one is perfect. But they loved me and they did everything they could. I'm not...not really normal."

"Sometimes I wonder if anyone is normal."

Cecila nodded. Dana did not know about the broken bones, about the welts. She only knew about the sister, because that was all that Mulder knew. She only knew that Mulder was accident prone.

"Why did you cut your hair? Did he use it to hold you down?"

"No." Cecila smiled. She could tell this. "I hung it out and asked the squirrels and rabbits to use it in their winter dens. So now my hair is part of the forest. I have wards set, you see? And it will protect me." And my baby.

"She's disturbed." Scully told Mulder, handing him the second half of her Rueban. She didn't want it. Cecila had drained her of appetite and energy.

"Was she raped?" Mulder asked, taking a bite from her sandwhich. Scully nodded curtly. "What do you think her connection is to the murderer?"

Mulder shrugged. He glanced around the small bar/restaurant, stared at the young couples merging into the shadows; they had been too tired for anything fancy, and for some reason Mulder felt like semi-darkness.

"Did she tell you anything about her parents?"

"No. What did you find out from Adams?

"Her father was in and out of VA hospitals for all of Cecila's life, no one's quite sure what he did, except that he was probably deep in-country, and everyone's convinced he was in Laos, probably with special forces." Mulder paused. They both knew it would be hard to find out anything if the father had been in Laos and next to impossible if he had been in special forces in Laos. "Her mother taught piano and violin down at McNeese State University in Lake Charles. Growing up, Cecila was left with her father most of the time. He taught her everything he'd learned about forest survival."

"And she made it part of her nature. What was he in the VA for?"

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Very severe case."

"Is that why he killed himself and his wife?"

Mulder gave a quick, wordless nod. "Cecila is probably psychic, you know that."

"She's recovering from the violent deaths of her parents and a rape..."

"No. She knows things..." Mulder ran a hand through his hair.

"Look, did you feel anything at all odd in the woods? I mean really scary. Tell the truth. "

"When?"

"At the beir?"

Scully looked down at her half-empty glass of rootbeer. "Why?"

"Did you?" he persisted.

Scully paused. "All right. Yes. I did."

"What did you feel?"

"I remembered...I was told to go into a closet at school until the sister came and paddled the living shit out of me." Scully smiled sardonically. Nuns could be the nicest people on earth. They could also be the most sadistic. "She forgot about me. My mother was away, visiting an aunt, and everyone thought I was staying with someone else. It wasn't until around midnight that my father found me." Scully looked at the polyurathened wood of their table.

"I nearly blacked out. I remembered Sam." Mulder said. "I think Cecila was watching us. She'd just gotten in when we did. The rabbit she gave Adams was still limp when we left."

"That doesn't prove anything."

"She knew you were a medical doctor. How did she know that?"

Scully searched her memory. "How did Adams introduce us?"

"Special Agents Mulder and Scully."

"Maybe Adams told her I was a doctor before we came."

"She was at the airport when we arrived," Mulder said, throwing down his whole card.

"What?" Scully asked.

"She was wearing a white linen suit, with high spike heels. Her hair was curled and she had make-up on. Remember, she was standing at the gate when we came through? White suit with a tunic jacket and a short skirt?"

Scully shook her head.

Mulder tried to think of something that would jog his partner's memory. "She was there. She drove out ahead of us in an 82-83 black jeep wagoneer."

Scully shook her head. She still didn't remember.

"Her dress had pearl buttons. She wore some really soft perfume. You've worn it just recently. It smells like something your mother would pick out."

Scully remembered then. Everything. "It's lotion from Victoria's Secret. It smells like vanilla, kind of. And my mother did pick it out. Christmas present. I remember her now."

"What did Cecila tell you?"

Scully recounted the story of the hair and the squirrels.

Mulder smiled.

They discussed the other women then, their lack of affect, of remembrance. It didn't prove anything, of course, shutting down was one way to deal with pain and grief, but Mulder found it terribly, terribly interesting.

"What kind of gun is that?" Cecila walked out of the dark shadows as Mulder laid his holster on the motel lowboy.

Mulder started involuntarily. "How did you get in here?"

"Locks aren't hard," Cecila said softly. "I wanted to talk to you. What kind of gun is that?"

"It's called a Glock 19."

"Glock." Cecila smiled uncertainly. "Glock. I like the sound of that. It sounds like metal. Adams knows I am...special. Why do you think he asked for you?" She sat on the bed.

"You have the ability to read thoughts," Fox said.

Cecila nodded as though Mulder were mentally deficient. She sighed.

"And he knows the bodies were all found on my property for some reason."

"Who is the murderer?"

"I don't know." Cecila looked up. "I told you the truth. I have not told any lies to you or to your partner. May I touch your gun?"

Fox considered her, got the gun out of its holster, took the clip out and handed it to her. Cecila held it in her hands as though holding a fine bottle of wine or a beautiful piece of jewelry, then handed it back. "It is expensive," she said.

"Yes."

"But very good." She clutched the bed cover between her legs.

She was like a child in so many ways, Mulder reflected, watching her sharp, young features twist in thought. Sitting like that, her long legs splayed across the bed, hands grabbing at the cloth, she looked seductive.

It was obvious from her expression, however, that she did not know this.

"Yes," he answered simply, choosing to ignore everything except the meaning of her thoughts. "Why is he killing the children?"

"As a sacrifice to the earth. He believes there is a Goddess of the earth. If he appeases her she will grant him things. He thinks...he sees me as Cassandra and himself as Apollo. He thought of himself as reprimanding a wayward priestess."

Fox nodded. "What kinds of things can you see?"

"It depends. I can see you well. I see things in you that you do not see. But it requires much of my energy."

"You made me remember my sister's abduction."

A pause, then a hesitant "Yes."

"Did I make the story up?" Mulder asked, disturbed by the mood of her response.

Cecila bit her lip and frowned. "You remembered what you saw. You did not invent the story to shade yourself from a harder truth," she said. There was more, but he had not asked for more.

He did not need more. "Why did you force yourself to find out?"

"I wanted to know." Cecila shook her head. "It's silly. I'm learning in European History about how it used to be that the Church controlled information, controlled the truth. I think that that experience has made us too desirous of the truth. We have to know. Sometimes, it isn't good to know the truth."

"No. I can't accept that. The truth, whatever it is, has to be faced."

Cecila shook her head. "No. That is not so," she replied. "But we will not argue it here."

"Sheriff Adams said you were staying with him."

Cecila nodded. "He would post a deputy if I did not. And he does not have enough officers as it is. After my parents died I stayed with him. His wife killed herself several years ago. We comfort each other. He and my father were like brothers. Except my father went into special forces. He was a cargo pilot."

"What else do you know about this killer?"

Cecila shrugged. "When he goes out killing and raping he puts on another face. Not his real face. Whoever he is the rest of the time goes away."

"Multiple personality disorder?"

"No. Not that far." Cecila bit her lip. "He just doesn't think, doesn't let anything in about his real life. He can cut himself off. Makes the person in the woods realler than who he is in civilization."

"Do you know when he's out in the woods?"

"No. Not until it's too late." Cecila sighed. "I'll be going now."

Fox nodded wordlessly and let her slip off into the night.

Scully smiled mischeviously when Mulder finished his story the next morning at breakfast.

"She wouldn't be the first 16 year old to get a crush," Scully said.

At his expression she gave a snort of laughter. "Stop being dense."

"You don't think..." Mulder trailed. "Oh well." It was clear he was uncomfortable with the thought.

Scully tore into her bagel. "You know," she said, swallowing. "I think Adams is in love with her."

Mulder looked up from his egg. "What?" he asked.

"Adams is in love with her."

"He's as old as her father."

"So?" Scully took a sip of her coffee, winced. Louisiana coffee was unlike any she had ever tasted before. She got the little creamer pitcher.

Now, finally, she understood why Mulder had asked for cream. It was the only way to drink this coffee.

"I'm told they drink it even stronger down in Latin America," Mulder commented, watching her minstrate to the cup.

"I don't see how," Scully replied.

The woods were damp and dark. He moved steathily. The little bitch was talking to the blasphemers. That could not be tolerated. The Goddess needed the little bitch pure and happy.

He stopped a hundred yards from her cabin, sniffed. Damn her.

Damn her all to hell. He circled the cabin uselessly, driven back by the magic. She had taken herself and wrapped her magic around the cabin.

Damn her.

He tried to remember the first time he had seen her in the woods. She had been very, very young. And wordlessly learning shapeshifting. Turning into a hawk. Learning how from her father. Her father had been strong, very strong, but his spirit had been warped, first by the concrete, then by the blood. Her father had served the goddess for many, many years before this daughter had come and he had left her service, began to serve the other side. He could only wait until the goddess called her father back into her wings. The girl was not strong enough yet to protect.

The girl had gifts. Special gifts. He hoped forcing her to shift, to mutate while he taught her the goddess's lesson would show her the way back into the proper side of the realm. The girl responded by taking the child between them hostage and by marking her cabin. She had invested the squirrels and the rabbits in this plot against him.

Cecila started, looked up from her schoolwork. Adams had called up to the school, had her teachers send her work to the sherriff's office. She sat in an interview room with her books, going over her notes from Tess of the Dubervilles preparatory to writing a paper on the chase motif.

He was at her cabin. Had found the wards she had placed and could not get in. She smiled grimly. Her wards were very strong, in both the ground and in the air; her father had taught her how to make them. She could walk through his wards with ease, but he could not walk through hers. Good. She had a buffer now. Places he could not intrude.

"Hi." Cecila looked up at Fox and Dana, over her Calculus textbook and the problem she was trying to solve.

"Hi,." Fox replied, glanced at her math book. Cecila smiled ruefully, put it away.

"Calculus?" Dana asked. "In eleventh grade?"

"I'm in the twelth." Cecila replied. "My kindergarten teacher had one more kid than is legal so she just bumped her most irritating student-- me--to first grade." She smiled.

"How often is the killer on your land?"

Cecila frowned. "Every day almost."

The agents looked at each other.

"How do you know that?"

"I know my land. I hear him."

"Mentally," Fox said.

Cecila nodded.

"Why is he coming out to the land?"

"His goddess is there." Cecila fiddled with her pen. "He wants to serve his goddess."

"Who is his goddess?" Dana. Cecila mentally frowned at her. She had blundered into the question Cecila did not plan on answering.

"A dark goddess who requires blood sacrifices."

"Why does he think she's on your land?" The Fox.

"He thinks...the goddess is everywhere, but she is strongest on land that has not been touched by man in many years--such as my land. And my father was once a devotee. But then I was born. So her spirit has been worshipped on my land, which makes her stronger."

"And your father switched goddesses."

"The goddess is the same goddess, but she is different in darkness than in light. I serve her light. He serves her darkness. That is how he sees it."

"Is that how you see it?"

Cecila shrugged. "It isn't that simple. It's like people in churches praying to God. They see him like a person, a man. But God isn't like that. He sees a dark goddess, a person, but it isn't a person, it's..." Cecila shook her head. Words interfered with what it was. "it just is. My father was a killer. He knew how to hide in the jungle. If he hadn't learned how to be part of what was--of the--darkness of living forces--"

She stumbled, words did not explain, besides what she knew of his learning she got from unguarded moments when he let himself think of it- -and those were not her father's best moments "--he would have died. When I came, he found--the other--the spirit that is wise in other--"

Cecila shook her head frustrated. "But the memory is still there." She sighed. They had to understand this some time if she could use them properly.

The baby had implanted itself on her uterus. It would grow now. The cells would begin to look human. Its spirit would grow. Cecila had to protect it.

"The memory of his killings?" Fox asked, looking puzzled.

"No." Frustrated, Cecila bit her lip, chewed meanly on it. "No. My father was like me."

"He could see."

"Yes. But this world does not recognize seers. You were a seer when you were little," she told Fox, skating an edge she should not skate. "But you were taught not to be. My father was a seer, but he was taught not to be. In the jungle, that part, which had to be killed to survive this world, it woke in some way, because it was a way to survive in that world."

"How do you see other people's thoughts?" Fox asked.

"How did you know what the serial killers were thinking?"

"I have degrees in psychology, I..."

"No. No. No." Cecila frowned. "You sat down in front of the computer with all your files. And lights came on. Do you remember the Monty Propps killings? No one knew anything. You sat down. You invented later how you knew. But you were ...you started typing and things suggested themselves, niggled in your ear. You hated violent crimes, all the while they told you you had a great career. You would stand under your shower in your suits, sobbing, trying to get the dirt out of your head." She stopped. Fox was staring at her, betrayed.

"The job woke something that you had killed, or at least hurt badly. Being in the jungle woke something like that in my father." She stopped.

"The skill is there; it depends how you take it whether you know the forest so well none know you move in it or whether you know what serial killers are thinking."

Fox knew what question he should ask next, but he didn't. He was remembering how fascinated he had been with solving the puzzle. How enthralled he had been. He knew, that first case. Barnett. He just knew.

And it had worked so perfectly. Then he had relied on the book. And things fell apart.

Remember the slayings in Oklahoma? The children's bodies, flayed apart. No clues. But patterns, patterns ran around his head, patterns told him things, wouldn't let him sleep until he started writing, started getting the patterns out of his head. He remembered times, of not knowing who he was, losing himself, but thinking this makes sense, that makes sense, because of this and that and this. It added up the way an equation adds up. It made sense the way counterpoint does in Baroque music.

But no one else had seen, no one, not even in Behavioral Science.

And he'd run with that pack a while, the wolf that finds the prey first, brings down the caribou, knows where the weak one stands. It was a gift, the ability to reason, to figure out how other's thought.

"Yes." Cecila hissed, bringing the Fox out of his head. "Yes. The gift came back that way for you. For my father it came back in being able to figure out how men behaved, in learning his prey perfectly. He did not ever look into their minds, he knew how they moved and he knew how the woods reacted to them."

Dana had been watching this exchange, worriedly. Cecila could feel her concern. She wanted to stop this but Fox was a big boy. He could take care of himself. Dana stopped herself from interferring, but wondered what the cost of his self-knowledge would be to her partner.

"You're saying there's some external force that controls this?" Fox asked, voice unsure.

"No. But he thinks there is." Cecila replied. He saw, but he did not see. Enough for now. "The force is within. But we...share...like in Jung." She rifled through her books, pulled out her Intro to Psychology book, then dropped it. Jung only skirted the edges. "In everything it exists--all things--And there is a dichotomy, but it mingles its blood."

She stopped. Impossible to explain. There were not words. It was outside, but inside too. It came from the inside, but was strongest outside. "There is...old Chinese beliefs that everything that lives has a spirit...not animism..." She shook her head, unable to explain. "He calls it a goddess the way the Druids did. The Greeks called it Gaia, but that isn't right either, it's too...it ignores the truth for the facts..." She stopped herself. "But there is a great deal of power and he is willing to get it in dark ways."

Mulder wanted to see the other two sites. A young deputy drove them in Adams' cherokee.

"I go hunting back in here sometimes," he said. Mulder looked sharply at the young man. "Mr. Lansdowne let lots of people use his woods to hunt on. Most land's leased around here. Cecila left it the same policy."

"Who goes hunting?" Mulder asked.

"Everybody." The young man shrugged. "She's pretty easy, unless you do something she don't like, like take too many, or ride a four-wheeler or tramp through an endangered plant."

That wasn't new news. Adams had already told them as much, still, it struck Mulder new. Somehow there was something about the hunters he hadn't known before.

There was nothing new to be learned at the site. Mulder walked around, made grunting noises, thought, looked up at the tree canopy, mostly barren in February.

"Well?" Scully asked.

Mulder shook his head. "I want to go back to the motel," he said.

They were standing outside the sherriff's office. Cecila had gone off, no one quite knew where. Adams was gone as well, on regular duties.

"What she said..." Scully paused. "Tell me."

Mulder sighed, tossed Scully the car keys. "You drive." They got in the Taurus.

"She's right," he said, helplessly. "It's like I used to make connections other people simply didn't see--you know that, it's how I got my nickname. I obsessed, couldn't leave it until I knew. It's been observed in other agents, but as far as I know no one will discuss it openly. We call it PTSD, but that isn't what it is. I *have* PTSD. This is different...this is..." He stared out the window, did not finish.

"Cecila isn't telling us something," he said, turning to face his partner again. "Something important that could solve this case."

"Why would she hold information back?"

"I don't know. If I knew why, I would know what she isn't telling us," Mulder replied, frustrated.

"What about all that about spirits in woods?"

Mulder shrugged. "I don't know." He considered the stoplight, looked around the small downtown area.

If he took the woman and killed the Fox he would have enough power. Cecila had said the Fox had the gifts her father had had. The Fox was not a child, pure and undefiled. But the Fox would do--hell, the Fox might be better than a child because the Fox had the gifts. He rocked on his heels, considered the high ridge above the creek. Here. There was power here, he would take them both here, kill the Fox and then rape the woman. As a boy he and Cecil Lansdowne had come here to find their arrowheads, to play their games. Cecil had come back touched. He had thought Cecil insane. Cecil was not. Cecil had simply learned and seen through the veiling. They would talk about it. About how things really were under the exterior we move through.

Things were falling apart. Things were not supposed to go this way.

This was not supposed to happen. The Fox was supposed to be crazy, not very good, so it would be okay., they would come in and they would not see who it was. But they had.

He had to rectify the situation. Kill the pair and then, he would have the power. The goddess would protect him then. He had enough power to hide in the woman's rooms. That was easy. Hide until her gun was far away, and she was comfortable.

Scully tossed the cotton ball into the trash, her face now cleansed of make-up. In a few minutes, after Mulder's shower stopped running and he'd had time to change into clothes, she'd go over. They had agreed on pizza for supper, take-out pizza, and no talk of woods or dark goddesses.

She did not see the figure, looking down, putting the lid back on her facial scrub and on the astringent, until he had her, had the tape across her mouth.

Cecila had not known. The wards kept the killer from her, from hurting her. But they kept his thoughts from her too. She had not counted on that. The Fox was next door to Dana. The Fox had his eyes closed as water coursed down his face. <<<The Wardrobe>>> She raced to her old Cherokee, hoping she would make it in time, cursing her stupid games.

Mulder opened his eyes, gasping, as the water stung his face. The memory of bone splintering under pressure. The pain. It broke past all other memories, held him hostage.

Fall into the wardrobe and you cannot see. Fall into the whiteness, past the furry coats. You read one chapter I'll read the other. Fall into the wardrobe.

"How could you do that? How could you? Do you know what you did?" Fall into the wardrobe.

She felt the tape being cut off her wrists. She felt the tape rip off her eyes. Blink. Blink. The shower was steamy, a figure huddled in the tub. Someone held a gun, a .45, against her back.

"Don't turn around. Take care of him."

She looked down into the fog. Down. Tore the tape off her mouth.

The door shut. There were sweatpants on the toilet.

Scully opened the shower curtain, turned off the water.

In the blinding light it was all right. When it was over it would be all right. For a long time. Long time. Momma would come home and get very quiet and they would go to the hospital. And his mind would tell him a story to tell the doctors. A good story. When they came back the story would be true. Dadda would be there, would stay up all night with him, would be endlesssly patient. Dadda loved him. So how could Dadda hurt him? It was always cold in the wardrobe, but that was all right. Mr. Tumnus would come and then the beaver.

Scully stared at her partner, huddled silently in the shower, not sure what had sent him into this state. She knew now. Understood. At least a little: she would be the next woman raped and Mulder would be the next killed. Cecila had not planned on this.

But the killer had not planned on Mulder's unawareness. She was being asked to dry Mulder off, to get him ready so that he could be killed.

She would comfort her partner as best she could. But she would not get him ready to be killed. She got towels out of the rack, knelt before him, covered him up as best she could, using the towel as a blanket.

Began to gently dry his hair.

The Wal-Mart next to the motel was always full and Cecila's Cherokee was unnoticeable in the throng. She climbed over the high fence separating Wal-Mart from motel, and ran through the back of the Red Room Restaurant adjacent to the Best Western. Her powers were less here. The earth was still good and green, there were still trees and grass, but the power was subjegated. Man had it in his fists. It did not run free.

She stopped outside the motel parking lot, unsure what to do. Whatever happened, she must protect her child. She disengaged her clutch on the Fox, slowly, softly.

The killer was growing impatient.

Mulder put a hand to Scully's face, stared at her.

"Mulder. Are you all right?"

He stared at her.

"What happened?" she asked.

Mulder touched her nose, her lips, ran his finger down her throat. "I don't...I..." He stopped, looked puzzled. "I don't...how?"

"I found you in the shower, huddled up. You've been...unaware of your surroundings for at least 10 minutes."

"I'm cold."

"Well, you're pretty wet," she replied as though the conversation were normal. "I've got some sweatpants." Scully told him. "But I think you should just stay there."

Mulder did not question her decision. He swallowed and looked around.

"Cecila...is in danger," he said, tried to move.

Scully held a hand against his chest. "No. We're in danger. There's a man with a gun out there. He took me hostage, put me in the back of his vehicle. He went back for you, but you were in a dissociative state so he got me to calm you down."

Cecila smiled grimly. If she could not save the Fox she would tighten the memories around him. He would not know he was dying, she could give him that. She could put Dana into her closet, she could give Dana that.

The door opened. The figure loomed over them.

Out in the parking lot,Cecila screamed. Loudly. Twisted her hands over her stomach, doubled in pain. No. She would not accept that. She would not let it be him. No. No. How could it be him? He had held her, he had never tried to hurt her. No. He had taken off her clothes that night when she came in from the storm, trembling, put her in nice dry things, tucked her to bed.

For the daughter-father dinner at church, he had taken her when Daddy was in the VA. No. No. Cecila would not let it be him. Not him. Anyone. She kicked her feet against the pavement. How could it be him?

No.

Adams stared at Scully and Mulder. "Get dressed," he ordered.

Mulder stared at Adams, not saying anything. "Get dressed," Adams said again; he grabbed Scully, pushed her to her feet, shoved her to the sink. "Sit on the counter," he ordered.

Scully pushed herself up.

"Hold onto the edge of the counter."

Adams tossed Mulder the sweatpants. "Now you get dressed."

Cecila tried to think through the haze. She saw now. The gaping wound, the blood splayed against the bathroom mirror. Dana would not make it out of that room. Catalyst. They had not solved anything on this case, but they had forced Adams' hand, forced Cecila's hand.

Adams now thought he had to rape Scully and then kill her, had to sacrifice Mulder. Then, he thought, he would have the power to get Cecila. He would need no more sacrifices because he would have the child and he could use the child get the powers he wanted most. No one would ever know.

Mulder tried to put the sweatpants on. Stumbled. He had a sudden image of Scully with a gut wound, blood covering the mirror. He stumbled again, hitting his head on the tile.

"Help him." Adams told Scully, when it was obvious that Mulder was trying to comply, but could not.

She took the sweatpants, puddled them down on the wet floor of the tub, put her shoulder under his, let him step into each leg. Then it was simple to pull them up. But as she did so, Mulder slid down the tile, back into the white porcelin of tub.

She understood this fumbling, this was intentional; she did not understand why, but she accepted.

The 911 call was made. Her father had liked that show, liked making fun of the host more than anything. There would be an ambulance and police officers. Now the dispatcher was calling the front desk, to see what they knew. Cecila took a deep breath. Opened the door.

"Hi." Cecila's voice was cool. She smiled.

Adams turned around.

"You won't touch me," Cecila said softly. "Kill me and you kill it."

Adams eyes narrowed, and he backed against the door so that he could watch everything. Scully finally finished helping Mulder into his sweatpants.

Cecila came closer and closer. "Shoot me and the goddess will take you back," she said, her voice seductive and soft. "Like she did my father."

Adams scowled. "You do not serve the goddess."

"But you do. . And you dropped your seed in me."

"I can make it a sacrfice."

Cecila nodded. "But will she take it? My child will be powerful. You want my child. My child will know so much."

"That's what Cecil said when he got your momma pregnant. Said you would be powerful...he...taught me about the Goddess."

Cecila nodded.

There were sirens outside.

"You cannot get to your high bluff and sacrifice," Cecila told him.

"I win. Kill me and your goddess will not be pleased. Do not kill me and my child will grow up learning from the brighter side of the spirit."

Adams made a decision. Cecila saw it and reached out quickly, did it without thinking. "Stop it, Dadda!"

The gun retorted, but made no sound as it struck, hitting Mulder's left arm as he fell into the wardrobe. In that moment, Scully grabbed the gun, pushed up on Adams' arm, even as the gun recoiled.

Mulder sank into the tub as Cecila had pushed him roughly into the wardrobe, the second before Adams had decided to kill him. Blood smeared the ceramic tiles from the exit wound, smeared and bubbled from his shoulder. He did not seem aware he should be in any pain.

Cecila watched Scully's mind, helped her take the gun away. She released the Fox, hoped he would not remember what she had done.

Hoped Dana would not tell him what he had said.

J.Edgar Hoover Building
FBI headquarters
Washington D.C.
Thursday, March---, 1995

Mulder finished reading his partner's report. He was just as happy when she wrote the damn things. No mention of his little trip to la-la land or of Cecila's abilities. Like that would be prudent. Scully was many things, but imprudent was not one of them. No mention of how a man Cecila had known since childhood could have raped her anonymously.

Cecila was gone. She had given her statement, been sent to sit down somewhere, while everyone tried to sort things out, while Adams protested about plots against him, and how he was the sheriff of this parish, damn it. Mulder had let the paramedic give him something, and then he was lying against darkness.

When he'd emerged in a hospital bed, sore as hell, no broken or shattered bones, no surgery needed, just bandages, lots of stitches, and a damn sling, Scully told him Cecila'd dissappeared from the motel parking lot. Someone had been posted to wait for her at her cabin, but she was gone. A letter had arrived at her lawyer's office three days later. It told what to do with her property and her money, how things were to be set up, even what to do with Kat, who now lived in comfort with an elderly neighbor. They had a copy of the letter in their files. Postmark Baton Rouge. Cecila could be anywhere. If a sixteen year old is emancipated that sixteen year old is an adult in the eyes of the law.

And an adult, not wanted by the law, not on probation or parole, can disappear voluntarily if the adult wants to. There's nothing illegal about that.

"Hi." Scully had been maternal for the past week, but not overbearingly so. She'd helped when he needed it, driven him around and helped him dress when the pain had stiffened up his arm, made it impossible. She had said nothing about his falling, his dissappearing into his own head. She did not want to say that she accepted that Cecila had shoved him into some nightmare corner of his own skull to keep him away from Adams, and Mulder didn't plan to make her say it.

"Hi." Mulder waved his lame arm in her direction--or he tried to anyway, it was mostly a vague movement of the arm and a wriggling of his fingers. A quarter inch to the left and down a quarter inch and he would not have the upper portion of his humerus. As it was it had only gone through muscle. It hurt like hell, and he couldn't move his left arm worth a crap, but Mulder figured he'd gotten off damn easy.

"Pretty sad," Scully said.

"We got the bad guy."

"Yeah." She was thinking of Cecila, alone, pregnant, no one to turn to. "She was just 16. Kids are stupid at 16. Even kids like Cecila."

If she had told them about the pregnancy, what would they have done differently? Mulder shook his head. He'd already been through this chain of thinking countless times. "She did what she had to," he said softly.

"Running was her only viable option and she knew it." Staying would have meant that someone would know. Would know that Cecila could look into minds, could completely hide herself in a bare motel room, could change the structure of the forest to accomodate her needs.

Scully nodded. Mulder was right. Cecila had taken herself and her child away where no one would know that mother and child bore quiet, far-reaching gifts. She could teach her child in solitude, in peace.

"Still," she replied.

"Life isn't fair," Mulder said.

"No. But I don't have to like it."

Finis