Cynthia By Marcia Colpan

The wind whipped his coat around his legs and forced the recalcitrant fabric to form to his outline as he pushed up the stone-lined walk to the house. Scully next to him took advantage of her position and used him as a windbreak. By the time they had reached the old Victorian looking porch, Mulder was totally out of breath. Every bit of oxygen had been whipped from his face before it could reach his lungs, and he felt like he was ready to pass out.

He leaned against the sheltered doorframe and gulped air greedily. From the corner of his eye, he saw Scully do the same. She inhaled deeply several times and then blew on her numbed hands to ease the pain of the cold. He felt mildly amused that they looked more like disheveled kittens than FBI agents. Straightening up, he smoothed his hair and straightened his coat before striking his customary stance. "Ready, Scully?" The smile was forced but held a trace of the curiosity that he had felt when he had read the police report.

"If you've dragged me up here for no reason, Mulder, I will make sure you pay." Scully flipped the hair out from under the collar of her coat and set her pocketbook squarely hanging from one shoulder. "I still don't know why we're investigating a simple suicide."

Mulder looked at her with amusement. "You think it's simple to bleed to death with no wound whatsoever?" His eyes twinkled as he shrugged his shoulders. "I thought it was a good trick."

Scully glared at him. "The coroner didn't notice any wound. There had to be one. Possibly internal, he simply expelled the blood through another orifice."

Mulder grinned at her, knowing that she was hooked. "We'll soon see. I don't think there will be any trouble getting permission for the autopsy."

Glaring at him, Scully reached out and knocked firmly on the door. Seconds passed and she prepared to knock again when the door swung open and a small woman bent with age stood in front of them. "I've been expecting you. Please come in."

Scully glanced at Mulder. "Expecting us? You don't have a telephone. We couldn't contact you."

The old woman smiled and gestured them inside. "I keep in contact with things around here. Please come in. You'll catch your death."

The agents stepped inside and the door swung closed behind them. Oddly, the chill didn't leave Mulder. If anything, he pulled his coat tighter around his body and flipped the collar up. The gesture was not lost on Scully who had removed her own coat in the warmth of the room that was provided by the cheerfully glowing fire in the fireplace. "You okay?"

Mulder shivered and shoved his hands deeply into his pockets and nodded. "Yeah, I just got really frostbitten there."

The old woman stared at him suspiciously. "You feel cold now?"

Mulder forced himself to remove his coat and place it on top of Scully's on the chair. The three stepped into the spacious living room where he took the seat closest to the fireplace. Oddly, the warmth didn't seem to penetrate. It was like he was enveloped in an icy cloud that sucked his warmth from him and didn't permit the warm air of the room to touch his flesh. He shivered slightly and tried to relax against the chair. The room blurred in front of his eyes.

Suddenly Scully was beside him furiously rubbing his arms and hands and shouting something to what must have been the old woman. A blanket appeared around his shoulders and his shoes were removed. The vigorous rubbing continued down his legs as his mind slipped into a zone where the room spun pleasantly and he could no longer feel the cold tingling against his skin.

The spinning room slowed and was replaced with a deep blackness that was horribly cold. Mulder stood in the middle of the blackness, knowing that he should be shivering, but he wasn't. He wasn't shivering, and he wasn't alone. He could feel others with him, but he couldn't see them. He shut his eyes against the dark and felt fear slipping into his mind. Then, nothing.

******

"Here, drink this." He felt a warm cup of some liquid pressed into his hands, as he became aware of the room again.

"Scully?" He whispered for fear that she wouldn't be the one to reply.

"I'm here, Mulder. Drink that tea." He stared into her beautiful eyes and then sighed in relief.

"I'm really glad to see you, Scully." He took a sip of the warm tea and blinked several times.

Scully shook her head in annoyance. "I'm glad to see you, too. How'd you manage to get hypothermia just from the car to the porch?"

"Hypothermia?" He mumbled the word as if it didn't register. "Is that what you think?"

"Mulder, when the heat of your body leaves the extremities and sinks to your core, it's called hypothermia. It's the fastest I've ever seen out of water though."

"Not hypothermia." Fox argued with her softly. "It was a contact of some kind."

"A contact?" Scully gave him one of her more scientific looks. "If having you pass out from the cold is a contact, then I guess, but I doubt it. Mrs. Fenmore is going to let us spend the night. I don't think you should go out this soon."

Unexpectedly, Mulder felt his heart beat frantically in response to the idea of spending the night at the old house. "I can make it."

Scully shook her head. "I can't carry you if you decide to collapse on me. I already told her we'd stay." She shrugged her shoulders. "Besides, we haven't interviewed her about that man's death yet."

Suddenly, Mulder was not terribly concerned about the death. "It's a simple suicide. What's to know?"

Scully stared at him in surprise. "I think you need to drink that tea and then have a good night's sleep. We'll talk about this in the morning." She stood up and shook out some blankets that she laid out on the couch. "You sleep here and I'll sleep upstairs."

Fox stared at the couch as it shifted in his mind between a piece of antique styled furniture and a coffin. Shivering again, he drank his tea before lying down and allowing Scully to cover him. "You'll be upstairs."

Scully nodded, a bit puzzled by his concern. "Yeah, I'll be upstairs."

******

Scully walked into the bedroom that Mrs. Fenmore showed her. It was dark in the Victorian style with massive furniture and decorative moldings. Directly above the bed, framed by curtains was the portrait of a young woman holding a bouquet of lilies of the valley. Although the portrait was the usual seated pose of the time, the background was definitely different. Instead of the traditional background of a garden or a parlor, the girl was sitting in front of a scene out of Dante.Leaping flames devoured buildings and broken images of bodies were scattered around the ground behind her. In stark contrast, her party dress with the hand crocheted lace and the bouquet of flowers seemed out of place. Her serene expression was perfect unless you looked at her eyes. Her eyes were inconsistent with the pose she struck. She wore a horrified expression like she was staring at the scene that was behind her or a worse scene that was in front of her.

Scully shivered slightly and pulled the curtains down to cover the picture. She smiled at her own reaction but made no effort to push the curtains back. She had no desire to go to sleep staring at that portrait of barely concealed horror. Why anyone would keep a painting like that was a mystery. For that matter, who would paint it?

She laid in bed in her borrowed nightgown and left her concerns about the painting fade to be replaced with concerns about her partner. Mulder was not acting like himself. He had blacked out in the living room and given her a major scare. They were far from medical help, and he needed to be checked out thoroughly. The look in his eyes when he had come to had been …like the girl's in the portrait. She slipped into a troubled sleep. Dreams of dancing flames would fill her mind until morning.

******

Fox lay on the couch and watched the fire as he fought sleep. The awful cold that had claimed him earlier was not fully gone, but kept washing over him repeatedly. As though it had learned his limits, it didn't stay long enough to send him reeling deeply into the darkness but teased at the outer limits of his personal space. There was a sentience about it that bothered him more than he liked to admit to himself. It was like being watched or toyed with. Neither benevolent nor malevolent, it lurked around him--preventing him from sleeping peacefully. Sleep pressed against him until the need for rest pushed him into an unconscious state. Reluctantly, he gave in and drifted off.

Immediately, the darkness was there and he felt the others. This time the fear was also gone. "Who are you?" His voice was strong and firm.

"The ones who have gone before." It was like a hundred whispers that surrounded him.

"Gone before what?" He pressed the issue and reached out a hand into the darkness.

"Before you. We were before you." If there was anyone there, they were far out of his reach. He had no desire to step further into the void.

"What do you want?" His curiosity began to work in his favor.

"We want nothing. You want." The whispers faded further away.

"I want what?" Fox took a hesitant step forward. Straining his ears for the sound, he moved in a circle trying to locate them. They were gone.

He became aware of the living room again and something else. The coldness had taken on a new solidity and was touching him in a more than friendly manner. In horror, he realized that he was reacting to the touch in a way that was usually reserved for other stimuli. He pressed the blanket down against himself and began to run the multiplication tables through his mind. By the time he got to the nines, he had broken out in a cold sweat and the stimulation had begun to net results that were extremely embarrassing. Even more so, when he realized that he was not alone in the room. He felt rather than saw Mrs. Fenmore slip through the shadows into the hallway of the old house.

******

Scully rose from bed with a start to see the rays of the winter sun touching the floor beyond her bed. Momentarily confused, she looked around trying to place her surroundings. In the light of day, the room took on a uniquely feminine touch that hadn't been evident the night before. She slipped from bed and grabbed a robe that Mrs. Fenmore had thoughtfully laid on the chair. Tying it close to her body, her eyes fell on the portrait of the young girl that was now in full evidence above the bed. The curtains were once again tied back. Scully stared at the girl. The horrified expression that she thought she had seen the night before was replaced with a soft sensual expression. The background in the light of day was also different. What she had thought were flames were the oranges and reds of gladiolas and the human forms broken beneath them were the shadows of the flowers on the grass.

Laughing at her overactive imagination of the night before, she opened the door and headed down the hallway to the bathroom. As soon as she left the room, Mrs. Fenmore slipped in and stood at the end of the bed staring at the portrait. "I saw what you did and so did he." Her voice cracked as she whispered. "He'll join the others if you're not careful." With that, the old woman slipped out into the hallway and down the stairs.

******

Scully stepped into the large kitchen glad to have had her unnamed fears of the previous night fade in the light of day. She stopped short when she saw Mulder. His normally expressive face was haggard and the dark circles under his eyes gave him a hollowed look that was alarming. "You didn't sleep well?" Scully sat down beside him, took the napkin from the place setting and slid it onto her lap.

Mulder looked around as though expecting someone to be listening to his response. "I've got to get out of here."

Scully picked up her coffee cup and sipped the hot liquid slowly. "I'll ask Mrs. Fenmore if she knows about the man's next of kin and then we'll go."

Mulder nodded and reached for a piece of toast on his plate. He took a small bite and chewed it overly long and without interest. He swallowed hard. "I had a visitor last night."

Scully set down her coffee cup and gave him her undivided attention. "A visitor?"

"This one wasn't as cold as the first, but a lot friendlier." Mulder fell back against his chair. "I was…um…used."

"Excuse me?" Scully's shocked expression made him laugh humorlessly.

"That was my line." He leaned forward to whisper. "Mrs. Fenmore was watching."

Scully sat without speaking for a moment and then lifted her coffee cup to her lips. "Mrs. Fenmore watched you have a wet dream?"

"I wasn't asleep!" Mulder was becoming agitated. "I'm telling you that there is something in this house."

"Like a ghost?" Scully shook her head. "I don't believe in ghosts, Mulder. Everything has a rationale and scientific explanation."

Mulder flopped back into his chair and pushed the plate away from him. "I'm leaving."

"Not today, dear." Mrs. Fenmore's voice drifted from the doorway. Seconds later she entered with a laundry basket in her hands. "I'm sorry to eavesdrop, but I heard you say you were leaving. I'm afraid the road is washed out. There was a melt upriver and by the time it got here, it overflowed onto the road." She smiled reassuringly at them. "It'll be down by tomorrow."

Scully reached for her telephone and began punching in numbers. Standing up she walked over to the sink and stared out the window as she talked quietly. Collapsing the phone, she returned to the table and smiled warmly at the old woman. "Yes, the road service expects the water to recede sometime tonight. Thank you for letting us stay."

Mulder paled and his hand shook slightly as he picked up his coffee cup.

Scully took notice and attempted to cover up her partner's agitation in front of their hostess. "While we have you here, Mrs. Fenmore. We came to ask about the man who died here last week. We need to have permission to do an autopsy, and we need to know if he had any family."

The older woman sat down heavily in a chair across from Mulder. "That poor man." A tear trickled down her lined face. "I don't know anything about him except that he had a flat tire and needed help." Her voice dropped to a murmur. "I shouldn't have left him stay."

"Why not, Mrs. Fenmore." Mulder's voice was stronger than Scully had heard it all morning. "Why shouldn't he have stayed?"

Her head snapped up and she glared at him. "You know. You felt it last night. I saw you."

Scully sat down and put a restraining hand on Fox's arm. "What did you see last night, Mrs. Fenmore?"

The hostility left the old woman as quickly as it had come. "He was with her. They all want to be with her. She was always like that--attracting the menfolk. At one time, I was foolish enough to think that she would leave my man alone. So, I married him and we stayed here one night. The next night I was a widow. Always been that way, everything for her. It's like I don't exist. Like I'm nothin'. I was beautiful too once. I was."

She stood up carefully and walked towards the laundry room mumbling to herself and leaving Scully to stare in amazement at Mulder. "Okay, so we have a pattern here."

"Yeah," Mulder was obviously annoyed, "and I'm next in the chain of events."

Scully gave him an even stare. "Don't let your imagination run away with you. We have to find out who else is in this house."

"My imagination is cold to the touch and invisible but has definite ideas about my anatomy." Fox stood up and grabbed his coat jacket off the back of the chair. "I don't know about you, but I'm not sitting around waiting to be …whatever. Let's see what we can find."

Scully cast a look towards the laundry room where Mrs. Fenmore could be heard moving around. "She might not like us searching her house."

"Scully, please don't take this in the wrong way, but Mrs. Fenmore is missing a few bytes off her hard drive." He slipped on the jacket and took purposeful strides towards the hallway before turning. "You coming?"

Scully glanced at the laundry room again before joining her partner. "Let's try to be discreet."

"Oh sure," Fox agreed. "I'll be sure and be polite to any ghosts we happen to meet up with. I'll ask them nicely if they had relations with me last night."

"I'm certain that there is some reasonable explanation for this." She pushed past him and headed for the staircase. "Let's start at the top and work our way down."

Mulder shrugged his shoulders. "Fine with me. This place has to have an attic."

******

(continued in part two)