The Children's Teeth:  Sister's Blood 10/16

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The weapons of our warfare
are not merely human.
They possess God's power
for the destruction of strongholds."

2 Corinthians 10: 4
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And so began the only time of my life I can
almost call "peaceful."  Five years of such
peace, actually, give or take a few months.  
The rigorous routine of the Discalced
Carmelites was not a burden to me but a relief.  
I never was forced to participate in their
rituals, but I was included and treated with
respect nonetheless.  As for my name... well,
all the other sisters knew *what* I was, and
I heard from time to time that one or the
other of them was fasting for my spiritual
edification, for the good of my soul.

My soul.  I would have laughed had They given
me a sense of humor.

But at the cloister I was given a new name.  
I wore the brown habit jumper and white blouse
of a novice.  They called me simply, "Sister."  
I found that appropriate, for "Sister" is the
one thing I have always been.  

I followed the way of Carmel for five years, if
only in the motions but not in any belief of my
own.  I woke at 5:30 each morning, washed up,
and went to Chapel for Morning Prayer.  Then,
Morning Prayer was followed by a sort of quiet
time called "Mental Prayer."  At first, I wasn't
entirely sure how to use this time.  Eventually,
the Mother Prioress taught me all sorts of
meditation tools.  They were easy for me
to use with my sharpened imagination.  They didn't
give me any earth-changing mystical experience of
the Sister's God, but they did give me an
undeniable peace.  The peace helped.  I think the
peace set the stage for future healing.

Then, it was time for Mass with Father Timothy,
who shared the gatehouse with Joseph.  Father Tim
was a portly man who had an illness that had
disfigured his hands.  His voice as he chanted
the prayers of the Mass was a bit nasal, but he
always smiled at me kindly.  He never showed any
dismay that I did not take the sacraments.  He
would wave a gesture of blessing in my direction,
nodding at me and whispering, "Sister."

There were at least two hours each day devoted
only to reading. When I first heard this -- I
think that was when I held my first smile.  And
there were books to read -- new books I had never
seen before:  The Bible, //The Interior Castle//
by Therese of Lisieux, the writings of St.
Teresa of Avila, foundress of the Discalced
Carmelites.  Poetry.  The complete works of
Thomas Merton.  The ideas and ideals I now
received were novel, but I was not ready to
accept them as my own.  They included so much
talk of a loving, creative God.  I could not
believe that a loving God could have allowed
the creation of a monster like me.  

Still, I began a collection.  The verses I
liked I would write down on bits of paper
and stash them in my pillowcase.  Sometimes,
I would bring those slips of paper to Chapel
with me and use them for Mental Prayer time.  
As the years passed, my pillow became too
rustly with the scraps, so the Mother Prioress
gave me a notebook and I copied into there
those bits of verbal nourishment.  

Our days were framed by something called "The
Liturgy of the Hours," which, according to
the sisters, transformed the entire day's
activities into a prayer: from the smallest
wiping of a dish to the hours spent in
adoring meditation before their Blessed
Sacrament.  Morning prayer, mid-morning prayer,
mid-day prayer and examination of conscience,
grace before a leisurely lunch, mid-afternoon
prayer, Vespers at 4:15 on the button, and the
Office of Readings and Night Prayer. Then bed
and exhausted, dreamless sleep.

That frame was colored in with simple hard
work.  In my first life, I learned how to
morph other faces onto my own, how to become
other people and how to kill in cold blood.  
Now I learned how to do laundry, how to pick
apples and make apple butter, how to sweep and
wash dishes and bake bread and how to weave.  

I was especially good at weaving.  There was
such an order to it -- the absorbing task of
warping the loom, of winding the shuttles
and pressing the treadles with my sandal-shod
feet.  Sister Frances and Sister Mary Therese
would complain about "drowning in a sea of brown
thread."  I swam in that sea, blissfully,
mindlessly lost.  

I grew stronger.  I learned how to give myself
the injections I had always relied on others to
administer.  I learned how the other sisters hid
vials of the serum among the styrofoam peanuts
used in shipping crates of our Cloister's apple
butter, so that the serum could be distributed
without Their knowledge.  The Mother Prioress
showed me the secret stash of the liquid hidden
among the jars of apple butter behind a loose
stone in the basement wall -- hidden just in the
unlikely case They should ever find out just what
was going on in that big stone house in Wexford,
PA.

I think those five years spent under the spell
of the Cloister weighted my loyalties for me.  
This planet began to woo me and win me.  The
flurry of the spring wind carrying apple
blossoms to the ground, the kiss of snowflakes
melting on my cheeks as I lugged firewood to
the hearth inside, the snap of fallen leaves
beneath my sandals, the tickle of summer humidity
sending the white puffs of milkweed pods sinking
to the ground... there were times when the
changing of the planet's seasons erased all pain
from my mind and threatened to make me glad to
be alive.  Those were the times I could almost
forget what I was.  I could almost forget that
I was in this world, but not of it.

The six women who called me their "Sister" seemed
to act like they had forgotten what I was, even
if I couldn't. My weaving partners, Sisters
Frances and Mary Therese, had taken their
perpetual vows a few months before my arrival.  
Before that, they had worn the white blouse and
brown jumper of the novice.  Sister Frances was
short - about my height - ten years older than
me, and much possessed of both a talent for
drawing and a very dry wit.  Sister Mary Therese
had a great shock of curly blond hair under her
habit's veil, and she was always laughing about
something. She could play the violin.  Before
she took her vows her name had been "Heather."

"You changed your name?"  I asked her.

She laughed her broad, musical laugh.  "*I*
didn't change it.  The Mother Prioress changed
it for me."

"Why?" I asked her.  I had so much to learn.

She explained to me, "The taking of a new name
symbolizes the change in our lives.  Now that I
belong in this world and not the world outside,
my identiy has changed, too.  Before the
Cloister, I was Heather.  Now, I am called
Mary Therese."

The Mother Prioress had not given me a name other
than "Sister," so that's what I was called.  I was
"Sister" to Mary Therese, Frances, Anne, Cecilia
Bernadette, Helen Gabriel, and even to Mother
Prioress.  Each in her own way taught me something
new: herbals and cooking from Helen Gabriel,
cleaning and fire-building from Anne, a little bit
of sewing and calligraphy from Cecilia Bernadette.  

The Mother Prioress, however, taught me how she
survived Them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was so simple.  So simple, in fact, I am sure
They never feared anyone would have thought of
it.  But the Mother Prioress had, and it had worked.
Before joining the convent, she had earned herself
a PhD in Optical Physics -- the study of light.  
The tool she discovered had little if anything to
do with light, but it had everything to do with
invisible force.

One afternoon, after I had finished my turn at
washing and drying the lunch dishes, the Mother
Prioress called me into her office.  When I sat in
the chair she indicated I should take, she held her
closed right fist out to me.  She was holding
something.  With her eyes, she told me to open out
my hand and accept it.  She understood that I did
not want to be touched, and she always respected
that wish.

When something cool and solid dropped into my
palm, all I could do was stare stupidly at it
for what seemed like a full minute.

"It's a magnet," I observed simply.

The Mother Prioress' eyes shone again.  She
shook her head.  "It's freedom."

"I don't understand," I told her honestly.

She sat down behind her tidy wooden desk, wincing
at the arthritis in her back as she did so.  

"The chips They use to track us," she began,
"cannot be taken out."

I frowned, trying to remember what little I knew
about the neck-chips.  "There's a self-destruct
process that begins if the chip is removed from
the subject."

The Mother Prioress nodded.  "Chip removal
triggers a terminal cancer."

I looked back down at the cool, dark metal in my
palm.  "What does a magnet have to do with it?"

Her cryptic smile grew; she noticed that I was
learning how to ask questions.  "How could the
tracking mechanism of the chip be destroyed
without removing it, do you think?"

So it was to be the Socratic Method.  I chewed
thoughtfully on my inner lip.  A magnet?  It
looked absolutely harmless -- hardly the menacing
metal point to which I was accustomed.  What
could a magnet do?  Or, rather, what could a
magnet do to a delicate little chip containing
both tracking equipment, biological information,
and neurochemichal commands?

A harmless magnet //could// destroy an electronic
tracking device...

"No," I almost laughed.  "Mother Prioress, that's
too easy."

"Isn't it, though?"

"But how could you possibly know it works?"  I
leaned heavily on the word "know."

She nodded with respect at my skepticism.  "A
long time ago, when you were just a girl I
think, there were attempts at mass abduction.
Many people who had these chips in their
necks were... were 'called' to certain places.
Many were destroyed.  I was called as well,
but I was able to refuse the call.  That is how
I know this magnet works."

I looked disbelieving at the solid gray metal
bar in my open palm.  "But Mother Prioress,
how do you know the magnet was responsible for
that?  Maybe it was just you -- you were strong
enough to resist--"

"Sister," she interrupted me, "have you looked
closely at the necks of your fellow sisters in
this cloister?"
 
I nearly dropped the magnet.  Half-confused, but
half-stunned because I understood what she was
implying, I shook my head slowly.

"Everyone in this cloister has been able to
resist Their calling, thanks to that magnet
that is too simple to do any damage.  That,
and the will of God, of course."

How could I not have noticed?  It was so
obvious, but I had been so absorbed with my
own learning and my own safety that I had
been oblivious.  So this was how my Cloister
sisters resisted:  with the unseen power of
prayers and magnets.  The unexpected threat
is the greatest threat of all.  

The Mother Prioress leaned back thoughtfully
in her chair.  Her voice lilted with a yet to
be issued challenge.  "Now do you understand,
Sister?"

I nodded and stretched out my arm to return
the magnet, but the Mother Prioress held her
hand up in a gesture of refusal.  

The magnet weighed heavily on my palm.  
"What do you want me to do with this?" I asked
her.

"What do you want to do?"  She asked me in
return.  

I still did not yet have an answer.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Joseph was around, but not often.  I've
read enough fairy tales in my time to know
what was *supposed* to have happened.  My
savior and I were supposed to fall madly,
daintily in love and live together happily
ever after.  Well, that did not happen.  
During those peaceful five years, I hardly
ever saw him, really.  He was usually off
galavanting around God knows where, presumably
seeking out others like ourselves, recruiting
them away from Them, demagnetizing chips or
some other heroics.  I was too busy falling in
love with this earth and pondering my place in
it to take either much notice or offense.

He did come home for holidays sometimes.  He sat
in the back of the Cloister chapel for every
Easter Mass.  At holiday dinners, he and Father
Tim sat around the table with the rest of the
sisters, who showed a friendly reverence for
their priest and a motherly affection for Joseph.  
The sisters listened intently to Father's words,
nodding in loyal assent as he informed them about
the further advances of Vatican II, the need for
increased prayers for the Holy Father.  However,
the sisters also made sure Joseph finished his
mashed potatoes and asked him, "Are you getting
enough to eat out there, Mr. Fauchlevent?"  He
was the son They had taken from the sisters, and
the sisters fussed over him accordingly.

We did not talk much, Joseph and I.  Like
the other sisters, I called him "Mr. Fauchlevent"
those rare times I addressed him directly.  Those
rare times he addressed me directly, he called me
"Sister" and nothing more.  I suppose he was
giving me time and space to find the peace I so
desperately needed.  But as I learned in my
readings of the sisters' Bible, "To everything
there is a season...," and my time of peace came
to its inevitable close.  


END 10/16

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is an appointed time for everything,
and a time for every affair under the heavens.
A time to scatter stones,
and a time to gather them;
a time to embrace,
and a time to be far from embraces.
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace."
--Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 5, 8

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was autumn.  November 25, actually.  I
remember the date because that morning at Mass
we had celebrated the feast day of St.
Catherine of Alexandria -- the patroness
of philosophers, students, of women divinely
appointed and sent by God to convert men...

After five years, my head was brimming full
with the sisters' knowledge.  

Thanksgiving was near, and Joseph usually
came home for that, spending a few days
at the Cloister raking leaves with us and
preparing the kitchen and herb gardens for
winter.  So as I swept the great hall leading
to the entrance way, I was not surprised at
the rattle of Joseph's war-weary car pulling
into the Cloister driveway.

The doorbell rang loudly in the otherwise silent
Cloister.  From her office near the front of the
house, The Mother Prioress bustled as quickly as
her arthritic knees allowed, and when she opened
the front door, I froze, staring, disbelieving.  
I was surprised to see that Joseph Fauchlevent
had brought someone to the Cloister with him --
Agent Scully, my mother.

My hands began to shake so badly I accidentally
dropped the broom.  I picked it up from the floor,
leaned it against the wall, and listened.  I was
at the far end of the hall, and their voices were
softened, so I could not hear them clearly.  For
the seeming eternity they held their hushed
conversation, I nervously fumbled with the small
gold cross I always wore, not out of personal
belief, but in the same way I wore my novice's
habit:  because it had been given to me, and I
didn't want *not* to wear it.

"You're going to need it," had been my mother's
words to me five years before.  At twenty-three
I still could not make sense of those words, nor
of the meaning behind the simple joining of a
horizontal line with a vertical line.  Five years
in a cloister taught me the *story* behind the
cross, of course, but that's all it was -- just
another story.

Down the hall, Agent Scully stepped just slightly
to the left, peering around the broad shoulders
of the Mother Prioress.  My mother saw me and
recognized me.  I chilled with irrational
apprehension when I squinted and saw her lips
form that same proud smile she had offered me
on my deathbead.  

After five years of hearing nothing from me, she
still believed in me?  She could not take her
eyes off of me.  I looked down at my hands and
folded them before me.

Mother Prioress turned to look at me as well.
"Sister," she called to me across the entrance
hall.

I looked up, meeting the Mother Prioress' eyes,
if only to avoid Agent Scully's, which were so
like my own.

"My office, if you please," she asked, her voice
strong across the distance.

I nodded with sisterly obedience and followed them
into the office of our prioress.  

Rarely did more than two people come in to talk to
the Mother Prioress at once, so there were only
two chairs sitting opposite her desk.  The Mother
Prioress indicated for Agent Scully to take a seat,
which she did, but not without first looking at me
once more.  I shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.
I could tell she wanted to reach out to me, to hold
me like the firstborn baby girl They never let her
cradle in her arms.  I stiffened my back,
willing her to understand my body language if
nothing else.

Joseph looked at me and waved his hand toward
the other empty chair, but I shook my head,
preferring to stand -- perhaps so I could run
should instinct or some other urge dictate that
I do so.  

The wrinkles in the Mother Prioress' face deepened
in an expression of pained worry.  She folded her
hands in front of her.  

"First, we will pray," she commanded.

Joseph and Agent Scully bowed their heads along with
the Mother Prioress.  I did not, however.  I wanted
to see what was happening.  For support, I leaned
back against the wall.  I knew something was about
to happen.

The Mother Prioress rattled off some spontaenous
prayer of her own.  I don't remember the words she
used.  All I remember was my palms growing clammy,
my heart thumping painfully beneath the shell of
my ribs, the hum of that long-lost foe -- Sister
Anxiety -- buzzing in my ears.  Something was
about to happen.

Something already was happening -- already
had happened -- and the two visitors had
come to let me know what that was.  

The Mother Prioress's prayer comcluded, closed
by the three "Amens" spoken aloud.  I remained
in anticipatory silence.  The Mother Prioress
commanded Mr. Fauchelevent -- my Joseph --
to tell me what he had just told her in the
entrance hall.  

I don't remember the exact words he used, but I
remember the gist:  Their mass abductions were
starting again full force.  Their Project,
suddenly and unexpectedly thrown off track
decades ago, was now back into play.  

Decades -- a mere blink of time in the cosmic
sense.

After giving me this information, all three were
silent.  I searched each face individually.  
Joseph's face was blank as he awaited my response.
The Mother Prioress knitted her brows together,
but her expression told me no details of the
cause of her worry.  Agent Scully -- my mother --
was also worried.  I could feel her concern
like static electricity: invisible on her
blank-set face, but charging the distance I
had put between us with an undeniable current.  

The room filled with my silence.  All three were
waiting for me to respond to this information.  

At last, I spoke.  I answered with a question.  
"Why are you telling me this?"

Joseph shifted in his chair and turned to face
me more fully.  He looked down briefly, then he
leveled his gaze directly at me, pinning me to the
wall with his eyes.  I never before had seen him
so merciless.  I quickly wondered if it was really
*my* Joseph, the Cloister's "Mr. Fauchelevent," but
that worry fled when I saw the tiniest ghost of a
smile tug at the corners of his mouth -- a small,
reluctant, bittersweet smile, but a genuine smile
nonetheless, softening his necessity-borne
harshness.  

"I've come to ask you," he answered, "for your help."

I leaned more heavily on the wall.  *The Resistance.*

"There are only so many of us who can slip through
the cracks in Their Project," he explained,
thoughtful lines pinching the corners of his eyes.  
The way he said "They" was clearly upper-case.

"We need all the help we can get," he finished.  

"Why did you bring her?"  I asked him, my voice
sounding cold with a distant defense.  

Joseph opened his mouth to speak, but he was
interrupted.

"I came here, essentially," my mother answered,
uaffected by my wariness, "to talk you into
staying here, in the Cloister, in Wexford."  

If I hadn't already pressed my back to the wall,
I would have taken a step backwards.  I finally
found the courage to look my mother in the eyes.  
Eyes so much like my own.  

"Why?"  My voice was a dry, apprehensive croak.

Her brow furrowed as she searched for the right
words.  Finally, she said, "Because leaving is
too dangerous."

Because I am her daughter, the child of her pain.  
Because I represent so much that has been lost,
so much that has been regained and returned at
impossible odds against Their all-powerful plans.  

"Because," she continued, her voice growing raspy
with the tears she again would not release, "if you
were my daughter Meg, I would not let you go."

My sister, my target.  I had forgotten her name.  
A picture of that sunny Sunday sprang to my mind.
In my imagination, a nine year-old girl scrambled
down a driveway chasing a runaway basketball.  
A mess of curly golden hair framed a secure,
well-loved smile.  A sense of humor.  All things
I could never have, could never be.  Because of
Them.  

And I had a choice.

I turned back to Joseph.  "What do you want me
to do?"

He frowned slightly.  Once again, I was asked,
"What do you want to do?"

I looked to the Mother Prioress, my eyes
pleading for her guidance.  Her face read
something akin to Agent Scully's worry.  Her
voice was pained as she echoed, "Sister, you
have a choice."

She wanted me to choose for myself.  

Again I looked to each face staring back at me
waiting for my response.  I could not make a
decision that quickly.  I hadn't had enough
practice in such things.

"I need to think about it," I said, walking to
the office door.  

No one stopped me.  They let me go.  As slowly
and calmly as I could, I made my way over to the
coat closet and wrapped myself up in the big,
brown woolen coat I had made for myself my first
winter at the Cloister.  The stitching was uneven,
necessitating multiple repairs, but it was
something I could almost call my own.  Its warmth
was a comfort.

I began to walk out of the Cloister to the apple
orchard, the trees bare of leaves in preparation
for the coming winter.  As I walked, I became
acutely aware of Mother Prioress' magnet banging
against my thigh through the pocket of my
novice's habit.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I wandered the barren orchard for the better
part of an hour, I think, pondering what to do.
It was a windy day, and bits of crushed dead
leaves kept flying up into my eyes.  The habit
veil holding my hair down kept whipping around,
ready to fly off into the gusts at any minute
if I weren't careful.  My skirt slapped around
my legs.  My fingers grew white with the cold,
so I jammed my hands deep into my pockets.  I
turned the smooth, solid magnet inside over and
over in the fingers of my right hand.  I took
my hands out of my pockets just once so I could
pull my veil more tightly over my freezing ears.  

The cold was within and without, but it did not
chase me back into the shelter of the Cloister.  
Again, I had a choice.  The fireplaces and
ever-present oil heat of the Cloister house
beckoned.  Still, I remained outside, studying
the gnarled, knotted trunks of the apple trees,
memorizing their patterns -- patterns I had seen
nearly every day for the past five years but
never really took the time to notice.  

I would have loved to have had a book with me,
to erase all choices from my my mind with the
pains and adventures of some fictional character,
but to get reading material would have
necessitated a trip back inside to the Cloister
library.  I feared that if I returned indoors I
would never want to leave again.  So I stared
through wind-watered eyes at the trees.  This
mindless activity consumed me until I heard the
back door leading from the Cloister to the
orchard open and slam shut.  

My mother was walking towards me across the
orchard.

I couldn't bear to watch her for long, the wind
pulling her red hair in all directions despite
its being not even chin-length.  I wondered if
her hair had always been this shade.  I saw no
hint of gray.  She had to color it, to cover up
the manifestations that this world was wearing
even on her.  

Again, I studied the knots and twists of the tree
trunks.

"Emily." Her voice carried on the wind, was not
obliterated by it.  

I had not been called by that name in five years.

I did not look up.  "How do you know it's starting
again?"  I asked.  I had to ask.  To make an
informed decision, I needed all possible evidence.  
"Where's your proof?"

Something in her flinched at my questions, at my
mistrust, my skepticism.  "Because," she answered
me, her even voice still riding steady on the wind,
"I was there."

Only then did I look up.  I was genuinely startled.
Such a simple, obvious answer.  They were tracking
and calling her, too.  Still.  And in my habit
skirt pocket I held the means of stopping that call.  
If only I would reach out, I could set my mother
free.

"And this time," she said, looking at the tree that
previously had held all my attention, "I remember
what happened very clearly."

I did not want to know what happened.  I didn't
need to know, so I did not ask.  Selfish of me,
I know, but those were my thoughts at the time.
I had problems of my own to be unraveled.

I tried to think of another question to ask.  
I guess I was stalling again.  "Where's your
partner?"

She looked up at the overcast sky.  "He's
home," she answered simply.

"With my sister?"  I had to ask.

She raised surprised eyes to meet mine.  

"My little sister," I specified.

Her lips curled thoughtfully inward.  "Yes.
Mulder's home with Meg."

"Why?"

She breathed deeply in, then out, squinting
as another gust of wind pushed at us both.  
"Some things a woman needs to do on her own."

I fixed my eyes on a bulging knot in the
nearest tree trunk.  "Does your daughter
know about..."

My voice cracked slightly on "your daughter,"
and I stopped myself.  I almost asked if my little
sister knew about //me//, but to do so would mean
asking if she also knew about Merchant and Abbot,
Lynch and Sim.

"Does she know about *us*?"  On the word "us" I
pointed to myself in the hopes that Agent Scully
might understand.

"There is a lot she doesn't know," she admitted.
"Mulder and I agreed she's still too young to..."

And her voice faltered.  The wind filled the
silence obligingly until Agent Scully, my mother,
found the right words.  "She's still too
young to understand... certain things."

I did the math in my head quickly.  "She's
sixteen."

"Sixteen," Agent Scully nodded.  "And you just
turned twenty-three."

She remembered.  In her voice, I sensed a
fierce protectiveness borne of the knowledge
of dreadful, extreme possibilities.  And, God
only knew why, that protectiveness extended to
me as well.  

She looked at me again, and I let her look
into my eyes despite myself.  

"All grown up," she said, the proud smile
returning.

What did she have to be proud of in me?  
I reminded myself of that promise I had made
to myself when I was eighteen, wearing her
clothes and making my escape.  I had vowed to
make myself *worthy* of her pride.  Had I
done that yet?  I glanced down at my shabby,
handmade coat.  An accomplishment, but not
a source of deep pride, when with what They
had inadvertently given me, I *could* be
doing so much more.  

"All grown up," Agent Scully repeated, "but
I don't -- I don't want you put yourself
at risk.  There are others who can do that."

But if there were so many others, why did
Joseph come asking for me?

With shaking hands, I reached out to run my
fingertips against the bark of the apple tree.
The mythical Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The tree where Man had made a choice.  In
contrast, the tree the Sisters of the Cloister
used to make good, sweet foods for many to enjoy.  
The tree of the sisters alibi for their serum-
shipping operation.  The Tree of both Good and
evil to be sure.

I stepped closer to the tree, and the movement
caused the magnet in my pocket to hit me in
the thigh with a reminder slap.

I raised my eyes and looked to my mother again.
"You were there?"

She winced, I guess at the memory of Their call.  
The same wince I've caught on my reflection in
the mirror when I think of... *him*, my tutor.

She nodded.

Still shaking with fear at what I was about
to do, I reached into my right pocket and
brought forth the magnet, the tool of freedom
Mother Prioress had bequeathed to me.  I
stepped closer to Agent Scully, confusing
her when I craned to look at the back of her
neck.  

Eyes trained well in another life found the
tiny mark easily.  Hands trained to help in
this latest life of mine touched the magnet
to the spot on my mother's neck.  I held it
there a moment, then pulled away, stepped
back, and shoved my cold hands back into
my pockets.  

It was the closest I had come to willingly
touching another person since that day
I had taken the stiletto and plunged it into
*his* neck.  But if I were to return to this
world good for all the evil that had been
bred and nurtured into me, I would have to
learn to touch and be touched.  Touch
is not always hurtful, and isolation is
not always safety.

But those are easy thoughts to think, however
difficult to live after the lives I've led.  

My touching the magnet to my mother's neck:
it was a start.

"You're free," I told my mother.  Her eyes
pulled smaller in disbelief.  "You'll see,"
I replied to her skepticism.  

"Can you find others for me to free?  I then
asked.  "How many other lives can we save?"

My words upset my mother.  She shook her head,
her blue eyes clouding with more of her
instinctive protectiveness.  "Emily..."

And I responded with my my need -- instinctive
or learned?  nature or nurture? -- to undo all
They had done in the name of Their Project.  
To undo all of the crimes in which They had
engineered me to take part.  I responded with
a very human need:  the need for independence.

"Please let me go..."

That wasn't what I wanted to say.  I wanted
to say, "Mommy, please let me go," but I still
could not say that word.  At least, not
out loud.

Pain and pride colored my mother's face,
a combination I have never seen with such
clarity on any other.  Again, I could tell
she wanted to hold me... and I wanted to be
held, to feel safe in the arms of my mother,
but I still was not ready.  I took a small
step backwards to let her know.  

Agent Scully looked back at the Cloister house.
She asked, "Are you ready to go back?"

She meant go back to the Cloister, but she also
meant back out to the real world, the world
They were working to conquer and subdue.  

My hands still shook, but not even my own
trepidation could stop me.  I could make
a difference.  I could bring healing to a
weak world, freedom to those enslaved.  
I could distinguish myself from the three
others who shared my DNA and my first name.

"Some things," I said, nodding, "a woman
needs to do on her own."

Agent Scully and I, mother and oldest
daughter, had reached an understanding.
We leaned into the wind and returned to
the Cloister so I could prepare to leave
it.


END 11/16

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Through the Spirit one receives faith;
by the same Spirit another is given
the gift of healing and still another
miraculous powers...  
But it is still one and the same Spirit
who produces all these gifts, distributing
them to each as he wills."
1 Corinthians 12: 9-11
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Agent Scully and I walked together
to the Mother Prioress' office to inform
her of my decision, the bell for Vespers
rang.  The life before me and the life I
was living had their first clash, but
Agent Scully thought quickly.

"You're going to need clothes," she said,
pointing to my novice garb.  

She was right.  I nodded, a bit embarassed
I hadn't thought of that fact.  There was
so much I hadn't thought of, even in my
desire to make an informed decision.

"I'll go," my mother said, "get some clothes
and things for you."

My mother was going shopping for me.  How
normal.  

"I don't know my size," I told her.  

She looked at me carefully.  "Don't worry.
I think I can handle it."

She was noticing that, were it not for her
high-heeled shoes, we would have been the
exact same height, the exact same size.

And, with nothing more than a parting smile,
she went off to find Joseph and his car keys.
I hurried to the chapel for Vespers --
for the last time.  
 
I kept silent through the chanting, the
familiar call and response.  I did not
even listen to the readings.  I wish I had
listened.  Perhaps I could have gleaned
some courage and meaning from the
words.  

My nerve began to wane, however, during
Mental Prayer.  I stole looks around the
chapel at the untroubled faces of the sisters,
focused in prayer before their Blessed
Sacrament.  The Body and Blood of Christ
were present as always in the golden
tabernacle, and the sisters sat transfixed,
enraptured by what seemed to me little more
than skinny wafers and fermented grapes.
These women had sacrificed their entire
lives to pray before these things, to
offer their entire lives in simple faith
that their prayers made a difference
"out there."  

My Mental Prayer was genuine that evening,
even if it wasn't directed at the Sisters'
God.  I wretch lay wrestling again, trying
to justify instead my knee-jerk desire to
stay at the Cloister.  I *could* just take
my vows and pray, just like the sisters,
and thus achieve their same peace forever.  

"If the Church is the Body of Christ,"
the Mother Prioress had explained to me
once, "the Discalced Carmelites are the
heart -- unseen, but a vital part,
pumping blood to all the extremities.  
We see the work of the hands, we see
where the feet take the body, but none
of that can be done without the beating
of the heart."

I looked up to the crucifix over the chapel
altar.  The wood-carved Christ had blood
pouring out of his hands; red blood pumped
by his human heart, blood pouring out of the
hands he used to heal.  

I looked down at my own hands, their works
fueled by green blood.  These same hands
had done murder. This same blood could kill
with a spilled drop.  

I looked back up at the representation of
Christ above the altar.  I knew the stories.
He had lived in near anonymity until he was
thirty.  And, according to the sisters'
belief, his death and resurrection brought
life to all, conquered death forever.  
According to the sisters' beliefs, had he
chosen to stay in the safety of his mother's
house, the whole world would have been
different.  The Cloister at Wexford would never
have existed.  

And he had a choice, too.  "Father, take
this cup away," he had prayed -- or so the
story went -- the night before the nails
had driven into his hands.  "But not my
will, but Yours be done."

He had risked it all, lost it all, gained
it all, all out of hope for the human race,
fictional character or not.  Hope demands
a sacrifice.

Time for individual Scripture Reading came,
and I randomly flipped open the Bible
the sisters had given me my first full
day at the Cloister.  My eyes came to
rest on a passage:

"Through the Spirit one receives faith;
by the same Spirit another is given
the gift of healing and still another
miraculous powers..."

Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.
What coincidence I should just happen to
open to that reading.  I continued
drinking in the words, as was my custom.

"But it is still one and the same Spirit
who produces all these gifts, distributing
them to each as he wills."

As who wills?  No God had given me these gifts,
They had.  God had not created me, They had.  
How could these words apply to me, especially
since I couldn't even be sure I had a soul?

I looked back at my hands.  These same hands
could heal, if I would only risk to learn
how. This blood gave me the chance to hide
in Their world and unravel Their tightly-
woven plans.  

My hands.  As the sisters would say, I was
"called":  called to be the hands.  My
praying had always been hollow and self-
centered, when it was supposed to be heaven-
bound, selfless, and other-centered.  I could
only do real damage if I left this warm heart
of prayer called The Carmel at Wexford and
returned to the outside.  And what did I have
to fear anyway?  The worst They could do was
kill me.  Would that have been such a loss?

My resolve, once weakened, emerged stronger
than before Vespers had begun, and I
walked into our dining room ready to
share my decision with my sisters.  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Honestly I was surprised by their response.  
I always had kept them at arm's length --
literally.  But as I told them over dinner
that I was going to leave, my announcement
was met with silence.  Soup spoons lowered
to bowls with devestating clatter.  Sharply
indrawn breaths.  Sister Cecilia made a small,
whimpering sound.  Mary Therese began blinking
her eyes fiercely.  

"Well," the Mother Prioress said, dabbing
at the corners of her mouth with her napkin,
"sisters, we all saw this coming.  Though I
must say I had hoped you would perhaps decide
to stay and take vows with us."

I bored my eyes into my soup bowl, my
newfound courage still slow in coming.
"I considered it, Mother Prioress.  However,
I can do the most good outside of the
Cloister."

"But prayer and contemplation give the greatest
possible good," Mary Therese flared,
a curl escaping from her veil as she
turned her head.  "Sister, it's so
dangerous out there."

Mother Prioress shot Sister Mary Therese
the same reproving glance she always shot
whenever Mary Therese let her passions get
away with her.  

"Sisters," the Mother Prioress sighed, "we
all know each of us is called to a different
work.  No one work is greater than the other,
and no one work is more dangerous than the
other.  Need I remind you God could call any
of us to Him at any time?"

The rest of dinner was spent in an
uncharacteristically heavy silence.  The sisters
were going to miss me.  No one had ever missed
me before.  

After Night Prayer, on the way to my last night
in my Cloister bedroom, the Mother Prioress
stopped me in the hall.

"Sister, I would like you to consider something
before you go."

The fear spiked within me again.  There was
already so much I hadn't considered.  Need I
be reminded?  I nodded for her to continue.

"You have never been baptized, have you?"

Baptism.  The naming of a Christian. The
choosing of patron saints who would presumably
watch over that soul and interceed for her
sake before God.  The claiming of a soul's
identity for the life that is their loving,
creative God....

My head was brimming full of the sisters'
knowledge.

"No," I answered simply, "I have not."

The Mother Prioress spoke no more, but her
age-softened eyes urged me to accept her
invitation to give my soul and my life to
her God.

My soul.  Somehow, the concept was no longer
even remotely funny.  

"Good night, Mother Prioress," was my only
response, as I bowed and walked slowly back
to my tiny bedroom for the last time.

"Good night, Sister."

I stopped, considered.  "Please," I said,
turning to face her once more in the dim
hall, "call me Wexford."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The following morning, Father Tim insisted
that I stay long enough to share in a Mass
for my safety before taking my leave.  
Joseph attended the Mass as well.

I came to the chapel that last time wearing
my mother's clothes, the same I had worn on
my original trip to the Cloister.  Without
my even trying, this time around they fit
well.  Five years, and I hadn't even noticed
the weight I had gained.  I was still thin,
but no longer bony.  I looked into the mirror
on my washstand, and the face returning my
scrutiny was rosy-cheeked and firm, not gaunt
and fever-pale.  Still, fear danced in my eyes.  
I hadn't been "out there" in five years.  I
hadn't faced Them in five years.

The final words of the Mass, Father Tim spoke
directly to me:

"The Mass is ended.  Go in peace to love and
serve the Lord."

"Thanks be to God," I answered along with my
sisters this time, still not sure for what
I was thankful, however, or what lord I would
be serving in the end.  

I turned to leave the chapel, and Agent Scully
was waiting for me right outside, a set of
luggage at her feet.  

"Your clothes are inside," she said, pointing
to the suitcases.  

"And here's some money for you as well,"
Joseph said from behind us.  

He handed me a purse.  I opened it up and
found a wallet stuffed with bills, credit
cards, a drivers license with someone
else's name, face and signature, in addition
to several vials of my serum and a handful
of syringes.  

Agent Scully looked over my shoulder.  "Agent
Mulder and I have some... some colleagues
who will secure identification credentials
for you as needed."

"How do I find the people I am going to
help?"

Joseph answered me, "We will be in contact
with you on a regular basis.  I can also
teach you some of the things you have
not yet fully learned  -- to help you
reach the full potential of your gifts."

I flinched involuntarily.  A picture of
*him,* my tutor from days long gone,
sprang to my mind.  The tutor I had murdered.

I had to be careful who taught me things.  
"We'll see," I answered him vaguely.  

As we went to leave, the sisters followed
us to the door to bid me farewell.  Joseph
opened the door for my mother and me.  My
mother stepped out into the eye-stinging
light of the overcast November morning.  I
took one step over the threshold and stopped.

I was leaving without saying goodbye.

I turned to see the Carmelite Sisters, who
had taught me so very, very much.  They had
taught me so much, and I... I had not killed
them.  I had not hurt them.  They had survived
me.  

A miracle, but not the greatest miracle
they had done for me.  Without even
thinking, without even the slightest
trace of nausea, I fell forward into
their arms, which reached up reflexively
to catch me.  I reached for my sisters
and they held me tightly -- the first
time I was able to reach for human
touch.

Before it got too much for me, I stood up
and disengaged myself from their arms,
from their tearful group embrace.  The
nausea had started against my will.  

"Will you be back for Thanksgiving?"
Asked Sister Helen Gabriel, dabbing
at her eyes with the corner of her
apron.

"I might," I answered, "but I doubt it.
I will be back, though."

"When?" Asked the Mother Prioress.

"Soon," I answered, picking up my
suitcases again.  

I followed Joseph and Agent Scully
out to the car.  I took a seat in the
back, and we drove for hours, silent.
Images of the Cloister behind me kept
springing to mind.  I needed something
to distract myself from what could
only have been described as homesickness.

I devoted my attention to the drivers
license picture in my purse:  Michelle
Kazuko Inoue, MD.  Single.  Brown hair,
brown eyes, five feet, four inches.  Date
of birth July 3, 1972.

When we pulled up to the Lariat
Rental lot so I could pick up a car
of my own -- for this assignment, at
least -- I walked up to the rental
desk as Doctor Michelle K. Inoue.  

When I emerged from the building with
keys to a shiny new rental, Agent Scully
gave me one last thing -- the one last
thing I was hoping she'd forget to give
me.  

"I think you should have this back," she
said, holding out to me the silver
weapon I had passed on to her when I
was eighteen.  

I shook my head in refusal, gaping at
the symbol of the life, of the death I'd
chosen to leave behind me years ago.

//Wexford, don't think you can change.//

Merchant's words.

//You can never change.//

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

My mother, however,insisted,
"Please, you're going to need it."

My fingers fumbled indecisively with the
small gold cross at my neck -- the symbol
of a noble faith in which I did not share.

"Then," I said, removing the necklace,
"you should have this back as well."

She was taken somewhat aback.  "Why?"

I tried to put it into words.  It felt
more right for me to have tools of
destruction -- a magnet for destroying
Their plans in one pocket, a stiletto
for destroying Them in the other --
than it did for me to have a symbol
of a faith not my own dangling
beneath my head.

How would the sisters have put it?
The words of others so often worked better
than any words I could imagine on my own.

I paraphrased, "A woman cannot serve
two masters.  She must love one and
despise the other, or she must deny one
and serve the other."

Agent Scully -- my mother -- was not happy
with my words, but she agreed to the trade.
Silver and gold changed hands and returned
to their original owners.  

I gave both Joseph and my mother small
smiles of farewell over the nauseous
trepidation that they might want to hug
me as the sisters did, even though now
I held in my hands such a destructive
device.  

They both seemed to understand.  My smiles
were returned.  With that, I turned from
them to begin this new leg of my life
in a small white rental car.  Thank
God driving is like... riding a bike.
I hadn't been behind the wheel in
five years, but driving came back to
me almost miraculously.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


To go into great detail of my life after
leaving the Cloister would not really
be all that theraputic, I don't think.  
If you think I should, Agent Mulder,
tell me and I will go back and fix it
later, but it was all rather monotonous,
truth be told.

For over a year I ran around the country
in other women's skins.  I became doctors,
lawyers, trusted family friends, all
so I could sneak into other people's
lives and unobtrusively slide my magnet
against the chips in their necks.  The
false credit cards you and my mother
passed along to me provided me with no
end of seedy hotel rooms and difficult
to track car rentals.  For over a year
They could not find me, so They could
not stop me.  I remained safely anonymous.

I still could not call Agent Scully,
"Mommy."  It just did not feel right.  
We were comrades-at-arms, not family --
not in any normal sense.  Besides, the
two of you had a family of which I could
never be a part.

Sometimes, I have to admit, I would think
of myself as Esau, the older brother whose
birthright was stolen by his conniving twin
Jacob, all according to God's will as
written in the sisters' Bible.  But as the time
went by and the picture of my nine year-old
sister cemented itself in my mind, I realized
she and I were more like Ishmael and Isaac:
the older child born under circumstances of
human greed and design, in contrast
to the true inheritor, born as an impossible
and miraculous gift from God.  Our fates
were formed for us, not by us.  

So as much as the old heart-rending envy
still rampaged within whenever I thought
of my little sister, I could not hate her.
Perhaps because I was learning not to hate
myself. I would never be the older sibling
killing the younger out of blood-boiling,
rampaging jealousy.  

I had erased from my forehead the mark
of Cain.  Success.  Success all my own.  
Or so I thought.  

In that year, I continued learning, albeit
independently.   I learned that I had opinions.
It may sound ridiculous that I had a great
epiphany when I discovered that I prefer
Big Macs (TM) over regular cheeseburgers,
but that realization and others helped me
think of myself as a true individual.  I
was not Their Emily clone C, nor was I any
of the thousand faces They had created me
to make.  I was, and I am Wexford.

I learned so much, but not enough.  I
am still so angry at my refusal to keep
in contact close enough for Joseph to
teach me the finer points of our
healing abilities.  Even more so, I
am angry at myself for always going to
you and my mother for names of people
to free.  I should have found other
sources.  I should have covered my
tracks better.  

Hubris, I guess it was.  I guess I can
never change.

If only I had, I would not have put your
lives in such jeapordy, and you and my mother
would still have your Meg, my little sister,
with you.  

You have been taken from your family, and it
is all my fault.



END 12/16

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"We know that God makes all things
work together for the good of those
who have been called according to
his decree."
--Romans 8:28
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Somehow, They found out where I was
getting the names of Their subjects,
and after all of the times the two
of you cooperatively threw the wooden
shoes into Their machine, I suppose
They'd had enough.  I know in the past
They had orchestrated attempts on your
careers and your sanity too numerous to
mention, but never before had They made
such a blatant strike at your very lives.  
At least, not that I know of.  And, after
all, I am relatively uninformed.  

I still can't figure out how long
They'd been watching to corner
us the way They finally did.  They
knew enough to wait for one of the
relatively rare times when I was
meeting not only with you and my
mother for new connections, but I
was meeting with Joseph as well;
I was running low on my serum, and
he was bringing me a fresh supply.  

These meetings had become so ordinary
to me, even the danger had become
customary.  I guess I grew lazy,
adolescently confident:  nothing had
happened so far.  I stopped looking
over my shoulder quite as much.  I
wasn't as hesitant to call Agent Scully
on her cell phone as I had been in my
early days out of the Cloister.  

Still, I did maintain the bare-minimum
of cover; I walked into the abandoned
steel mill as someone else -- a woman
named Rebecca Zander. Height: five feet,
nine inches.  Eyes:  gray.  Hair:  Dk.
Brown.  An organ donor.  She had a
Fashion Bug credit card, maxed.  She
was a Texan, from Houston, supposedly
flown out to western Maryland to visit
an old college roommate, one Mrs.
Jennifer Witherspoon.  

Mrs. Jennifer Witherspoon had a chip
in her neck, and Rebecca Zander had
just casually destroyed that chip over
lunch at an Italian restaurant.  Rebecca
Zander had ordered fettucine chicken
Florentine; Jennifer Witherspoon noticed
aloud that her old friend Rebecca no longer
hated spinach as she used to in the old days.  

Rebecca Zander smiled back sheepishly
and offered no explanation.  

Still as Rebecca Zander, I followed
the directions to the old Lehigh Steel
Mill.  I remember how surprisingly heavy
the traffic was, and how it was making me
late, especially once that trash truck
pulled out in front of me on the narrow
road leading to the mill.

Their trash truck?  In retrospect, I can
only guess so.  The extent of the
engineering They put into such things
amazes even me, even now.  At the time I
was too irritated with the inconvenience
even to consider such a possibility.

I pulled into the parking lot and noticed
not two but three cars there, and still I
did not suspect a thing.  It was a rare
occasion that the four of us were meeting
to begin with.  Equally rare but not unheard
of were the times you and your partner had
to drive in two separate cars by necessity
of your investigations.  I just figured this
was one of those times.  

I did not know anything was wrong until
I trotted up the steps to the entrance,
made my way through the door, and followed
the low murmur of voices to an office.  The
door was ajar.  I entered and froze in shock.

You were already there.  Agent Scully was
already there.  Joseph was already there,
and I was already there.

My blond hair swung in an arc as I turned
to face myself, myself as Rebecca Zander.  
A stunned time easily comparable to eternity
passed over us all -- all of us except the one
who had come expressly to cause such a moment.  

My mother looked to me, then to her other
daughter, my sister.  

"Emily?" she asked.  Her voice came out small,
dry and cold.

I knew. I felt it in the pit of my stomach.  
They had discovered us.  

Even as I marveled at seeing my own face on
someone else for the first time in over six
years, my old training waged war on my new
loyalties and sensibilities.  My fingers
reached into my pocket for the old weapon my
tutor had given me all those years ago, but
I did not bring it forth into the light.  

Cain and Abel.  I was no longer a murderer.  
So I had made myself, and so I would stay.  
I had changed.

//You can never change.//  Merchant's silent
words never left me completely.

"Wexford."  My voice came to me from my
sister's mouth.  She had to speak the name
out loud.  It was not Merchant.

I pulled the weapon out but did not push the
button to release its deadly point.  I merely
clutched at it meaningfully, as a warning.  

//Whatever you've got planned,// I willed her
to hear me, //it's not going to work out.//

Abbot or Lynch?

She pulled a gun.  A crude weapon, clumsy in
the hands of someone who has not honed her
skill for its use.  Lynch had been the one
trained in the use of that weapon.

As she turned the gun on Joseph, I knew it was
not Abbot who had come to this meeting in my
place.  

"Lynch," I gasped.  My partner from my
childhood -- our childhood.  

The four of you were standing so close to each
other, an intimate little noose of a circle.  
I was too far away, all the way back at the
door.  I could not move fast enough in my shock,
so when Lynch pulled the trigger, the shot landed
in Joseph's middle at point-blank range.  

So his blood spurted and landed on my mother and
yourself, also at point-blank range.  

Joseph fell, clutching at his stomach.  My
mother and you, her partner, both fell, clawing
at the raw burns digging into your faces.  
Joseph's breath coughed out of him.  Both of
you struggled to breathe at all.  I remember
feeling my own throat close up as well.  Some
sympathetic response, or just the automatic
effect of panic?

Joseph's blue, blue eyes searched mine,
pleading for help.  I remembered a night when a
knife slid down my cheek, and I was able to close
the wound.  Would that be enough to heal?  I gave
myself no choice but to try.  I would have to
touch them.  They had no other help but me.  

I moved quickly, but a hand clamped on my arm
and stopped me.

"Wexford," Lynch said, fixing her eyes -- *my
eyes* on Rebecca Zander's dark ones.  "Come
back with me..."

My old friend nausea hit me like a tidal wave.  
I wrested my arm from my sister's grip.  I
hissed old ords at her, warning her of the blood-
boiling, rampaging fury filling my gut.  

"If you ever touch me again, I will kill you."

I did not wait to see what effect my warning had.  
I rushed blindly to the three who had been sprawled
on the dusty floor with one gunshot from Lynch.

What I saw there was... horrible.  All of you were
unconscious by then, because I had not moved fast
enough.  Joseph's blood had splattered your skins
with acidic burns.  I summoned every ounce of
courage it would take to touch, and placed all that
courage first into the wound in Joseph's stomach,
thinking that if my poor efforts would be enough to
revive him, he could do the rest for yourself and
my mother.  

I imagined the wound gone.  I imagined it closing
up.  I imagined the green blood running its plotted
course through Joseph's veins.

He blinked.  It was working.  His skin closed over
where once a brief gaping hole had been.  

He groaned loudly.  He was in pain.  

"Joseph?"  I called.  

His eyes rolled back until all I could see was
the white.  Seconds were vital.  He had to heal.  
//Had// to.  I could not do this myself.  I hadn't
accepted enough training.

"Joseph!" I shrieked, "come on, you have to get
better. You have to help me!"

His head lolled on his neck and his eyes closed
once more.  I felt desperately for a pulse, and
found only a weak one.  I imagined for him a
strong heart beating fiercely, but imagination
was not enough.  Joseph took in a deep breath,
but when he coughed in exhalation, his lips were
spattered with more flecks of green.  

I did not know anything at all about the inner
workings of our bodies.  I could not imagine new
parts for Joseph.  I could not imagine his pain
away.  

Keeping one hand on Joseph's stomach, I
nevertheless reached over to my mother
willing her breathing to return to normal,
not the weak wheeze that had come over
her at the touch of Joseph's blood.  
Her breathing became less hindered, and I
crawled over to you to do the same.  
The same resulted, but none of you was
conscious yet.  I was making no headway.  

I looked up.  I had not noticed until then
that Lynch had gone.  Where, I don't know.
Why, I can't even begin to guess.

I looked back at the three of you.  I could
not figure out what to do.  When I was eleven
I had called 911, but the results had been
tragic.  I am, after all, Biohazard.

The sisters of the Cloister would have called
on their God in such a situation.  But I
was no longer a sister of the Cloister.
I was, I am Wexford.

My identity, however, could not stop some
primeval mental twitch from tweaking my brain.  
Was it a prayer, or simply my staring down the
face of despair?  I don't know, and I still have
not found the courage to ask.  

Whatever it was, some indefinable time later,
I heard a thunder of multiple footsteps tramping
up to the office where I now struggled with
unschooled t0ouch to keep my three patrons alive.  

When the footsteps grew closer, then stilled
themselves over the threshold to the office, I
looked up and saw several silhouettes -- human
shapes, but the uncovered presence of Joseph's
spilled blood had no effect on them.

"There he is," said one, "oh my God."

"Take them all to the vans," commanded another.  
"Hurry!"

I could not see their faces at all in the dim
dusty air.  I was lifted off the floor by
purposeful hands.  

"No!"  I shouted, wrestling, "Don't touch me!"

But their strength equalled if not surpassed my
own.  I could not resist.

"You may find this hard to believe," answered my
captor, "but we're here to rescue you."

Just then, I heard someone cough.  I think it was
you, and Agent Scully's own coughing was not far
behind.  I turned my head to see both of you
breathing -- not well, but on your own -- and
being dragged to your feet by some of the others
who had just rushed into the office with my own
captor.  

"Fauchelevent?"  my captor called over the din.

"Here," he hissed.  "Thanks, Scott."

"Joseph!" I shouted in relief.  

"It's okay, Emily," he called back, but weakly.  

Still distrusting, I did not go easily down the
stairs as Scott my captor dragged me.  

"Where are we going?"  I demanded of him.

I received no answer, except being propelled
outside the building and into a large van.  

"What is happening?" I shouted to him
as he took the driver's seat and roundly
ignored me.

Shortly thereafter, another man was helping
Joseph into the seat beside me.  Then we
were driven off.  I turned to look out the
back window just in time to see you and
Agent Scully being helped into another van.  

The man riding shotgun who had just helped
Joseph leaned out the opend window and shouted
to the people loading the van behind us,
"GO!  GOGOGO!"  

Tires squealed.  Dust flew.  

I turned again and saw the other van pulling
close behind us.  

"GET DOWN!"  Scott the driver shouted to
all of us.

Joseph reached out and grasped my hand to
pull me down.  Before I could pull back
a great noise shook the air around us and
forced my face to the seat.

When I looked up again, the building from which
we had just been dragged was alive with
flames and billowing with choking gray smoke.

I stopped asking questions just then, for
the time being.  

In numb silence, I watched the landscapes
roll by.  We were heading north.  The
gentle hills kept getting taller.  
We passed over the Pennsylvania border
by way of a non-toll bridge.  These
people knew where they were going, where
they were taking me and Joseph, you
and my mother.

Hours later, I realized I knew where they
were taking us as well.  

White lettering on the green sign read,
"WEXFORD, 5 MILES."



END 13/16

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"In hope we were saved.  But hope
is not hope if its object is seen;
how is it possible for one to hope
for what he sees?  And hoping for
what we cannot see means awaiting
it with patient endurance."
--Romans 8: 24-25
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In hope we were saved, but hope requires
risk.  Hope demands sacrifice.

Dusk had come by the time we reached the
mouth of the Cloister's long driveway.  
I was ignored again in the flurry that
ensued with our arrival.  Well, almost
ignored.  

"Stay here, Wexford," Scott snapped as he
leapt out of the van and ran up the steps
to the Cloister house.  

I rediscovered my voice.  "How do you know
who I am?"  

But Scott was already gone.  The man in the
passenger seat answered me instead with more
questions.  "How do we know who you are?  
Fauchelevent, didn't you tell her anything?"

Joseph smiled weakly.  "She didn't ask,
Lenhart."  

The man Joseph had just called Lenhart turned
to face me with a wolfish but friendly smile.
"We're your family, Wexford."  Thick black
eyebrows danced at me over dark eyes.  

"Family?" I echoed, giving Joseph an uncertain
glance.

"You're one of us," Lenhart explained,
"The Resistance."  

"Joseph?"  I was asking for confirmation.

He nodded and closed his eyes, as if very,
very tired.

"Is that how you found us?"  I asked Lenhart.

Lenhart shrugged and looked casually at his
fingernails.  "We knew where Fauchelevent was
going today, and then we got information that
They were on to us.  Simple, really, once you
see how we work things."

Simple.  I almost laughed.  I actually felt the
giggle bubbling up in my throat.  So it hadn't
been that mental twitch of mine that had
summoned these people to drag us away in their
vans.  

"Who?  Who gave you that information?"

Lenhart simply stared at me.  Perhaps some
questions are best left unanswered.

"What happened to that steel mill?" I asked
nevertheless, looking out the window so as to
leave the question open for either Joseph --
Fauchlevent -- or Lehnart.

Beside me, Joseph gave a shuddering breath.  

Lenhart answered with words, however.  "They
went for overkill this time.  Just sending
Lynch wasn't enough.  They think you're all
dead now, or beyond saving."

The way he said "They" was clearly upper-case.

"So," Lenhart waxed loquacious, "we
decided to give Them what They wanted and
to make the best of it.  We play along like
the three of you are dead, see?"

"What do you mean, 'we'?"  I demanded, turning
to face Lenhart.  "Who gives you the right to
decide that for us?"

I pinned him with my gaze, with the icy gray
eyes of Rebecca Zander.  He fidgeted
uncomfortably.

"We *haven't* decided that," Joseph whispered.
Then he insisted, "You have a choice."

Those same words, but this time I knew the
choice was not just mine.  My mother and
her partner would have to make a choice as
well.

Hope demands sacrifice.

Sighing with irritation -- irritation was
not nearly as painful as raw fear -- I
asked one more question.  "Well, what are
we doing here, then?"

Jerking a thumb towards the van parked behind
ours, Lenhart answered.  "We need their help."

He used a lower-case "their."  He meant you
and my mother, but you know that.  

"For what?"  I forced some snappiness into my
voice -- Rebecca Zander's voice.  

In a weak murmur, Joseph replied, "We need a
vaccine, and we're running out of time."

"But why did we have to come *here*?"

"We're not staying here," Lenhart grumbled.

Silent minutes later, I saw familiar faces
in familiar habits scrambling down the front
steps of the Cloister.  They were all carrying
boxes brimming with what I can only describe
as... stuff.  Clothes, food, apple butter,
vials and hypodermic syringes.  Stuff.

Lenhart jumped out of the van and opened the
back door.  Sister Helen Gabriel was the first
one in, followed by three of the other five.  
Mother Prioress and Sister Mary Therese were
climbing into the van behind ours.

"Sister!"  Helen Gabriel smiled, handing me the
box she had been carrying.  "Are you ready for
an adventure?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but the irony of
the words I was about to say hit me.  Hit me
hard, actually.  That tiny giggle that had
stirred inside of me a few minutes ago gained
momentum.  I began to snicker.  Then, I was
not just giggling, but laughing.  Laughing out
loud, deep, body-shaking belly-laughs.  Was
I ready for an adventure?

"Do I have a choice?"  I asked Sister Helen
Gabriel, as tears of laughter streamed down
my cheeks and Scott put the car in gear,
heading us off onto a night-dark highway.
I just barely heard Joseph's shallow-
breathing laughter over the growl of the
engine.  

Not only did I make a joke, but somebody
else got it.  Success.  Success all my own.

I hadn't even noticed that in my laughter I
had reverted to the face I had originally
called my own, that of Emily Camille Wexford.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I can only describe that whole night as
surreal.  Morning brought us further
upstate.  No green highway sign gave us
warning of our destination, but I knew
we were still heading north.  Faint gray
light shone in the passenger side windows
and fell upon the silhouette of a farm  
sprawling at the top of a long uphill
driveway.  I squinted and saw a light
shining in one window.  Someone had
waited up for us.  

"There it is," Lenhart yawned.  Scott
turned the wheel and we were bumping
our way up the pothole-pocked drive.

"Like I said when we bought it," Lenhart
grumbled through grittted teeth, "the place
needs some major work."

"Small town," Scott said.  I could see
his knuckles whitening at his grip on
the steering wheel, even in the dark.
"Backward.  No surveilance cameras in any of
the stores or gas stations.  It's the safest
place around.  You know that just as well as
I do.  Besides, the sisters' liked the name."

A wave of light laughter issued from the
other passengers.

"And," Scott added, "it's got those
underground passages.  The best deal we could've
found.  Thank God for Erie's lake-affect
snow."

"We should've had more time to fix it up
before bringing them here," Lenhart
complained to no one in particular.

Scott frowned.  "No point arguing it now.
They forced our hand."

Joseph sat up next to me.  His gunshot wound
was gone, and other than looking exhausted,
he appeared none the worse for wear.  He
turned and gave me what was meant to be a
reassuring smile.

"What is this place?" I asked him, knowing he
would have an answer.

"It's a farm we bought as a base of operations
and research," he explained, "in a little
town called Mount Carmel."

Then I understood the sisters' appreciation,
being from the Discalced religious order of
Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Scott pulled us up to the driveway and the
sisters filed out, carrying their boxes.
Lenhart took Sister Helen Gabriel's box,
since she was the oldest, even older than
Mother Prioress.  Then, Joseph crawled out
of the van, and I followed him.  

An early morning breeze lightened the May
heat and humidity.  I looked around, and
apparently everyone else was doing the same.  
There was an ancient, paint-peeling hex
sign over the barn doors, typical of old
Pennsylvania Dutch farms.  

The doors of the other van suddenly slammed
shut.  A woman a few years older than me was
leading my mother and her partner up the
front steps of the farm house.  I remember
it clearly -- so clearly, I don't think even
my unreliable memory could ever lose that image.  
The two of you were clinging to each other,
walking so slowly, as if each step hurt.  I
wanted to stop you, to ask what was wrong.  
Were you still just in pain from Joseph's
blood?  I thought our abductors had healed you.  
They had, hadn't they?  

I wanted to call out to my mother, but I did not
know how to address her.  The word "Mommy" was
not for me to say, and now that I know why
your posture spoke of such despair, I am
doubly glad I did not say that word; I am
sure I only would have twisted the nails in
the fresh wound of the sacrifice you had
decided to make.  

"Sister," a familiar voice called softly on
the morning haze.

I turned and saw Mother Prioress, her brows
knit together in the same expression of
worry I'd so often seen and caused.  She
was carrying a box, and either through nature
or old habit, I reached out to carry it
for her.  She surrendered it gracefully.

She must have noticed how I was watching the
two of you, because she offered me the
explanation I could not demand out loud.

"They've made a choice," she sighed, her
voice tired but heavy with compassion.  

I stopped walking, afraid of what Mother
Prioress would say next, but still I had
to ask.  "And?"

The Mother Prioress waved her hand, inviting
me to keep walking up the steps with her.  
"Do you remember the gospel of John, chapter
fifteen, verse thirteen?"

I could actually feel myself blush.  I was no
longer under her care, but I did not want to
disappoint the Mother Prioress.  "I have not
kept up with my scripture reading," I admitted.

She did not respond with any condemnatory words.
She only nodded in acknowlegement.  

"It's from Our Lord's Last Supper, Sister.
Now do you recall?"

Surreal.  This whole experience was so surreal.
I tugged on my brain to determine Mother
Prioress' reference.  The Last Supper discourse:  
Jesus' parting words.  Parting words.  He was
about to be taken away from his friends and
family.

Parting words.

I ventured a guess.  "'Man hath no greater love
than this...'?"

"... than to lay down one's life for one's
friends."  The Mother Prioress nodded and
finished for me.

I looked up the steps just in time to watch you
and my mother enter the house, our new home.

"They made a choice?"  I asked the Mother
Prioress.

"Sister," she nodded and said in a voice more
bitter than sweet, "I would like you to attend
a funeral."

Hope demands sacrifice.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


It was more of a memorial service, actually.
The bodies had not been found, so a Mass of
Christian Burial was not an option, and
would have been inappropriate, given that only
one of you was Catholic.

I pulled out an old identity, one I had not
used in months.  An older woman named Joanne
Forte, birthdate 3/4/54.  Never married.  
Brown eyes.  She was my height:  five feet,
three inches.  A minimum of effort went into
becoming her, and I knew I was going to need
all the energy I could spare.

I decided to drive instead of taking a flight
out there.  It was an nine hour haul from
northwestern Pennsylvania back out to the
suburbs of DC.  Plenty of time to think.  
Plenty of time to prepare myself for seeing
my little sister again.  But nothing could
have prepared me for all I was about to
encounter.  

According to the media, there had been a
bombing of an abandoned steel mill in western
Maryland.  No suspects had been named, but two
federal agents had been presumed dead.  No one
knew why they were there in the first place,
not even their superior agents, but their rental
car had been found at the scene of the bombing,
and the agents themselves were nowhere to be
found.  

The investigation team was looking into various
leads, the most promising of which pointed to
any one of thousands of local laid-off steel
mill workers and their families.  

I would have laughed when I read that, but I had
other things on my mind.  I was still trying to
find the obituaries.  Once I found them, I found
where the memorial service would be held,
and when.  

My little sister was much taller than I had
expected her to be.  In my mind, Margaret
Grace Mulder was still nine years old, playing
basketball in her driveway, utterly innocent to
the fact that her older sister was being trained
up to kill her, much less that she even *had* an
older sister, or five...

It took me several minutes to figure out it
was her.  She was standing at the head of a
relatively short line.  Her hair was pulled
back into a French twist, which kept loosening
as time went by.  An older woman stood next to
my little sister, holding Meg's hand and softly
talking to her.  Actually, it was more like my
sister was holding *her* hand, offering the
elder mourner strength.  

My grandmother.  

Since I was sixteen, I'd been aware that I had
a little sister, outside of those who had been
created just like me.  But the realization that
I had a grandmother as well was... eerie.  I
had a grandmother, and uncles, and cousins.  
My little sister, born, coddled raised in love,
the darling girl among a passle of grandsons,
had just lost her family.  I, created, brought
forth, engineered... had just found more family
than I had ever imagined reading about in any
of my books.

I did not pass through the receiving line at
first.  I just watched from the back of the crowd,
but that still did not put me at much of a
distance from where my sister and my grandmother
were shaking the hands and accepting the hugs
and sympathies of their few fellow mourners.  
It seemed to be mostly family -- my family --
and a very few friends in attendance.

Family.  My family.  I kept my distance and
Joanne Forte's face.

A tall young man, African-American, gently
forced his way to the front of the receiving
line and bent to hug my grandmother.  Then,
he said something to my sister, something
I could not hear, and he placed his dark
hand softly against my sister's ash-pale
cheek.  For the first time since I had
seen her, she actually looked like she
was about to cry.  She did not, however.  She
just nodded and smiled.  

Who was he?  He must have been important to
her if he could almost make her lose her
composure like that.

I decided to get a closer look at my sister's
face.  I don't know why.  Curiosity, I suppose.  
I looked around carefully to see if anyone
had noticed me.  They  -- upper-case --
would surely be watching this event.  No one
seemed to be paying particular attention
to my -- Joanne Forte's -- presence.  I joined
the line, keeping my eyes fixed on my sister
so I could continue wondering what kind of
person she was.

With each hand she shook, her face cemented
more deeply into a non-expression.  Her eyes
were completely dry as I watched her, but the
gray shadows coloring her eyelids spoke of hours
of crying alone, perhaps into a pillow.  When her
hands weren't busy with the business of being part
of a receiving line, they were brushing back the
wayward curls that kept escaping from the twist
at the back of her head.  The the tilt of her
cheeks, the angle of her chin -- so much of it
was like looking into a mirror.  

She was eighteen now.  Eighteen.

*All grown up,* as my mother had said.  *Our*
mother.  

She looked so vulnerable, but so strong.  You
would have been proud of her had you been there.

I'd forgotten to bring flowers.  To my own
mother's funeral.  Yet another thing that
no one had ever thought to train into me.  
I had nothing to give my sister or my
grandmother.  Nothing.  I could not even
touch them for comfort.  Or couldn't I?  

Hope demands sacrifice.  

I shook my grandmother's hand.  Success.  
Success all my own.  She smiled, and it was
my mother's smile.  "Thank you for coming,"
she said.  Her voice was tired with weeping.

Then I was standing before my little sister.
I had to look up to see her eyes.  Her
eyes had the same shape as the eyes They
had given me, but hers were colored with
flecks of green.  

She did not smile at me.  She gave no greeting.  
"How did you know them?"  She asked me.

I hadn't prepared an answer to that question.
I thought quickly for something that was
the truth -- maybe not all of it, but enough
of it.  

"We were comrades-at-arms," I explained in
Joanne Forte's sixty-something voice.  

Something in my sister's face twitched at
that strange phrase I chose, but she did not
press. I could sense she was too busy trying
to control her own grief.  

She did not reach for my hand.  She did
not say "thank you."  In fact, she stepped
back from me.  

I made the greatest sacrifice I could
think of making at the time; I reached out
to another human being, my little sister.
I took her hand in mine, and imagined
healing for her passing from my hand into
hers, from my green blood into her red
blood, from my heart into hers.  I did not
know if my imaginings would make a difference.  
I just held her and let myself hope that
my touch could actually give her some
measure of peace.

Suddenly, tears sprang to her eyes
unbidden.  She almost ripped her hand
out of mine.  

"I am so sorry," I said, because, after all,
it is all my fault.  Then I turned and left.  

I did not stay for the service.  On the
drive back to Mount Carmel, I thought
about how I almost made my little sister
cry.  I had only wanted to heal her.  It
seemed I couldn't do anything right, not
even the sorts of things They had created
me to do.  Unless tears are a form of
healing, too.  

I stopped on the way home to get gas for
the car.  When I went to pay, I picked
up a newspaper.  

"SUSPECT CHARGED IN STEEL MILL BOMBING
FOUND DEAD IN CELL."

I read on.

"Son of a former mill employee, Mr.
Joseph Fauchlevent, age 28, who reportedly
confessed to setting the bomb at the
abandoned Lehigh Steel Mill last week,
was found dead in his cell shortly before
three AM.  Cause of death is still
undetermined...."

So much death devouring everything.  I
dropped the paper in the parking lot.
Hope demands sacrifice.  Tears are a form
of healing.  

One week ago, after I left your funeral,
I arrived back here at this farm in Mount
Carmel, Pennsylvania -- this farm the
sisters are already calling "the new Cloister."  
I spent this past week after my return alone
in my room, coming out only for food and
refills on serum.  I finally have decided to
make amends for my guilt, to put right all
that I have put wrong, and that is why I came
to you today, Agent Mulder, to ask for your help.  
Well, yesterday, at this point.  I need to put
this all behind me and become a new person if I
am ever going to learn to heal.  If I am ever
going to uncover the full potential that is me,
I need to learn these things.  

I will.  I must.  It is a difficult thing
for me to learn, but hope demands sacrifice.
This is the least I can do, in light of what
you and my mother and Joseph have given up.

So you told me to write it down, since I so
obviously could not talk about it.  So here
it is.  After writing all through the night,
my hand hurts, I am more tired than I ever
have been, and the sun is just starting
to rise, but here it is.  It was hard work
but I know it nothing compared to what is to
come.  There is no spell to make me just
like everyone else.  There is only this
sacrifice.

It is a start.



END 14/16

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You did not receive a spirit of slavery,
leading you back into fear, but a spirit
of adoption through which we cry out "Abba!"
(that is, "Father")
--Romans 8: 15
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Two years.  I can't belive it.  Almost two
years have passed since I have written in
this notebook.  Two years, and I have learned
so much, but it still was not enough.  So much
has happened in just the past thirty-six hours,
and even though I did all I could, I should
have been able to do more.  I am so sorry,
but sorry is not enough.  Sorry cannot bring
your daughter out of her unconsciousness --
a state I could have prevented had I learned
enough.

For nearly two years I have designated myself
my sister's keeper; I have kept tabs on her
through other members of the Resistance:
namely, Scott, Lenhart and Keyte.  The
three of them watched over her and let us
know that Meg Mulder was succeeding in the
Foreign Languages program at Georgetown,
despite being the youngest junior on campus.  
She was easy to keep an eye on, Lenhart quipped,
because she was always studying.  She hardly
ever went out, but when she did it was either
to go home and visit her grandmother or to
take the Metro to Catholic University and
have pizza and watch movies with her friend
Kevin -- the tall boy who had touched her
cheek at your funeral.  

The tall boy I could not save last night.

A year ago, another death touched my little
sister's life.  Was this death engineered by
Them?  We can only guess.  I attended the funeral
for our grandmother, Doctor Scully's mother.  At
that funeral I did not approach my sister Meg at
all.  I had too much to hide this time.  I wanted
to tell her too much.  It was all I could do to
maintain our deep cover for her protection.  Had
I let myself get too close to her, I would have
spilled it all, and I know that is not what you,
her parents, wanted for her.  

For two years I have tried to learn the depths of
my healing capabilities, but my earlier learning
has left walls within me.  The skill to
murder left little room for my desire to heal,
but I have made some headway.  I memorized
what Scott, Lenhart and Keyte taught me about
removing the black oil.  That alone took two
years, and now I'm wondering if it was even worth
the effort.  Lenhart said that was the first
thing I should learn, but after last night
I have to wonder.

Last night.  Well, starting with two days ago,
really, when Scott, Lenhart and Keyte returned
to the new Cloister with information.

"Wexford," Keyte called to me across our
Cloister basement lab as she pulled her
mouse brown hair into a ponytail.  Last name is
customary form of address in this world of ours;
so many of us, clones, share first names with
others who are not part of our resistant,
rebellious efforts.  Where last names tie humans
together in families, they offer us one of the
few indicators of our individualities.

I left the tools I was sterilizing and walked
out to her.  Her face had an expression of
cocky annoyance, which meant she was worried.

"What is it?"

"The boys and I just got back from a serum run,"
she said, "the boys" meaning Scott and Lenhart,
"and along the way we got word that They have
been watching your sister for the past couple
days."

The way she said "They" was clearly upper-case.
*How* They were watching her, I didn't even
need to ask.  They had enough vehicles of
surveilance at Their disposal, even I knew that,
and Keyte never lied.  Never.  Not even
white lies.

I looked over at Doctor Scully, wearing
the white lab coat I had bought for her last
Christmas.  She had not heard our conversation.
She was hard at work directing the sisters in
mass-production of our vaccine formula.  At
least one success has come out of our exile
so far.

"Which one?" I asked Keyte in a hushed
voice, hoping Doctor Scully wouldn't hear
and worry.  

"Your little sister," she explained, lowering
her own voice.  

I shook my head.  "Why?  Why now?"

All she did was shrug.  "You haven't been
out there with us in months.  Has there been
a break in security around here?"

"Not that I can think of.  I mean, except
going out to get groceries at that
store without a surveilance camera,
nobody's come or gone besides the three
of you," I answered my fellow soldier.  

Keyte's face went pale at the implications.
"Scott and Lenhart -- they're not traitor
material."

"I didn't say they were.  Anyway, it doesn't
matter.  What are you going to do about it?"

Keyte snickered at me.  "What do you mean
'you'? More like what are *we* going to do
about it?"

So whatever they wanted to do, they wanted me
to be a part of it.  

"You're still the best morpher," Keyte
continued, "and if we need to be out there
keeping a physical eye on her, you're the
best woman for the job."

So I went with them.  

How did I find your daughter the next day?  
So much of my life has been spent as other
people. I may not have learned all there
is to know about healing, but I know how
to be other people.  All I had to do was
think:  if I were Meg Mulder, darling girl
raised in love but suddenly on my own as
the result of multiple tragedies... where
would I have gone?

When we got in the van, Scott looked to me
for direction.  I am the youngest, but
my brothers and sisters in the Resistance
still treat me like an equal -- an honor
I often feel I do not deserve.

Nevertheless, when Lenhart asked me, "Where
to, Wexford?"  I had no trouble offering
a suggestion.

"Back to D. C."

Hours later, I had them drop me off at the
graveyard.  They drove around separately,
looking to protect your little girl.  I
waited by your empty graves.  I didn't even
change my face.  

I found a hiding spot among a small stand of
trees.  The unexpected threat is the greatest
threat of all.  

When I saw Lynch arrive with Kevin Declan,
I was wearing the face They had given to
me and my sisters, Emily A through Emily E.  
In my hiding place, I was Wexford.

As Wexford, I watched my little sister place
small, plastic-wrapped bouquets before four
gravestones.  As Wexford, I watched Lynch
lead Kevin Declan out of her car, the car
They had given her, and I watched her aim her
gun through night's darkness at our little
sister -- at my little sister.

"Emily," I whispered from my shadows.

Lynch, my sister, lowered her gun and
turned to me.  She was obviously shocked
to see me, to see herself there, calling
her by name.

I stepped closer to Lynch.  I could hear
our little sister yelling something to
her driver as Kevin, infected with the oil,
pursued her.

"Emily," I pleaded, "come back with me."

Almost two years ago she had said the same
words to me.  She raised her gun again, but
kept looking at me, her face pained.

For those times They had sent Lynch after
me, I had to try to lure her away from
Them.  She was my sister, and I am my
sisters' keeper.  Our fates had been chosen
for us, not by us.

How had Joseph lured me away?  It still
hurts to remember him, but I needed his
memory to guide me in how to reach for my
sister, Emily Elizabeth Lynch.  

"Emily," I told her, "you have a choice."

When the blue light of night fell on her
eyes, eyes exactly like my own, I saw
what she was feeling:  blood-boiling,
heart-rending, rampaging jealousy.  
Nothing more.  There was no hope there, not
even desire.  

And so I knew what her choice would be.

I tried to stop her the only way old
habits told me I could.  As fast as Lynch
re-aimed her gun at our little sister,
I rushed her, pulled the gimlet out and
drove it into her neck.  At the time it
was the only way I could think of to stop
her.

I killed her.  I killed Lynch.  I killed
my partner from long ago.  I killed my sister,
just as Cain had killed Abel.  But I was
still too late.  Lynch fell to the ground,
and the devouring began just as Meg Mulder
fell with a gunshot wound in her left shoulder.  

"What have you done?" God asked Cain.  "Listen;
your brother's blood cries out to me from the
soil!"

If I think too hard, I can still hear
Lynch's scream just before she was no
more.  Was the choice hers to make, or
had I taken that choice from her?  I
just can't figure it out.  

I saw that Lynch's erstwhile captive
had turned to watch what was happening
through oil-clouded eyes.  I had no time
then to ponder over what I had done.  I
ran over to Meg's friend and called upon
what Scott and Lenhart and Keyte had made
me memorize about removing the black oil.  
I knew it in theory, but had never tested
it in practice.

*That's the first thing you oughta learn,*
had been Lenhart's admonition.  I had wanted
them to teach me how to heal first, but they
had insisted.  

*There'll be time to teach you the rest,*
Keyte had assured me, but I could tell she
was trying to assure herself as well.

I called upon my utterly unreliable memory,
and to my utter shock it worked.  The gruesome
black stuff came pouring out at my command,
but it only bought time for Kevin Declan.  I
could not help him and heal Meg at the same
time, and my little sister was sprawled in
the grass, unmoving.  Death behind me, death
beside me, and death before me.  

I ran to Meg, knelt by her side.  If she dies
too, then what good have I done?

I put my palm on her back and tried to
imagine her wound closed.  I knew it wouldn't
work, but I had to try.  Why hadn't I made
Keyte come with me to that graveyard?  Hubris,
I guess.  See?  I told you I could have done
more.

Meg struggled.  I told her not to fight it.
I heard myself calling her my little sister.
She must have known what I was, because she
tried to get away from me, even with a bullet
in her back.  Even with death upon her she
fought.  Thinking about that now, I think I
can say that I admire my little sister.  

At the moment, though, all I could think about
was this:  that I had to prove to her that I'm
not like Them, that I am not one of Them, that
I have chosen a different path.

I *have* chosen a different path.  My God.
Everything has changed.

When Meg's wound closed enough that she was no
longer losing as much blood, we had to move
her.  We had no time.  We still have to go back
and get her friend later.  I told her driver
to get your daughter out of there.  He helped
me lift her into the car.  I guess he only
obeyed my command out of fear, because he had
just witnessed what I had done to someone
who looked exactly like me.  A strange sort
of suicide.

"I'll ride with you until you can get her to
a hospital," I told him, "but then you're on
your own."

He sort of waggled his head as if trying to
shake himself out of a trance.  That was
when he asked that question.  "Do you know
where her parents are?"

I was too stunned to answer.  

"I have a plane," he continued, in the
obvious hope that he could persuade me
to tell him where the missing parents
were.  

I could not heal her wound totally, but
I made a choice:  a choice to trust that
stranger and reunite my sister with her
family.  And your partner is a doctor.  
I acted in the very human hope that
Mommy would make it all better.  

So Cho, the pilot, flew us here.  I kept
my palm on my little sister's shoulder
the whole time, doing what little I could
to keep her breathing even and to keep her
blood from leaving her completely.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Now, after our mother has sewn Meg up
properly, using some of the medical supplies
we have hoarded against the colonization days
to come, the two of you sit with her, reunited
at last with your miracle daughter, the child
of your love.  She is still unconscious, and
there is still much she does not know, but my
choice, my risk has brought hope.  Hope for the
three of you.  Perhaps I have it in me to heal
after all.

And perhaps being human is not about
being pure good.  Perhaps it is just about
reaching out to others in hopes of making
a difference.  It's about choice.  It's
about sacrifice and touch.  It's about
always changing and learning.  It's about
having faith in others.  It's about having
faith in myself.

You didn't have to thank me, you know.  I
am my sister's keeper.  I should have been
able to do more.

It is morning again, and I have just reread
what I have written here.  I just looked in
the mirror and nothing has changed, but as I
read my own story, everything has changed.

I think I need to find the Mother Prioress.  
And Father Tim.  There is something I want
to do now.  I have sins to be forgiven,
because I have murdered.  When I chose to
take away those lives, I took away that
precarious gift called choice.  And we all
deserve a choice, red blood or green blood.
We are all, at least partially, human.

But I have also done good, and I have to
acknowledge that.  Within me I have life and
death, blessing and curse, like all the human
race.  I have an identity to claim, and a
family to call my own.  

Perhaps Doctor Scully can be persuaded to
leave one daughter's bedside and help me
just a little for just a few minutes.  I am
going to need a godmother.  

I will ask the Mother Prioress to give me
a name.  Now I am called Wexford, but
I have changed.  I know this now.  


END 15/16

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"But if we are children,
we are heirs as well:
heirs of God, heirs with Christ,
if only we suffer with him
so as to be glorified with him."
--Romans 8: 17
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't have much time.  I'm writing this
quickly, as my little sister writes a note
of her own, explaining where we are going.  
Meg thinks quickly, and doesn't give a second
thought to risking her own life to save
another, even while she is in such great
pain now.  Now, I am certain that I admire
her.  She is so much that I am not, so much
that I can never be.

While she still slept, I was baptized.  
Mother Prioress gave me names for my new
identity.  She whispered the names to
Father, who poured the water over my head.

"I baptize you, Michael Joan, in the name of
the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit."

As I was named, I looked to Mother Prioress,
who smiled at me with tears in her eyes.  

Michael for the Archangel, defender of souls,
warrior against evil.  And Joan for Joan of
Arc.  The Mother Prioress had chosen strong
patrons for me.  

Then, Father Tim touched me with the sacramental
oil, saying the words of anointing, "Go forth
and live as Jesus has called you, as prophet,
priest and king."

"Wait," Doctor Scully said, just as Father
Tim was about to say the closing prayer.
"Doesn't she have to put on a white
garment?"

Mother Prioress nodded, "That is traditonally
part of the sacrament."

Then, my godmother helped me into the white
lab coat I had given her last Christmas.  
White -- the symbolic color of healing,
hope, and new life.  My christening gown.

"Thanks," I whispered.  Then, I pitched my
voice low enough that she might not have
heard it.  "Mommy..."

She must have heard it.  She rested her hand
against my cheek.  At last, I did not need
to pull away.

Hours later, when Meg finally woke up, Doctor
Scully called on me to explain to my sister
what had happened in the graveyard.  I
described it as best I could, but there is
still much she does not know.  She is almost
twenty one.  Don't you think she is old enough
now?  But I suppose that is not my choice.

When she sent both you and her mother away,
Agent Mulder, she asked me to help her go
back and find Kevin.  I am helping her because
it's my fault he's not here with us now in
the first place.  I am only human, but I still
must do all I can to right my wrongs.

So I will do all I can to make a deal.  I will
call on that house where I once was tutored,
the house where my sisters still live.  I will
arrange a deal with Them.  Just in case, I will
bring the stiletto They gave me, but I hope not
to use it.  

I know the danger in facing my remaining two
sisters.  I am not naive.  But what is the
worst They can do, kill me?  I am more than
what They created me to be.  If They kill me,
They destroy only the shell, and the shell
was all They ever wanted anyway.

I am taking some vaccine with me to cure
Kevin for certain.  I already have some of
my own syringes.  

I gave Meg freedom to go through my clothes
for something to wear on this journey of
ours.  My little sister is borrowing my
clothes.  How normal.  Soon I will close this
book and go to help her get dressed.  She is
still weak and in much pain.  She needs my help.  

Miracle of miracles, I can hold her and there
is no nausea.  

I do not have much more time to write, but I
wanted to leave my own note.  If I do not come
back from this journey, I want my little
sister to read this notebook I've kept for
the purpose of healing.  This might help her
understand some of the things she has not yet
learned about what is out there, about Their
Project, and about what has been hidden from
her and why.  Perhaps she can see what kinds of
sacrifices have been made out of hope for her
future.  Perhaps this will help her understand
how much she is loved and needed.

Then again, perhaps I will return to this farm,
our new Cloister, to my family in all its shapes
and forms.  In fact, I am pulling off our poorly
stocked library shelves two books I have always
refused to read up until now.  Their titles were
too damning for me, I used to think, their
premises too much wishful thinking.  I don't
think that anymore.  Everything has changed.

"The Story of a Soul," by Therese of Lisieux, a
Carmelite nun.  "Little Women," by Louisa May
Alcott.  I think I will be ready to read them
when I come home.  Perhaps I will read them to my
sister one day.  My little sister.  My family.


END 16/16

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, you hated it?  You liked it?  You don't know
what happens to Wexford?  Email me at
CathyLex@aol.com




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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