Subject: The Talisman 2/7

From: [email-masked] (Monture & Wicks)
Date: 05 Dec 1994 01:21:51 GMT

This is my first posting in this forum ... I hope everyone likes my story.  It
contains shamanism, shape-shifting, pseudo-science, and a lot of speculation.
 I  started writing it after Scully disappeared, and this represents the way
I would have like to  have seen the plot develop, but alas ... and because I
like Mulder, he is the central focus of this story.

Also please note that the Mohawk words used are phonetic representations,
rendered as much as possible in an English format.  I have included a
phonetic key at the end of the story.   There are also aspects of this story
that are not (and I repeat not) in keeping with traditional Native American
practices, so don't for one minute think that it represents any of those
sacred ceremonies and rites.  I have ultimately created my own intepretation
of what may or may not happen, but among my people, there are still those who
practice the craft of the "wadayoneras".  I hope I have treated the idea of
their art with the respect and reverence that it deserves. 

This story is based on the characters and situations created by Chris Carter,
Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Company.  No infringement
of copyright is intended.

			The Talisman ... An X-Files Tale (2 of 7 parts)

Chapter 1

	The  sun was gleaming weakly into the car through the wrecked windshield as
Mulder came to, raising his head to stare blearily out the window.  He
gingerly felt his forehead which had been resting on the steering wheel and
his hand came away sticky with slowly congealing blood.  He sat up as much as
he was able and saw that he had plunged a good five hundred feet hood first
into the river valley. He reached for his cell phone and checked it -- the
battery was dead.  He tried opening the door, but could not force it open as
mud from the wet riverbank was blocking it and had to settle for opening the
window.
	"Thank god for bottom of the line rentals," he muttered, his voice rusty
with disuse, thankful that the window still rolled down.
	There came a soft giggle and he quickly turned his head to see a young boy
of perhaps seven staring at him, standing at the edge of the morning mist. 
He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, dressed in a Power Rangers t-shirt and
jeans, his eyes huge and fathomless.  His skin was the colour of cinnamon
toast; Mulder knew instantly that he must be Native American.  This area had
once been the ancestral homeland of the Iroquois, a highly organized and
powerful grouping of tribes, and it was likely there were still the
descendents of these people in the area.
	The boy seemed quite amused by Mulder's predicament and grinned, showing a
dark place where his upper baby teeth had been.
	"Hey-yah, Mister," he said in a musical, sweet voice.  "You look like you
could use a little help."
	In spite of his headache, Mulder was charmed by the boy.  "Just a little,"
he said.  "Can you help me open the door?"
	He came a little closer and inspected the driver's side door, then walked
slowly around the vehicle and came back to the window, closer this time.  "I
think I should call for help," he said.
	Mulder sighed and sat back in his seat, resigned to waiting longer.  His
head throbbed.  "Okay, I'll wait."
	To his surprise, the boy threw back his head and cupped his hands over his
mouth.  The sound of a bird, sweet and unidentifiable, issued forth.  He
cocked his head to one side, listening; there came a short answering whistle
and out of the mist appeared a tall, lithe figure in seemingly no time at
all.
	She was smiling serenely as she approached, her thick black hair drawn up in
a ponytail, emphasizing the sharp angles of the cheekbones that jutted from
her oval face.  She wore a faded red and blue flannel shirt and black pants,
a large buckskin bag slung over one shoulder and banging against her curving
hip, her long legs ending in heavy hiking boots.  Silver flashed at her
throat, her wrists, her ears, and on her long fingers.  She was
golden-skinned, like warmed cinnamon, but mostly Mulder was struck by the
brilliance in her dark brown eyes, a kind of laughing intelligence that
viewed the world with  great humour and a thirst for knowledge.  The
interesting laugh lines around her doe-like eyes put her around Mulder's age.
	"Akwatonteh, this man is stuck," said the boy by way of explanation.
	"And so he is," she said neutrally.  Her tone was a low musical alto and her
eyes sought out Mulder's.  "What brings you to Mohawk country, Mr FBI?" she
asked conversationally, leaning into the door. 
	"Uh ... that's classified," he said lamely, abruptly overwhelmed by her
presence.  He wondered if FBI was stamped across his forehead instead of the
obvious wound.  "You don't want to see my ID?"
	She grinned and shook her head, winking at him.  He felt his head swim in
the depths of that smile, her teeth white and sharp.  He could smell her, a
decidedly stimulating concoction of herbs, fresh wildflowers, and water
flowing over mossy rocks. 
	"It's always classified, isn't it, Mr FBI?" she said as she surveyed his
car.  "Well-- this might take some doing.  Tehonig, run and get the shovel
out of the Pathfinder."  The boy turned and ran, scrambling up the embankment
with the nimble grace of some wild thing.  She came closer and touched his
forehead.  "Here -- you're hurt."   From the depths of her bag she produced a
cool alcohol wipe and a tube of some kind of ointment and set to work, her
touch swift and gentle.  The throbbing immediately decreased in the wake of
her ministrations.
	"So what happened?" she asked.  "Were you following the witch lights too
closely?"	
	He glanced sharply at her.  "What?"
	She looked long and searchingly at him.  "Of course you were," she said
quietly.  "It explains much."
	He shivered involuntarily.  This woman was eerily intuitive and her presence
was -- well, downright spooky.  He decided to be careful with her.  "Agent
Fox Mulder, FBI."  He stuck his hand through the open window.
	Her smile came swiftly again.  "Agent Mulder," she said as she shook his
hand in her lean, firm grip.  "Fox -- huh.  You've an auspicious name among
my people -- to the Hodenosaunee, the fox is the trickster."  She looked him
in the eye again, and Mulder found that all kinds of emotion, but especially
a growing lust, surged through him.  "I'm Degonawadonti Van Leeuwan, but you
can call me Daisy.  Degonawadonti is a bit of a mouthful for someone who
doesn't speak Mohawk."
	She turned her head at the boy's noisy approach.  He was singing as he slid
down the embankment, using the shovel like a vaulting pole.  "Sinneheh!" she
called.  "The deer hear you six miles away, Tehonig."
	He stopped his tumultuous descent and slid noiselessly the rest of the way. 
"Sorry, Akwatonteh."
	She took the shovel from him, ruffling his head.  "Go find the rest of my
herbs," she told him, taking the bag from her shoulder.  "This won't take but
three minutes, and  I still  need some roots of foxglove and yellowdock."
	He took the proffered bag.  "Okay, Akwatonteh."  He sprang away into the
mists behind the car.
	"Is he your son?" asked Mulder as she set to work, her strong arms
effortlessly lifting the river dirt away.
	She shook her head.  "My sister's boy, and my pupil."  She glanced sideways
at him, slyly.  "He's the son of the West Wind, and gifted."
	Mulder pondered this.  His knowledge of the Iroquois was vague, but he knew
that teasing was a cultural habit among Native Americans, and that some
employed a metaphorical turn of phrase, especially to test non-Natives.  He
watched as she made tremendous headway in clearing the dirt away from the car
door.  In no time, she was pulling the door open, grunting softly as it
resisted her tug.  He helped her by kicking from inside, and finally the door
grated open.  She lent him a strong shoulder to brace against as he got out,
finding his legs turned to rubber from being cramped for so long.
	She smiled at him as he stretched carefully.  She was nearly as tall as he,
the top of her head brushing his brow.  She reached behind him and pulled out
the map, his overnight bag and his briefcase.  She lifted an eyebrow when she
turned and caught a glimpse of his shoulder holster.
	Well, Agent Fox Mulder, my Pathfinder is atop the hill there.  I'm on my way
home.  Can I give you a lift?  If you want, you can use the phone or the
computer at my house."  Her offer was made over her shoulder as the boy
appeared out of the mists and she went to meet him.
	"Sure," said Mulder.  "I'd better call the rental company, check in with my
office."
	The boy looked at the car.  "Aren't you gonna call the police?" he asked. 
"They always do that on cop shows."
	His aunt laughed.  "He is the police, Tehonig."
	"Tehonig?" asked Mulder, twisting his tongue around the unfamiliar
syllables.
	"Tehoniguhratheh," said Daisy.  "It means Bright Mind."  She glanced up at
the embankment.  "This might be slow going.  Here, put your arm around me;
I'll be your crutch."
	"I think I'm okay --" he started.
	"Don't be so macho," she scolded.  "You've spent the better part of the
night cramped in one position, and you took quite a crack on the head.  Don't
push yourself.  Tehonig, take this stuff."  She handed the boy Mulder's
things.
	Tehonig took them, and as he clutched Mulder's possessions, he went suddenly
as still as stone.  A strange, sleepy look overcame his face.  "She missed
you," he said, and his voice was different, older and somehow sad.  "She was
in a room with no window.  There was only a chair to sit on, and a bed.  They
made her eat food she didn't like.  The only books she could read were the
ones they told her she could have, and they were all wrong.  They wouldn't
let her outside or tell her where she was.  They asked her questions about
you.  She tried to lie, but they wouldn't let her.  At night, sometimes she
would cry, and they would hurt her.  She called your name, but you couldn't
hear her."
	Mulder started anxiously, "What -- who --?!"
	Daisy silenced him with a sharp glance.  She touched the boy's shoulder and
whispered to him in a language that started low in the throat and was quiet,
like the wind in the forest.
	"I don't know her name," said Tehonig.  His eyes were still far away and
half-open.
	"Her name is Scully," Mulder whispered.  "Who did that to her" he demanded,
hearing a frantic tone creep into his voice, tried to quell it.
	"Dana didn't know them," said the boy.  "They wear black.  They're old. 
They smell like stale things and strange metallic smells, like diesel fuel
sitting around in a closed garage, like a rusty old car in a junkyard."  He
came abruptly awake and blinked, looking about him in confusion.  He looked
up at his aunt and started to cry.
	She hugged him.  "No, no -- it's okay, Tehonig.  It's a spirit speaking
again, not you.  We'll talk about it later."
	Mulder looked at Daisy.  "Spirit?" he asked in his best cop voice, the one
that demanded an answer.
	Her glance was bemused, challenging him to believe.  "Tehonig speaks to
spirits, and they to him.  He has been gifted with the voice of the West
Wind."  She hugged the boy again, then released him.  He wiped his eyes and
looked down at the ground.
	"You don't have to convince me," Mulder said, trying to get past her
defenses.  He found himself strangely off-balance with this woman, that he
wanted her to like him and that it was a battle between them, with him having
to use every weapon of charm at his disposal.  "At least, not this time."
	She  raised an eyebrow.  "Interesting.  A cop -- an FBI, at that -- with an
open mind.  Come on then, Tasitsho, let's go."
	"Tasitsho?" he asked.
	"Fox, in Mohawk."  She slung his arm around her shoulder in a way that
brooked no interference and they started up the embankment.  She used the
shovel to help gain her footing.  Tehonig took up the rear, holding Mulder's
things away from him as if he was scared of them and snuffling slightly.
	She had been right -- without her to help him, it would have been nearly
impossible going if he were to try climbing back to road level by himself. 
The bank was slippery with mud, and his leather-soled shoes kept slipping,
but her strong grip kept them upright and making progress.
	At the top he saw a bright red Nissan Pathfinder parked about fifty yards
away.  The road was narrow, with impossible curves -- no wonder he had had
the accident.  	She shrugged off his arm when he was slow to remove it, a
small, knowing smile on her face, striding away quickly on her long legs.  He
flushed with embarassment.  This woman was provocative and articulate, the
way he liked his women.  And to top it off, she was eminently exotic, her
dark beauty and her strangely intuitive glances sparking off feelings he
would rather not deal with.
	She unlocked the Pathfinder and got in.  The engine zoomed to life and
Tehonig climed into the backseat as Mulder reached the passenger door.  He
winced as he folded his stiff body into the seat.  Tehonig reached forward
and deposited his briefcase and map gently into his lap.
	"Do the spirits talk to you often, Tehonig?" he asked, genuinely curious.
	Tehonig looked at his aunt, who nodded the briefest of nods, her eyes not
leaving the road as she pulled away.  She shoved a cassette into the tape
player and clanging guitars loudly and abruptly filled the air.  She lowered
the volume as Tehonig said quietly.  "I guess so ... sometimes they speak to
other people like I'm not even here.  Sometimes they just talk to me, and
sometimes I can see them.  Just one at a time, though."
	"How long has this been happening?" Mulder asked.  He put one hand on the
dashboard as the Pathfinder careened around the curves in the road.
	"Ever since I can remember," replied Tehonig with a fatalistic shrug.  "I
don't go to school anymore because the spirits didn't want me to learn there.
 They kept making fun of the lessons and the teachers and the other kids, so
my akwatonteh took me out and teaches me at her house instead."
	Mulder glanced at Daisy.  In profile, her nose was prominent and sharp, her
mouth full and red against her cinnamon-coloured skin.   He looked away.  No
doubt about it, he thought resignedly.  He was falling dangerously in lust.
	"You teach him?" he asked.
	"Checking up on my qualifications as a home teacher, Mr FBI?" she teased. 
She sobered.  "I'm attempting to give Tehonig a more thorough education from
an early age than the one I managed to cobble together for myself.  Right now
we're studying the work of Stephen Hawking, Idries Shah, Tesla, Charles
Dickens, Lao-tse-tsung, and Black Elk.  Next month we hope to progress with
an overview of Newtonian algebra and an introduction to biochemistry."
	"And you're like, eight years old?" he asked.  The boy nodded proudly.
	"His name isn't Tehoniguhratheh for nothing," said Daisy.  She pulled then
into a shaded roadway that suddenly rose upward until it felt like they were
travelling on a 45-degree incline.  Mulder clutched the armrest of his seat.
	"The spirits help with the hard stuff," Tehonig volunteered.
	Daisy glanced at Mulder as the Pathfinder pulled into a gloriously messy
yard, full of unraked leaves, a confusion of late blooming fall flowers and
at least four yapping dogs.  The house was a small two-storey frame house,
weathered but happily sporting red enamelled trim around the windows and door
frames.  A ramshackle porch ran the length of the house, rocking chairs
standing side by side huge pots of frost-frozen plants.
	"I know what you're thinking," she said, her cool tone bemused.  "You're
thinking we're weird even for a bunch of Indians."  She put the Pathfinder in
park.  "Don't worry, you wouldn't be the first.  My parents think I'm totally
insane."
	"I didn't think that for an instant," he answered.  "I'm frankly quite
fascinated," he confessed, meeting her eyes again.  Her gaze was cool and
deep, and he felt like he was drowning.  He had to look away.  She was making
him forget himself, his purpose, his entire being.  He strangely thought of
Odysseus and Circe, put the thought out of his head.
	"Tehonig, go put the dogs in the pen," she ordered.  The boy jumped out of
the car and hit the ground running, the dogs falling over themselves in a
frenzy of joyous barking.  He raced around the back of the house, the dogs
leaping behind him.  Daisy smiled at Mulder.  "Come on in, Mr FBI.  Phone's
in the kitchen, and if you want to use the computer, that's in the study."
	He followed as she strode up to the porch and swung open the door.  It was
unlocked.  "I guess you don't have to worry about thieves around here," he
observed.
	Her smile over her shoulder dazzled him as she held open the door.  "I've
spirits of my own, Tasitsho."
	As he stepped inside, he felt a strange presence envelop him for the
briefest of embraces, then was gone before he could put a name to the
feeling.   The door opened into a large kitchen, hardwood floors gleaming,
rag rugs strewn about the floor.  A simple pine table dominated the room, its
surface laden with bunches of dried herbs and purple asters.  Burnished
copper pots hung on one wall, and hanging from the ceiling were twisted ropes
of corn, some of the cobs displaying purple, red and blue kernels.  Other
objects which could only be described as fetishes were draped on the walls,
from the ceiling, and from the handles of cupboards.  A white cat rose and
stretched, its mouth yawning as it came to rub its body first against Daisy's
legs and then against Mulder's.  The room smelled like vanilla and the
lingering traces of baked bread.
	She was banging a cupboard door open and filling a tea kettle as he turned
to look at her, admiring her swift grace with an appreciative eye.  Her hands
full, she pointed with her chin.  "Phone's there," she said, and he followed
the direction to a little window seat that looked out into the yard, the
phone placed atop six month's worth of _National Geographic_.   "I'm going to
make you some tea and something to eat -- you look like you need it."
	He swayed then, realizing he hadn't eaten in at least eighteen hours.  
"That would be great."  He crossed to the seat on rubber legs and sat down
quickly, his stomach rumbling.  He fumbled in his coat pocket for the rental
car keys and reached for the phone.  A book lying beside the phone was turned
upside down, a very old copy of Chaucer that looked much read.
	He wished he could call Scully, just to hear her voice, but knew that she
didn't remember him.  As he gave the information to the rental car company,
he watched Daisy as she heated up something in a saucepan.  He couldn't stop
looking at her and was starting to feel stupid about it, like he was some
kind of overeager schoolboy in the presence of his first girlfriend. 
	He stood and crossed to the table where she was clearing a place for him and
Tehonig to sit.  The boy banged into the room, his exuberance making Mulder
feel tired.  Tehonig smiled shyly at him and picked up the cat.
	"The car company says I can have another car after five o'clock if I go into
Albany," he said.  "So ... how far are we from Albany?"
	"We're about fifty miles away, to the northwest of there," she replied,
setting bowls in front of him and Tehonig, who perched on the edge of a chair
opposite Mulder.  "I'm taking Tehonig there later this evening, to see his
mother -- he always goes to see her on weekends.   I can give you a lift
then, if you want."
	"That would be great," he said, forcing more joviality into his voice than
he felt.  To have only so recently met this woman and then to never see her
again ... he felt a disappointment surge through him.
	She set a teapot down on the table.  "But if you like, you can take a shower
and rest up a little before you go on.  Tehonig and I have about two hours'
worth of lessons before he leaves."
	Tehonig groaned.  "I wanted to watch some videos before I go," he whined. 
"Yours are so much cooler than Ma's.  Aw come on, let's skip out this
afternoon ..."
	"Eat your lunch," she said severely, and his whining instantly stopped. 
Mulder sampled his soup and found it excellent -- it was some kind of corn
chowder, with beans, squash and tomatoes floating around in a thick broth. 
His belly felt warm as he practically gulped the food down.  Daisy poured him
tea and he thankfully swallowed that too, ignoring its unfamiliar herbal
taste.
	"So, Mr FBI, is the reason you're here still classified?"  she asked, taking
a seat to his left.  He tried not to stare at the place where her shirt
opened as she sat, revealing a dark valley and the rounded curve of
cinnamon-skin beyond.
	"Sort of," he managed.  "Have you heard of something called Arrowhead Peak?"
	Tehonig piped up, "I know where that is.  That's were the big ugly witch
lights come from!"
	"Excuse me?" said Mulder.
	Daisy smiled.  "He means that secret base up on the escarpment peak we call
the Big Nose," she said, popping some bread into her mouth.
	"You know about that?"
	She shrugged.  "It's common knowledge, at least around here.  Unmarked
trucks and cars go in there, day and night.  At night there's a lot of weird
activity -- some things sound like helicopters, and others with some kind of
humming noise, like a jet, only softer.   All I know is that they are
definitely dishonoring sacred ground -- my people held many ceremonies and
festivals there to please the Thunderers."  She examined him closely.  "You
can see part of the buildings from my bedroom window when the weather's
good."
	"I'd like to look at it, if you don't mind," he said, scraping the spoon in
the bottom of the bowl to get the last drop.
	"After your shower," she said sternly and smiled at him again.
	"Can I ask a personal question?" 
	"Let me guess ... you're wondering what a single woman of thirty-one is
doing out here by herself with four dogs, a cat, and a nephew to keep her
company?"  she said lightly.  "You also are trying to figure me out, why I'm
not living on a reservation, and what exactly is it that I do to enable me to
support my lifestyle?"
	"Something like that," he said.  "How'd you know?"
	"It's written in your eyes," said Tehonig.  He giggled.  "I thought FBI
agents had to be like spies."
	"I'm sure Agent Mulder is good at it when he wants to be," said Daisy,
chuckling.  In a teacher-like tone, she explained, "Right now he's too lately
been hurt and isn't thinking straight.  That's why we can see it in his body
language."  She raised her eyes to Mulder's.
	"I'll give you the shortened version of the Daisy saga, then.  My family
still lives at Grand River in Canada, but I was something of prodigy at a
young age, and was sent to a school in Vermont.  I lived with my mother's
uncle and his wife and went to Bennington at 16.  I switched to MIT at 19 and
got my degree in chemical engineering at 21.  I was recruited to a company --
I won't say which one -- in 1984 that was under contract with the US Airforce
to develop a radar-deflecting material for jet fighters.  I was specifically
working on the development of a mimetic polycarbon,  which became the basis
for the Stealth bomber.  The only problem was my supervisor thought he was
allowed to have sex with me as part of my contract with the company.  One
night he tried to force the issue, and during the struggle, I killed him."
	This was said in such a matter-of-fact tone that Mulder gaped at her. 
Tehonig slurped his soup in the sudden silence.
	"In order to avoid a big investigation and scandal, the company made it look
like an accident, and they paid me off five years' wages to make sure I never
went to the police or the press, and also that I wouldn't take the research I
had been working on to the public sector.  They also kept me on retainer to
do free-lance for them every so often, which I sometimes still do, for a
hefty price.
	"I was 23 when I was suddenly cut loose.  All my life had been devoted to
science, to study, and to work, and here I was, a suddenly wealthy child
without a job to go to.  I kinda went a little crazy," and here she suddenly
stared off in the distance, looking sad, "for about five years.  I bummed
around and took every kind of drug and slept with every unsuitable man-- and
woman -- I could find.  I left my money in the hands of a thoroughly capable
bank manager and made sure it grew over the years, but I woke up one morning
in some musician's crashpad with a heroin addiction and a telegram that my
grandmother had died.
	"That did it.  I went back home and sought the help of the elders' circle on
my reserve.  I was extremely lucky that the experience didn't leave me with
anything worse than some emotional scarring.  But I learned how to grow up,
and it was then that my real education began."
	She smiled at Mulder.  "So I guess I should tell you, Mr FBI, Tasitsho who
believes in things he can't see.  I'm a wadayoneras, what your people would
call a witch."
	He blinked to clear his head.  "You mean like a Wiccan?" he asked.
	"No, not like a Wiccan, though some of the practices are, strangely enough,
very similiar."  Her voice was soft, like a caress, like the finest buckskin
wrapped around his naked skin.  He leaned in further to her, like she was
some kind of magnet, an irresistible force.  She shook her head and looked at
Tehonig.  He stopped himself and straightened,  forcing himself to
concentrate on her words and not on her.
	"Your people called us shamen, or medicine people, but we are actually
beyond  that.  There is a long history among the Hodenosaunee, what we
Iroquois call ourselves, of men and women who practice the arts of
channelling different forms of energy and using that energy to transform
matter.  It takes great discipline, skill and many years of practice to
become adept at the art.   I came back to the ancestral homelands to learn
from the spirits that linger here still.  I have secluded myself here, away
from my family, my clan, my people and the rest of the world in order to
learn from them."  She looked at Tehonig.  "And when we discovered what was
happening to my nephew, it was only natural that he come here to learn from
me."
	She rose from the table, gathering up the dishes and looked suddenly
embarassed.  "Forgive me for burdening you with this.  It was not my
intention, but you ..."  She flushed then, a deep bronze that brought heady
colour to her face.  "Well, there is something about you that makes me feel
that you accept this, accept my truth."  She went to the sink, setting the
dishes there and paused for a moment, squaring her shoulders.  She turned
back to him and looked at him steadily.
	Mulder rose and came to stand a couple of feet in front of her.  "Thank you
for your story," he said, searching her eyes.  "You've given me more than I
can repay, with your hospitality and your honesty.  I hope we ... well, I
hope we can be ... I mean ..."
	She grinned at him, the vitality that attracted him so coming alive in her
face.  "Sure, we can be friends."
	Her ability to read him was unnerving.  It was like being under a
high-powered microscope, something he hadn't felt since his first days as
Scully's partner. 
	"And now, Mr FBI, you have to get cleaned up." She wrinkled her nose.  "I
hate to be the one to point it out, but ..."
	"I know, you don't have to tell me," he said ruefully.  "Point me in the way
of your shower, madame, and I'll put myself to rights."
	"This way.  Tehonig, what did you do with Agent Mulder's things?" she asked
over her shoulder as she strode into the next room.
	"They're on the porch, I'll get them."  He leapt out of his seat and was
gone outside, the door slamming.
	He glanced to his right as he followed her, seeing a room that was obviously
the study and Tehonig's classroom, dominated by book-lined ceiling-to-floor
shelves, a large table laden with art supplies, and a big Macintosh computer
sitting on a desk that overlooked a huge window.  The short hallway opened up
into a comfortable living room, its walls painted a deep, rich red and the
floor strewn with Oriental rugs.  The furniture was non-descript so not to
take away from  the beautiful original artwork hanging on the walls, the
colours and images breathtaking.
	Daisy saw the direction of his glance.  "Those are Tehonig's," she said. 
"Apparently one of his spirits is an artist."
	A stairway  hugged the far side of the room.  Mulder glanced at a formidable
record and CD collection that stood beside a stereo and tv console and tried
not to stare at the attractive image of Daisy climbing the stairs in front of
him.  She pointed him into a spare bedroom, a single bed shoved against the
wall beneath a window that commanded a breathtaking view of the river valley
miles below.
	"You can change in here," she said.  "There's spare towels in the bathroom
closet, which is right next door.  Tehonig and I will be downstairs if you
need anything."  Tehonig burst then into the room and set his overnight bag
on the floor.
	"Here you go, Agent Mulder," he said shyly.  Mulder smiled at him.  The boy
really was charming, despite his obvious intelligence and the strangeness
that seemed to possess him.
	"Okay, Tehonig, let's go.  I want to cover that final chapter in Professor
Hawking's book before we go back to your mom's," Daisy said as she closed the
door behind them.  Mulder could hear the boy's protests as they went back
downstairs.
	He removed his clothing, shivering a little in the cool air of the room, and
ducked quickly into the shower.  The hot water made him sleepier, and when he
came back out, he thought he would lay down for a little bit and think about
his next course of action.
	He wondered what Scully's reaction to Daisy would be and wished that she
could be here to meet her.  She'd probably think the poor woman was suffering
from some kind of delusion, and that Tehonig had a multiple personality
disorder ... She probably would be giving him those sidelong exasperated
glances when she sensed how attracted he was to Daisy ... He had never before
met such a wild and beautiful woman, she was smart, interesting and weird ...
He wondered what she thought of him, probably decided she didn't care for FBI
agents by the way she teased him ...