Chapter 4: Skeptic
“Anne broke the Circle, just as Avicia predicted.” Mulder continued. “She ushered in the 1,000 years of darkness with her foolishness. It is by her hand that we are all damned to walk apart, finding only temporary sustenance with each other, until such time as the Circle can be reconciled and re-created.”
<If – and that’s a big if – this is true,>
Scully thought.
<Then it can’t happen anytime soon. Max Fenig/Arthur is dead. Melissa Reedell/Maybelle is dead. Missy/Matthew is dead. Samantha/John is missing. Krycek/Anne is working for forces unknown. Skinner/Lynsey and mom/Marius would just never believe it. The only possible takers would be Langley/Megan, Frohike/Leona and Byers/William.
Besides 1,000 years from 1121 is 2121 and that’s still 122 years away from now.>
Mulder was sure to point out that there were altogether too many 1’s and 2’s recurring here for it to be a coincidence.
“Her leaving broke the Circle?”
“Anne didn’t just break it, she killed it as dead as she could. She told Kingsmill the names of the Twelve.” He sucked in a long and tortured breath. “They came for us early in the morning on a bright spring day, denounced us all as witches and put us on trial. Peter wanted to defend us but he was found dead, nailed to a burning cross outside his tiny Chapel by the river.”
Scully looked down at her hands and closed her eyes to hide the pain at the thought; buried alive for hours, disemboweled whilst still alive and then burnt on a cross. Her death had been no where near as bad as that.
“They had buried him inside a coffin, then pulled him out before he was dead. Cut his stomach open and scattered his intestines for the birds. Only after that did they nail his body to the cross and set fire to it.”
Scully raised her head and opened her mouth but couldn’t find any words. How did she know how Pendrell/Peter had died *before* Mulder said it?
<It couldn’t be that this is all true? No. NO.>
“Even with Peter’s testimony they would have found us guilty. The first stake was set up as soon as the trial was over. They didn’t even give me a chance to kiss my Avicia goodbye before they tied her to the scaffold.”
Mulder swallowed with difficulty. To Scully’s horror he began crying. She was holding back tears herself.
“They tied her…to the scaffold…they held my arms so…so…”
He was rocking slightly as he spoke and the tears fell unchecked on his face.
“…I couldn’t move… I tried… I did try… but I couldn’t get loose… I wanted… if we couldn’t live together… I wanted us to burn in the same fire… our ashes mixing and… our souls intertwined… but they wouldn’t let me… they kept me out of the fire… and all the time… him… Kingsmill… asking the question… over and over…”
“What question?” Scully whispered too softly for him to hear. The one to which she should have said *yes* but had changed it to *no*, but *what question*?
“What question?” Penderghast asked him. He may have heard her but Scully wasn’t sure.
“Do you believe.” Mulder said. “He asked her if she believed… over and over…”
“Believed in what?” Penderghast was obviously confused.
Scully wasn’t confused anymore. She knew what the question meant. She’d always known deep down. Did she believe in the power of the Circle of Truth? Was it real? The same question today would be; did she believe in the paranormal?
<Do I believe…?>
“In the Circle of Truth.” Mulder sobbed. “Did she believe in the Circle… in what they called evil… in the way of the land… the energy of the land… in the gift… the second sight… in the herbs we used to heal people… in the Ancients themselves… they called it all evil… dying in fire was supposed to mean damnation… they believed that’s what it meant… so did we… they can’t destroy your soul unless they burn your body… he said that the fire wouldn’t destroy her soul if she repented her sins… if she said that she didn’t believe in the Circle… she tried… every time he asked she said yes… yes she *did* believe… but we thought that death by fire meant damnation… I wanted her to say no… so that… we could be together again… we didn’t know… she *should* have said yes… but she said no… she said she didn’t believe… and she died…”
The words came out like a tide. Wave after wave swept her under and caused her to doubt but to believe and to be skeptical but to accept it all. Her emotions were so confused that she couldn’t remember where she was or what she was doing. She rubbed at her wrists without even thinking, barely noticing the welts that were springing up there.
“…and I lost my Truth in the flames that day…”
She felt dizzy and sick and her head was throbbing like a heavy drum beat. But Mulder hadn’t finished the story.
“They kept us out there into the night, made us watch the flames spring up to consume my Avicia, and watch them die down again until there was nothing left but ashes to scatter on the wind. Then they began to build another scaffold and stack it up with wood. The Lord of the Manor didn’t know who we were – he didn’t understand what we stood for – but Kingsmill did. Evil doesn’t change. Similar men killed the Little Fishes for the same reason as he had to kill us. One of the Water Born wrote their leader’s words in one of their texts; ‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to this world it would love you as it’s own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you’. That is why the world hates you.”
Mulder repeated the words as a sigh.
<That sounds like John 15:18?> Scully thought. <Fishes? Water Born?>
“We were chosen but we failed the Ancients, even as the Little Fishes did. We left behind the objects of our belief but the compassion, reality and synchronicity of our belief died with the flames of Avicia’s fire. Belief is everything but ashes dissipate on the breeze of time if no one remembers why they practice the rites.”
Scully hung her head. She understood somehow what he meant and yet she had no idea what he was saying. The words seemed wrong, but they felt right.
“No one remembers us. There is no trace left, not even in our valley.”
“Did they burn all of you?”
“Avicia was the only one they burnt that day.”
Scully forced her mind off the maelstrom whirling inside it and concentrated on his continuing words. She needed to know what had happened then. To know what had happened to people she knew but didn’t know.
“Anne had also watched Avicia burn, it made her see what she had done and she was sorry. She caused a diversion and helped us escape but Kingsmill had been too through for us. Maybelle and I were the only ones who escaped. We couldn’t go back for the others. They burnt them together the next day. We were with them in mind and not one of them retracted their belief. They didn’t have the reason Avicia had. They were all dying together. They were not alone as she had been.”
<Yes.>
She had been alone.
<I died alone.>
Scully had no tears left to cry.
“So that they wouldn’t suspect us in the new community we entered, Maybelle and I married in a Christian ceremony. Kingsmill saw clearer than most and he wouldn’t expect the betrayal of our belief. Yet in my heart, as Kieron, I was never married to Maybelle – although our marriage did become real as we sought solace with each other. We had a daughter, Rhiannon, an old name for our old beliefs. She was Matthew/Missy.”
Scully suddenly wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her before now that there was a massive problem here.
<If death by fire means the destruction of the soul, then what am *I* doing here!>
It was a get out clause. Scully’s skeptical mind brought the whole thing to a momentary close.
<This is one of Mulder’s fantasies.>
She decided.
<A mythical past of amazing proportions. Claiming blame for a silly number of things and using a curious blend of fact, fiction, mythology and theology.>
“That’s when we knew that fire couldn’t damn a good soul for it’s belief.”
<Oh, good rationalisation!>
The skeptic was back in the driver’s seat but a little voice in her head kept telling her differently now. It was telling her that her argument for all of it *not* being true was that death by fire *does* mean the destruction of the soul. A flimsy and unscientific premise to cling to if ever there was one. She had been believing Mulder’s words. In some small part of her, she still was.
“My Avicia and I would meet again and we did.” Mulder continued. “In 1615, we met on a boat to a new world.”
He smiled with the ‘remembrance’. Scully smiled too but she wasn’t aware that she did so.
“I had met souls of the Circle before then. By some strangeness of fate, Maybelle was always with me and when met each other we clung. There were so many times it was just the two of us. There were lifetimes without meeting another or just a fleeting contact, misunderstood and lost on the sands of time, visible only with hindsight.”
He sighed and then smiled broadly again.
“I knew as soon as I saw her. I was Andrew MacClean, off to seek my fortune in the New World of America and I was ready for a wife. She was Dana Scully and she was beautiful to my eyes.”
“Dana Scully?” Penderghast asked, gaping at Scully over his shoulder. Mulder laughed.
<No.> Scully insisted, closing her eyes.
“I knew she was special the minute I saw her but didn’t remember the Circle then. I was head over heels in love with her but she wouldn’t have anything to do with me. Very independent was Miss Scully.”
Scully smiled despite herself.
“She wouldn’t let me call her Dana. Except once. It was the only time I kissed her and it was the night before she died. She finally agreed to marry me and, that night, I was asking her father for her hand. Michael Scully scared the stuffing out of me; he was Skinner. Him and his son, Daniel, looked at me like I was dirt for wanting to marry their Dana but I swore I loved her and they agreed. Then there was a commotion outside and we found out that Dana had fallen over the side and drowned. By the time we got to the Colonies we discovered that she’d been pushed by a man with grudge against me. His name was Thomas Wilkes, his is Cancerman. He was due to be hanged but he escaped to the West and I never saw him again. I married a girl named Maggie Taylor that I meet on the quay, she is Melissa.”
Scully couldn’t begin to explain how she felt about the story that Mulder had just told. She didn’t remember any of it and it didn’t sound remotely familiar. Despite that it affected her in more ways than she thought anything ever could.
“The next time I saw her I didn’t recognise her, not until we died together in a blood soaked field. At that instant, when we died, we knew each other and for awhile we were together above that field. That field where we died. There were so many souls hanging in the air, searching for this world or the next.” He swallowed deeply. “I could see Sarah crouching over my body but I could see and feel Avicia in spirit with me. I could have gone back to Sarah. I had the choice. I knew she would be alone without me. There were none of the others near by then and, without me, she was always alone. My guilt was vast but I couldn’t go back to her, not when I could see my Avicia waiting for me. I had to go to Avicia.”
Scully was crying openly again. She couldn’t help it. She’d thought he’d felt love for Melissa but now he was saying that what he felt was guilt for leaving her alone in that field. For leaving Melissa to be with her.
<No. I don’t believe. I didn’t believe him before and I don’t believe him now.>
…But that wasn’t strictly true anymore.
“We had time in that edge of life place – it’s hard to say how much when time means nothing there – but then I didn’t see her again until…until Poland, 1919. It’s hard to describe, when does a child see their parent and recognise them?”
Scully closed her eyes as the wave of pain engulfed her. She’d heard at least part of this story before. She knew how it ended.
“I can see the face, nothing like her, but the eyes…always the same…they tell me who it is. Clear blue with the knowledge of the universe in their depths. My father. My love denied me again by the Fates that have never seemed to give us a chance. Yet for twenty years, the memories are happy. Walking on the arm of my father on a frosty December morning, as we went the house of the man who would be my husband. My wedding day, the unshed tear in my father’s eye as I kissed my husband, who is Melissa. Cuddling my son against my breast, recognising him as a kindred soul, John, who is also Samantha. The four of us living together for many years before the new evil came to rip us apart again.”
She just wanted this to end now. That was enough. She didn’t need to hear anymore. She touched Penderghast’s sleeve.
“When I recognised the little girl in the cot it was strange, I was too young to even begin to understand. Samantha.”
Scully withdrew her hand and shook her head to dismiss the action. Penderghast frowned but returned his attention to Mulder. Maybe all this needed to be said for Mulder’s sanity rather than hers. It didn’t matter if it was real or not – as Mulder had said – it *was* cathartic. At least, that’s what Scully decided to believe in order to hide her continued curiosity and growing belief.
“This life?”
“Yes, my sister. I knew her and meeting one of the Circle isn’t like meeting anyone else. It’s like electricity. There’s a current if they’re in the room. The more of the Circle, the more power, that was why we were chosen by the Ancients. Then she was taken from me by something I couldn’t understand. I need her because she is one of the Twelve. I need the Truth.”
“The Circle of Truth.” Scully murmured thoughtfully. “I need the truth. I need the Circle of Truth.”
“I couldn’t believe what I found when I met a trio of strange men and felt a connection to them. I was especially worried about feeling a connection to Frohike. They were paranoid and strange, even for me, but it felt good to be near them. I was alone for so long.” He sighed, then began smiling. “Then suddenly she was there too. The electricity as she walked into the room. The very person I shouldn’t trust. The spy. It was just like with Samantha. A zig-zag, jangly sensation that made me want to pace the room. I knew it when I saw her in the light of the projector. Hair like flame, that was my thought, eyes flashing fire. I kept referring to her with fire. In a second I knew that my fear of fire had nothing to do with a house fire. I didn’t know how but I knew it was to do with her. I was scared but excited beyond belief.”
Scully watched the grin spread across his face and had to smile too at the memory of that meeting. There had always been something in that lazy smile which had made her smile despite herself.
“With that power of hindsight again, it seems like a domino effect; Samantha, the Lone Gunmen, Scully, Max Fenig, Skinner, Krycek, Mrs Scully, Melissa Scully, Melissa Reedell. I’ve met all of the Circle for the first time in one life since the thousand years began, but the Circle still isn’t complete.”
He sighed and opened his eyes slowly.
“There’s nothing else to say really, is there?” He looked directly at Scully. She met his eyes.
“This is tremendous, *really* tremendous.” Penderghast enthused, unaware of the silent communication passing between the couple. “This story *needs* be told. We’ll all be rich.”
Mulder broke the eye contact and leveled his gaze on the grinning doctor.
“The story’s not for sale.” He said flatly.
“But…” The grin faded.
“To be able to tell anyone about this you’d need a confidentiality waiver from me,” Mulder stated threateningly. “and you’re not gonna get one.”
“Surely something of this importance…”
“If this story appears anywhere and I do mean *anywhere*, then you’ll have the full weight of the law down on your head and I’ll make sure that you never practice anything ever again.”
Dr. Penderghast caved in immediately. Without a word passing between them, Mulder and Scully left the office.