"In the meantime, you have fun at your seminar. Oh, and Scully..." He couldn't help smiling as he added, "I'll bring you back some fairy dust. Keep thinking happy thoughts." He hung up and tucked his cell phone away. After everything the two of them had been through recently, it was nice to have a chance, if not exactly to relax, at least to tackle problems that didn't have earthshattering repercussions.
He had picked this case because it was something he could handle on his own while his partner attended a medical seminar. Besides, he had always wanted a vacation in...he glanced at the open file taking up the passenger seat...Marion, Indiana? Not exactly Bermuda, but perhaps he could visit the Indianapolis Children's Museum while he was in the area.
He had chosen to drive rather than fly for the simple reason that it would be that much longer before he had to return. He didn't want to come back to an empty office and have to wait for Scully to finish her seminar. He was a loner no longer, and he knew it. Even the most interesting of the X Files gained a spark of magic when shared with her.
His trip turned out to be splendidly uneventful. He located the correct address easily once he reached Marion and managed to find 16th Street. It was a large farmhouse painted a bright spring green, flashy enough to catch anyone's eye. He pulled into the gravel driveway and parked in front of a small mound that had a plastic shovel, a toy car, and various action figures halfway buried in it. "They're more than meets the eyes," he murmured as he made his way up a short sidewalk to the front porch.
A family-sized swing hung from the ceiling, its cream-colored paint flaking away. More toys littered the porch; he watched his footing to keep from tripping over a hastily abandoned roller skate or jump rope.
He finally reached the door at the end of the obstacle course and knocked. After a few moments it was answered by a handsome Mexican woman in a faded T-shirt and slacks. "Mrs. Parks? Special Agent Mulder, FBI," he identified himself, displaying his badge. "I believe we spoke on the phone."
She nodded and held the door wider for him. "Come on in, Agent Mulder, and thank you for responding. Please excuse the mess. My kids had some friends over..."
"That's quite all right." He followed her into the cozy living room and she gestured for him to join her on the couch. "So tell me, what caused you to get in touch with us?"
"It started several months ago. Little things began disappearing from around the house. That isn't unusual with kids misplacing whatever isn't tied down or losing belongings in the mess on their floors, but this was different. I would set down a spoon in the kitchen, turn to check the stove, and when I turned back it would have vanished, with no one else in sight to have taken it. The cat's milk would be gone before anyone let her outside to drink it. Things like that."
"Raccoons, perhaps? Or packrats? Some kind of animal--?"
"At that point, who knows?" She shrugged. "For a while the kids reported seeing strange hovering lights, not like fireflies, and I was afraid we had prowlers. We never found any evidence though, not even a footprint or candy wrapper. Then there was the kitten."
"Kitten?"
She nodded and leaned toward the doorway. "Timmy!" she called. "Could you bring Flame and one of the other kittens in here, please?" She returned her attention to her guest. "Our cat had a litter of six kittens about the same time this all began. Just adorable, every one of them. We've had kittens before, so we knew what to expect.
"Then one day we noticed we hadn't seen one of them for quite some time. We decided she must have eaten something poisonous or gotten caught by a neighborhood dog or hit by a car. It happens. However, she turned up weeks later..."
A young boy, about eight years old, came into the room with two squirming animals in his arms. He handed one to Mulder and one to his mother. Mrs. Parks thanked him and he took off at a run, anxious to get back to whatever activity he had been involved in before being interrupted.
"That one's Shadow," she explained, indicating the solid gray kitten attempting to chew on Mulder's finger while getting its claws caught in his jacket sleeve. "The other four look just like him, except different colors."
"Very nice." Mulder distracted the kitten from his finger by wiggling his tie at it.
"I don't know where Flame disappeared to, but when she came back she was...well, see for yourself." She held up a calico kitten that was mostly white and black with one orange streak, like a tongue of flame, on the top of her head. She looked perfectly healthy, a normal kitten in every respect, until compared to Shadow.
She was only half the size of her littermate.