When it comes down to it, the most important steps to success are patience and timing; at least that's what she's come to understand. There are other things like planning and preparation that go into it, but patience and timing are the main points.
Often people mistake timing for the more difficult to master, however time is a science that can be tamed through study. She understood time in all of its madness, perhaps because she had so much of it; more than enough to figure out when what pawns needed to be where and how many errors had to be accounted for. Patience, however, is not a science, it is an art, an art which does not lend itself to her nature very easily. But even that, over time, was a skill that she developed and perfected, not that she had much choice; when trapped in a situation such as her's one has nothing to do but work to develop the skills that will lead to escape.
She eventually gained the skills that would have allowed her to recapture her freedom, but had also learned the virtues that she now considers her most valuable assets: patience and timing.
It took patience to remain vigilant until the day her brother called for her help, and timing to have everything she needed when he did.
This was why she was walking through the forest of a strange Oregon town with a thirteen year old boy in tow: she was looking for her brother.
The boy didn't know what was happening, only that his family had told him to follow her. He didn't know that he was in a place called Gravity Falls, or that the reaches of his existence was so short lived as to be ended that day, or that this had been timed perfectly to fall on the honeymoon of Gravity Falls' only two police officers and exactly five days before the only people with the power to stop this were due back in town, or that she had been patiently waiting for her brother to sink low enough to ask for her help so that she could enjoy both having him back in her life and punishing him for what he did to her, or that she had lived in this body for centuries, but had been alive for millennium, or that they were looking for a statue. The boy knew none of this.
The statue was well hidden, and looked far older than it should have, but it had been a year and she highly doubted that anyone had cared for it.
"This is it," she said to the boy, who hadn't known they were looking for anything.
The statue made him uneasy for reasons he couldn't explain. Perhaps it was the way the single eye seemed to fixate on him, staring at him, following his movements, silently demanding that he meet its gaze. The boy didn't recognize or understand the statue, but he stepped towards it, unconsciously giving in to whatever was pulling him closer.
"I want you to know," she said from behind him. "That this is not your fault. You were only chosen because it was convenient for me; you've done nothing wrong and this is not a punishment."
The boy didn't respond, he just stared at the statue, not knowing that something was staring back.
"I don't know if that's any consolation, knowing that this doesn't have anything to do with you," her hands were tight around his neck, but he didn't break his gaze from the statue. "But if it helps, the fact that your involvement was completely random doesn't mean that what's happening is meaningless. If nothing else you can say that you died for something important," the boy was no longer looking at the statue, the boy was no longer doing anything; he had suffocated. "You died so I could save my brother, thank you." The boy couldn't hear her.
She glanced at the sky; almost midnight. Timing was important, she could not spare a moment of silence for the boy; moments were precious and she had work to do.
Steps had to be taken to ensure that he wouldn't cause more trouble than he was worth, steps that would bind him the same way he bound her. He was her family, but that made her neither blind or an idiot; he was mischievous, power hungry, and not to be trusted. Above all else he was dangerous. She knew that she could not destroy his power, but she could take it, put it in her control; it was just a matter of a few well placed spells.
The boy, who was no longer there in any spiritual sense, had to be prepared. She had only minutes left, but it wouldn't take long, she had planned for this. She bound the boy in chains and then attached them to herself. The chains then glowed blue and immediately disappeared. Then she took out a vile, which had earlier been filled with her blood and unicorn hair (don't ask where she got it), and poured the contents into the boy's mouth. The effect of this was less evident, but she knew it had worked.
Only one preparation remained: the cuff. It was made of old, worn leather and was engraved with a prophecy, his prophecy. This was her fail safe; if she could not control him then the world would be in grave danger. This cuff links him to the people who could stop him; as long as he wears this he cannot hide from them. She snapped it into place on the boy's wrist, knowing it would never come off.
She glanced at the sky again; midnight. It was time. She took the boy's hand and placed it in that of the statue.
"Niaga edit uoy evah lliw dekovni uoy rewop tneihca eht, niap ruoy dna gninrub ruoy draeh sa X," she said, before she began chanting the spell to summon him.
The boy began to glow, just around the tips of his fingers and the corners of his eyes. She knew that it would take hours, even days, for the spell to be complete and for her brother to wake up, but she was not worried. When it comes down to it the most important steps to success are patience and timing, which she has in spades.