Apparition

(October 25-31, 2014)

1 Masquerade

Halloween lay on the horizon, like a ghost ship full of pirates and candy!

So what if fifteen-year-olds were too big for trick-or-treating? They definitely were not too old, Mabel knew, for a costume party—and how cool was it that on Halloween evening, which fell on a Friday night, the high school was hosting a GOAT Halloween masquerade dance?

She and Dipper had missed it the previous year—freshmen suffered certain restrictions, and one of them was the number of dances they could attend, especially the ones that involved dressing up in potentially hot costumes, as in costumes guaranteed to make the wearers look fire! Ah, but as sophomores, they had the freedom to go and dance their heads off while looking totally gooch!

Mabel had picked up some slang that Dipper didn't always catch. She'd been hanging out with a particularly verbal set of friends.

Anyway, she was determined to go.

If she could overcome a few problems. The first had been Dipper's reluctance. "I'm just not that into dancing," he'd complained. "I mean, Wendy's six hundred miles away, and every time I go to a dance and hang out with a girl, you always tell her all about it and she pretends to be mad at me, and—"

Mabel punched his arm. "It's just teasing, Broford! That's how you know she likes you, duh!"

Rubbing his arm, Dipper muttered, "Yeah, right, like when you told her about Charmaine and made it sound like she and I had some kind of hot French thing going on between us! Then when Wendy asked me about it, I panicked and hyperventilated and felt like an idiot! I'd rather just sit it out."

"Yeah," Mabel said, "but Wendy's going to dances and junk! With Devlin! And you're not worried about that!"

"He's not interested in her," Dipper said. "Or any girl. She told us that. She just sort of feels sorry for him 'cause he's always so lonely."

"Danger! Danger!" Mabel said, waving her arms wildly. "Danger, Dipper Pines!"

"You have to stop watching the Retro Channel," Dipper complained. "You are not a robot."

Mabel flopped down on the floor of his room, sitting with her arms crossed and leaning against his door. "Look, if Wendy's going to dances, she's dancing with a guy or two! And how's she gonna feel knowing you're too chicken to have a perfectly casual dance with a perfectly Platonic girl—that's right, isn't it? Or is it Plutonic?"

"Platonic," Dipper said, trying without success to get back to his psych homework. "Plutonic is hellish, I think."

"Ooh la-la!" Mabel said, wagging her eyebrows. "A hot chick, huh?"

"I . . . don't think people even say that anymore," Dipper told her.

Dipper proved unreasonably resistant. And unusually so, too. It took Mabel all Friday night and part of Saturday to bring him around—it was a bit of a siege. "Come on," she had moaned on Saturday morning. "If you can't go, I can't go!"

"Sure, you can," Dipper had said over breakfast.

Their mom asked, "Go where?"

"To the Halloween da-ance!" Mabel groaned, collapsing forward onto the table, jarring her orange-juice glass so it almost fell off the edge. Face-down, she mourned, "My life is over!"

Dad, from behind his newspaper—actually his tablet, because he got electronic delivery—said, "Go to the dance, Mason."

"I don't want to," Dipper complained.

"Go to chaperone your sister," Dad said.

Mabel didn't raise her head, but whined, "Aw, Dad!"

"That's why I don't want to go," Dipper pointed out reasonably.

"And sometimes we do things we don't want to do because they're the right thing to do," Dad said. "I seem to remember your saying that once."

"Fine," Dipper said with a sigh. "I'll go."

"You're the GOAT!" Mabel yelled, jumping up to hug him.

"What did you call your brother?" Mom asked, turning from the sink with a scowl and with both hands on her hips. "After he was nice enough—"

"Mom," Dipper said, "it's an acronym. It means 'greatest of all time.'"

"Teen talk, dear," Dad said.

"I will never understand them," Mom muttered.

"Thank heavens for small favors, darling," Dad said.

Once Fortress Dipper had fallen, Mabel's next challenge was brainstorming tope costumes.

"Tope?" Dipper asked. "That's a new one."

"Grenda uses it all the time in her texts," Mabel said. "Tope. Totes dope. I think she got it from Marius."

"Like a virus."

Mabel ignored that and bent over scattered sheets of paper, on which she slashed quick sketches, only to discard each one immediately with a "Nope, not tope enough."

Gone were the days when they could be PB & J, or mustard and ketchup, or cute twin kitty-cats.

Dipper turned down a few ideas: No Ghost Harassers, because "You know what would happen. We'd show up, and so would a ghost!"

No knight and princess—"Corny and anyhow, you know—Pinecest!" That made Mabel wince. She recalled all too well the unfortunate net surfing she'd done the time the Mystery Twins were in the comic-book convention dimension, where Gravity Falls was not so much a place as a TV cartoon show.

Nothing clicked. Later that afternoon, they were sitting on the swings of their old swing-set in the backyard of their house—which they were due to vacate in January, because they'd be moving down the street to the cul-de-sac and the bigger house that Mom and Dad had decided to buy. Mabel was already getting nostalgic about leaving the old place behind, though Dipper pointed out they could walk down from the new one in about three minutes to visit anytime they wanted.

Mabel let herself sort of rock back and forth, the chains on her swing creaking a little. "Hmm. We could go as each other, like we did at the Fourth of July to fool Wendy's dad!"

Dipper gave her a stony stare. "And what? I'd dance with guys? No, thanks!"

"C'mon," Mabel said, and Dipper couldn't tell whether she was teasing or serious. "Lots of girls think that guys who cross-dress are cute!"

"Nobody thinks I'm cute," Dipper said with finality.

"Wrong-o!" Mabel pronounced. "Candy always thought you were! And Wendy says you're cute! Especially when you're all scratched up with a black eye and bleeding from your nose!"

Dipper nearly fell out of his swing. "What!"

"She told me," Mabel insisted. "Back in Weirdmageddon, you and her had this car wreck or some deal, and you got all banged and bruised up. She said it was all she could do not to throw her arms around you when she saw you scratched up and bleeding!"

"Because she banged her head," Dipper said. "She wasn't attracted to me—she was just loopy! I mean why would any girl like a guy because he was bleeding?"

"Part vampire?" Mabel suggested. "Has she ever su—"

"Shut up!"

Mabel dropped it. Finally, though, she said, "Time travelers!"

"Huh?" Dipper asked.

"Let's go as time travelers! Somebody told Anne, and she told Daisy, and she told Martina, and she told me, that there's this theatrical costume place that's going out of business and selling stuff at ridiculously cheap prices! Let's go get some outfits from the 1950s or some deal, like we did for Grunkle Stan's nostalgia dance! We'll go as people coming from the past!"

"Huh," Dipper said, this time without the question mark. "Sounds OK. I guess."

"You gotta come with me!" Mabel insisted. "Sizes! And we have to get just the right look!"

Dipper stopped protesting. It had never worked before.

The shop was in Oakland, and Dad—whom Mabel could talk into anything—drove them over. "Should I stand by with the credit card?" he asked.

"You got it!" Mabel shot back. "C'mon, Brobro—CHARRRGGE!"

Key Light Costumes had been in business for nearly a hundred years, and now it was closing—well, in this location, because the building had been purchased and was slated for destruction to build another mall. The manager was wandering around and told Dad that they would be relocating to a spot nearer CCA and Berkeley ("We cater to college and community theaters") soon.

Meanwhile, Mabel was leading Dipper up one aisle and down another, skirting other bargain-hunters. "How 'bout a sexy nurse and doctor?"

"That would be a no," Dipper said.

"You could be the nurse!"

"That would be a big no."

"Oh, look! Army uniforms from, like, World War II! We could be a couple of buck privates!"

"Women couldn't serve in the regular Army back then."

"Shut up!"

Finally, Mabel found a vintage dress—bright red, made of layers of fringes and studded with glittery rhinestones, and cut short, ending above the knee. "What is this, and where has it been all my life?" she asked in excited tones.

Dipper read the label: "It's a flapper dress."

"Oh! I see!" Mabel said, fingering the soft material. Then she giggled. "I don't know what that means."

"It's a dress—" Dipper wrinkled his brow—"from the 1920s, I think. A flapper was a girl who liked dancing and partying—"

"Made for me!" Mabel pronounced.

A clerk came over and asked if they were finding what they needed. "Tell me about this!" Mabel said, holding up the dress, which was almost the right size for her.

"Oh," the clerk said, smiling. "That's an actual vintage piece. The owners picked that up years and years ago at an estate sale. It was made for a young woman in 1929, or maybe it was 1927, but never worn. And odd, but in all the time we've had it in the store, it's never once been rented. They say it's haunted."

"Go on!" Mabel said, laughing.

"Wait, what?" Dipper said.

The clerk shrugged. "It's just store folklore, that's all. I don't even know if it's true. But some girl's parents were supposed to have had that dress specially made for their daughter's sweet-sixteen party, but about a day before her birthday, she died tragically. I don't know how. Anyway, that's the story they tell us. But it's probably worth something just as an antique, and we're selling it for just twenty dollars."

"Sold!" Mabel said.

"Sis, I don't know—"

"You'll need some accessories," the clerk told Mabel. "The right shoes, and stockings, a feather boa would be good, and a sequined headband with an ostrich feather."

"And a mask! It's a masked dance!" Mabel said. "Wait, though, I'll make that myself."

"Mabel, if it's hau—"

"And my Brobro here will need a suit that's from the same time period!"

That turned out to be a Navy-blue blazer, the lapels outlined with gold cording, a high-collared white shirt, a repp tie (crimson and Navy), white trousers and white shoes, and—a flat-topped straw boater hat. "That's the Gatsby," the clerk said. "The hat fits, but the jacket and trousers are a tad large on you—"

"No worries!" Mabel said. "I'm a wiz at the sewing machine! We'll take everything!"

Even at sale prices, it mounted up, and Dad rolled his eyes as he handed over the plastic. On the way home, Mabel bounced in the back seat next to Dipper, bubbling over with plans for alterations and enhancements. "You gotta take a picture of me to send to Teek!" she told Dipper. "Oh, man, I wish Teek could come down!"

"I wish Wendy could," Dipper said.

After they got home, they even tried, but of course it was out of the question—Teek's parents weren't about to let their sixteen-year-old go traipsing six hundred miles down to California just for a dance, and Wendy sorrowfully said she was too busy with school and with helping Soos get the Shack in shape for the December closing to make the trip. But she, too, insisted, "Post a photo, man! I wanna see you and Mabes togged out!"

Mabel spent the rest of that Saturday afternoon and evening on her dress, which she tucked here and let out there, subtly adjusting the shoulder straps. Then she put everything on—the stockings were black fishnets, and Dipper said, "Well, it's kinda retro sexy, I guess." But then he cautioned, "Better take those fishnets in your purse and put them on once we get to the dance. If Mom and Dad see them—"

"Way ahead of you, Broseph," Mabel said. "I've got some plain black opaques to wear for the trip into school, and then I'll emerge like a butterfly from the cocoon of the girls' room in the gym."

"O-kayyy…."

Dipper tried on his own outfit, under fruitless protest. Mabel decided that the blazer could stand a little dart in the back. Trousers needed shortening and hemming. Everything else worked, though Dipper complained that he didn't like the straw hat. "Dorky."

"Well, you can't wear Wendy's trapper's hat to the dance," Mabel told him firmly. "Not in period. Besides, dorky looks good on you. Oh, and I'll make us those eye masks—what do you call 'em?"

"Domino masks," Dipper said.

"Yeah, them. I'll make them out of black silk. Hey, are you gonna ask anybody? 'Cause I don't think Martina's got a date since she broke up with Cliff—"

"I'll go stag," Dipper said.

"Me, too. Except staggette," Mabel told him. "I like it better that way, 'cause you can have lots of partners! Let's do the first dance together."

"We always do," Dipper said. And then half the time I just stand against the wall and watch for the next three hours. But he knew Mabel—she'd haul over at least three girls during the night, and he'd ask them to dance, and he'd feel all weird and—but that was part of the Great American High School Experience, he supposed.

Mabel turned in a little late that Saturday night. She made her nightly phone call to Soos, who took his phone out to the sty behind the Shack, and she said her ritual goodnights to Widdles and Waddles—Widdles now rapidly gaining weight and getting to be nearly as large as her father—and then, before hanging up, she sang a little lullaby for Little Soos, who now could say "Maybay!"

It had been a crowded day, and she fell asleep at 10:50.

And woke, coming from a dream about Aoshima the Flying, uh, dolphin-thingie, to full wakefulness in a heartbeat.

"Dipper?" she asked.

Something tugged on her coverlet and sheet.

"Dipper, cut that out," she grumbled, turning on the light.

He wasn't there.

But something—something she could not see—was at the foot of the bed. The cover and sheet pulled from her grasp and crept down slowly, slowly, uncovering her. They fell into the floor with a soft flump!

"Who's there?" Mabel asked, sitting up in bed. She wasn't scared—just curious.

Then—the sheet rose from the floor where it had fallen. It took on the classic form of a shrouded ghost, a figure about Mabel's height. It might have been a little more frightening had Mabel's sheets not been covered with images of Hiya Kitty (Mom had never got out of the habit of buying them, though Mabel's infatuation with them had ended the year she turned eight). However, kitty-decorated or not, it definitely looked like a ghostly manifestation.

"I'm sorry," Mabel said, "you've got the wrong bedroom. You might do better in another house. My brother and I are sort of used to ghosts—oh!"

Because this ghost wasn't trying to terrify her. It wasn't even menacing, not remotely.

It did not seem to want to frighten her. Instead, it stood there and, in a heartbroken way and quite softly, its shoulders heaving, it wept.

Mabel slipped out of bed. "Wait here."

She crossed the hall and opened Dipper's bedroom door, without knocking. She always did, though she sometimes saw things she wished she could unsee. "Hey, Dip?"

"Hmmh? Wha'? Mabel? Bad dream?"

"No," she said. "But I think you ought to come and see this."

Dipper didn't argue, but rolled off his bed and stood up. "What?"

"Put on some pants. You don't want to come in in your tighty whities."

"Gah." But he pulled on his jeans. "What is it?"

"Come and see."

They padded barefoot into Mabel's bedroom, and she flicked on the lights.

"What am I supposed to look at?" Dipper asked.

The sheet lay in a pile on the floor at the foot of the bed.

Mabel sighed. "She's gone."

"Who's gone?"

"The ghost," Mabel said. "She was right here."

"Sure you weren't dreaming?" Dipper asked.

"Don't think so. She wore my sheet."

"Probably left from embarrassment. Sure it was a girl?"

"She was sobbing. I could tell."

Dipper shrugged. "OK, OK, be right back." He left for a moment, then returned with his compact Anomaly Detector, a gift from Grunkle Ford. He switched it on.

"Anything?" Mabel asked as he scanned the room.

"Hmm. Some residual emanations. Nothing real strong."

"Guess she's gone away. Maybe it was the girl whose dress I bought."

"Could be," Dipper said. "I don't think our house has ever been haunted."

"Well—OK. Uh, want to sleep over in case she comes back?"

"We're a tad too old for that," Dipper said. "I mean, if Mom caught us—"

"Yeah." Mabel sighed. "Now I know what Wendy meant when she said she'd give anything to be twelve again that time."

"Just before Weirdmageddon."

Dipper's heart thumped. Because she and I would have been the same age? He took out the thought, looked over it, and tossed it in the trash. Nah. Because high school was so rough for her at first.

"Leave your door open," Dipper suggested, "and I'll open mine. Call out if anything happens."

"You got it. Thanks, Brobro."

He went back to his room, and Mabel put the sheet and coverlet back on her bed. But before she turned in again, she took the dress from her closet, pulled her desk chair over close to the bed, and draped the garment over it. Then she turned off the light and felt her way back to the bed.

"Hey," she whispered as she got under the covers, "if that's you—the girl whose dress this is, I mean—here it is. Come back if you want. I'm not afraid. I'll listen to you. Maybe I can help you. OK? It's Mabel, by the way." She yawned. "I'm here if you want me."

Nothing more disturbed her.

At least—not that night.

To be continued.