The feather duster lifted a fine coat of dust from the shelf, eliciting a sneeze from its holder. Mabel couldn't remember the last time that bookshelf had been cleaned, but it was in clear need of a good dusting. She read the titles on the spines, fond memories coming back to her from who knows how long ago. She had never been much of a reader, the shelf being full of either books Bill had read or some her brother had given her, but there were still some cheesy romance novels she had read from time to time.
She kept on dusting down the shelf when something caught her attention, enough to make her set the feather duster down. She pulled out a worn-out thick baby-pink book with great care, her gaze falling upon the words 'Photo Album' printed in neat loopy cursive on the cover. She traced the letters with her index finger before opening the book, the first picture she saw making her involuntarily gush. It was a picture of her and Dipper on the day they were born, both on their mother's lap. She saw her mother was looking directly at her twin's forehead, were his birthmark was in clear view. She chuckled lightly as she imagined the conversation that went on after and how they ended up agreeing to give him his nickname.
She flipped through the pages and saw many more childhood photos, most of them displaying both her and her brother together. She also stumbled upon some pictures of just her and her mother doing things together. She had always had a great relationship with her mother, maybe because they were the only two women in the family. Of course Dipper was her best friend and was fun to be around, but there always something things she would rather do with her than with him.
Mabel sighed; she wished she had same kind of relationship with her daughter. Erin seemed to prefer Bill over her, but who could blame her? They were so much alike…
Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted when she heard a loud explosion outside. Nothing too surprising, seeing as she lived with two demons. Well, a demon and a half.
She peeked through the sliding door that gave access to the backyard and saw they were both outside, Erin pointing her hands towards the spot where there once stood a statue of a manticore, which was now reduced to rubble.
"How was that?" she asked her father in her usual emotionless tone.
"Not bad." Bill replied as he snapped his fingers, which made the statue reappear. "But you still have a lot to learn."
Mabel observed her daughter as she blew a strand of hair away from her forehead. Erin was fourteen and had already begun to blossom into a young lady. Soon she would be making her own decisions and feeling too independent to rely on her parents. Before they knew it she would be graduating and moving out, without having a chance to actually spend some quality time with her mother.
She had to act fast, and she had to act now.
"Hey, guys!" she greeted them as she slid the door open and stepped into the yard. "What'cha doin'?
"Practicing." Erin replied.
"I was just showing junior here a little trick or two." Bill added as he tousled Erin's hair, much to her annoyance. "Getting her in touch with her true potential."
"That's nice." Mabel grinned. "But if you're done with that for now, do you think I could borrow Erin for an hour or two?"
"For what?" Erin asked, raising a brow at her mother.
"Well, sweetie…" she gazed down at her daughter, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You and I are going to have a mother-daughter day."
"A what?"
"Where going to spend the rest of the day together and do girl stuff, just like I used to do with my mom."
"Oh." Erin paused, seemingly in thought. "Sounds lame."
"No, it's really fun!" Mabel refuted. "You'll see."
"Uh, Shooting Star? A word?" Bill said as pulled Mabel aside. "Do you think that's really a good idea?"
"Of course! Why wouldn't it be?"
"Well, I hate to remind you of this, but Erin isn't like other girls."
"So?"
"So your idea of mother-daughter fun time might not go as well as you'd like."
"Oh, please." She scoffed. "It'll be fine! We're just gonna spend some time together. What's the worst that could happen?"
"I can think of a wide variety of things." Bill deadpanned.
"You worry too much, corn chip." She assured him and pecked his cheek, noticing how his eye twitched slightly when she called him by his least favorite nickname. "We'll be back in a few hours."
"Alright…" he sighed in defeat. "Good luck."
"You're going to love this day, sweetie." Mabel said as they drove across town. "We're gonna have lots of fun!"
"Sure." Erin mumbled, absentmindedly observing the scenery from the window. "Where are we even going, anyway?"
"To one of the best places on Earth."
Erin was about to ask her mother to explain herself, but all her questions were answered when they turned into the Gravity Malls parking lot.
"The mall? Are you serious?"
"I'm dead serious. You see this face?" she pointed at herself, her expression one of odd determination. "This is my serious face."
Erin rolled her eye as her mother parked the car close to the main entrance. After unbuckling her seatbelt, she opened the door and slowly exited the car, wanting to be anywhere but there. Maybe, if she could distract her mother long enough, she might be able to escape.
That was, of course, if she hadn't just grabbed her hand as she began to make her way towards the automatic doors.
"Mom, do you really need to hold my hand like that?" she asked, trying to tug her hand away from her mother's grasp.
"I wouldn't want you to get lost." Mabel replied, shooting her daughter a bright grin.
"But I'm a half-demon with supernatural powers. And I'm fourteen."
"The mall is a really big place. Plus there are a lot of strangers around here, so it's not very safe."
"For them, at least." Erin mumbled under her breath.
As soon as they set foot inside the building, the teenager immediately hated it. It was loud and it reeked of junk food, and the music playing in the air was enough to drive anyone nuts. Her mother, however, seemed to be in her element. She was dragging her around, glancing at every display window they passed with a wide smile across her face.
"Where exactly are you taking me?" Erin inquired, feeling her arm start to cramp up.
"I thought we could start our mother-daughter bonding experience with a little pampering." She declared, suddenly coming to a halt. "And here we are!"
Erin cocked a brow; they had stopped I front of what looked like a hair salon. The theme was ancient Rome. There were columns on each side of the door, the walls were painted dark red and golden, and all the employees were wearing togas over their clothes. She glanced up and saw the name of the salon seemed to be carved into stone above the door.
"Julius Scissors?" she almost laughed. "Seriously?"
"You'll be surprised how good they are. I come here every week." she stated before pulling her daughter inside.
"Mabel, so good to see you again!" exclaimed the nearest hairdresser, a young woman with short black hair.
"Hi, Delilah! I'd like the usual, but could also tend to my daughter today?" Mabel said as she wrapped an arm around Erin's shoulders.
"Oh, you must be Erin!" Delilah beamed. "Your mother's told me a lot about you."
"OK." Erin replied.
"Rachel, can you tend to Mrs. Cipher today?" Delilah asked one of her colleagues. "Today I'll be taking care of this pretty little lady."
Erin looked up at her mother, who gave her a wink and two thumbs up before leaving with the other employee. Erin released a small sigh and followed Delilah towards the wash basins.
"You can sit on this chair, dear." Said Delilah as she gestured towards the chair in question.
Erin didn't even grace her with an answer; she simply complied to her directions and closed her eye as Delilah pulled her long hair into the basin and started washing it. Oddly enough, she could feel herself begin to relax as Delilah massaged her scalp in a soothing way.
Mabel and Erin exited the salon around an hour later, the brunette's hair now completely straightened out and her nails a shimmering shade of hot pink. Erin simply had hers washed and dried. Delilah wanted to give her a whole new look, but the teenager didn't allow her. When it came the time to paint her nails, she chose black over a wide range of colors they had shown her.
"I wish you had let Delilah change your hair." Mabel commented as she pulled her daughter towards their next stop. "You would've looked fantastic!"
"I prefer simplicity." Erin replied. "So where are we going next?"
"Well, our hair is done, but our faces still need a touch up."
Erin hated to admit, but she actually liked the way she looked now. When her mother dragged in into a cosmetics store where the sales personnel applied makeup on them for free, she wanted to burn the entire building down. But after scaring the life out of one of the makeup artists when she pulled her hair away from her face and saw her right eye, she found herself enjoying it. Plus she had to admit the girl did a really good job on her. Again she chose black as her preferred color, her pale complexion looking even paler now that she had black eyeshadow and black lipstick on. Her mother, however, had gotten a much more elaborate makeover.
Mabel decided to treat Erin to some ice cream as a thank you for how well she was behaving, the teenager choosing sugar-free pistachio and her mother triple chocolate. They walked around the mall as they ate their ice cream cones and glanced at the stores they passed.
"I really love your new look, sweetie." Mabel told her, taking a large bite of her ice cream. "It suits you."
"I know." Erin replied, unable to keep herself from giving her mother a small smile. "Thanks, mom."
"No problem." Mabel beamed. "See, I knew you'd enjoy spending some time with your mom. I always loved hanging out with your grandmother. She always had fun stuff planned for us, and it was really – "
Mabel trailed off when she noticed Erin had stopped in front of the display window of Edgy on Purpose and was staring at the articles on the display. She seemed to be mesmerized, not even noticing that her ice cream had begun to melt and was dripping down her hand.
"See something you like?" Mabel grinned as she approached her daughter.
"This stuff looks really cool." Erin commented without looking away. "How come I didn't know this stuff existed?"
Mabel was about to reply when suddenly the store's door opened and a teenage boy walked out. He was dressed all in black and had a few piercings on his face. He glanced at Erin, eyeing her from top to bottom, and smiled to himself. Mabel immediately nudged her daughter to get her attention, pointing towards the boy with her head. Erin followed her mother's gaze and raised a brow when she saw the boy wink at her before he left in the direction of the food court.
"Would you look at that." Mabel chuckled, wiggling her eyebrows. "I think he likes you."
"Well, I don't like him." Erin retorted, throwing the rest of her melted ice cream cone into the nearest trash can. "Can we go, now?"
"Yes, but there's one more place where I want to take you."
Erin was surprised when her mother parked the car on the edge of the road and took her into the woods. She had imagined she wanted to go somewhere else where they could something do girly and such, but never to a place like that.
"Mom, where are we going?" Erin asked as she pushed some foliage away with her powers.
"Somewhere very important." Mabel declared as she pushed one final bush away, revealing a small garden filled with flowers.
They made their way into the middle of the garden, Mabel leaning down and taking a big whiff out of one of them. Erin was curious about what the flowers were doing there. It was unusual of a whole flower garden to grow in the middle of the woods like that.
"This place is very special to me." Mabel stated as she straightened herself up. "It reminds me of the beauty in the world, and the lessons one can learn."
Erin could hear the nostalgic sadness in her mother's voice. It felt like she was hiding something, but she decided not to push it, telling herself it was probably a question for another time. She glanced down at the flowers, their petals glowing in the afternoon sunshine. What could be so special about that place?
"Well, that's enough of that." Mabel suddenly broke the silence, lightly wiping the corners of her eyes with one of the sleeves of her pink turtleneck. "What do you say we head home?"
"Bill, we're home!" Mabel declared as she opened the door, no response being heard. "Bill?"
"There's a note, mom." Erin said, picking up a small piece of paper from the end table by the door. "Dad says he's gone to the mindscape to take care of some business, and will be back later."
"That's actually good. I want to show you something private."
Mabel took Erin into her and Bill's bedroom and told her to sit down on their bed while she looked for something. She entered the walk in closet and returned a few moments later with a large cardboard box in her hands.
"I want to show something that barely anyone has ever seen before." She said as she set the box down on her bed and sat down. "Memories from my first summer in Gravity Falls."
Erin watched curiously as her mother opened the box, revealing its contents, which consisted in a variety of odd objects and a large pink book.
"Would you believe me if I told that your father and me didn't always get along?" she asked as she took the book from inside the box and opened it. "In fact, there was a time when we were sworn enemies."
"All he told me was that the tried to take over the world once." Erin replied, glancing at the pictures of her mother and her twin brother as kids.
"Did he tell you that we were the reason he failed?"
Erin instantly looked up at her mother in awe, who now had a smug grin spread across her face.
"W-what?" was all the half-demon teenager was able to say.
"Your uncle Dipper and I were spending the summer here when your father started his plans for world domination." Mabel continued, flipping through the pages filled with photos. "He almost succeeded, if it weren't for us and our great-uncles."
"What's that?" Erin inquired, pointing at a photo of what looked like a house-shaped robot.
"Oh, that!" Mabel chuckled. "That's the Shacktron. It was a giant robot we built to fight your father."
"Wait… you built a giant robot?" Erin almost shouted, her eye as wide as a saucer.
"Well, not just me. I had the help of your uncle and bunch of friends. We were really determined to save the town, so we built a giant robot out of the Mystery Shack."
Erin could barely believe her ears. She had never imagined her mother to be so… extreme. She always seemed to be so calm and collected…
"Oh my gosh, I haven't seen this in years!" Mabel suddenly exclaimed, making Erin jump out of her thoughts.
She reached into the box and pulled out… a grappling hook?!
"Can you imagine your old mom rocking this thing back in the day?" she grinned as she twirled it around.
"Did you seriously used to use a grappling hook?" Erin asked incredulously.
"Oh, if only you knew half of what I did with this thing…" she chuckled.
"Wow… I never thought I'd say this, but… you're actually kind of cool, mom." Erin said, giving her mother a real smile for the first time in her life.
"Aw… Thanks, sweetie!" Mabel said, pulling her daughter in for a tight hug. "I think you're pretty cool, too."
"Thanks, but please don't push it." She groaned, returning to her usual gloomy mood.
"I'm back!" Bill declared as he suddenly teleported into the room.
"Hi, honey!" Mabel greeted her husband. "How was the mindscape?"
"A living nightmare, just like I left it." Bill declared proudly.
"Mom, can I go now?" Erin asked, pulling herself away from Mabel's embrace. "I promised Ash I'd video chat with him today. He says he wants to show this new game called Uppertale."
Mabel nodded and watched her daughter leave her room, a big smile across her face.
"I take it your mother-daughter day went well." Bill commented, taking a seat next to his wife.
"It went great! I feel like we really bonded." She sighed happily. "She's a great kid."
"I should hope so. She does take after her dad, after all." Bill said smugly.
"At least she's not as full of herself as you are." She giggled, elbowing him gently.
"Well, that part she takes after you." He spoke softly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
Mabel's smile grew even bigger and she pecked her husband on the lips, pulling him into a tight embrace. As Bill returned the hug just as tightly, she felt like the luckiest woman in the world, especially now that she felt like Erin and her had finally connected.