Gravity Falls.
This town has always been peculiar. Not a day goes without some crazy new phenomenon messing things up, or some new creature crawling from the woods to give me and mine a headache. After living here so long, after all I have seen, you'd think I would be done questioning things; that I would stop being baffled by events and just take things as they come. Roll with the punches. But no, that's not what has happened. Even with everything that we have seen so far over this summer, I could not have seen this coming.
I mean, sure I'm a liar and a cheat. Nobody's perfect. And yea, I have witnessed things- real things- that would land me in a ward faster than you can say 'free money' if I went around spewing it all over town. But this… This either takes the cake of most convincing con ever, or it's the weirdest thing this town has seen yet.
The twins and I must have canvassed every idiot in this backwater dump. In a small town where everybody knows everybody I figured it would be a cake walk. It isn't as if a woman like her could possibly blend in and go unnoticed, especially in a town like this. We dug and dug and scraped for information like a bunch of hungry dogs, and what do we have to show for it? Nothing! Bubkiss! Nada! Just a woman who makes no sense to me, and one heck of a headache. Maybe I run the Mystery Shack. My whole business is run on 'the mysterious' and the 'unexplained', but I hate being kept in the dark personally. Jeez…
Perhaps it would be better for me to keep my big nose out of it. Everyone has their secrets, I guess. Just look at my life and what skeletons I have buried in my closet. Hell, I am more familiar than anyone I know about how dirty someone's hands can be without letting anyone else ever know. Even so, I can't help but wonder why.
Why did she come here, of all places a woman like her could go?
Why would she single me out against every younger man worth his salt?
Why does she keep coming back?
Why does the air seem electric when she walks into a room? And why…
Why do I feel so afraid when I see her leave, as if she will walk away and I will never see her again?
Like today when she left the Shack to attend to 'personal affairs'. A kiss on my cheek, a goodbye to the kids, and she walked off the porch like she was just a regular Joe on her way into work. In that moment I felt my stomach grow cold as I watched her disappear into the woods, as if that was the end and the time we had together would fade into memory. I can't explain why the thought of that bothers me so badly as if her leaving me behind would be a fate crueler than any I've suffered in my long and morally questionable life.
She came back again this time. The sun had set, and there she was, laughing with the twins, joking with Soos, putting her arms around me just like she has done since we first crossed paths. The way she acts, it's as if she fits perfectly in our lives and has since the beginning. Admittedly, this is what raised my suspicions in the first place, and part of me still doesn't trust how easily she settled herself into the Mystery Shack, into the lives of the kids, and into my bed. It is so baffling that on some nights I sit awake staring at the shadows, wondering how this could happen to me. I'm not the sort of person a woman like her would have an infatuation with and I'm not exactly someone who has a lot to offer. A life of swindles and cons and all I have to show for it is a criminal record, and a run-down tourist trap. I'm not a romantic man, or a rich one; and to be honest, I'm not the most handsome man either.
So how did this happen? How did things progress this far?
It started so suddenly that I hardly had time to question it, and by the time I had the gall to, it was too late. There was nothing I could say or do to make her leave. The witch cast her spell or whatever, and she got me. Girl got me good. Maybe I could have tried a little harder to get her out. I could have threatened her, pulled out the brass knuckles and fought her off, but I didn't. Hell, I don't think I could if I wanted to. Just thinking about it now causes me to ache. Feels like I am having a heart attack that leaves me feeling cold, empty, and listless. The Mystery Shack is stuck with another resident, and after spending a summer with her, I'm honestly not sure that I mind anymore.
Sometimes I think about how this all started. Ah, even if I wanted to, I don't think I could have helped falling for her. The way she fought, the way she looked at me, and the way Dipper and Mabel fawned over her. It's funny to think about, and sometimes in the night as I sit awake running a scarred, gruff paw over her sun kissed skin my mind ventures back to when this all started. It began with a wave of trouble in the Shack. A different kind of trouble from the norm, as if someone was out to get us.