Circle Unbroken
(July 1, 2015)
Midnight on the first of July was no time to be outside in Gravity Falls. For one thing, although the weather was warm enough, the Gnomes were very active on nights of the full moon, as were the giant bats, the Gaunts, the Tricky Picksies, the occasional werewolf, and a few other supernaturdoodle creaturemawhatzits (Fiddleford's term), as well as ordinary mountain lions, wolves, coyotes, dyslectic squosmitoes, and assorted other natural creatures of the, like, night, you know, dawg (Soos's term).
However, to the Mystery Shack the invited ones came, ten of them in all, counting Stanford. Some, like Gideon and Stanley, attended under protest, some, like Pacifica and Dipper, apprehensively, some, like Fiddleford and Stanford, earnestly and full of curiosity, some, like Mabel and Soos, ready to take on the world and have snacks later, and finally there were Teek (shivering but game) and Wendy (laid back and cool).
Together they made up the Zodiac.
They boarded the Mystery Shack tram and Soos drove them a little farther along the Mystery Trail than tourists ever traveled, until they came to Ballet Flats, not the shoes but the nearly-level broad shelf of land bordering Little Cold Creek. It was probably an old flood plain, but it gave them what they needed: a flat area open to the sky and away from distractions.
Dipper was, under cover of darkness—though the bright moonlight made that cover problematic—holding Wendy's hand. Via their touch-telepathy, she asked, You scared, Dip?
—More worried than scared. This didn't work out so good the first time around.
Yeah, but this time at least Stan's on board.
Ford had been pacing off a sizeable chunk of ground. At intervals, he stooped and placed a votive candle in a glass holder and with a lighter he set fire to each wick. The candles must have been specially prepared. One burned a clear blue, the next vivid green, the next yellow, then orange, red, purple, pink, mulberry, indigo, and—flannel? The flame looked like it was a red-white-and black plaid, anyway.
Ford then used a hissing spray can—filled with an aerosolized fluorescent chalk powder, not paint, though—to draw a glowing blue circle within the perimeter of the lights. He stepped to the center, cleared his throat, and said, "Thank you all for coming. As I've told each of you individually, we are facing a threat of unknown power and danger. Whoever it is seems to be targeting the individual members of the Zodiac. If we are unwary and unprepared, the enemy might pick us off one by one. This ritual will reaffirm our bonds of friendship and support each for each. It may not fully protect us, but I feel certain it will help raise our awareness and our sensitivity to danger. It well may insulate us, too, from direct supernatural attack. In about five minutes, the full moon will reach the zenith. We need to find our places in the circle and join hands. Any questions?"
"Yeah," Stan rumbled. "This hand-holding stuff is okay, but are we allowed to pack heat? And brass knucks?"
"You have that right, of course," Ford said. "But the enemy is evidently stealthy and powerful. You might not even realize you were under attack until it was too late to resort to brass nuts."
"Knucks," Stan corrected. "Sheesh!"
"How are you doing, Gideon?" Ford asked in an encouragingly friendly way.
Gideon—who, with his weight loss and his buffed-up bod would be someone Mabel wouldn't mind holding hands with, truth be told—was in a short-sleeved blue tee shirt. He rubbed his arms, though the night was far from cold. "I'm OK," he said. "Not bristlin' with fur and growin' fangs and pointy ears, anyhow, but the moonlight makes me right itchy."
That was the effect of the teen's short spell as a half-turned werewolf. Dipper thought that for the rest of his life Gideon would have at least a mild allergy to full moons.
"Bear with it for a few minutes. Anything else? Anyone? No?" Ford asked. "It's time. Find your places."
Wendy went straight for the flannel candle. It was next to the blue one, which burned the exact shade of Dipper's pine-tree cap. He stood there. Teek hesitated, but Mabel led him to the red candle. "Red for the heart," she told him, kissing his cheek.
Mabel took her stand at the purple candle, Pacifica the pink, Soos the green, Fiddleford the orange, Gideon the yellow. Stanford took up his station at the mulberry candle, leaving the indigo one for Stanley.
"Hold hands," Ford said.
They joined hands. "This is embarrassing. Leastways there's no insane demon here tonight," Stan muttered.
A vibration began. Dipper felt it. It surged like wine in his veins. And a glow formed around them, not pale and blue as had happened in the Fearamid, but a bold red, the color of a war banner.
"Dudes!" Soos said. "Do you dawgs, like, feel that?"
Dipper held tight and felt the pounding force, a pulse of positive energy. He took a deep breath and felt as if he were inhaling strength and confidence. "Wah-wah-wow!" Mabel gasped.
Gideon whispered, "Oh, my stars!"
Fiddleford reverted to his hillbilly scat-singing: "Whoopty doodly! She-BANG! Ya-ha-ha-hoooey!"
Pacifica, surprisingly, sounded as if it were quite a sensuous experience: "Yes! Yes! OMG, yes!"
Stan's comment was "Hot tamales!"
They each felt it, a mystical intoxication, a sense of unity and purpose they would fight hard to remember later—though not one of them would ever be able to fully recapture it. The older among them felt younger and stronger. The younger felt older and wilier. Confidence filled them like molten gold, shining through their skins. For that one instant, nothing, no power on Earth, could have threatened them.
And then the earth turned, the moon no longer shone directly overhead, and the experience seeped away from them, water soaking into a thirsty soil.
They let go of each other's hands.
Soos said, "Oh, man, dudes, that was intense. Wouldn't it be cool if, like, every one of us could give everybody else a part of what makes them strong?"
"I think we just did," Dipper said.
"Yeah, but, man, I'd, like, love to have permanently just a little bit of your smarts, Dip! And some of Dr. Mr. Pines's experience, and some of Mr. Pines's trickiness, and, uh, I guess some of Pacifica's fashion sense . . . uh, you get where I'm going with this, right?"
The candles guttered and went out, and Ford collected the holders. "This might help us," he said, his voice placid and confident. "I won't ask you to stay longer tonight—tomorrow is a work day, I realize—but perhaps this weekend we can meet and talk about this threat."
Still feeling illuminated, they agreed and Teek tentatively suggested a time on Saturday, before Stan said, "No way, José! Fourth of July, knuckleheads! The Shack's big day and night, barbecue, games, and fireworks at the lake after. Let's do it Sunday night instead."
They agreed. It seemed they could all make an eight P.M. meeting, and Fiddleford offered to host it in the mansion. They got back in the tram, Soos said, "I feel, like, exalted! Like I got Soosperpowers! I bet I can drive this tram back to the Shack with my eyes closed!"
"Twenty bucks says ya can't!" Stan shot back.
Nobody was hurt in the crash, but by the time they dragged back to the Shack on foot, Stan was twenty dollars richer and Soos was saying, "I just need some daylight and I know I can get it running again, dawgs."
Though none of the Zodiac had noticed, two figures had paced them. When the circle formed, one stood in the forest just across the creek, peering through the trees. A second, not in human form, crouched at the top of a hill and blended in with the surroundings the way a predator might.
One of the observers set off to report to, well, a very unpleasant man about what had gone on.
The second observer set off to keep the first one from reporting.
By any means necessary.
That night one of them succeeded, at least partly.
The other failed, but not completely.
And the world spun on toward a day of reckoning.
The End