Rebound
Rain pattered gently against the windows of the gift shop; each droplet slid quickly down the thin glass. A young girl sat at the clear wall with giggles emitting from her; one free finger ran down the window as she tried to follow each and every streak of water. She wasn't having much luck following the lines, since it was pouring so hard. Her other hand haphazardly placed tacky bobble-heads of Stan Pines on the rickety shelves of the Mystery Shack.
Dipper Pines sighed as he watched the young brunette girl next to him; sometimes it was hard to believe Mabel was related to him, much less his twin sister. Even moreso with how well they got along despite their constantly differing interests. He supposed that twelve years of sticking around each other would do that to anyone. Beyond that, it would be completely wrong to say they were totally different—they just happened to express their 'way' through different personalities. This was particularly evident as the brunette boy helped his twin stock the shop with one hand while flipping through his journal with the other.
Yes, for certain: both twins had an attention span that focused primarily on what they wanted to do.
"Whoa-ho-ho!" Mabel giggled. Dipper looked up speculatively from an article on something called a Gremgoblin only to see piles of bobble-heads lying all around her feet. She bent over to pick up one of the bouncing dolls, maneuvering it across the wood floor and over the faded carpet in front of the register. Wendy looked up from her magazine for a minute or two, shrugged, then went back to her article with a small smile on her face.
"Mabel…" Dipper said, trying to sound exasperated and failing horribly. It was probably the smile he was biting his lip to keep off his face. He supposed it didn't really matter if she messed around a little today—the pouring rain was keeping all customers away from the Shack anyways. As if she read his mind, Mabel whipped around to look at him and then grinned widely.
"Dipper! I am Grunkle Stan!" She said as she tried her best to imitate their older relative. With her high pitched and youthful voice, it wasn't very efficient, but it gained an amused snort from the redhead behind the counter. Mabel switched her gaze from her brother to Wendy and back, then proceeded to make the bobble-head in her hand hobble towards Dipper.
"Oh geez…" He murmured. After finally speaking he could no longer keep his lips from curling upwards.
"Give me all your money, Dipper! Or else I'll…" Mabel paused for a moment to think. Then her face brightened. "…I'll make you watch ye olden time sappy movies with me!"
"No! Not the olden time sappy movies!" Dipper cried out, smacking his free hand over his eyes overdramatically. Mabel giggled shrilly. From her position at the cash register, Wendy had put her magazine down to watch the two kids with an amused smile painting her lips. "Anything but that! You've gone too far this time, Grunkle Stan."
"Of course I have, because in reality I am…" The brunette girl paused for effect. "…a nefarious DEMON occupying Grunkle Stan, here to take all your bobble-head dolls from the shop!"
"What kind of demon would want bobble-heads?" Wendy asked, tone still amused. Dipper had puffed up his cheeks in annoyance.
"What kind of demon WOULDN'T want bobble-heads?" Mabel retorted. Wendy rolled her eyes but fell into silence.
Dipper made to reply, but was interrupted by the sound of the front door slamming open. The sound of heavy rain hitting the welcome mat graced the ears of everyone in in the shop. Surprised, all three of them looked up from their silly fantasy game. The magazine dropped from Wendy's hand as she strode over to register quickly, rolling her eyes to look at the ceiling while tapping the keys in front of her in an attempt to look busy. The twins were not nearly as occupied (despite the piles of bobble-heads lying around them). Their eyes instead focused on the silhouette in the door as it slowly came into focus.
A young girl. No older than them.
She had blonde hair, so pale in color that it almost looked white upon first observation. The locks were cut off slightly below the equally pale ear. Said strands were cropped outwards and appeared to be heavily gelled; the tips were so loaded with product that they seemed to curl upwards. Below bangs that were cut in a sharp and straight manner were light brown eyes peering out at them in what almost seemed to be amusement—they were oddly captivating. Perhaps it was the pupils, Dipper figured—though round in shape, they carried an almost oval slant to them. It was almost slightly unnerving.
Her tiny body was covered in a bright yellow dress similar to the bizarre old movies that Grunkle Stan often occupied himself with—flaring outwards around the ankles with an extravagant white trim of lace. The upper part of the dress couldn't be seen at all, aside from the puffy and lace trimmed sleeves covering her arms. The rest was covered with a pitch black and surprisingly plain cloak that tied up right at her neck. The only distinctive trait of it was a series of triangles lining the bottom of the fabric.
And then the girl smiled.
There was something creepy about the smile, but Dipper couldn't put his finger on what. He felt like he should recognize that smile but it was like a portion of his mind was being forcefully blocked out just by the blonde girl standing in front of him with a black umbrella slung over her left shoulder.
"Hello there…young man." She announced. Her voice was a high pitched, mocking squeak. A slight cackling laugh seemed to accompany every word she said. She definitely sounded feminine, but the girlishness also sounded slightly forced. Dipper wasn't sure what to make of it. "Is this the Mystery Shack?"
"…Who—" Dipper began, but Mabel immediately interrupted him.
"Well hidey-ho, fancy lady!" She said cheerfully, bounding forward to squish the newcomer's cheeks together. Dipper winced, knowing how much it could hurt when Mabel did that, but no anger came—the blonde girl's grin simply widened. "You have in fact found your dream destination! The Mystery Shack is here to serve all your mysterious needs!"
"Try to oversell it a little more there." Wendy commented.
"Alrighty!" The brunette girl replied, completely oblivious to the redhead's sarcasm. "Weeeeel~come to the MYYYYSTERIOUS Mystery Shaaaaack! If you seek the BEST of the best in the crazy lore of Gravity Falls then you, ma'am, have come to the right place! We know it all, we've seen it all! And we can share it all with YOU!"
"You asked, she delivered." Dipper shrugged, turning to the cashier. He knew Mabel could get pretty over the top when she was bored, and he had to admit that stacking dolls of their Grunkle was a pretty boring job. Especially when there was no one in the Shack.
"You can share it with me, huh?" The girl's replied. Dipper turned back to stare at his sister and the odd girl at the door—she had closed the umbrella and was now using it as some sort of cane. "Then I really HAVE come to the right place, haven't I?"
Why does this all seem so familiar? Dipper thought desperately. It's like there's a part of my brain that I can't access at all!
"I am Wilma." The blonde said smoothly. "I have come seeking…ah, what was it again…ha, right. Adventure and mystery. All the adventure and mystery you can find."
"Tour of the museum is ten bucks." Wendy drawled immediately. Then she checked a piece of paper in front of her. "Twenty on rainy days."
"Ya got a library as part of your museum tour?" Wilma hunched over and imitated Wendy's drawl, the slick and taunting grin still painting her features. But she immediately caught sight of the redhead's blank and annoyed stare and laughed loudly. "Calm down there…! I'm just messing with you."
"Look, I don't think—" Dipper began but Wilma was in front of him immediately, tapping the tip of her umbrella against the boy's round nose. It was almost mocking, in a way.
"I'm not here to ask much, P…young man." She said, slamming her umbrella tip down on the ground in front of her and painting her face with a mournful expression. "I just want to stick around for a little while."
"Grunkle Stan's out, isn't he?" Mabel questioned. "He went to go get something from the convenience store."
"Oh, right…we don't give tours while Stan is gone. Sorry, kid." Wendy shrugged and returned to her magazine. Dipper shot a triumphant look at the blonde customer—he didn't know what she was but he didn't want her in the Shack, either. Something about her seemed incredibly off. He didn't know what. Maybe she was a witch or something…though he couldn't recall if witches were in the journal.
"Ha! Oh, what a shame." Wilma shook her head mournfully, and then brightened up considerably. "If that's the case, I'll just have to come back tomorrow! Don'tcha think?"
"No!" Dipper cried out immediately. Both Mabel and Wilma shot looks at him—one confused, another slightly smug. "I…I mean…the Mystery Shack is closed tomorrow! You can't come here tomorrow. Gee, what a shame, right?"
"What're you talking about, Dipper, the Shack isn—" Mabel began, but was cut off by her brother slapping a hand across her mouth. She mumbled incoherently through it but it was no use.
"Well then. I'll just have to come back….sometime soon, then?" Wilma said. She seemed surprisingly patient considering the odd, childish titters that lined her speech. "I suppose I'll see you soon, then."
She was not a girl untrue to her word.
And she certainly didn't believe in Dipper's half-assed lie, either. Wilma had turned up on the front porch the very next day and strode in with a certain air of determination about her. Dipper and Mabel watched her from one of the aisles, almost hiding behind a stack of 'dictionaries of the unknown'. One of Dipper's hands restrained his energetic sister from rushing out to greet the odd customer. It seemed, however, that Wilma was having none of that nonsense—in mere seconds the girl stood in front of the dictionaries with a cocky grin.
With that, she kicked the dictionaries over. Dipper gasped audibly as they tumbled to the ground in front of both twins; Mabel just groaned quietly, as if she had lost her game of hide and seek to the blonde. Wilma smiled, what Dipper assumed had been intended as a pleasant smile. It just ended up coming off as mildly disturbing. The smile seemed to display almost all her teeth behind the rose painted lips.
"Hello again. Now who would figure that you two would be messing around this neighborhood?" She laughed loudly and offered Dipper a hand up; he hesitantly accepted it and let the girl pull him up. "Hey now, don't look TOO unhappy to see me there, uh, buddy!"
"It's Dipper." He said in an irritated tone. Mabel stumbled to her feet with a wide grin. She seemed to be content with the fact that Wilma was focusing all of her free attention on her brother. "Dipper Pines."
"Guess I just didn't catch it last time, huh, Dipper Pines?" Wilma replied teasingly. "So look, I see old man Stan is still here today!" She gestured with her free hand at Grunkle Stan, spinning her wrist a slight bit at the man trying to sell some useless junk to a group of tourists. "I guess that means my tour is available now, riiiight?"
"Well, I mean, I…"
"Hey! Hey. What's goin' on here?" Dipper jumped slightly at the sound of his Grunkle's very close voice—turning his head slightly he realized with an open mouth that the old man must have finished up with the tourists, because he was now looming over all three of them with fists on his hips. A cocky, almost amused smirk crossed his face. "You tryin' to win over some girls there, kid?"
"W-WHAT?! No!" Dipper shrieked, almost embarrassed at the high pitch his voice managed to reach.
"Oh right, my bad. GIRL." Stan waved his hand dismissively. "Probably shouldn't assume you have the audacity to go for more than one at a time anyways."
"Hey!"
"Are you the owner of this Shack?" Wilma asked innocently, crossing her hands in front of her yellow dress and kicking one foot out to the side. Stan raised an eyebrow at the girl and kneeled down next to her. His eyes narrowed slightly. Then, to the surprise of the twins, the old scamster proceeded to poke the young girl in the head—Wilma only emitted a sharp and forced laugh. "Don't be SILLY, now! All I want is a tour of the stuff that this old place has to offer! You shouldn't be mean to little girls, you know."
Stan was quiet for a moment, then he rose to his feet and shrugged. "Ten dollars, kid. Pay up or get out."
Wilma's eyes almost seemed to glow for a second, a bright and distracting yellow color, as her grip on Dipper's hand tightened to almost painful levels. But her grin didn't disappear for even a second as she reached behind her back and pulled a ten dollar bill out of seemingly nowhere. More and more, Dipper was starting to believe that this weird kid was some sort of a witch—he considered analyzing that bill later if he could get it away from Stan (which was unlikely), but was interrupted by the blonde girl's request cutting through his thoughts.
"I want THESE TWO to give me the tour, old buddy!" She laughed loudly at the incredulous look on their faces (minus Mabel, who looked very amused by the prospect). Stan stared at the blonde for a second, then at the twins, then back to the blonde. Wilma was tapping her feet impatiently.
"Less work for me, I guess." Stan finally said. Then he turned to look at a young woman pawing through one of the shelves absentmindedly. "HEY! Lady! Would you be interested in a BOX OF MYSTERY? You could end up finding anything you want in there—even your dream come true!"
Wilma wasted no time, not even for the perplexed glance that most customers sent towards the trickster old man. She simply rushed off towards the back of the store to push through the curtains of the museum. Dipper rubbed absentmindedly at his now empty hand—weird probable witch girl or not, she certainly had soft gloves. It was really strange to him that such an odd, obviously off kilter girl would have such nice possessions. His train of thought, however, was interrupted by Mabel giggling loudly next to him.
"What?" Dipper demanded.
"You're thinking of gi~rls!" She proclaimed in a sing-song voice. Quickly she changed to imitating Dipper. "Oh man she's got soft hands! W-wow, maybe she can help me solve a mystery so we can have some time together! Oh but I'd just mess it up, oh man, I bet something would ea—"
"Mabel, are you even hearing yourself?!" Dipper snapped. "That girl is weird. I sure as heck don't LIKE her. She's giving me some freaky, weird feelings like…I dunno, like she's gonna try and pull something weird! Or try and kill us. I don't know. There's just something really wrong with that girl."
"Oh man, I-I feel so weird around her! She's gotta be some sort of crazy mythological monster! It's not that I'm just a pervert and I can't admit when I feel crushes on girls!" Mabel mocked, hobbling around the room awkwardly. Dipper frowned. "Ohhh, she's so pretty and determined and—"
"I don't even know why I ask you anything."
"Because as you know, Mabel knows the answer to everything." His twin sister replied with complete confidence. He rolled his eyes. "Besides, what's wrong with Wilma?"
"…I just told you exactly what's wrong with her. She seems…familiar somehow." Dipper cringed. "Everything about her comes off as something I've seen before. Her smile, her eyes, even the way she holds that dumb umbrella…ugh, it just creeps me out."
"Creeps you out or makes you love her moooore?" Mabel chirped. Dipper rolled his eyes again—there was just some stuff that wasn't worth talking to his sister about. Apparently this was destined to be one of them. He filed it in the back of his mind to never talk about his suspicions if they involved a girl. "Oh her eyes! Oh her smile! Oh, our destiny from way back when that I can't quite remember!"
"Oh, just knock it off, Mabel."
"Never!" She said with a wide grin. Dipper could see she meant to continue, but Wilma stuck her head out of the museum doors with a wide grin. "She's just a normal girl. Geez, Dipper. Don't be so paranoid."
"Hey! Hurry up there, kiddos! We've got some stupid fake exhibits to go through!" She laughed at some inner joke and gestured them forward towards the door—both twins quickly scurried over to her side. Wilma chuckled and grabbed Dipper's hand, dragging him in. Looking back he realized that Mabel had stayed back outside. He grimaced. Great, just what he needed. Mabel forming some dumb ploy.
"Uh, hmm. Well…" Dipper turned around to face the slightly darkened museum—a few feet away from him stood Wilma, umbrella tapping impatiently against the wood floor. One of her legs hung loosely in the air and her wide eyes drilled right into him. "UH, o-okay. Time for a tour, right?"
"The little girlie isn't coming along?" Wilma asked. Dipper didn't like the tone in her voice; she sounded like she already knew the answer to her own question.
"Uh, no. I guess not. I can give you the tour myself, though…"
Wilma grin waned into something slightly different—not quite as smug. More…content. Long lashes curled over lidded eyes as she gazed down the hallway. With such an expression, Dipper could almost accept her as a normal child—just one who was a little bizarre in the way she acted. But he quickly shook the thought off. This was Gravity Falls, Oregon for God's sake. He couldn't just ignore the oddities of a person because they looked trustworthy for a minute or two.
So he figured, anyways.
"Let's go down the path, shall we."
And the soft, momentarily quiet voice free of laughter and deception fooled him into complacency. The looks she cast onto the fake exhibits, with a glimmer of amusement. How the strange blonde stuck out her arms, bent downwards at the elbow, and sauntered back and forth as she mocked the Cornacorn. Suddenly the cackle of laughter that had disturbing him previously…
…well, it wasn't so bad anymore.
Maybe Mabel was right.
From there on out Wilma visited often. Dipper didn't know why—she had already seen the exhibit and she didn't seem interested in buying anything from the gift shop. Instead she would amuse herself with the twins. Wilma would sit in the corner with Mabel, playing with silly modified dolls, throwing them stiffly over her shoulder with a sharp cackle in the heat of any 'scene' that they had decided to act out. The blonde girl would sit with Dipper in between the aisles flipping through Grunkle Stan's pamphlets of the unknown, laughing maniacally with him over the exaggerated things that the old man had decided to trick tourists with.
"Ha ha, oh man, can you believe this? He put down places you can sight that dumb unicorn of corn." Dipper wiped a tear from his face as tried to recover from his hysterical laughter.
"It's pretty off the charts, little buddy." Wilma grinned, flipping through the pamphlet absentmindedly. Occasionally she would stop on a specific entry and run her fingers across it as she whispered quietly to herself. Currently she was going over some entry on fairies. The brunette boy watched her for a moment then coughed awkwardly—Wilma looked up with wide eyes on a waning grin.
"You, uh, you're pretty into those." Dipper commented.
"Of course I am." She said brightly. "It's a hobby of mine."
"Hobby?"
"Yes. Hobby. I have two major hobbies, my precious little friend." Wilma snickered, as if laughing at her own joke. Dipper cocked his head to the side. He couldn't figure out what she thought was so funny, but even moreso he hadn't even begun to consider that Wilma would have hobbies. Mentally he berated himself for that train of thought—of course she had hobbies.
"So, uh, what are your hobbies?" Dipper asked nervously. He was slowly beginning to feel more and more like a fool around this girl.
"My hobbies are the supernatural." She paused for a moment. "…and reading. I LOVE to read!"
"What, really? Me too!" Dipper defied his own better judgment and jumped to his feet. It just caused the grin on Wilma's face to widen—somehow the brunette was slowly beginning to learn how to ignore how weird her face could look at times. It was becoming less creepy and more…he couldn't describe it. Charming, maybe. Like a unique quirk. "Like…I read this series of books about some brothers who solve weird mysteries, and some about a monster in a hidden forest, and the Jou…"
Dipper paused.
He couldn't believe himself—had he really been about to mention the Journal to this person who he had just met? He barely knew a thing about her. Hell, she had freaked him out thoroughly when she had first walked through the door of the Mystery Shack. She STILL kind of freaked him out from time to time. Why in the world would he even BEGIN to slip at revealing his greatest secret, privy only to him and his closest friends, to this strange smirking blonde girl?
Maybe because she shares your hobbies.
Maybe because you're always so paranoid and now you're second guessing yourself.
Maybe because you don't really have many friends your age.
Maybe because she's an oddity but…she's kinda cool and kinda pretty.
"Oh no." Dipper muttered to himself. "Not again."
Wilma simply flipped through a different pamphlet.
()()()()()()()()()
Up in his room Dipper flipped through the Journal at an astonishing speed. Across from him, Mabel lay snoring loudly. He didn't blame her. It was almost midnight and he had been flipping through his special book for hours at this point. Mabel hadn't been particularly interested in his paranoia to begin with; she had only giggled slightly and commented that he was growing obsessed with the new arrival in his life. Her twin scowled at the thought; he was not!
He was just being…cautious, that's all.
It was not in his favor, though. There wasn't a single page in the Journal that said anything about odd looking little girls that reminded you of someone that you couldn't remember, no sirree. Not even pages about little girl witches who cast weird spells on you or anything. There were pages on gnomes, and candy monsters, and even pages on some weird fat cheeked leprechaun pony thing that made Dipper raise his eyebrow a little…but nothing like Wilma.
Dipper sighed.
Mabel WAS right.
He had overreacted. Wilma was just an ordinary girl who happened to act a little quirky. Dipper almost felt a little bad; the poor girl couldn't help how she acted, it was just her personality. She was just like that. And it sure as hell wasn't her fault that she reminded him of someone or something who tickled obnoxiously at the back of his memory.
Dipper groaned and fell back on his bed. He kinda felt like a jerk now—just because some things in Gravity Falls were monstrous and dangerous didn't mean EVERYTHING that showed up was a threat. He had deducted that within the first day of living in the town. Yet he had forgotten his very own discovery almost the second that the blonde newcomer had walked cheerfully through the door.
He turned over to stare at the wall.
"I was right, wasn't I?"
Dipper nearly fell off the bed at the sound of his sister's voice. She laughed quietly, lying on her own side with a chubby cheeked smile spreading across her face. "Mabel! I-I thought you fell asleep like…two hours ago! What gives?! You nearly scared me half to death!"
"I was right, wasn't I?" She repeated. Mabel wasn't about to apologize for her brother's twitchy nature.
"I…maybe."
"Oh, Dipper…" She swung her skinny legs over the side of the bed and sat up with a pitying look on her face. "You try to make excuses too much, you know that? Sometimes things just ARE, you know?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Mabel."
"Oh, come ON, Dipper!" Mabel sighed exasperatedly as she kicked her feet back and forth. "I mean, you said she gave you a weird FEEL when she came into the Shack. Then you're hanging out with her, and you mention her smile and her eyes? Come onnnnn. All that's happening…is that you're translating your own feelings in a wrong way because you're so freakishly paranoid."
"But she DID give me a weird feeling! Like, a bad kind!" Dipper argued desperately.
"I didn't feel anything. Wendy didn't feel anything." Mabel shrugged. "It's just you, bro!"
"But I can't just trust her…"
"You didn't need a reason to trust Wendy." Mabel said seriously. Dipper flushed—it wasn't like his twin was wrong in that regard. "And you don't need a reason to trust Wilma, either. She's our friend now! She's always indulging us and playing with us! She's a good friend…and one who is our age for once. That's pretty nice, Dipper."
"But—"
"No buts, Dipper." Mabel stopped for a moment, snickered childishly, then continued. "You felt something when she came into the Mystery Shack. Being here in this town so long…maybe you just interpreted it as her being something to fear instead of being something to loooo~ve."
Dipper glared at his sister—her singsong mocking was starting to get annoying. Now wasn't the time to scold her over it, though (it wasn't like she would listen to him anyways), so he settled into his thoughts. Then finally, after a few minutes, he spoke in a quiet tone. A voice that sounded almost more scared than reassured. "Mabel…the feeling I got from Wilma is a lot different from the one I got from Wendy. I don't get it. How can it be the same thing if…well. You know?"
"Because." Mabel said simply. "Wilma isn't Wendy."
With that, the brunette girl tossed herself back against her pillow and feigned sleep. Dipper knitted his eyebrows; Mabel's words just didn't seem like enough information but he figured he'd have to make do with it. His face hit the pillow in an aggravated frustration as he tried to work it all out. Being twelve and trying to figure out feelings was no particularly easy task. Especially when the only prior example for said feelings had been based entirely on the coolness factor of the girl.
"Maybe this IS just a different way." He mumbled to himself, still fully confused. "Maybe I'm just trying to fool myself into believing that something bad is going to happen…"
So you don't have to accept that something good might happen.
But nothing good ever happens, now does it, Dipper Pines?
Maybe this isn't a threat.
She's not in the Journal.
She's a normal but kind of weird girl. She smiles really big. She likes what you like. Maybe she could be a good ally.
Maybe you should just give in—it might be what Mabel says it is, after all.
You fell for Wendy awfully fast, after all. Maybe it's just as quick for Wilma.
Dipper buried his face in his pillow. His mind went three hundred miles per hour with these difficult thoughts. These thoughts that he could hardly deny, after all. It felt like hours of such raging internal battle that he finally clenched his hands into fists and banged them against the soft mattress.
He was done with this indecisiveness.
He picked up the Journal and tucked it into his chest, drifting off into an uneasy sleep as he tried to prepare himself for the next day.
"A Journal?"
Wilma sounded amused, almost triumphant, as Dipper held out the battered old book to her. She didn't take it at first—she simply held her umbrella behind her back as she observed the Journal with half lidded eyes. He was surprised at how unfazed she seemed to be about his prize possession, so he flipped it open to show her a page within—the Undead. Her grin merely widened.
"That's fascinating, friend!" She chortled. "Truly fascinating."
She seemed too unfazed for Dipper's comfort, but he continued on anyways.
"Wilma, I've been going around Gravity Falls for a while now." Dipper explained. Wilma simply nodded patiently. "I've been encountering a lot of the crazy stuff that's in this Journal…all of it is completely real, I'm telling you. There's some secret behind this journal, and behind this PLACE, and everything in this SHOULD lead up to the answer!"
"You think so?"
"Do…do you not believe me?" Dipper said, face flushing in adamant embarrassment. Wilma laughed loudly, then waved a hand dismissively.
"I believe you, little one!" She said. "I just want to know what you intend to do with such information! It's so…severe!"
"Well, I…I'm gonna find out what the answer behind Gravity Falls' secret really is." Dipper said confidently; he noted with humiliation that the flush on his cheeks had yet to fade. "Mabel and Wendy and Grunkle Stan and Soos…we've all been working together to try and crack the code. And I think we're close, too! Y-you, uh, you could always, uh…ha ha, well, I mean…"
"I could always help?" Wilma cackled. "Oh, how quaint! Why would I not want to HELP? Other than a few billion reasons, but why regard those? You really are pretty out there. I like ya, you know that?"
Her voice seemed to be changing—losing the pitch of femininity.
White gloved hands wrapped around the side of the book and pulled it out of his arms, holding the volume up to flip through it with semi-interested eyes. Then she looked up to Dipper's confused face and chuckled slightly. "You know, I do love a good sucker! But you know what the best is? Someone who is too smart for their own good just handing me what I need. Don't you agree with me…Pine Tree?"
Dipper realized far too late what was happening.
The room grayed out, an eerie sight of mind and memory, as the girl in front of him collapsed to the floor and disappeared. Dipper made to grab the Journal out of Wilma's hands, but it was too late—they had already been plucked out of her grasp by long and think black arms. Dipper collapsed next to the unconscious gray colored body and looked up spitefully, banging one fist against the floor in anger and frustration. His tantrum was answered only by a cackling laugh.
A mocking, cackling laugh from a floating triangle with a top hat and a bow.
"Bill!" Dipper hissed. "You…her…Wilma…what…"
"RELAX, Pine Tree!" Bill Cipher cackled loudly; the mocking sound echoed across the room loudly. His thin stick-hands held the Journal near the ceiling. Well out of Dipper's reach, they both knew.
"RELAX?" Dipper snapped. "You pretended to be a girl just to get the Journal?! What kind of—"
"Pretend ain't the right word, kid!" Bill interrupted. "Nah, that was Sally Poole from…oh, I am so bad with the names of places outside here! Nevada, I think? She's REAL, alright!"
"You dragged a twelve year old all the way from Nevada for this?!"
Bill shrugged. "Sure, why not? I have my goals, she has hers. All I had to do was appear before her and ask if she wanted to make a deal. Boy, I tell you, kids your age are some of the stupidest you'll find! But I'll give you credit, Pine Tree, you were smart enough to see through my cloaking."
"Cloaking?"
"Of course! Remember when I possessed you? Ohhh, you do!" Bill chuckled at Dipper's evident scowl. "No one noticed until they were told, right? It's not like everyone around you is absentminded and stupid, nah. Bodies emit a certain aura when they're possessed! But you, you saw through it for a while, didn't you? I'm impressed, kid. I'm really impressed."
"I don't need to know I impressed YOU!" Dipper snapped, patting his cheeks lightly to get rid of the flush on them. "Give me back the journal and give back Wilma!"
"Man, kid, you're losing your credibility as a smart one! I told you, her name is Sally Poole." Bill laughed for a moment then cut off quickly, an amused expression crossing over what passed for his face. "Or maybe that's not it, is it? Oh man, kid, don't tell me you're that dumb."
"W-what?"
"Ahahaha! Oh man, kid, you ARE that dumb! You LIKED this Wilma I created." Bill cackled. "You liked me in a human girl body! Oh, Pine Tree, you are one pathetic piece of work, I gotta say."
"Shut up! Just shut up, okay?!"
"Ooh, Pine Tree, I sure love the supernatural and I love books too! Let's hang out and be cool boyfriend and girlfriend!" Bill ignored Dipper's screams of protest, instead raising his voice to Wilma's pitch. "We can do all sorts of fun things! Why, I bet we could even solve the mystery of Gravity Falls together. Oh wait, no we can't, because we don't have the book anymore!"
"W-what…?"
To Dipper's horror, the Journal in Bill's hand exploded in a storm of blue fire. Below the triangle, tiny droplets of black ash piled up. The brunette boy rushed forward to run his hands through what had once been one of his most precious possessions. His entire body went limp as he stared blankly at the destroyed Journal. Above him, the dream demon was laughing obnoxiously. One expanded arm swung around Dipper's waist and lifted him up to Bill's eye level. A cane poked the young brunette boy against the cheek.
"It was so nice doing business with you, Pine Tree." Bill commented. "As well as to come out on top this time. See you in your dreams, kid…heh…just know I love you, Pine Tree. I love you the most."
The worst part was, with the calm and serious tone taken, Dipper didn't know what to make of the final partings words.
Next he knew, he was coughing loudly on top of another body. The girl under him—Wilma? No, Sally…was pushing at him determinedly. He slid off the unfamiliar girl's form and bowed his head in apology as he rubbed his arm. Peering up he could only see her rolling her tired eyes and crossing her arms. After flipping her hair a bit, of course. Dipper looked to the side nervously.
"Sally…Poole?"
"Uh, yeah. That's me." She said in annoyance. "So like…where the hell am I, anyways?"
"G-Gravity Falls. Oregon."
"What the heck am I doing in this kind of dump?! And why am I wearing this ugly old dress?! God!" Sally shrieked loud enough to break glass. Dipper cringed. "Take me home RIGHT NOW, you weirdo! Or I'm gonna call the cops on you!"
"Can you answer one question for me first?" Dipper asked quietly. The girl rolled her eyes in irritation but nodded. "…what are your hobbies? I mean, what do you like to do for fun?"
"Uhhh…that's a really creepy question?" She raised an eyebrow. "But I like watching TV…keeping up with celebrity gossip, you know? And the fashions that I should be wearing. That's another hobby of mine, you know? Shopping. So I gotta keep up with the right fa—"
"I get it." Dipper sighed. "I get it."
Wilma doesn't exist.
Only Bill Cipher. Always Bill Cipher.
"I love you the most, Pine Tree."