I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them.

What Bill Cipher Saw

(August 15, 2016)

That Monday evening, right after the events recorded in "The Haunting of the Holy Mackerel," Dipper and Wendy went to the bonfire clearing—they were still leery of the Cipher effigy site, with good reason—for Dipper to fulfill a promise he'd made to Ford.

He sat on the log, and Wendy sat close to him—not actually touching, because that fouled up his ability to enter the Mindscape, but comfortably near. "Here goes," Dipper said. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and told himself he was sinking slowly down, on a pleasant elevator ride, and that there was nothing to fear . . . .

"You can open your eyes, Pine Tree, I'm indecent."

"Bill."

There they were in the blurry, misty Mindscape, where everything was in shades of gray and black, but no color except for the small (palm-sized) yellow triangle that Bill had discovered was the most efficient way to appear to Dipper. He was floating about two feet from Dipper's face, gently bobbing up and down, and Dipper noticed he lacked his top hat and his bow tie.

"I see you're undressed," Dipper said dryly. "Is that what you meant by 'indecent?'"

Bill brushed his stick-like fingers on his side and then looked at the invisible nails on his curled fist. "Oh, I'm indecent in lots of ways, Pine Tree! Looooots of ways. However, since it's just us guys here—Eek! You didn't tell me Red was here too! Don't look at me, Red, I'm naked!" Bill crunched down, one hand over his apex, one beneath his eye.

Then he straightened up. "Oh, why am I worried, we're friends here. All right, Red, you can look but you can't touch, babe! Oh, what the heck, touch all you want!" He threw his arms open and his top hat, cane, and bow tie popped into existence. "Ta-dah! Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here all night. Hey, Red, will you be here all night? Hmmmm?"

"Stop," Dipper said. "Wendy can't hear you."

"Too bad, she's missing out on primo entertainment. OK, kid, you got something on your mind. Dish." Bill's eye became an ear. "I'm simpatico. You can use me as a sounding board. Try me. I know the angles. Get that? Try, angle?" His voice became that of the cartoon rooster: "That's a joke, son! I keep throwin' passes, you keep fumblin'—Ah say, fumblin' em!" After a short silence, Bill popped back into his usual appearance. "Man, tough crowd. OK, all kidding aside, kid, what's got your panties in a knot?"

Relieved, Dipper said, "Well, there was this ghost—I don't wear panties!"

Bill held up both hands. "Whoa, whoa, kid, T.M.I.! Go commando, I don't care! But also go on about the ghost."

"I should've told Ford this was hopeless," Dipper said.

"Never say 'die!'" Bill said, wagging a finger. "Also, avoid saying 'honorificabilitudinitatibus.' I warned old Bill Shakespeare that word would toungle an actor's tang up. Come on, kid, for realsies, just tell me what it is you want to know."

Dipper took a deep, if imaginary, breath and told Bill about the old Spanish missionary and wound up, "So Ford wanted to make sure we'd banished him from, um, the mortal plane."

"Gonna bump him, huh?" Bill asked. "Can't blame you, the plane's full already. OK, kid, let me dig out my crystal. It's scrying time, you must believe me, you got that sorta stunned look in your eyes—you don't know the songs of Ray Charles, do you? Oh, man, you oughta give 'em a listen. Your loss. Here we go!"

A crystal ball poofed into existence, and Bill's hat transformed into a turban. "Let me see. Going back into the past here. Ay caramba! Yeah, I got the guy located, right here in not-yet-back-then Gravity Falls. Mm-hmm, preaching a religion of love while slaughtering hombres, mujeres, and niños left and right. My kinda guy! Kidding, Pine Tree, I'm reformed. Probably. What's the name, what's the—Esteban Pica y Román. Father Esteban. A Catalan, not a Spaniard, interesting. OK, assuming he passed, when did he pass if he passed?"

"Last night, around midnight," Dipper said.

Bill became a sports announcer. "That's a long pass, let's see if it was completed!" Then he became quiet for a few moments. He said in a strangely serious voice—for him—"Dipper, you don't have to worry any longer. He's not ever coming back."

"Grunkle Ford will want to know how you know," Dipper said.

Bill sighed. "That's Sixer. Yeah, he thinks about thinking more than anybody. I think." He pinched Dipper's cheek. "You tell him Bill said he's just the cutest little thinker."

Dipper brushed the small hand away. "Please. Just tell me."

After a moment, still in that odd, somber tone, Bill said, "You're a big boy now. I'll do more. You can take it, so I'll show you. We're going off the grid, kid. We're gonna be where he went, and I'll do a replay of what happened. Don't panic, we're actually not there. I'm just projecting our perceptions. Here we go."

For a brief moment, Dipper felt that he and Bill were rushing through the air, flying toward a dull, glowing, reddish light—all around it was cruel white brilliance. And then they were through—

"Is that him?" Dipper whispered.

"Yeah. And you don't have to talk soft. He can't hear us. We're not really here, remember. Take a gander around. But no goosing, I'm sensitive in the base."

Dipper looked. They stood beneath a midnight, starless sky, and yet he could somehow see. True, everything was dim, as though seen in twilight gloom. They stood on a flat desert of dark gray sand, no wind stirring it. In the far distance all around the rim of the horizon, conical mountains surrounded them and the sand and everything, and the mountains sullenly glowed red-hot.

Esteban Pica stood before them, an emaciated figure wearing a coarse brown ankle-length friar's robe. A hood, shading the features and spreading into a kind of abbreviated cape over the shoulders, topped the outfit, and the belt was a simple rope. From it hung a looped rosary, brown beads and small golden crucifix. What Dipper could see of the man's face was not reassuring: projecting bony ridges and tangled, brushy black eyebrows buried the fanatical, insane eyes in dark, deep-set sockets, a hawk's bill of a nose, a grim unsmiling mouth, and a nearly triangular chin.

The man began to walk, his sandaled feet leaving faint impressions on the sand, and somehow Bill and Dipper drifted with him. "Heads up, up ahead," Bill said, pointing.

Another figure sat on a stone, hunched over. It, too, wore the same sort of robe, or maybe a Native American cloak. In the dim light it was hard to tell. Esteban stopped only a few paces behind it and spoke out in a harsh, grating voice, not in English but in an old-fashioned Spanish that Dipper somehow understood anyway: "In the name of the Lord, I have come to preach to you. Kneel!"

A hoarse whisper from the sitting figure answered: "I kneel to no one." The man—it had to be a man, from the voice—did not look up.

"Infidel!" Esteban said. He groped at his side, as if searching for a sword that was not there. "Enemy of the Church! Do you reject the chance to repent your sins? To have a hope when judgment comes? Hear me!"

"Why should I listen to you?" asked the sitting man.

"Because I am the voice and the sword of righteousness!" shouted Esteban. "I tell you, you have no chance of being delivered from hell! I tell you, the Lord sees and knows your wicked heart! Accursed unbeliever! Guilty of every sin—Lust, Gluttony, Avarice, Sloth, Envy, Wrath, and damnable Pride! I know the hearts of men, and I know yours! These are your sins, and for them I judge you fit only to be damned and condemned forever!"

"So be it," said the other figure, and it stood and threw back its hood.

And behold, it was also Esteban Pica y Román. The other man screeched, and then the two merged into a single insanely gibbering figure and—a flame of red fire burst around them and dragged them beneath the sand.

Dipper blinked. He and Bill were back in the Mindscape. "What just happened?" he asked.

"Kid, I don't really know from souls, but from hangin' around your kind for thousands of years, I'd say this: A human soul must be judged. Once it's in that place you saw—the place of judgment—it weighs up the bads and the goods, who and what it believed in, the state of its own heart, and it passes judgment on itself. And it must accept that judgment. It can't help it. That's the point of ultimate Justice, for the one being judged to give an honest judgment of himself or herself and take the punishment required. And what Esteban said of the other guy, who was also Esteban, all that was true and condemned his soul, and it, well, it went on to its reward. No coming back from there. Tell Sixer you guys are in the clear. By the way, did you ever notice that Red has a tiny mark high on her left butt cheek the exact shape of a Valentine heart? It's so cute!"

"Gah!"

"Gah!" Dipper yelled, flailing his arms. Wendy hugged him. "It's all right, Dip, it's OK! Calm down. That's better. Did you contact Bill?"

Breathing hard, Dipper said, "Y-yeah, and he says the ghost really is gone. And he made me want to see the heart on your butt—damn it, Bill! Stay out of my head!"

"The what on my whaaat?" Wendy asked, blinking, her half-smile showing she was intrigued.

Blushing, Dipper stood. "Nothing, nothing, just something Bill made me blurt out. Come on, let's go back and tell Ford—"

"Do I have a heart on my butt?" Wendy asked. "Seriously, man? I don't think I do!"

"Left side, he said, small and kinda high, you can, I don't know, hold a mirror or—"

Wendy turned away and pushed her jeans and underwear down a little way. "See it?"

"Wendy! I—no, it was just a lie of Bill's, I—wait! Huh. Yeah, I never noticed before. Not that, you know, I ever saw this part of you very much or for very long, but—yeah, it's really cute. It's, I guess, a freckle or a mole, but it's a perfect little heart, smaller than, uh, a pencil eraser."

"Show me where it is?" Wendy asked. It was hard to concentrate, with her round derriere about half exposed.

Dipper pointed. "Um. There. Left. Sort of three-quarters around on your, um, your left hip. Um, maybe three, four inches away from the, um, the center, um, line, you know."

"Touch it?"

"Is that you, Bill?" Dipper demanded.

She reached out and grabbed his wrist. Does this prove I'm me?

—Oh. Sorry, Wendy. It's just—I'm flustered, and I always get, um. You know.

Yeah, man, that's something I love about you, you get revved up so easy when we're a little naughty. But I really wanna know. Show me where it is so's I can locate it in the mirror. Just touch it once and that ends it, OK?

Aloud, Dipper said, "All right, all right. Um, turn away from me a little more. Now, you're gonna pull everything back up when I show you where it is, right?"

"Promise," Wendy said. "Hurry up. If anybody came along, they'd think I was half-mooning you!"

"OK," Dipper said. "Then it's right—here."

And he kissed it.

The End