"You lied to me! You all did! All you had to do was let the townsfolk into the party and you could have broken the curse!" Dipper's glare hardened as he looked at every one of them. "But you made me do your dirty work instead."

Pacifica cringed and looked away. He was right. He was perfectly right. She'd basically tricked someone who just saved her from being axed into two and honestly, the guilt felt like it was more painful. She was still trying to convince herself that it wasn't really her fault, it's not her fault that she's a Northwest, and maybe if she wasn't she wouldn't have to deal with this.

Maybe it wasn't. Maybe Dipper shouldn't be accusing her, after all, if she had told him, would he have helped them? Absolutely not. He would have frowned and refused and told her to just open the gates. And she definitely couldn't have done that.

Any progress she had made in trying not to feel guilty vanished when his glare rested on her. "I was right about you all along. You're just like your parents. Another link in the world's worst chain."

She stepped forward, trying to defend herself, trying to convince him that he's wrong, and it's not her fault, and if he just listened to her, if he just stayed –

She stopped at the familiar sound of a bell. The bell. She stepped back and felt her cheeks grow hot as she watched him leave.

God forbid the day she disobeyed Mr. and Mrs. Northwest.

Their muddy footprints were still fresh on the floor leading up to that picture. She didn't want to go in there and be reminded of the last half hour, how she almost died, how he saved her life, but she wanted to be alone, away from the world's best party and away from her parents' stupid bell that made her do things she didn't want to do.

She slipped through perfectly, it was exactly her size after all. The room was still as they left it, silverware scattered on the floor. She pushed some away with her foot as she walked through. It's incredibly unnerving to be back in the place where you had to stare death in the face (for the second time – death seemed to follow those twins wherever they went) and this proved true for her. She couldn't stand still in this room. Wasn't she standing still when that ghost attacked? She shivered and sat down with her back against the wall, so she was facing the painting. There. There was absolutely no way the ghost could come out of that painting without her seeing it.

That painting.

She looked around – there was a flashlight somewhere, when they had left. She turned it on and flashed it forward.

She looked away, taking short shaky breaths.

Dipper was right to leave.

She was just another link in the world's worst chain.