Of course, Dipper needed some time to ponder everything that was happening around him over, and beside the time he needed some quiet place far away from Mabel's loud, stentorian enthusiasm and Grunkle Stan's surly muttering (he kept grousing every now and then calculating how many knickknacks and bric-a-bracs he could have sold). The diary found by the boy not so long ago, haunted Dipper's mind: the journal's help was invaluable, if not for it, the fellow wouldn't have taken a stand against all Gravity Falls's oddities. But not a single soul seemed to know the name of the author. That information must've been classified, and the boy had to cope with the inability to identify the identity of the person who managed to throw light upon those gnomes, unicorns and other fable beings. That was impossible. Or it seemed to be.
And yet, he couldn't stop speculating over the mysterious diary. Was the writer alive? If yes, where was he hiding? Why keep a low profile? Why was the book stowed away deep in the forest? From whom was it concealed? How perilous was it to get into all this? Was his life – and that of Mable, Stan, Soos, Wendy and others – in danger?
So many questions – and still no answers to them.
Dipper sighed and leaned against a thick tree trunk and stared at the sky. Dense bushes around were putting him out of sight, although scarce light gap under his head still let the boy enjoy the plain image of drifting clouds. Every once in a while Mabel and he used to spend time that way, eluding unwelcoming presence of gnomes – or some other creatures' company. The kids just sat somewhere on a hill, and, stuffing their cheeks with sweets which had been purloined from Grunkle Stan's shop, noisily competed in imagining things. His sister usually saw animals and faces – as for Dipper… well, he was too fixed to peer into "flocks of candy floss" curled and scattered on the blue canvas of the sky.
"Miss me? I bet you miss me!" came a familiar mechanic voice with mocking notes in it.
Shuddered, the boy turned around forthwith. And, finding nothing suspicious or dubious, immediately abated. He was dead tired of all that mess with the diary and temporary ghost existence. He sees nonsense that is not even around, that goes without saying. Who would stay calm after all the situations the twins have gone through?
But unexpectedly their eyes met and converged. Dipped noticed the scrutinizing gaze of a young man with a waspish smile frozen upon the thin lips. The boy could swear, he'd never seen that guy before – and yet, something already familiar glimpsed in the whole slender silhouette. The blond hair, neatly sleeked down, for some reason grew darker and darker and near the neck they were totally of the chestnut shade; the fringe fell on the face to hide a black triangle blindfold on one of the eyes, while the other orb, pale and lifelessly glaucous, was sardonically watching the lad. The gloved hand was fiddling with a mahogany cane. The youngest was dressed in a flamboyant yellow jacket and under that a parched white shite, decorated by a bow-tie. He looked absolutely normal for Gravity Falls – for those inhabitants, who used to hold receptions at the mansion on the hill and invite only the noblest people of society – but here, at the foot, near the Mystery Shack, it was definitely unreal to come across such a person. And then it dawned upon the boy…
"That's you! You again!" Dipper blurted out, jumping to his feet. "Go away! I won't fall for it one more time!"
Bill Cipher based himself upon the cane and, giving the boy a lopsided smirk, arrogantly raised his head. Not taking his cold eyed-stare off Dipper, he started frigidly adjusting his brand new suit.
"What if I tell you that I know who has written the diaries?" the demon drawled idly, enjoying his victim's discomposure. "What if I can even arrange a meeting with such a standout, a remarkable individual?"
The boy scowled: he remembered the consequences of the deal, but his curiosity naturally tingled him. What if he is able to double-cross Cipher and fish out the name? That would be sufficient. What if it's worth risking? What if it's worth making a deal anew, but not playing by the rules?
"Can you hear me, kiddo?" asked Bill half acridly half jokingly, and, after digging into the inner breast pocket, with feline grace pulled out a round pocket watch, ticking so loud that it might be easy to hear it even up there on the hill. "I certainly can give you the opportunity to play a detective. So many unsolved riddles, so much danger –" Cipher took a step closer to the teen, and, throwing away the cane, grabbed him by the chin. "I'm sure you're gonna need to read the other parts. This one is unfortunately not enough. Such disappointment, isn't it?"
Dipper tried to recoil and stagger back, but the gloved hand appeared so thin and feeble, held him tight.
"Other parts?" the boy stared at the well-groomed and wicked face. "Are there any?"
"Two", the demon replied in the affirmative, getting closer to him. "But somebody has just taken the trouble to find them a bit earlier than you. I can tell you. Interested?"
"You don't do anything without a benefit for you", Dipper made an endeavor to escape the firm hands.
"I do not", he confirmed and smiled rapaciously, fixedly looking at the lad's brown orbs with his only eye, so milky blue that it seemed blind. "But we'll find common language. We found it once. Such a good time it was, don't you think?" Bill cast a glance at the visible spots of bruises on Dipper's fingers. "Pain is hilarious, isn't it? Kid, you know, I like you. I can even give you a hint or two. Let's take it for a discount". He smirked with a corner of his pale thin lips again and anticipatingly gazed at the boy.
Dipper whitened and felt a surge of panic: he had no clue what could strike that crazy triangle in the head – or whoever else he was – so the proposal to get a so-called discount didn't inspirit him. He was aflame with curiosity – and at the same time he did not know what the creature could ask him for in exhange. Bill was strong on his home turf, but his domain was the mind itself, so to gain time Dipper had to use the same weapons – and it meant to put all the wit into action.
"So?" he glanced at the boy with pure boredom in his pale eye and squeezed
his arm forcing him to speak. "I won't insist: all in all, Grunkle Stan is your relative, not mine. Family skeletons are best to be taken out of the cupboard by the kin", Bill laughed quietly and mockingly, slyly squinting his eye. "But it can be so tiresome. Get-togethers in a senile crone's company… oh, that's not my cup of tea. I know, you don't like it either. Do you?"
"What is that you want?" Dipper burst out, catching a familiar name in the taunting monologue. He attempted to hint that there was something bizarre and inexplicable happening all over Gravity Falls, but Grunkle Stan assured – or tried to seem assuring – that everything was as normal as that and the kids were playing their games too much. But Bill Cipher had his own rules he loved to bend anyway: even for a hunch one had to pay.
"Just a trifle", he moved his eyebrows; the eye flared with blue flame, and the thin lips exposed the rows of sharp teeth. Pressing the teen against the trunk, the demon seized the neck with a firm hand, while the other was catching a hold on the chin back again. "For a brave one like you it's a perfect rot".
In a moment's notice, he removed his hand and tugged at the blindfold, revealing his eye. Dipper didn't understand what had just occurred: the left part of the pale face, now set out, could be as aristocratically groomed as the right one, if there was no blood-drenched eye the pupil of his was erratically and wildly rotating. Jerked at the teen's brown hair to make him throw back the head, Cipher moved closer and licked his teeth with the tip of the tongue. Viscous, sticky, gluey blood was trickling out of the lips, out of the mutilated eye, momentarily covering the teen's hair, face and clothes, flowing into the mouth.
"Do you know what it's like not to have a body?" hissed the demon, licking the blood drops off his own lips. "Do you know what it's like to live forever and feel nothing?" his nails, still covered by a black glove, stuck into the boy's throat. "To be nothing, to crawl, to creep into one's brains like a thief to watch those good-for-nothing memories and dreams? But I can assure you," he whispered with a grin, "one day it'll be over. One day it'll change. Very soon. I will destroy and eradicate every single page of those lousy diaries, their author, everyone who's accessory to their existence. I will erase all the information, all the memories. I will steal everything you love. And then it'll be the time of my undivided empery. I will decided who is to do what," his healthy eye glinted maliciously, and dashed back, leaving a bright mark of his own fingers on Dipper's neck. "Believe me. It won't take too much time."
A gloved finger suddenly moved to the boy's eye.
"Would you like to feel special?" the youngster spat, a sign of threat in his smirk, "Shall we say, different? As strange as all of us here?"
Dipper shook his head, but stranglehold didn't let him to avoid eye-contact. At this moment, the kid's body was battered down by a swell of pain, so insufferable that for a second he forgot how to scream. Then, he hollered, bellowed, roared and yelled, hoping there was someone to hear his shriek, to help him out – or at least frighten the devil in a yellow jacket away.
Nobody came. Trembling, quavering in anguish, sobbing, the teen was wiping his cheeks; his fingers already soaked with blood. He couldn't realize what happened.
Bill, all in his finest, raised his head again, removed the vermilion track off his face, and softly put the blindfold back upon his eye. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, sneering and clicking his fingers as he did so. In the other hand he held something gleaming, slimy, unpleasantly wet. Dipper didn't want to know what it was exactly.
"Don't be sad, kid. Pain is hilarious!" he bade an adieu and vanished without a track in a smoky fog tangling the branches.
Dipper shuddered and started rubbing his face, spasmodically trying to get rid of the ferrous aftertaste on his tongue and bloody spots on his shirt – and understood that there was none. The eye was in his socket, healthy. Everything was fine… And only the neck was aching – too noticeable to let him think that was just a just a nightmare during the nap in the forest…