Thank you all for the reviews!
And to more specific guests that I couldn't respond to;
Guest: You haven't even seen Dipper's POV yet, he might be just as boring as Danny xD
Though I'm pretty sure the only reason Danny's POV was boring was because there wasn't much going on besides setup.
I've figured out though, that the story will switch views between the two as needed, with Danny giving us a little more insight into the situation that Dipper couldn't possibly know.
Coopt98: That would make for a really interesting story. If the book wasn't currently wrapped in mystery, it probably would play a much larger role in this story. It's kinda hard writing about something that even the characters who own it don't know xD
P.S. If anyone ends up out of character, let me know and I'll try to fix it.
I hate it when people are out of character.
Shady Things
We were all prepared to leave, Sam had stuffed her purchases into her backpack, as had Danny. Tucker tried, but soon realized only one bag would fit, the other he'd have to carry and he wasn't too pleased with that. Before we could get one foot out the door though, Sam pulled Tucker and Danny away to a corner of the store behind a shelf to talk or something.
"What do you think that's about?" I asked Mabel who looked as confused as I felt. What couldn't they say in front of us that they hadn't already mentioned?
"Lets go find out." Before I could protest, she pulled me over to the shelf they were behind and we hid as soon as we realized it was about the shop. Peering through the cracks in the hastily made shelving, I couldn't help but notice that while Danny and Sam were arguing, Tucker was turned away holding up his PDA and pointing it at various areas of the store looking for a signal of some kind.
"Don't worry about it Sam, I'm sure it's nothing." I heard Danny say, annoyance clear in his voice.
"Don't worry? How can I not worry? Danny, when you get creepy feelings, it usually means something bad. I want to know what it is before this gets out of hand!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait just a minute, so Danny gets a bad feeling and instead of steering clear of the danger, you want us to find it? I know we're more than capable, but come on! I thought this was gonna be a vacation!" Tucker piped up as he turned to face the group, lowering his PDA in the process. Sam turned her attention to him and glared before returning her attention to Danny. She opened her mouth to speak, but Danny cut her off.
"Sam, don't worry about it. Dipper works here, obviously it's nothing to worry about if he gets the same feeling from this place. Who says we can help with whatever it is anyway? For all we know this place could've been built on an Indian burial ground or something."
"Oh don't give me that. He said he usually gets the feeling out in the woods and there's a reason for it. If he got the feeling here constantly then there wouldn't be anything to worry about!"
"The key word here is usually, Sam. The Mystery Shack and everyone in this town know how to survive these things, so we shouldn't get involved. For all we know it's a natural occurrence. And besides that, we don't have any leads even if we wanted to investigate. This isn't Amity Park, ya'know!"
"I know it's not Amity Park! What does that have to do with anything?"
Tucker who had wandered off during the fight, returned with something in his hands and interrupted the two, "He means that we don't know anything about this place. And besides," He held up his hands revealing a blood red flower with dark purple leaves. At the sight of it, Danny seemed to pale and backed up into the shelf. "I think I found the reason for his discomfort."
I heard Sam mutter something that sounded a lot like, "Blood blossoms." and she looked worriedly at Danny before a look of realization chased away her worry. She turned her attention to Tucker, "But wait, Danny's never gotten uncomfortable around Blood Blossoms before, why would it start now?"
"Uh, hello? Pretty uncomfortable here!" Danny almost shouted, but was ignored completely by his two friends.
"Well if they have Blood Blossoms, they might have some trinket that's causing the feeling. It might not be anything to worry about for humans at all."
"It might just be something that would bother Danny." Sam continued. She looked in thought before she sighed, "We probably should just leave then, especially if they have anything else here that could hurt him."
We took that as our cue to quietly get up and walk around the bookshelf like we had just come to get them.
"You guys alright?" Mabel asked, and out of the corner of my eyes I saw Tucker haphazardly chuck the flowers behind him in an attempt to hide them. Before anyone could respond to my sister's question I figured I'd take the opportunity to ask.
"What did you just throw?"
Sam quickly elbowed Tucker in the ribs, and he cringed. I expected Sam to speak up, but it was Danny who answered. "Some flowers I'm allergic to." He turned to Tucker, "Go wash your hands before you accidentally punch me or something. I don't want to break out in a rash again."
Tucker blinked a moment before asking where the bathroom was, which I promptly agreed to show to him. On the way there I spoke up again. "Those were Blood Blossoms, right?" He tensed. "Grunkle Stan mentioned them once." I lied. I actually remembered seeing them on a page in the book while I was skimming. I don't remember anything about them except that they warded off something and are supposed to be good to eat. Either way, anything mentioned in the book can't be good. And if it wards off something in the book, I don't think it's just a coincidence that Danny's allergic to them. "All I know is they're edible. Is there anything else to them, or is Danny's reaction just that bad?"
"He..uh..he's just got a really bad reaction to them." It was obviously a lie, but I wasn't going to push it any further. There's something going on here. When we get back tonight, I'm consulting the book about this.
The five of us left as soon as we got back to the group, and we decided to go to the convention first, much to the frustration of the elder kids. We pointed out some places in town along the way, like the town hall, history museum, fire hall, and as we were about to leave town, someone started yelling for us. Or rather Danny.
"DANNY!" A tall redhead came into view, running like her life depended on it. "Danny, run!" She ran towards us, grabbed his hand and started pulling him in the opposite direction.
"Jazz? What's wrong? What's going on?"
"They're testing out weapons!" That was enough to make him pale.
He turned to us, and said "We'll explain later, you don't wanna go there right now. Let's go!" And with that we turned on our heel and headed back into town and around the corner into a woodland clearing, jogging the whole way.
When we reached the clearing, Tucker and Jazz flat out collapsed. Everyone was panting heavily, save for Danny and Sam who only seemed to be slightly winded. Because of this, Sam was the one who spoke up first. "What the heck happened to you, Jazz?"
What did happen? For the first time since we came across her, I actually took in her appearance. Her hair was matted with debris, and she was covered with dirt and a tiny bit of blood on her right knee, whose pant leg was torn, probably from a fall.
"Mom and, mom and dad thought, it would be a good idea, to bring a ghost to the convention. To test weaponry on." She said gasping the whole way. Danny must've just noticed her knee, because he grabbed a water bottle and a first aid kit from Sam's bag and started cleaning her wound. "And that ghost, happened to be Skulker." Danny spilt a little water and looked at her in shock, which quickly turned to anger.
"So Skulker did this to you?"
"What? Oh, no." She sat up and took the gauze from him, bandaging her knee herself. "I got caught in the crossfire of a couple hundred ghost hunters and their prey. Add in the fact that some of the weaponry was still experimental, and it was a complete disaster. I actually feel bad for Skulker." Her expression changed from pity to rage as she glared at Danny. "I can't believe you guys just left me there! Do you know how embarrassing that was? Being paraded around like that to a bunch of loons?!"
Danny winced and pulled out the magazine he bought. "Sorry, but get a load of this."
The moment she spotted their faces on the cover she growled, "I can't believe this. We're going to have a little talk with them when we get back to Amity."
"Definitely. Also, I got you a gift," At the mention of a gift, her head perked up, she was still angry, but she took a deep breath and seemed to calm down. Danny handed her the bag with the stuffed doll, which she opened quickly and stared at with wide eyes.
"Okay, this is absolutely adorable." Danny blushed for some odd reason, and told her to shut up, to which she quickly replied, "Oh come on, how many times do you get to see your baby bra-"
"AHEM." Sam loudly cleared her throat, drawing everyone's attention to her and successfully interrupting Jazz's sentence, and then pointed to me and Mabel who had been silent through the whole thing.
Jazz's eyes widened in shock, "Oh. I-I didn't notice them before." She turned to Danny, "Friends of yours?"
Danny breathed a sigh of relief, and nodded. "Jazz, this is Dipper and Mabel; Dipper and Mabel, my big sister Jazz."
Mabel held out her hand, "Nice to meet you Jazz. I'm the older sister too."
"Yeah, by like 5 minutes." I scoffed, earning a smile from Jazz and a smirk from my sister.
"It counts."
Before I could say anything, someone's stomach growled. Since Jazz spoke up first, I'm guessing it was her's.
"As adorable as this is," She started, earning a 'Hey, I'm not adorable' from me, "I'm starving. I've been running around the convention tent for over an hour trying to find my way out, avoid our parents, and dodge projectiles at every turn. Mind if we take this chat to a restaurant or something?"
"I second that." Tucker mumbled from his current faceplant. He lifted his head to speak, "We were supposed to eat earlier, but the diner was closed."
"So we'll take you back to the shack!" Mabel said enthusiastically. "We can go to the convention tomorrow. It lasts all week, right?" They nodded. "Good, then we don't have to worry about it today. And I can show you where the we fought off bloodthirsty wax figures!" Jazz raised an eyebrow at that statement. "And tomorrow we can show you the tomb of the 8 1/2th president of the United States!"
"Wait, wait, bloodthirsty wax figures? 8 1/2th president? Are you sure you didn't hit your head?" Jazz asked skeptically. I didn't blame her. It does sound crazy.
Mabel was going to object, but Danny beat her to it, "Jazz, think about what you just asked."
"Don't tell me you believe that!"
"How can't we?" It was Sam this time. "We live in a town infested with dead people, we've traveled through time, our town was abducted by the Ghost King, we're friends with a yeti and a werewolf from the 1800s that doesn't even speak English, and your family is being terrorized by a half-dead billionaire who wants to get with your mom. Nothing sane about any of that, is there?"
There was a long pause before Jazz spoke up again. "Alright fine, you're right. Of all people I guess I don't have any right to judge considering our life. That doesn't make it sound any less crazy though."
And with that, we got up and headed back to the Mystery Shack. I was quiet the whole way back. Was all that stuff true? It seemed like it with the way everyone acted, but how can anyone be half-dead? None of this makes sense, especially with the Blood Blossom thing. There's something going on here, and I plan on getting to the bottom of it.
When we reached the Mystery Shack, the tent was closed, and the ticket booth empty. I'm guessing that either something happened or people stopped coming. We got our answer when we walked into the Mystery Shack via the back door. Grunkle Stan stood at the other end of the shop with Soos and Wendy and was about to pull a sheet off of some artifact he got the other day, when he spotted us and waved us over.
"Oh these kids again, who's the new one?" He looked at Jazz and continued before anyone could answer him. "Oh never mind, get a load of this thing!" He pulled the tarp off, and the lighting seemed to dim, causing Danny to jump and I could've sworn for a split second, the temperature dropped. The tarp revealed a really old headstone, which looked ancient. It was impossible to tell if there was anything carved into it at any point, because it was so weathered, any potential letters could be mistaken for water trails, and it was covered in moss. Everything seemed darker around the rock, not a lot, I barely noticed it. "Some old guy dropped it off for the auction on friday. Says the thing comes from a haunted graveyard in England. Should definitely sell well. Gonna triple the starting price because of all those morons here for the convention." He turned to Danny and his friends. "No offense." Danny didn't take his eyes off the rock. He was really wary of it actually, even when Jazz swung her arm around his shoulders and insisted it wasn't a problem, he didn't take his eyes off it. Like he was afraid of it.
Sam and Tucker noticed this too, and exchanged a worried glance before Sam walked up and took the tarp from Grunkle Stan, "Well you know," she began as she swung the tarp over the rock, "You should keep it covered so nobody sees it, it'll be more valuable if it's revealed on the spot." she seemed kind of nervous, and Danny still hadn't taken his eyes off the rock, despite it now being covered.
"You're right! Great idea, girlie. Anyway, I'm heading out. Wendy and Soos, you get the tents cleaned before the next batch of suckers come." Grunkle Stan warned, "Now." He watched them leave before he headed out as well, shouting, "You know where everything is!"
As soon as he left, all eyes were on Danny, who was still eyeing the rock, like it'd attack at any moment. "Danny?" Tucker questioned, he stepped forward and tripped, before he could put his hand on the rock to steady himself, Danny leapt into action, grabbed his wrist and dragged him away from it. "Dude, what's the big idea?"
"You didn't see it?" He asked. Momentarily taking his eyes off the rock to look him in the eye.
"See what?"
"There was a..I don't know how to describe it, black aura, I guess, that moved the tarp when you got too close. Same with when Grunkle Stan first grabbed the tarp. And when he removed it, that creepy feeling I got earlier intensified."
"Did anybody else feel the temperature drop, when the tarp was removed?" I asked.
Turns out everybody did. "I just thought it was Da-" Tucker started, but got silenced by Sam, who stomped on his foot.
"The lights didn't reflect off it either." Sam pointed out. "Even though there's a light directly above it."
"Well it did come from a haunted graveyard. Maybe it's cursed?" Jazz offered.
"I don't know, but I wouldn't touch it, there's something…sinister about it. Who knows what it could do." He paused. "Can we go somewhere else? Like, another room or something?"
"Yeah. We gotta get something to eat anyway. Oh! And we can race syrups!" Mabel brightened, successfully drawing everyone's attention to her, even Danny's for a split second. Then she led us out of the room and into the kitchen.
The rest of the night was really fun. Turns out the rock's weird aura, or whatever was making Danny uncomfortable, wasn't strong enough to reach the other rooms in the house. We played some games (Mabel won the syrup races of course, but Tucker put up a good fight. Jazz refused to participate), and figured things out for the rest of the week.
Tomorrow was Wednesday, and we were going to meet up at three to go to the convention for a few hours, since Danny and Jazz's parents would be teaching back to back seminars until nine. Thursday we'd all go to Scuttlebutt or hiking. And Friday we'd just hang out until they all left at one. Wendy returned halfway through the evening to let us know she was off work, and her and Jazz made separate plans, and would skip the convention in favor of girl bonding or something like that. Sam was going to meet up with Jazz and Wendy Thursday after the hike. Mabel had no idea if she was going with the girls or staying with us, but we had a basic outline at least.
We shared stories about our respective adventures, and how they were friends with various ghosts. We showed them the copy machine, and Tucker copied his PDA, which surprisingly, worked like a charm. We had to stop him because he wanted to tear the machine apart to see if he could build one himself. And then we settled down to watch the new episode of Tiger Fist.
After they left, I headed upstairs to consult the book about the Blood Blossoms. It took me about an hour to find it because I kept skipping the section involving them. Which just so happened to be ghosts. "Hey Mabel, get a load of this. 'Blood Blossoms, a close relative to the rose, known for it's ability to immobilize ghosts with pain. A ring of them works great as a natural shield, as no ghost will be stupid enough to cross into the ring, knowing that they would not be able to move until all of the Blood Blossoms are disposed of. If a ghost is trapped within the ring, the blossoms will slowly poison it, and they can't do a thing about it. The ghost will die if left in for too long. It seems to be a very painful way to go, and the screams are unbearable to listen to. Another way to kill a ghost using Blood Blossoms is for them to consume the plant or liquid from the plant, this seems to be much less painful. The strong aura propelled by the blossoms is enough to pain the ghost by being too close to it, and the residue from the plant can cause a very painful rash to spread across the infected area.' Apparently, they're good to eat for humans too, and they're like garlic to Vampires. Eat enough of them and no ghost will touch you because it changes the property of the oil in the skin."
"What about it?"
"Remember Danny's reaction to them? He was worried about a rash and wouldn't go near them." Apparently Mabel knew where I was going with this.
"Dipper, come on, he's a nice person!"
"You said the same thing about Norman, and he turned out to be a bunch of gnomes!"
"Well this is different!"
"No, it's really not. Look, Danny mentioned he'd break out in a rash if Tucker's hands touched him, and he wouldn't go anywhere near them as soon as he saw them! These flowers are harmless to humans, the book says so itself!" I reasoned. "And on top of that, what's with that Danny Phantom guy they told us about? I doubt it's just a coincidence that they're both named Danny, I mean, he just happens to be allergic to a known ghost repellant. Not to mention, they seem to know an awful lot about Phantom's life. And what was that weird reaction with the rock? He seemed so transfixed on it, I mean, yeah it was weird, but not weird enough to warrant that."
"Dipper, for one thing, the book also says not to trust anyone from Gravity Falls, yet we both trust Grunkle Stan, and Wendy and Soos and everybody. Not to mention, they aren't even from Gravity falls. Second, these could just be coincidences, and they are best friends with Phantom. And third, what are we going to do about it? Saying that you're right, which I doubt you are, and he is actually a ghost, he's not hurting anybody."
"You don't know that. He could be just like those ghosts at the Dusk2Dawn, nice until something sets him off. And he certainly seemed wary of that rock. Everyone noticed weird things about it, but nobody saw the aura…thing, he was talking about. And-"
"Hey, hey, slow down. I doubt he's dead anyway. Just look at him. He's not cold, he's obviously not transparent, he's nothing like those ghosts in the Dusk2Dawn. He could just actually be allergic to Blood Blossoms, like how there are people who are allergic to water. Besides, his parents are ghost hunters, don't you think they would've noticed something if their son was a ghost?"
"I guess…What was with those weird reactions though? Where they just stopped talking."
"Dipper, stop worrying. Whatever it is, if they want us to know they'll tell us. They're good people."
"I know, they're really nice, but they're definitely hiding something and it's bothering me."
"What they're hiding, really isn't any of your business Dipper. For all we know, whatever it is might be for the same reason you hide your birthmark." Mabel spoke up.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." I sighed. I doubt it's anything small like that, otherwise the topic wouldn't come up enough for them to cut each other off to hide it. Whatever this secret is, it's big. Even if he isn't a ghost, he could be something else. Afterall, I did mistake a bunch of gnomes for a zombie. "I guess I'll go to bed, then. Maybe it'll stop all these stupid ideas. I mean really, how can you not notice somebody's a ghost?"
"Exactly. They're weird, but they're not that weird. They aren't even Mabel weird!"
I laughed, "Alright. G'Night Mabel."
"Night."
AUGH. I had to re-write this chapter like, three times.
The mystery beastie should make it's appearance next chapter, feel free to take guesses when you review.
If you guess correctly, then on the chapter where the cryptid is revealed in all it's glory (which may or may not be chapter 4), I'll mention you in the notes.
I'm trying to give every character speaking roles, and keep them active, but too many dishes spoil the meal; so I'm cutting Wendy and Jazz to more minor roles (not like they'd have large roles anyway, but still), and poor Tucker and Mabel are getting a little left out. In my defense though, the one time Mabel was probably chattering away, Dipper tuned everything out to think. Well, not including when he's thinking back on the evening.
Anyway, did anyone get the title? Shady Things, like shade, plants, blood blossoms...Dipper's suspicions...
Well I thought it was clever.
Until next time!