Greg smiled when he heard the forest breathe, and had the feeling in his chest and tummy like things were getting better than he'd been starting to think lately.

The sun was going lower down behind the clouds, and the creamsicle-color sky coughed up thunder, and the shadows were getting bigger under the trees, like how water goes through paper. Birds sang about eggs and bugs and the smell of lightning, deer in their deer-homes laid down under the weight of the bones on their heads, and the trees stretched themselves up and down, turning their feet and arms in the warm dirt and the wet air. The forest was so loud and busy and full of little parts jigsaw-puzzling to make big wholes; he'd never really noticed it all before, which seemed pretty crazy now. Maybe he'd just been too little, the last time he was in the woods.

The trees felt like they were leaning toward him, not in a scary way, but like they were excited to see him coming; he raised his arms up to let them know that he was excited to see them, too. Yesterday he'd been scared when that first old elm had offered to save his big brother, if that was what he wanted, but he was starting to get used to the sounds of trees' voices now. He liked them. If he listened carefully, it was like there was a big low noise underground, like something huge and old was sleeping there. He took a breath of the words, and felt good about himself.

Jason Funderburker pushed his head out of Greg's sweater to ask, "Rorrp?" and Greg patted him as comfortingly as he could. "Don't worry, chum," he said. "We have the train tracks now!" The weedy rails under his sneakers weren't much to look at, but they scooped a clear path straight forward, made the ground flat, and even better than anything else, they for-sure led to an actual somewhere. The goats said so. Greg thought that was pretty darn exciting, but it seemed like the big kids didn't. They were all acting that way Dad always called Wirt, morose. They walked in faraway clumps behind him, heavy in the foot, staring at the mushy ground as if the sky above them weren't rolling around full of storm and overall just being much more interesting than dirt. He looked back for a minute, and then ran to be closer to his brother. He tucked himself in next to Wirt's knee and, to make sure he knew he was there, wrapped his arms around his brother's thigh to reassure him. It made Wirt walk wonky, but he didn't tell him to stop. He put a hand on Greg's pot-hat and left it there, and Greg guessed it made them both feel better.

"Hey, Wirt?" he asked. Wirt mumbled. "When we get to the gravity waterfalls, will the people who run a pizza place be there, do you think? 'Cause I'm really hungry. I don't have any money, though. Will you buy me a slice of pizza when we get there?"

"I don't think there's going to be any pizza there, Greg," Wirt said. His voice was full of little cracks, like tree bark. Greg craned his head up; his brother was looking straight forward, with big gray circles under his eyes. A red leaf stuck out the top of Greg's vision, and when he pulled back he saw it was poking from the end of Wirt's sleeve. He knew his brother would be fussy if he saw it there, so he took him by the hand and plucked the leaf out. When he did, Wirt jerked his arm away.

"Ow! What are you –" He rubbed at his hand. Greg held the leaf up and Wirt frowned at it, but then he rolled up his sleeve and his expression fell straight down. A teeny drop of blood was beading up on the inside of his wrist, where Greg had pulled out the leaf. Wirt stumbled on the train tracks, and then stopped walking.

Greg clutched at his elbow: "Did I hurt you? I'm sorry, Wirt." The blood welled high and then ran down the round of his arm.

"N-no, Greg, no, I… I just…" Wirt's mouth was hanging open and Greg could tell he had his Thinking Cap on. He blinked really fast and looked around like to check if anyone was watching them, then he swallowed and put his hands on Greg's shoulders and started to push him forward like a grocery cart. "Just keep walking," he murmured, not to Greg. "Everything's going to be okay. Keep walking." They passed close by a fern crawling up a tree trunk, and it unrolled its curlicues to brush Greg as he went. He laughed when they tickled his cheeks, but Wirt made a noise like he'd been pinched.

"Shit!" He yanked Greg away from the tree so quickly that the little boy's hat fell down over his eyes. Wirt never said bad words in front of him like that. "No, this can't be happening, no no no…"

When Greg lifted the pan again his brother had dropped down to his knees next to him, white in the face. "Here, Greg, here, come on," he said, with his words too fast for his tongue and his hands shaking. "I'll – I'll c-carry you. How's that sound? Come on." That was really hard to believe; Wirt had been complaining that Greg was too heavy to carry since he was seven. But he stayed there, gesturing over his shoulder, and Greg realized he actually meant it. He wrapped his arms around his big brother's neck and Wirt lifted him up piggyback-style. The air seemed thinner up where Wirt's head was, and Greg marveled at their speed when he started walking again. It was a thrill. He kicked his throbbing feet happily, but when he craned his head around to look at Wirt he saw his brother was still frowning. His forehead was either sweaty or just wet, but either way he didn't look so good.

"Wirt?" Greg wrapped his arms tight around his neck to show he cared. "Are you okay?"

"Don't worry about me," Wirt said. His shoulders quaked. "I'm worrying about you right now, okay?"

He didn't want Wirt to have to worry at all, but truth to tell, he really liked being carried. Jason Funderburker pushed his froggy head up next to his, and the two of them watched the trees grow and the sky squirm around behind their branches, turning from orange to red. The color burned his eyes, and blinking started getting harder and harder to come back from.

"Aww… you two are so cute."

The words peeped into Greg's sleepy head after a while, but didn't make him open his eyes. He rubbed his nose on the back of Wirt's neck and rolled his head away from the noise.

"Thanks," Wirt's voice said. There was a grumble of thunder; it was getting louder every time. He hitched Greg up a little higher and puffed. "It's, uh… You don't wanna take a turn, I suppose?"

"I don't think I could." Mabel was the one talking to Wirt, he could hear. It seemed like it would be nice to say hi, but sleep seemed even nicer. "He's kinda big for his age, isn't he?"

"You don't have to tell me." Wirt bounced him up again, and Greg sniffed and wiggled back down into the warm spot he'd made. "If he winds up taller than me I have no idea what I'm going to do."

"Dipper used to be sooo insecure about being the shorter one of us," she said, and Greg felt the breeze from her flapping her arms around. "Until we turned fifteen, I mean. Now… Well, I still have like those three years to lord over him, at least. Small victories, right?"

"Small victories, yeah," Wirt murmured. Jason Funderburker writhed around in Greg's sweater, and he frowned and sleepily patted him back down. Four feet made patters on the crunchy ground for a while until Wirt spoke again: "So, you know, Mabel, I was thinking we… we should maybe talk?" He was squeaky.

Greg felt it when she grabbed Wirt's arm. "Oh my gosh, yes!" She squeezed his arm under hers, put her elbow in Greg's shin. "Yes yes yes! I'm so glad you asked! Because I noticed we haven't really talked that much one-on-one, I don't think, you know?, and I mean, things have been stressful, obviously, but I don't want that to make us miss out on each other's friendship." She jumped up and down and jerked the side of his body with her. "Talking would be fantastic! Okay, I'll go first. My name's Mabel, of course, aaand my hobbies are knitting and confectioning and free climbing and my favorite animals are pigs! I had braces until I was fourteen, and I'm captain of the ladies' rugby team, and I was born first and that technically makes me the older sibling. I'll think of some other stuff later. Now you!"

The back of Wirt's neck went hot. "I-I didn't – I mean, I, uh, I'm a music major, but –"

"Ohmygosh, I love music! What kind?"

"Well, woodwind performance with, um, maybe some interest in composition, but that's not what I –"

"I don't know what I want to major in yet," she said, and started swinging his arm back and forth with hers. "I mean, I've still got time to figure it out, obviously, but it's a big decision! Part of me wants culinary school, or fashion design, or hospitality, or industrial machining?"

"That's – quite a variety –"

"Yeah, I know. I can't decide. Sometimes it all makes me think that making teenagers invest a huge amount of time and money in a decision that essentially defines how they'll spend the rest of their lives isn't that great a system?"

"Yeah, it's – but, no, hey," he said, and he cleared his throat. She kept bouncing his arm. "Actually, I meant that – I think we need to talk about what happened to you and a-and Dipper? In Gravity Falls?"

The bouncing instantly stopped. Thunder filled its sound-place. Wirt walked two more steps and then halted and turned. For the first time, real curiosity cut into Greg's sleepiness, and he wanted to open his eyes, but decided to stay still.

"Mabel?" Wirt's voice.

"Why do you need to know that?" she asked, and Greg had never heard her sound this way before. All the funny was gone. Wirt seemed surprised, too. He faltered out loud, and then stopped and tried again.

"Because – b-because, I mean, I keep hearing a lot of little bits and pieces that sound really… really weird? But never the whole story. A-and I feel sort of like it might end up being important."

"Yeah, well, it won't, 'cause it's a long weird complicated thing from a long time ago that doesn't have anything to do with what's happening now," she said, and her tone was short and sharp.

Wirt was starting to match her. "Yeah, well, I guess I-I'm not so sure about that, you know? Because I keep hearing about, I don't know, demon possession here, a-and interdimensional portals there, and I mean, you heard the goats, I know you did, they said we were all here for a reason and they talked about darkness and they were looking a-at your brother when they did, I saw it, Mabel, we all did, and I just…"

"You," she said, chilly, "had better not be implying what I think you're implying."

"I don't know what I'm implying!" Wirt started to raise his voice, but dropped it straight down to a big whisper again in the middle of the sentence. "Because I don't know anything at all. You heard our story, but you never told yours. And I… I need to know, Mabel, I-I'm sorry, you and Dipper seem like good people, you do, but – I have bigger priorities." Greg felt his brother's arms tighten around his legs. "I won't put Greg in danger for anything. Not ever again."

"But we would never," she hissed shakily, and her voice got closer. "Me and Dipper would never do anything to hurt Greg or you or anyone else! How could you –?"

"Then –" But Wirt cut himself off as Dipper called from far behind, "Mabel! Is everything okay?"

She shuffled and breathed out her nose and took a second, and then yelled back, "Everything's fine!" She sounded perfectly happy. Wirt turned and started walking again and Greg strained his ears to hear if Mabel was still with them. Everything was quiet for a few minutes. It was so hard to stay still. He kept smelling something in the air, in little nose-bites, but he couldn't get quite a sense of it. The trees sure weren't saying. Then Mabel murmured, "You're not the only one whose brother is their priority, you know," and her voice had a break in it, like it wore her heart down to have to talk mean.

Greg's ear was pressed against Wirt's shoulder. He heard him swallow. "I know." His voice scratched. "I want – I want to trust you. Please. Please just tell me what happened so that I can let myself."

Quiet again for a long time. Mabel finally said, "Don't ask Dipper anything about this, okay?" She sounded very sad. "I'll tell you if you promise you just won't ask him."

"I – okay, I won't. But why?"

"'Cause it's not fair," she said. Greg thought her throat sounded kind of dry. "He shouldn't have to talk about it. Never again."

"Okay. I promise." He pulled one of his arms very carefully away from Greg's leg, and it felt like they shook hands. "Now tell me. Please. What happened in Gravity Falls?"

Again, Mabel took a minute. Greg sniffed again for that funny smell in the air. "We were twelve," she finally said, so quiet it was hard to hear, "and we were staying with our Grunkle Stan for the summer. You remember the stuff about the portal from last night?" Wirt nodded. "Our other Grunkle is the one who built it. We met –"

"Sorry, what on earth is a grunkle?"

"Our great uncle. See, you mash the words together and it's like a cute little portmon-thing…? Anyway. Dipper met someone who really, really wanted the portal back up and running. He was a demon from another dimension, and his world was falling apart and stuff, and I guess he figured if he could open up a hole between his world and ours he could come through and take over this one."

"…Wow."

"Yeah," Mabel said, dragging her feet. "It's kinda crazy-sounding."

"No, I mean – well, it is, but I realized that I completely believe all of it. I think that's the crazy part."

"You get used to it after a while." There was a jolt from her nudging him and they kept walking.

It took a while for Wirt to prompt, "So, um… what happened?"

"Oh. Yeah." She puffed. "I wasn't… I wasn't really there for the beginning, honestly. Dipper can be really solitary and, like, I was maybe off messing around and chasing boys more than I should have been sometimes, but…" A moment. "He told me, sort of. What led up to it. He doesn't like talking about it, and, like, I don't blame him. But he… he let Bill into his head, I guess. The demon, I mean. Dipper… He thought I was in danger, is the thing. He thought he was doing what he needed to save me." Her feet shuffled, crunched on the ground. "But Bill tricked him. He p-possessed him and used his body to open up the portal and –" Her breathing was getting louder and faster. Wirt stopped walking again and, unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Greg peeped open an eye, but he was facing the wrong way. The shadows had changed since he closed his eyes, and were colored dark dark orange. Lightning lit up the trees like a camera-flash and then the thunder fell out of the sky after it.

"The world went crazy," Mabel whispered. "There were monsters and demons everywhere and a lot of people almost died. And Dipper got hurt." Greg rolled his eyes around to see if he could see her. No dice. "He got hurt pretty bad. And our… one of our Grunkles, he figured out how to send Bill back to his dimension and he closed up the portal and saved everyone b-but in the end he… he didn't…" She had water in her throat. He didn't what? Greg wondered, but Wirt didn't ask Mabel to tell him what. He let go of Greg's leg again to do something with his hand. It felt like he was patting her.

"A-and it all got fixed in the end," Mabel sputtered, "and we lived, and everyone else was fine, b-but –"

Wirt said softly, "It's okay. It get it." She sniffed. "I'm… I'm really sorry."

"It's okay, I'm okay… Crap, let's keep walking. I don't want Dipper to see…"

Keep walking they did. Greg was starting to squirm; he couldn't help it. "But everything… everything's okay, now?" Wirt asked.

"Downright peachy," Mabel said, and her voice was cheerful but she kind of still sounded like she meant the opposite of what she was saying, which was confusing. "Bill's dead and we got to go back to our normal, everyday lives in Piedmont where there aren't any sexy werewolves at all and ghosts hardly ever try to kill you. What could be better, right?"

The scent of a fireplace was warming up Greg's nose and that, he finally realized, what was he'd been smelling this whole time. It was like Christmas Eve in the air, and he sighed contentedly. "Wirt," he murmured. Wirt craned over his shoulder to look at him.

"Oh, hey, Greg. You're awake."

"'Member when we went camping?"

"Um. Probably. We've been camping lots of times."

Mabel ruffled Greg's head and said, "I don't think I ever wanna go camping again after all this mess, yeah?"

"Haha. Yeah," Greg goofed sleepily, poking his head over his brother's shoulder. Mabel had sounded a minute ago like she was crying, but she looked okay now. Or maybe it was just getting too dark to see. "But Wirt, I mean the time we went camping when it was really really good. We swam in the river and there were all those snails on the rocks and raccoons stole our swim pants and Dad made basghetti on the campfire. Remember?"

"I don't think I remember that one."

"But there were snails!" He pulled his weight up more on Wirt's shoulders. "Now campfires always kind of smell like basghetti, I think. And now I want basghetti."

"I'll see what I can do, Greg," Wirt said tiredly, but Mabel grabbed his arm and made them both stop.

"Hold on," she said, and turned around. "Greg is right, though. It smells like –"

And that was the same moment Sara called from way behind, "Do you all smell that?!"

"Fire," Wirt murmured.

"Fire!" Mabel cried.

"Greg, here –" Wirt stooped to shoulder him down. Greg was sad to go back to walking, but it was okay. He was awake enough now. He dropped down to the ground and started running back toward the others with Wirt and Mabel.

Dipper and Sara and Beatrice were all standing together in a little chain. Beatrice slumped between them, staring at the ground and not talking much. "It can't be a wildfire," Sara was saying when they got to them. "There's got to be someone nearby." Greg felt thrilled. Why hadn't he thought of that!

Dipper said, "Does anyone have any idea where it's coming from?"

"How do you find a smell?" Mabel asked. The smokiness was strong and everywhere. It was a good question that Greg suddenly came up with a brilliant answer to.

"Beatrice!" he cried, and grabbed her arm away from where she'd been using it to lean on Sara. "Ask the birds!"

Everybody, Beatrice too, asked him: "What?"

"Ask the birds where the fire is!" He pulled on her arm to remind her not to pretend she couldn't do it. "They can see everything!"

The funny thing was, Beatrice actually looked for a second like she didn't know what he was talking about. She had big bags under her eyes and seemed like she was having a hard time focusing on him. He had the wild and crazy idea that he'd somehow dreamed up the crow that talked to her. Then her shoulders slumped when she understood, and she put a hand on the bridge of her nose. "Oh, jeez. Greg…"

Wirt was stern. "Greg, don't tease."

But Greg would never tease. Wirt should know that. "You said tonight, Beatrice! And it's almost night-time! You promised!" She took a deep shaky breath, still pinching her nose. "Please, Beatrice! Please?"

Beatrice looked at the others again and a painful look covered her tiredness. "What is he talking about?" Wirt asked.

"You know what, let's just maybe just run a little recon in the trees around here to see if we can find the fire close by," Sara said, reaching for Beatrice's arm again, but she was waved away.

Beatrice murmured, "No, he's right, I promised," but she didn't sound like she wanted to keep the promise at all. She limped slowly forward to lean against a tree and took a deep breath. "Hey!" she yelled toward the trees as loud as she could, which wasn't really that loud. "Who knows where that smoke is coming from?"

There was no sound except the sound of water. Beatrice turned pink and Greg took her hand to say thank you for trying. "Hey," Mabel asked, "are you feeling okay? You look kinda pale."

"Let's maybe just find someplace around here to sleep tonight, it's been a long day," Wirt agreed.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Beatrice muttered, and again she shouted, raggedy, "Come on, you stupid birds! You're making me look crazy down here! Where's the fire?"

The woods trickled and the sky boomed. And then, finally, from a tree not so far away, the sound of an owl: "Whoo, whooo-oo." Everyone perked their ears, and Beatrice dropped her hands like they were too heavy.

"It says it's coming from the west. Further down the tracks." She flipped a hand that way to make sure everyone got it. "Not far." Her eyes dared them to think she was lying. The other big kids all looked at each other, and said okay, and Wirt and Sara helped her start walking again. Greg felt like that had gone really well, or he did until he heard Wirt whisper to Beatrice, "You know, you don't have to play along with him if you don't want to."

Greg wanted to argue with his brother, but was distracted when the screaming noises started coming out of the woods again, just in time for the sun to go down. He was annoyed at Wirt, but walked close by his side anyway. The noises were different tonight than they had been before, though. They didn't screech and scream and whistle anymore; they just moaned, like they were hungry, or sad. Greg kept a sneaky ear out for the trees, but they weren't saying much. Sometimes he thought he could see something out there, black shapes like deer, maybe, but just like always, nothing ever came out toward them. The voices just complained in the dark.

"Look," Dipper said finally, and started jogging forward. It was almost dark for real now, but Greg could still see the wheezy shape of smoke billowing through the trees and a hot glow that was starting to touch the ground ahead. They came around a clump of bushes and, standing there next to the train tracks, was what looked like a cottage, or at least part of one. Its whole front half was missing, cut straight off like a pat of butter, or a dollhouse. It had a dark attic, but no stairs to get to it. The ground floor had a great big fire in a great big fireplace against the back wall, and half a kitchen to the left and half a bed to the right, both running right up against the edge of the house and ending with it. Even the rug in the middle of the floor was only half there. The wall next to the fireplace was burst in with woody roots that tangled with bricks and clumps of dirt, like a chunk of seaweed falling out of the wall, and it was hard to see, but if Greg squinted it looked like a tree had grown up around the whole back of the building, hugging it with its branches and vines.

"Wow," said Sara. "It actually was up here."

"I told you," Beatrice muttered, and then everyone started up shouting, because she slipped off of Wirt's shoulder and fell right down to the leafy ground.

She stood up with a lot of help. It was only a few steps to get into the house, but as soon as they did she fell again. Greg stood back as the big kids scrambled around. "I need to look at her leg," Dipper said. "Crap, um – Mabel, can you help her…?"

Greg sat down on the floor next to the half-bed and pulled open the collar of his sweater so Jason Funderburker could come out. The frog looked at the turned backs of the big kids and ribbeted worriedly at Greg. "I dunno," he answered. "I guess it's our turn to just wait and see." He didn't really understand what was happening. Beatrice had seemed okay not so long ago. Dipper and Wirt came to stand next to him for a minute, facing the wall of the house that didn't exist. Wirt had his face in his hand. "What's going on?" Greg asked. Wirt didn't take his face out, but Dipper smiled at him, sort of, kind of.

"Dunno yet, buddy," he said. He sounded so tired.

"Okay, she's ready," Sara said from next to the fire, and both older boys walked straight back. This time, Greg followed them.

Beatrice was laying on the floor next to the fire, wearing Mabel's skirt, while Mabel was just finishing zipping up the pants that Beatrice had been wearing all day. Beatrice's eyes were open, but she didn't look like she was really looking at anything. She was breathing heavy. "Shit," Dipper said as he kneeled down next to her, and Wirt sort of elbowed him, but he didn't apologize. Greg peeped in over his brother's shoulder. Beatrice's right leg had a big purple spot on the front that, it was kind of hard to see in the firelight, but it looked shiny and wet. The sight of it made Greg uneasy. All the big kids looked the same way he felt. Sara stood up and walked across the room.

"I should have checked it more often today," Dipper said, empty in the voice. "Jesus. I shouldn't have let this happen…"

"'S not your fault," Beatrice rasped with her eyes closed, and then wrapped herself up in her arms and shook. "Fffuck, I'm cold."

"Dipper," Mabel said nervously, "is she gonna be okay?"

Being hurt didn't make Beatrice less grumpy. "Don't talk about me like I'm not here."

Dipper ignored her: "I don't – I don't know. I… I didn't have anything to sanitize…" He started to run his hands through his hair again, but all five of them jumped as a huge dragging sound came from the other side of the cottage.

Sara stood in the half-kitchen, using both her hands to pump a big handle up and down, a handle attached to a metal pole with a spout on it. Greg had never seen anything like it. She grimaced and stopped trying. "Somebody get me a water bottle." Mabel dug through Sara's backpack and tossed her the last full plastic water bottle. She unscrewed part of the pipe and started pouring the water inside.

Wirt sat up. "But that's the last of our…"

"I know," Sara grunted, and started pumping the handle again. It made a sound like a bathtub draining, that got closer-sounding, and closer, and then suddenly there was a squirt and water started pouring out of the spout. "Ha! Unf. I knew it! Greg, come here, give me your hat."

"My hat?"

"Bring it here." He did so. She pulled it off of his head and filled it with water with one shaky hand, while she used the other to keep pumping. It looked hard, so Greg crawled up on top of the counter and held the pan for her. When he got up there, he was surprised to see that the sink was only half there, but the water in it sloshed up against the cut of the house like there was an invisible wall. He thought that was pretty neat. Sara stopped pumping and took the panful of water and plopped it onto the grate above the fire. She huffed and dropped down again next to Beatrice.

"Tear up the rest of that shirt and boil it," she told Dipper. It seemed to take him a minute to hear the words, until he stopped staring at her and turned pink and did what she told. Sara was looking off at nothing, but she put a hand on Beatrice's shoulder. "No one's getting their leg amputated on my watch," she said grimly. Beatrice looked surprised, and then touched, and she patted Sara's hand back. Mabel seemed as impressed as Dipper did.

"I totally see why you dated her," she whispered to Wirt, and his face turned red.

So there they sat for a while and a while longer, and the night behind them got blacker and the voices in the forest got louder and sadder. Rain fell harder and lightning flashed and thunder tried its best to keep up with it. Greg kept looking over his shoulder into the forest, thinking it felt like someone was watching him, but the big kids were all too busy to think about stuff like that. Dipper fished the last bits of his shirt out of the pot of boiling water with his knife and laid them out on Beatrice's leg; Greg didn't hear what she said when he did that, because Wirt put his hands over his ears, but it was loud and she accidentally punched Sara in the shoulder during.

When that was done, Wirt and Dipper went to pull the half-a-bed away from the edge of the house, only to find the rest of the bed show up as they dragged it toward them, like it had been hiding under a curtain the whole time. They put the bed in front of the fire, and put Beatrice on the bed, and she laid there shaking, with her arm flung over her face and shiny sweat on her skin. Every time she breathed big and trembly, it seemed like everybody got tenser. Wind blew in through the missing wall and tossed rain at them. It made the back of Greg's neck cold. Everything in the room was half orange from the fire, and half blue from the forest. Mabel sat by the fire and rocked back and forth; "Uh, who wants to eat?" she asked, and the big kids all nodded unhappily.

Candy was passed out. The bag was getting empty. Greg's truffle bar didn't taste as good as it usually did. Eating it kind of made his head hurt, actually. The shadows out in the trees moaned like they knew how he felt. Beatrice ate one bite of the last Straw-Very and then put it next to her on the bed and laid quiet, looking green. The big kids all stopped talking to each other. The trees outside whipped around loudly, like they were jumping from scaredness of the lightning.

Then Greg thought he saw something dark move in the corner of the house. He squinted into the mess of tree roots on the wall, and realized for the first time that there was a little black cat curled up in the middle of them. None of them had noticed it sitting there when they got here. It blinked yellow at him. Greg was thrilled and was ready to tell everyone about the wall cat, but Sara started talking first.

"Tonight we're gonna boil as much water as we can," she told them all. "Then tomorrow we'll refill all the bottles we have, and stay put. It's dry here, and we'll find food. Start setting rabbit traps or something, I don't know. We'll stay as long as we need to. Getting to Gravity Falls is less important than making sure nobody…" She chewed on her lip. "Yeah." The others shared looks. Greg, for one, didn't dislike the idea of quitting walking for a few days, but his feelings were interrupted by the scratchy thoughtful words:

"That's a mighty admirable plan, child, but you young 'uns may find more trouble in it 'n you're expectin'."

Dipper was so surprised that he tried to stand up and just threw his legs out all over the place. Wirt jumped back where he sat. Beatrice croaked, "What the –?"

But Greg knew straightaway where the talking had come from. He looked at the cat, and it flicked its ears at him and kept going, "'Fraid she won't stay sleeping long, see. Not after I've gone." Its voice was low and sleepy and deep.

Greg crawled over toward it and leaned in across a root. It was curled up in a little nest of bricks and wood. "You talk!"

"I do," the cat said with a chuckle in its voice.

Beatrice whispered, "I feel like shit. Am I hallucinating the cat, or is it actually happening?"

"The cat is happening." Dipper straightened himself back out. "This is a new one, though. Never seen a talking cat before."

Mabel popped up next to Greg and asked the cat if she could pet him. The cat hunched up its shoulders and seemed to think about it. "Alrigh', child, I think that'll be fine."

"Well, aren't you a gentleman tom!" She rubbed it behind the ear and it made happy rumbles that were so nice Greg decided to join her.

"What, now we're all petting the talking cat?" Wirt croaked. "We haven't all learned our lesson about talking animals yet?"

"Mind who you call an animal, young man," the cat purred. "I'm only tryin' t' do you children a kindness. Y'all look like you could use one or two." Wirt frowned, but didn't disagree. He took another bite of his chocolate bar with a little gag.

The cat draped its front half over a root and watched them eat. "You'll make y'selves sick, with so much sugar," it observed.

"Yeah," Dipper muttered, and tossed his wrapper into the fire. "Thanks."

"Consider eatin' a more balanced meal, t' keep y' strength up."

"Yeah, no kidding," Dipper said again. It didn't seem like he was trying to be rude, but Greg thought he didn't seem to like cats very much. "Very helpful. Do you know where we can find one?"

"Well, I'll confess to havin' a very different conception of a balanced meal than y'selves, but have you checked under your rear end?"

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Thanks again." But the cat looked at Greg and winked, and he couldn't help getting a strange feeling from it. A crazy thought made him follow its eyes, and he saw there was a little square cut into the floor right where Dipper was sitting. He gave the cat another look; it smiled. So he pulled his mouth to the side and tugged on the older boy's sleeve, and when Dipper saw where Greg was pointing, he stopped glowering and jumped straight up to his feet like a Mexican jumping bean. "Wait, what the hell…?"

The handle of the floor-door was tiny and rusted, but Sara's fingers were small enough to fit underneath. She pried the little trapdoor open. It came up with tumbling pine needles and clingy moss. Everybody, even Beatrice, leaned as close as they could to see what was inside. The space under it was just about big enough for Greg to have curled up in it if he'd wanted.

It was full to the top with fruits and vegetables.

The big kids seemed to all take a deep breath at once, and when they let it out Greg could almost hear five days of angry hunger go with it. They reached in across each other and started pulling out everything they could grab; potatoes and carrots and squashes and walnuts and sunflower seeds and beets and something Mabel called a parsnip, and even a few wrinkly apples from a little cloth sack on top. Wirt took one and stared at it in the firelight for a minute, and then handed it to his brother. It was dry and mealy, but Greg hadn't ever tasted anything so nice before. Or at least not since he ate some strawberries that morning. Dipper took an apple too, and closed his eyes as he chewed.

"Oh God," he said around a mouthful. "I never realized how much I missed fiber."

"How did you know this was here?" Sara asked the cat. The cat just smiled.

"I know everythin'," it said.

Lightning kept sparkling up the forest, but now it felt like there was electricity in the room, too. Even though the rain got harder and faster outside, inside seemed warmer, and louder, and the firelight was golden on the walls, perfect for a cold night. Dipper started chopping up the potatoes and parsnips and putting them into Greg's hat, and they filled it with fresh water and put it in the fire. Sara cut a squash in half and put it on the grate to roast. Even Beatrice tried to help by cutting up the rest of the apples, but quietly laid the knife down again after not too long. Only Greg saw how her hands were shaking. In the kitchen cupboards, they found wooden spoons and wooden bowls and a little bag of salt and a little bag of flour, and with those discoveries the potato-parsnip pot got turned into a stew. The air around them turned starchy and smoky and rich, the most wonderful smells in the world, and Greg's tummy growled in excitement. He tried to help with cooking, but Wirt wouldn't let him use the knife or go near the fire, so he went back to the cat instead and crawled up the roots to be next to it. He scratched the cat behind his ears, and the cat leaned into his leg and stretched his little legs out stiff.

"You're a great kitty," Greg said. "Thanks for showing us the food."

"Ah, don' worry your li'l head over it," the cat purred. "You an' your brother already showed you're the righ' sort, the las' time we met."

"Last time?" Greg couldn't ever remember meeting a talking black cat before. "I don't remember a last time."

"Don't imagine y' would. I was wearin' a different face back then." It sounded thoughtful: "Though so were you, in some ways."

That was a curious thing to say. Greg petted the cat until Mabel started singing about the food being done, and he jumped down and ran to get some.

The meal was gray and bubbly, but the children dug in without complaint. Greg had never, ever realized before that he liked vegetables so much. He ate squash and parsnips and plain old walnuts like they were his favorite foods in the world. Someone had put the chopped apples in the stew, and he hadn't ever even known that fruit in stew was an option, but they made a lovely sweet crunch in the oversalted broth. The only problem with the food was that there wasn't very much. Greg gobbled down his bowl and looked wistfully at the small empty pot, resigned that good things couldn't last, but Dipper was already starting to chop more vegetables.

"How much should we eat tonight and how much should we save?" he asked the others.

"Give me more potatoooes," Mabel commanded from where she'd stretched out next to the fire, and her brother did just that. While they waited, Greg laid his head on Wirt, and Wirt laid his head on their backpacks piled up on the floor. Sara started braiding Mabel's hair, and from the bed, Beatrice made a sleepy joke about nuts that Greg didn't get, but it made everyone else laugh. Hunger had made all of them sharp and mean, but as the food bubbled on the fire, a soft cotton sheet seemed to fall over the room. The big kids were all talking to – not arguing, or throwing little jabs at each other, but just talking, like actual real friends. Beatrice asked Sara if she had any siblings ("One older sister," was the answer, responded to with "How did your parents manage stop at just two?") and Wirt asked Mabel to tell them more about the twins' summer in Gravity Falls. The cat purred quietly in the corner, and the tree it was curled up in asked Greg if he was happy. He closed his eyes. For the first time in a long time, he really was.

"…and eventually realized through process of elimination that giant vampire bats don't have the standard vampire weaknesses, but they are very vulnerable to electricity." Dipper finished up the tale while his sister pulled the second pot of food out of the fire with her sweater sleeves wrapped around her hands. "That is real and valuable information, by the way. Remember it."

"I don't want to live in a world with giant vampire bats," Wirt frowned. "I was much happier before I knew about that."

"Glad I didn't tell you about what happens to your reject Halloween candy, then."

"This is delicious," Sara sighed as they passed the stew around again. "Or maybe my standards for good food are really low right now."

"I'm gonna say yes, since Dipper was involved in cooking it." Mabel laughed through her brother's dig into her ribs with his elbow. "Ahh, I'm joking. You're not that bad at cooking. Remember that time you didn't burn the oatmeal?"

"Hey, cooking is hard," Wirt said with a spoon halfway to his mouth.

"You see?" Dipper gestured at him with a meaningful look at his sister. "It doesn't come naturally to everyone, Mabel."

Wirt added, "There are hot implements involved. It's dangerous."

"A person could get hurt!"

"This is just pathetic." Mabel gave Sara a suffering look. "Through the generations we're still all connected by men not knowing how to feed themselves, am I right, ladies?"

Beatrice coughed laughter. "My father would have starved to death years ago if he didn't have a wife and five daughters who know how to use a stove. You can't cook, Wirt?"

"I can, like… boil water and put things in it."

"That's not cooking."

Sara came to his defense: "He makes pretty good ramen."

"And lovin'!" Greg added around a mouthful of stew. "You said he makes a hot cup of lovin'!" The smile on Sara's face instantly disappeared and she turned bright red, and Wirt made a sound like he'd inhaled water.

"I – okay, no, I used that line once," Sara protested. Dipper rubbed the back of his head and tried not to make eye contact, but Mabel and Beatrice shook with laughter. "It was a joke. I swear to god, I don't actually talk that way. Oh my God, Greg, that was like a year ago, how do you even remember that?"

"It sounded so good!"

"Alright, you know what, you don't tell anybody about the things that Sara and I ever said to each other anymore, okay?" Wirt instructed, his ears bright red. "Especially the things you shouldn't have heard."

"No, no, I'm curious now," Mabel said through a toothy grin. "What goes into a hot cup of lovin'? Exotic spices? A splash of bourbon? Cream?" Wirt's blush spread to his cheeks, and Sara buried her face in her hands.

"C'mon, Mabel, leave them alone," Dipper muttered.

Beatrice rasped from the bed, "I feel like they sort of walked into that one, though."

"I don't get it," Greg said.

"You know, Mabel, there are a lot of stories I could tell them about you and Pacifica. Tread carefully."

"You go ahead and tell them! I regret nothing."

"Even the time I found you together in the –?"

"Even that."

Sara said, "Pacifica sounds like a girl's name."

"Yeah?"

"And you're –? No, sorry, okay, you just made it sound like –"

"Yeah, we did. That's exactly what happened." They stared at each other for a second, and then Mabel's eyes grew wide: "Ohh my God, Sara, I forgot you don't know. Did they have bisexualty in the 80s, Dipper?"

"They most certainly did."

Beatrice rolled onto her side and asked, "What's that?"

"That's when you wanna get with boys and girls," Mabel said patently.

"Oh. Wait, that's an option?" She still looked ill, but suddenly a lot more excited.

"Whoo, okay, boy, is it getting overwarm in here for anyone else?" Wirt asked, hunched up uncomfortably under his cloak. "I think maybe we should all move on to talk about other unrelated things that aren't this." Greg still felt like everyone was talking in circles around him, and looked down at Jason Funderburker for insight. The frog just shrugged. Mabel kept grinning as she turned to look into the fire, but slowly the smile fell away from her face.

"I wonder if Pacifica's okay," she said quietly, and the words were so surprisingly sad that Greg felt like they poked him in the throat, like an unhappy knife. He chewed on his lip and looked at the others. All their bowls were already empty again, except for Beatrice's, which she didn't look like she'd really touched. Uncomfortably, he kicked his feet, and then looked over to the cat once more.

"Hey, Mister Cat," he said. The cat opened its lazy eyes. "Do you wanna come by the fire? It's warmer here."

The cat yawned a little pink diamond. "That's mighty kind o' you t' ask, child, but I told you, she'll wake up if I leave this here spot. I think I'll stay."

"'She'?" Sara pulled her knees up to her chin. "Who are you talking about?"

"Why, th' mistress o' th' house, girl. You think I built that fire?" It chuckled sensibly to itself.

"Wait, someone lives here?" Dipper clenched his fists. "Is she going to come back tonight?"

"Boy, she never left." The cat turned its chin up to the ceiling, and as it did, the roots spilling from the back wall seemed to suddenly swell, like a wave. Earth tumbled to the floor and dust fell from the ceiling. Wirt raised a hand to cover his face, and pulled the cloak around Greg. When he pushed it out of his face again, it was to the sight of a great woody arm reaching out from the mass of roots and rubbing groggily at a face hidden inside. The black cat, he realized, wasn't sitting in a nest of roots after all, but in someone's crisscross lap, a huge someone that none of them had noticed was wrapped up in the tree because she looked like she was made of trees herself. Her head touched the ceiling and rested on her shoulder, and her hair was red leaves and cobwebs, and the roots grew in and out of her arms and legs like they didn't know where they ended and she began. The giant old woman let out a snore and rolled her head to the other shoulder, and then went quiet again.

Greg was more interested than surprised: "Holy moly, who is that!"

"Jus' more kindlin' for the fire, I'm sure," the cat said. It sounded kind of sad.

"Holy crap." Dipper stared open-mouthed at the woman. "Is that – is she a witch or something?"

"Of a sorts. A child-eater, f' sure, if that's what you're askin'."

Dipper swallowed loudly. "Jesus Christ. You guys, I think we need to l–"

The cat cut him off. "Ahh, not hardly." It put its little black chin on a root that was also the woman's leg. "Well, not to say you aren't free to leave if it's stricken your fancy, o' course, but the Mother o' Tree Roots is a deep sleeper. More so 'n usual lately. More so 'n that, even, with a feline companion for the night." Wirt tugged Greg closer to him. Greg loved his brother, but he was getting a little tired of being pulled around like a puppy. "She won't wake till I've gone, and I'm not leavin' till mornin'. You young un's can afford to give y'selves a break. At least for tonight." The cat sat back inside its own neck ruff. "But I say again – 's your choice."

Dipper didn't seem to think the cat was trying to play tricks on them anymore. He glanced at Beatrice, still laying on the bed with her leg covered in wet rags, and nodded. "Okay. Fine. Tonight." He hunched his shoulders up and said again, like he was trying to make himself feel better: "At least we have tonight."

Greg sat back and regarded the big woman. She had a bumpy nose and skin almost as dark as Sara's. "Can she even get up?" he thought aloud to himself. "She looks tied up like the goats."

The cat perked its ears at him. "Ah, so y'met those two ol' bovids?"

"I think they said they were brothers," Greg corrected him kindly.

Wirt said, "Greg's right, though. She's all… woody. Just like the goats were." He reached out like he wanted to touch one of the roots, but lost his nerve. "How'd – how'd she end up in an Edelwood tree?"

"Well, granted I hadn't asked, but I'd imagine she lost a game to those ol' wolves," the cat said lazily.

Sara and Dipper exchanged looks. "Is every person we meet here going to be halfway inside a tree?"

"O' course not," the cat purred. "I'm free as a bird."

A loud screamy wail came from around the back side of the house, and Greg felt his brother shiver next to him. "Okay, what is that?" Beatrice turned her sweaty face toward the missing wall, looking upset. "What's going on out there? I'm about to lose it if I have to listen to that screaming for another night, I swear."

"'S a lost soul," the cat said. It sounded kind of sad. "Beggin' for someone t' look out for it."

"A lost soul," Dipper murmured. "That sounds like what the goats said about the Edelwood, too."

"Certainly," the cat purred. Dipper gave it a look. "Well, what? You're not wrong, child. I woulda thought you knew. The Edelwood's been followin' close on y' heels since this place first came to be. Lurkin' in the dark. Y' hear its voice every night."

"I'm so confused," Mabel said. "I thought the Edelwood was the tree."

The cat agreed, "It can be, when it takes root." It rubbed its cheek on one of said dirty roots next to it. "It can be a lot o' things. 'S your shadow when the sun goes down. 'S the feelin' o' realizin' you may never make it out of the woods. Not alive, anyway." The fire popped, and Greg jumped. "Th' Edelwood is the spirit, an' the Unknown is its body, an' I s'pose in that analogy the caretaker'd be the mind. And that'd mean the poor thing lost its mind when that ol' Beast got blown right out back in the day, wouldn't it?"

Sara's knuckles wrapped around her legs until they turned white. "So it's out there looking for its caretaker when we hear it at night," she said. "Just like the wolf said before it died." Wirt's hand was on Greg's shoulder, and when she said that aloud his fingers tightened till they started to hurt him.

Beatrice pushed shakily up onto her elbows. "It must be trying to find the Beast."

"Can't be," Wirt said hollowly. "The Beast is dead."

"What if there's another one out there?"

"I wouldn't worry y'selves about that," the cat said. Wirt and Beatrice looked at him at the same time. "I mean, there'll always be a caretaker of some stripe o' another, but if there's any luck in this world at all, there'll only ever be one Beast." Greg thought, for a second, that the Edelwood in the wall was trying to say something to him again, but he turned his ear and didn't hear anything. "Take my word for what it's worth, 'o course, but I've lived a long time in these woods, and I'll tell you true, children, things don't need to be a certain way jus' 'cause they always have been. That ol' Beast took joy in despair. He wanted his to be a forest o' surrender, and I know some o' you remember what sort of awful world that made. A black one. Cold." His voice put on a thinking tone: "I reckon that cold's what took so much away from him, in the end, now I think of it. Turned him into a shadow, couldn't even keep his own light lit. Sad, really. He was a mighty charmin' young man, back in the day.

"Th' Edelwood needs rules to live by, sure, but don't we all? There are as many ways t' approach death as there are ways to go about life. You boys in particular should know that." Behind Greg, his big brother was holding his breath. "Its caretaker can lead people down whatever path he likes."

"But how do you know all this?" Dipper asked, with just the littlest bit of edgy suspicion around his voice. "Aren't you supposed to be just a – a cat?"

The cat looked straight at him. Nobody had been talking, but everyone seemed to get quieter.

"I," it said, like a dad who wants you to understand something really important, "know everythin' that goes on in these woods. Everythin', boy. Every stranger stalkin' 'neonate the trees, lookin' for the same thing you are. I know 'bout that bruise on the back of your head, and the pine needle y'had in your eye. I know what the shadows are sayin'." Dipper glanced around and swallowed. The cat put a sly eye on the rest of them. "I know one of you feels like she don't belong with the rest, and another's got a bad seed bloomin' in his heart, and another still's not alone in his own head. I know what brought y'all here, an' I know you do too, and I know that the moment y' realized that was also the moment y' started to get real, real scared, and I know how wise that is, too, 'cos this world –" the cat flicked its tail above its head, to the massive roots holding the old woman in place "– is a dread place for children.

"Y'all want my advice?" the cat continued, and now everyone was watching it closely. "My advice is, none of y'all listen to nobody but each other. Not the trees. Not the birds. An' certainly not the voices in y' heads." It washed its ear with a curled paw. "You'll meet some here who'll call 'emselves your benefactors, but don't believe 'em. Hurry your feet and get where you're goin' fast as you can, 'fore y' demons catch up with you." Greg didn't know what the word benefactors meant. Outside, the tree trunks striped with lightning and thunder ran to catch up behind. "Heck knows why you'd listen t' me, though," the cat chuckled suddenly, and yawned. "I mean – I'm jus' a cat, aren't I?"

"You are the scariest cat I've ever met," Mabel said uncomfortably.

"Awh, child." The cat batted a bashful paw at her. "Y' don' mean that."

Lightning cracked again. The cat stopped talking, but all the goofiness and fun that had been there before was gone again. It was nice while it lasted, Greg supposed. Eventually, Sara stood up to wash out the pan for boiling more water, while Mabel started filling up their backpacks with the rest of the food from the hole in the floor. Beatrice laid still on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with hollow eyes and shivers in her body. Mabel sat down on the end of the bed and held her hand and whispered a question about whether she was cold. Beatrice shook her head, but didn't object to taking Mabel's sweater when she took it off and laid it over her anyway.

Greg wanted to help clean up, but sleep was heavy in his tummy and in his eyes. He rolled over next to Wirt's leg and peeped out into the forest. The rain pitter-pattered like marbles on the leaves and soft ground. The trees didn't seem to mind the thunder and lightning. The trees didn't seem to mind almost anything, actually. They had a lot of admirable qualities.

Then something scratched suddenly in his throat, and when he tried to swallow it, it turned painful. He coughed, lightly and then harder. Something weird and woody hit the back of his mouth, and he fished it out with a "Blehh."

It was a little red leaf. He moved his tongue around to see if there were any more tree-bits in his mouth while he looked at it. He hadn't been eating any leaves lately, so it was pretty strange to find there; maybe it had gotten in with the food and he didn't notice. He wondered if he should tell Wirt, but decided not to. Wirt was doing enough worrying about him lately.

Greg was the first to fall asleep, and it took a long time for the others to drop off one after the other behind him. The fire got lower and lower, but the cat kept its yellow eyes on them, even through the dark.


SO I started working again in mid-March, which contributed heavily to this chapter taking approximately one full geological age to complete. The good news here is that more content was originally intended to be included at the end of this one, and was separated for length, meaning the next chapter is already more or less finished and should be up very soon, after a few minor edits. Sorry, and thanks, to those of you who have been sticking around through all these horrendously unpredictable updates, boooy howdy

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