Home for Christmas
(December 27, 2016)
9
"Anybody hurt? Bitten? Even scratched?" Wendy asked as she and Dipper drew near Mabel.
"No," Dipper said. "Mabel?"
"Huh?"
"You OK? They didn't bite you or scratch—"
"No, no, fine."
They had reached her, and for the first time Dipper glanced down. Mabel knelt in the grass, her hands on . . . something . . . that faintly twinkled with silver lights. Then it all faded.
"What is that?" Dipper asked.
"Dip!" Wendy warned. "Stay sharp, man! It's out there somewhere."
"Just a second." Dipper reached in his coat pocket and fumbled with something inside. Grimacing, he pulled off his gloves—the air was cold, but he could stand it for a while—and pulled out his old, compact anomaly detector. "Wendy, I'm gonna need both hands for a minute. Mabel. Mabel! Keep a watch out to the right, and if anything moves—"
"Hurry!"
Dipper had preset the detector to organic shape-shifter. He turned it on and carefully set it on the ground. "That will sound an alarm if the werewolf gets within a hundred feet. It shows all clear right now." He slipped the glove back on and shouldered his axe.
"Mabel," Wendy said impatiently, "what are you doing? What is that?"
"It's an animal," Mabel said. "A big one. But it's fading in and out. When it breathes, I can see it a little, but when it exhales, it's just an outline with twinkly sparks."
"Not a shapeshifter, though," Dipper said. "The detector would have gone off."
"Are you sure it's not an illusion?" Wendy asked.
"No, I can feel it, and it's warm. Wait a minute."
"What are you doing?" Dipper asked.
"Taking off these stupid goggles."
"Don't do it!" Wendy said.
"Oh!" Mabel exclaimed. "I can see it a little better without them! I mean, it's a dark shape, but—I see. I see! It's real!"
"Mabel!" Dipper pleaded.
"It got clearer! When I said that—wait, maybe—I believe in you! I believe you're real!"
"What are you talking to?" Wendy asked.
"You have to see it."
"Mabel, the Pack leader's out there somewhere! Can we carry this thing to the Jeep?"
"Too big," Mabel said. "Come on, please don't fade out! You guys, help me!"
"Mabel, we can't!" Dipper said.
After a moment, Wendy said, "Help her, Dip, but keep the axe handy. That detector goes off, you arm yourself and kill anything that comes running at us!"
"You sure?" Dipper asked.
"I'm sure that we can't stand here until sunrise!" Wendy shot back. "Go on, I got it."
Dipper gingerly hunkered down, placing the axe where he could grab it in a hurry. He turned so he faced Mabel. "All I see is sort of a swarm of silver firefly-like lights," he said.
"Raise up your goggles."
Dipper pushed them up, just on his forehead. He could yank them back into position in half a second. If he had that long.
Darkness fell like a curtain. He could very dimly make out Mabel in the faint starlight, and a dark shape the size of a big dog, a Borzoi or a large Great Dane. No, even larger, and with long legs? It was hard to be sure. Without the goggles, the little sparks of light had dimmed. The shape drew a long breath and seemed to gain solidity for a moment. Still he couldn't be sure—
"Take off your gloves and put your hands on it," Mabel said. "Hurry! I think it'll die if you don't!"
Dipper had not replaced his gloves. After a moment of hesitation, he knelt and did what Mabel had told him to do. He felt a definite body, trembling a little. He was touching coarse fur that seemed to overlie a softer inner coat. "What the heck is it?" Dipper asked.
"Dipper," Mabel said in a voice full of pleading, "you know there's all kinds of creatures in Gravity Falls that are just legends and myths everywhere else, right? Manotaurs and Gnomes and even fairies—"
"What is it?" Dipper asked.
Mabel took a deep breath. "It's—I think—it's one of Santa's reindeer."
Everything inside Dipper rejected the claim. Flying reindeer? Part of Santa's team?
But Santa was—was nothing but a children's legend, a pleasant story, and the reindeer hadn't even been part of it until, what, Clement Moore's poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas?" And that had been written in the nineteenth century—
No, this was too bizarre, too unlikely. It was worse. It was silly, it was corny. It was childish—
"Dipper," Mabel cried out, nearly sobbing, "you're not believing! You have to believe!"
What am I supposed to do, clap my hands like a kid watching Tinkerbell dying up on stage? I can't pretend to do something impossible for me to do! His mouth felt dry. "I—Mabel—I don't know how!"
Wendy said, "Dip! Listen to her! You got a kid inside you! Find him! Call on him!"
Dipper felt as if his heart were being torn. "I don't know if I can! I don't even know if it'll help!"
"Dipper, please," Mabel said. "Please try. Think of what's behind the story, not the story!"
Dipper tried. He remembered a Christmas season when he and Mabel were really small, sitting side by side on the sofa, holding hands, watching that Rudolph special on TV, the puppet-reindeer, the reject, the misfit—
He had felt something then. Like the reindeer in the story, Dipper was a loner, with nobody to befriend him. Not one person outside of the family, who had to love him because that was part of the burden of being in the family.
No friends. Not one. Like the sad little hero of the animated TV special.
But—but he had felt something, empathy, a kind of wordless understanding.
Wait. Mabel had said to believe in . . . What's behind the story.
Christmas. OK, it was a good time. His family celebrated it because of Mom, like they celebrated Hanukkah because of Dad. Both holidays brought . . . joy. Because, because—why? What was behind both?
Logic's not gonna help me here!
"Think with your heart," Mabel whispered, as if the two of them really did have twin ESP and she'd heard his despair.
Christmas. A time for family and presents you gave because you loved someone. A time for sharing and remembering. Santa, Santa, what did Santa embody? Not the presents. Not anything material.
Kindness. Acceptance. Love for all, and it didn't matter what they believed or didn't believe. A kind of—of Grace. Just a temporary state, but one that told you Grace was possible.
A moment for recognizing the little spark of goodness that even those you didn't like must hold somewhere deep in their hearts.
A moment of—understanding, for letting anger and disappointment and bitterness go. A time above all for forgiving . . . .
"Yes!" Mabel said, joy in her voice.
Dipper opened his eyes and said, "I believe. I do. I believe!"
"Me, too!" Wendy said. "If it helps, I believe—because my heart tells me to, because my friend believes! Because the man I love does!"
"Get away! Let him go!" Mabel yelled.
Dipper pushed back.
Something silver and gold and shaped like a deer rose to its long legs, crouched, and bounded up, up, and did not come down, but streaked into the sky and headed northward, like a meteor rising instead of falling.
Its trajectory would take it beyond the Valley, somewhere safe.
Who knows?
It might even take it to the North Pole, or to some version of the world where the rest of the team, where even a jolly old man, waited for it to return home.
Mabel fell on Dipper, hugging him tight. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!
And urgently, the anomaly detector sounded the alarm.
