Home for Christmas
(December 27, 2016)
10
"Mabel! Goggles!" Dipper yelled, pulling his own down, retrieving the axe, and springing to his feet.
"Comin' down the hill!" Wendy shouted.
The werewolf had circled them, evidently high on the slope of the UFO hill, and now came charging down, weirdly changed. It had tried to go to its human form for some reason—maybe stealth—and was frozen partway between shapes.
Its hind legs had the high knee and the long crooked ankle of a wolf, but from the midriff up it had become a bloody, misshapen mess, barrel-chested, long-armed, with huge paw-hands hooked with claws and a round head with he ears of a wolf and a strange protruding jaw, halfway between snout and human face. In the green glow of the goggles, its eyes burned with white fury.
"Got it!" Mabel said, going into a martial-arts crouch.
"We got it together!" Wendy yelled. "Don't get in each other's—"
The creature launched itself into the air from ten feet away, its momentum carrying it crashing into Wendy. She fell backwards, instantly rolled and got her knees bent and her feet against its belly, and then kicked ferociously.
The werewolf flipped over her and hit the ground hard on its back. Mabel straddled its chest, the dagger at its throat. "Move and die!" she screamed.
The werewolf's left hand, or paw, whatever it was, bent backwards, bones clearly broken, but it tried to slash her with its right.
"No!" Dipper said, stamping on it hard. He felt more bones crunch beneath the sole of the hiking boot. He raised the axe, a blue-white shimmer running along the deadly silvered edge.
Wendy had rolled over to her knees and swung her axe. It quivered to a halt a quarter-inch from the werewolf's forehead. "So easy to kill you," she said. "But I won't. I won't."
She leaped to her feet and drew the axe back over her head. "The hell I won't!"
"Nnnnnooooo," the creature gargled from its only part-human throat.
Mabel, panting, pulled the blade about an inch across its throat. It bit into skin and blood trickled. "Give up. I want to kill you! And I don't like the feeling!"
"But we'll do it," Dipper said.
Five pounding heartbeats passed, and then, painfully, with vocal equipment no longer shaped for it, the creature fell still and rasped out three anguished howls.
"He gives up. He can't go back on that," Dipper said. "Mabel, get off him."
"It is a pleasure to slaughter such filth," she said in a voice not her own. Her kaiken glittered coldly. "One slash and the head is off!"
"Mabel," Dipper said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You're not Yamoto."
Grunting, she pushed herself off the werewolf, wiped the blade on the palm of her hand, and put it in its scabbard. "Kuso!" she rasped.
Wendy moved the blade away. "Get on your knees!" she said.
"C-cannt . . . "
"On your belly, then! Now!"
The creature rolled over, whimpering and groaning. Now that it wasn't moving, that he wasn't moving, Dipper saw the dark slashes and the blood-matted hair, the twisted shape of buttocks and legs. It even still had the oddly pathetic stub of its tail.
"You understood what I told your Pack, didn't you?" Wendy said, the question coming out more like an angry curse.
"Yesss."
"Whose Valley is this now? Whose?"
"Yourrrsss."
"Say our names, dammit!"
"Ssssooooting starrr. Grrreat bearrr. Wind-warkerrrr."
"What are we? WHAT ARE WE?"
"Mmmasterrrss of the Varrey."
"All right," Wendy said. "Do you want to live? DO YOU WANT TO LIVE, you son of a bitch?"
Strangely apt, Dipper thought. He had the nightmare sense of being trapped in a surreal dream. Mabel thirsting for an animal's blood. Wendy cursing and ready to kill. Himself, not sorry that he had crushed bones in the thing's paw. Hand. Whatever. And this fierce thing sprawled at their feet, sniveling and moaning.
Too much. Too much.
Wendy raised her axe. "Better answer me! Do. You. Want. To. Live?"
"Yyyessss. Preasssse."
"It has trouble with sh- and l-sounds," Dipper said in a conversational tone.
"Like I give a damn," Wendy said. "All right. You change back into a wolf. You leave the Valley—go back to your own territory. Understand?"
"Yyyessss."
"Wait a minute," Mabel said. "Why did you attack that deer? Why?"
"It tired. Out of prace. We surprise it, wound it. Courd not chase by day. Courd not catch by night."
"We ought to kill you for that!" Mabel said. "Six of you and one poor wounded animal! Bad wolf! Bad! Bad!"
Dipper fought down a hysterical urge to tell her, "Wait, I'll get you a rolled-up newspaper." However, the creature visibly flinched under the lash of her anger and scorn.
"You go back home," Wendy said. "Never come back down into the Valley. We're master's here, and we will beat you and we will kill you next time—you and any you bring with you, even if it's the whole damn Pack! Let us see you take wolf form and then go! Before I change my mind!"
The three humans stepped away. As though it felt shamed, the monstrous thing got to all fours, strained, twisted, and yelped in pain. Dipper heard creaks as sinews altered, musculature flowed beneath the suddenly hairy skin, bones reshaped themselves.
In wolf-shape, it was wretched, trembling, unable to take its weight on its left front paw, limping on its hind legs. Its blood-matted tail tucked under its belly, its glowing eyes looked shamed and in a doggy way apologetic—I know I did wrong, Master, please don't use the rolled-up newspaper!
A surge of pity hit Dipper as the trembling beast turned and limped away, each step obviously an agony. Wounds made with silver weapons—or evidently by enchanted ones—would not heal quickly. Months of pain stretched ahead, and trouble. When the wolf had moved in its painful, halting way to the edge of the goggles' range, Dipper muttered, "The Pack may kill him. Or cast him out."
"I hope they do," Wendy said.
"Will he really leave?" Mabel asked. "Will he come at us again?"
Dipper shook his head. "If Ulva was right, no wolf can break the vow sealed with three howls."
"I don't trust him, though," Wendy said. "Bet you we have more trouble with him—not now, maybe, when he's hurt and weak, but someday."
In the distance, they heard the wolf howl in a warbling way. Dipper snatched the voice recorder from his belt and set it to record before the wavering sound faded and died.
"Why'd you do that?" Mabel asked.
"We'll get Ulva to translate," he told her. "I'd like to see if the thing was giving up—or swearing revenge."
"I'm cold," Wendy said. "Let's get back to the Shack and warm up."
Still on edge, still keeping a wary eye out, they trekked back to the Jeep and piled in. Mabel asked, "Can I drive—"
"Can you drive a straight stick?" Wendy asked.
"Sure! What's one of those?" Mabel said.
"Just get in back for now. Maybe I can give you a lesson or two before you guys have to go home."
When Wendy finally left the jouncing, rough overland route and turned back onto pavement, Mabel said, "I wonder which one that was."
"I don't know if werewolves have regular names," Dipper said.
"Not him, dumdum! I mean, did we save Dancer or Prancer or Donner—"
"Donder," Dipper corrected. "The original name was Donder, to go with Blitzen. Thunder and lightning."
"That's very very frightening," Wendy shot back, and they all three got the giggles. At that second it sounded absolutely hilarious. Only later did Dipper realize that it wasn't humor—it was sheer relief at coming out of the fight alive and unscathed. Laughter isn't always about something funny.
When he got his breath back, he said, "Mabel, the names of the reindeer—they're made-up. They were just in the poem 'A Visit from St. Nicholas.' And Clement Moore, the poet, specified eight reindeer. That was the—"
"Not Rudolph," Mabel said.
"Not—huh? Oh, no, he was an advertising image back in the 1940s, I think. Some department store. And one of the ad-men wrote a poem about him and somebody wrote music to turn it into a song. Rudolph was a commercial for the store, that's all."
"Aw."
"C'mon, Mabes," Wendy said, her voice teasing. "Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big Eastern syndicate, you know."
"Huh?" Mabel asked. "Wendy, you can't—"
Dipper shook his head. "Not Wendy, Lucy. That Charlie Brown special, you know."
"Oh, yeah," Mabel said. "I know Wendy doesn't believe that."
"Not really," Wendy said. "Just sometimes I have to remind myself, that's all."
As they neared town, Dipper asked, "You OK back there, Mabel? You stopped talking. Gone to sleep?"
"No," Mabel said softly. "I—you know, back there—I've never intentionally hurt an animal in my life. Well, I punched out a bird once, but that was by accident. But standing over that werewolf—I was willing to kill him. I was wanting to kill him! I was waiting to kill him!"
"That's Mr. Doolittle from your play, right?" Dipper asked.
"Uh—yes. Yes, it is. But that's how I felt! About an animal! Who was part human! A humanimal! I don't like the way that I was feeling."
Wendy said, "End of the day, we didn't kill him. We gave him a second chance, and I think we may regret that later. Me, I would've just as soon ended it, except—well, heck, Christmas, I guess."
They had taken off their gloves, and Dipper put his arm beneath Wendy's hair and his palm against her neck, engaging their touch-telepathy. –You did it for Mabel, didn't you?
Sort of, Dip. Partly for me, too. And I think mostly for you.
–I couldn't have blamed you if you had chopped his head off.
I would've blamed myself, though. And maybe he'll be better with a second chance. Christmas is kinda about second chances, right?
–I guess. I've got a lot to think about, too.
'S late. When we get back to the Shack I'm goin' straight to bed.
–Alone?
No. Not tonight. Tonight I need to be held and cuddled. I need to feel a little bit of love to put out the fire of hate I was feeling back there.
–I'm here for you.
They got up late the next morning and did not run. At breakfast, Wendy asked, "You sleep OK, Mabes?"
She looked droopy-eyed. "All right, I guess." She frowned. "I kept having goofy dreams about monsters and—cherry blossoms? Weird."
Wendy laughed. "That's old Yamoto. You'll have those for a couple nights. He might even show up in the Shack—you did put the kaiken away, didn't you?"
"Yeah, back in the Museum. You mean he'll come back as a ghost?"
"He's, like, always a ghost, Mabel," Wendy said. "He might even hit on you. Long time back, the year I started to work here, he appeared and asked me if I'd consider dating a ghost. If he shows up in your dreams or for real, just tell him real pleasantly that if he does it again, you'll exorcize him. He'll let you alone."
"So he's around all the time?" Mabel asked.
"I don't think so. I think most of the time he's off in some sort of Samurai paradise, Lotus Land or whatever. But somebody touches that dagger, it summons him."
"I'll leave it alone," Mabel said. "I think that's what made me so bloodthirsty."
"Occupational hazard of being a Samurai," Dipper said. "I'm going down to talk to Ford this morning," he announced as he picked up his plate and cup. "Want to come with me?"
Wendy eyed Mabel. "I think we'll have some girl time," she said. "Maybe see if Pacifica's back, or Candy. Grenda's off in Europe, 'cause she and Marius are planning their wedding next summer."
"I'd like that," Mabel said.
Knowing his sister would be among supportive friends, Dipper helped wash and dry and then walked down the hill, past Stan's house—he and Sheila were away, off in Atlantic City—and to Ford's.
From the Journals of Dipper Pines: Tuesday, December 27, 2016—Remember, this is all about the werewolf and the phantom reindeer. Reminder to self: Write out the full story of that later.
Grunkle Ford and I had a long talk this morning, and though he said it was philosophical and he wasn't used to that, he listened and we talked about reality and illusion and belief.
I told him everything—he at first was upset that I hadn't called on him, but I tried to explain: "Grunkle Ford, I'm almost an adult now. I—well, I wanted to try on my own, you know? And we did OK."
He accepted that at last. Then I confessed, "It was a flying reindeer! Something that I know is just fantasy. I feel so—well, like a little kid, you know? Santa's not real!"
"Some philosophies," Grunkle Ford told me, "hold that strong belief, faith, if you will, can give shape and form to thoughts and wishes. There are myths of gods who once walked the earth, but faded when their followers lost faith in them. Belief fed them and made them real, and with it gone—they became insubstantial. Who's to say?"
"I couldn't NOT believe in it," I told him. "Mabel was pleading with us, and I could dimly see it, and then I could feel it. When I said I believed—and I'm not sure I really did!—and when Wendy said she did, it recovered and—and flew away. How is that even possible?"
"Well," Ford said thoughtfully, "the belief of children is strong at Christmas time. It falters immediately afterward. Maybe this injured, um, avatar of belief was fading. It needed to be re-charged, and you three did that. It got away from the werewolves and—maybe—escaped back safely to its own realm."
"I don't think I can ever really accept it as real," I said. "But—well—at the moment I believed. I didn't feel it emotionally, but—is belief a matter of forcing yourself?"
"We are beyond my area of expertise," Ford said. "However—remember that first summer we met? When we went to the spacecraft and the guard robot tried to take me away, and you brought it down and the others showed up?"
"Oh, yeah," I said. That was terrifying. We crashed, Grunkle Ford was injured, and then two more of these metal orbs, armed with, I don't know, space cannons, showed up and threatened to kill us.
"You stood up to them. You controlled your fear so they couldn't detect it, and they self-destructed, remember? That was an act of will, Mason. I suspect that believing can be an act of will, too."
"I'll have to think about that," I told him.
He put his big hand on my shoulder. "I would expect nothing less of you," he said.
We were all tired. Wendy and Mabel were out with Pacifica and Candy all afternoon, and I stretched out on the sofa and napped while they were gone.
I dreamed about Santa Claus. Christmas and all, I guess, and me thinking I'd seen an impossible reindeer. Anyway, he told me I was too heavy for his lap, but what could he give me as thanks? I told him I had Wendy, and that was all I needed or wanted. But I said, "Do something nice for Grunkle Stan." I don't know why, except I'm missing him right now. He and Sheila will barely get back to Gravity Falls a day before Mabel and I have to leave next Sunday.
Oh, and I said, "Something for Mabel and Wendy would be nice, too."
He did that ho-ho-ho laugh and told me I had the right spirit.
At that moment, I woke up because Candy and Paz had me pinned down on the couch and Wendy was dangling a spring of mistletoe above my, um, well, above me, and they were all three laughing and pretending to try to kiss me . . .
Maybe I'd better switch to a cipher.