It was quite late by the time Webby attempted to sleep. She had forgotten to ask Scrooge for the cordial; part of her was afraid she'd seem dependent on it and the other didn't want to bother him. They all looked so happy now that Della had returned. She didn't want to intrude on that. Plus, she was positive she'd have nightmares and the only way to fend them off was to stave off sleep for as long as possible.
Lena had passed out already and Webby had left her alone, snoring lightly like the beautiful angel she was. She found the oddest things about Lena endearing. That reminded her of Louie because he acted like he had a crush on her and you only noticed those things if you were crushing on someone. Or so she assumed. Having grown as she had, it was hard to tell.
When she finally succumbed to fatigue, she found herself back in the manor and sitting at the kitchen table with her grandmother. Mrs. Beakley had no obvious wounds and she was eating pancakes, which she normally made for everyone. Today, however, it was just the two of them. Webby poked at her breakfast, but she wasn't hungry. She hadn't had much of an appetite awake either.
"What's the matter, dear?" her granny asked and Webby's throat tightened.
Everything was the matter. "Nowhere's home and I'm all wrong."
"If I let something happen to me…" she began. Tension wracked her body and she simultaneously wanted to wake and wanted to remain asleep. She had missed her grandmother so much that seeing her, even in dreams, was exquisite torture. If she stayed here, she could converse with her. But once she awoke, the truth would hit her that much harder. Her granny couldn't stay.
Sobs hit and she pushed away the pancakes to put her head down on the table. Mrs. Beakley hurriedly moved around to hug her.
"Webby...Webby...what happened?" she murmured, stroking her hair.
Unable to speak, she choked on her sobs. It felt good and right to be in her grandmother's arms and it hurt all the more knowing she couldn't keep her. It was too cruel to dream of her but she couldn't wake. Didn't want to wake. She couldn't bear to be here but she couldn't bear to leave.
"You died," Webby finally managed, gazing up at her with tear filled eyes. "Don't you remember? Magica killed you in Lena's body."
"What are you talking about?" she said, rubbing her back and sitting beside her. "I'm right here."
"No, you're not!" Webby argued, wiping at her eyes. "Magica killed you. I was there. I saw it. They all saw it. You're not here. You're dead. You're...you're dead…"
She cried harder, tasting the tears in her mouth. "This isn't real…"
"I didn't die," her grandmother argued. "Sssh. How could I have died if I'm sitting beside you? You had a nightmare, that's all."
Webby shook her head. Her throat was too tight for speech. She hadn't had a nightmare. This was the nightmare, her waking world. But so cruel her mind was to offer solace and then wake to find it gone.
When she was capable of speech again, she said, "No...you died...I ran away...I was attacked...twice...and I killed them. I killed the ringleader…"
"You didn't kill anyone," her grandmother soothed. "You weren't attacked. You're fine. We're just here, eating our breakfast."
"Then where are the others?" she asked, swallowing past a lump in her throat. "Where are the boys? Where's Uncle Scrooge?"
"What boys? And you should know better than to call Mr. McDuck that," she reprimanded. "Mr. McDuck is in his office, as he always is. You haven't been bothering him, have you? I told you not to."
"Huey, Dewey, and Louie," she said. "Where are they? Donald's nephews. Della's sons. They live in McDuck Manor with us."
Mrs. Beakley frowned, holding her at arm's length. "Have you been having strange dreams? Because Mr. McDuck's family never visits. You know that. It's just the three of us inside this manor. Well, three of us plus one ghost."
"What about Lena?" she asked.
"Who's Lena?"
"What do you mean…" Webby trailed off, alarmed. "Granny, none of that is true. The boys moved in months ago. Their uncle Donald is living in his houseboat in Uncle Scrooge's swimming pool. Lena's my best friend and Magica de Spell's niece. Don't you remember?"
"Don't you remember?" Mrs. Beakley countered. "None of that is true. Webby, I know you're lonely and I'm sorry for that, but this is the best for everyone involved. No one will be able to touch you while you're living in the mansion."
Webby sank, all the fight going out of her. Her lower beak quivered and she fought further tears. She couldn't bring herself to look into her grandmother's eyes.
"If I keep you, I lose everyone else…" Webby murmured. She hugged herself. "How is that fair?"
She frowned. "I can't...I can't lose them...but I can't lose you…"
"You're not going to lose me, child. I'm not going anywhere," she said and stroked her hair. It stopped comforting her, however. Instead, she pulled away and hugged herself tighter. The house felt empty without the boys and Lena. It was emptier still with Scrooge ignoring them and acting like they didn't live there. It was a big place for a small child and oh so very vacant.
"I think I'd like to wake up now," Webby sniffled. Her vision blurred with tears. "I don't think I like this dream very much."
Shuddering, she pushed herself awake and then, sitting up in bed, hugged her knees. In the dark, with the door shut, she buried her face in her knees and sobbed. She could still feel her grandmother's arms around her, still smell her familiar scent. The boys were gone in that world and she'd have been lonely but had a family. But now she had three siblings...or however they related to her.
It had felt so real. It wasn't fair. How could her mind do that to her?
And did she want to leave her room to find out if the dream continued? Had she really woken up at all? Or was this misery part of it? Maybe there was no escape. Maybe she'd just keep waking and waking into further dreams until she went insane. She rocked back and forth, tears streaking her cheeks.
Pushing herself to her feet, she willed herself to head into the hallway. All was quiet, which proved nothing. Tiptoeing along the hall to avoid waking someone, she headed for her grandmother's room. The door was unlocked and she listened, waiting to hear her grandmother's gentle sleep breathing. It was silent, quiet as a tomb.
"Granny?" she ventured.
No one answered. She walked to the bed to find it empty; it'd been made but remained untouched for the past six weeks. Webby's hand, on one of the pillars of the four poster bed, trembled. Her grandmother wasn't here. She hadn't been here for a long time. Webby was alone, this time trapped in actual reality.
She flicked the switch only to see the truth in stark colors. She hadn't come in here since before her grandmother had died. Webby doubted she'd come in any time soon after this.
Something caught her eye, a note pinned to the same kind of board that Webby had in her room. She moved stiffly, sobs slipping through, and hugged herself. The note pinned to the bulletin board had a combination on it, specifically the combination to the lock at the chest at the foot of her bed. Her grandmother wouldn't have left the combination out for no reason. She must've had a sixth sense that something might happen with Magica.
Misery bowled her over and she sank to the carpet. She couldn't stop crying and she could barely breathe for the sobs. She needed the boys or Lena. Someone had to help her face this. She wasn't strong enough to deal with it alone.
After an indeterminate time in which she lay there, crying her heart out and giving herself a headache, she noticed two things. One, that somewhere in the room, her grandmother's cell phone was buzzing. Who would possibly be calling her? And two, it was really uncomfortable to kneel on the floor with your face close to the rug. She wobbled when she yanked on the bed to help herself up and nearly crashed into the floor again.
Feeling like a newly hatched duck learning to walk, she teetered her way to the cell phone. The caller ID told her nothing-she didn't recognize the number or the name. Her grandmother's cell phone was plugged in, as it had been presumably for the last six weeks. She wasn't sure what happened when you left phones plugged in, but she didn't think it was anything good. Then again, her cell phone was so old, perhaps it was impervious to that.
"Hello?" she croaked and winced. Even her voice sounded like she'd been crying.
"I thought...but...then...are you...Webbigail?" the person on the other end asked and sounded uncertain herself.
"Who are you?" Webby asked, her voice dull. "Betina Beakley's dead."
The words struck her again like a blow to the chest, but she was too drained to cry. The phone screen said the time was five o'clock, which seemed about right. She hadn't fallen asleep until about three anyway.
"You're her granddaughter, aren't you? Webbigail Vanderquack."
"How do you know my name?" Webby asked. "Who are you?"
"You didn't look at the caller ID before you answered, did you?" the woman replied.
"No…" Webby said and held the phone up to inspect it closer. "Wren...Beakley?"
"I gave you my maiden name and took my mother's so that no one would link the two of us," the woman said. "I've been trying to reach my mother for weeks. I shouldn't have left you for so long, but...I was afraid. When I heard something happened to my mother, I tried calling her. And calling her."
Webby slid bonelessly to the floor. This was too much to take in. She let the phone flop out of her hand and stared at the ceiling.
First Della and now this? What was going on here? If she had any more things dumped on her, she'd scream.
"Webbigail?" the woman said, her voice tinny. The phone had landed beside her.
She had to still be asleep. That was the only solution. Yet when she pinched herself, it hurt. It was nothing compared to the soul-crushing realization that her grandmother wasn't coming back, but it was still something. She had no inclination to retrieve the phone, though. It would remain on the carpet as far as she was concerned.
"You're still at McDuck Manor, aren't you?"
It probably wasn't a good idea to tell this woman anything more than she already knew. Webby shut the phone (it was a fold-up phone), which hung up the call. She was mildly impressed her grandmother had gotten a charging cord long enough to reach the floor from the table on which the phone had previously sat.
For a few minutes, she sat there, stunned. This woman claimed to be her mother. This woman really could be her mother.
She needed to talk to someone. Everyone would be asleep, so she'd have to wake them. The urgency was too much for her to care at that point. Wobbling to her feet again, she lurched across the room, not realizing she had the phone back in her hand until she dragged the charging cord out of the wall outlet and along with her. The phone was vibrating again.
The boys' room was the closest and she opened the door without knocking first. It was rude, as was waking them up, but they'd forgive her. She glanced at the bunks. She would've preferred sleeping with all three of them around her, but obviously, that wasn't possible. One of them would have to be woken up, but which one?
Her feet brought her to Dewey's bunk and she jerked her head at a soft "hey!" in the darkness.
"What are you doing up?" Dewey whispered.
"Did I wake you up?" she whispered back.
"The light from the hallway woke me up," he responded. "Just get up here."
She climbed the ladder and curled up next to him. The mattress was a twin, so it fit both of them without too much difficulty. If they'd been older and bigger, that would've been a different story.
"What's wrong?" he murmured.
She didn't know where to begin. She hugged him and, surprised, he hugged her back. Clenching her eyes shut, she willed back the tears that wouldn't come out anyway. She'd cried herself out.
"Webby?"
"Webby?" Louie repeated. "What's she doing here?"
"I don't know," Dewey whispered back.
"We're all up, you might as well stop whispering," Huey said.
"Webs?" Louie prompted.
"How come you came to us instead of Lena?" Dewey asked.
"You were closer," she mumbled. "And...I dunno."
"Did you have a nightmare?" Louie asked. "'Cuz I know you've been having a lot of those lately."
"Yes, but…" she didn't know how to proceed. She held the phone out to Dewey mutely and he took it.
"Man, this is old," he said. Louie scoffed at the phone too.
"It looks like it was last updated in 2005," Louie commented. "It's older than we are."
"Wow, that's a lot of missed calls," Dewey remarked. "From...Wren Beakley? Beakley? I thought your grandmother was your only relative."
"So did I," Webby said. "And then this happened."
"What were you doing in your grandmother's room?" Huey asked. There was no judgment, just curiosity.
"I had a nightmare, like Louie said, and I wanted to check on her. And then, you know…" she gasped back a dry sob.
Dewey stroked her hair. "Sssh."
"I dreamt you guys went missing and Granny was here, but no one else was…" she said. She was still whispering, though she didn't know why. As Huey had noted, everyone was up now.
"We're not leaving," Huey said. He reached his hand up toward her and she squeezed it.
"All right, I'm coming up there," Louie said and ascended the ladder to join Dewey and Webby. It was a little tight with three people and Dewey seemed in danger of falling off, but no one complained.
"We're not going anywhere. And if that is your relative, then why is she calling now? What's she up to?" Louie asked. He was wearing his hoodie to sleep, which was weird.
"She said she was afraid and that's why she stayed away," Webby said. Dewey rolled over and she was sandwiched between the two boys.
"Pfft," Louie scoffed. "That doesn't explain anything."
"No, it doesn't," Huey mused. "That's suspicious in and of itself."
"So, what do we do?" Dewey asked.
"First thing is we should try to get some sleep. We can tell Uncle Scrooge about it in the morning and see what he thinks," Huey said. "And then we'll come up with a plan for how to deal with it."
"And I need to tell Lena, too," Webby murmured.
"We'll all come up with a game plan," Huey amended.
"I don't know if I can sleep," she pointed out. She was afraid of having another nightmare. The boys hugged her.
"We'll be here if you have another nightmare," Dewey soothed.
"Just try not to kick us in your sleep. Or hit us," Louie said. "I bruise easily."
Webby's beak quirked into a smile. "I'll try."
"Do or do not, there is no try," Huey quoted.
"Man, you are such a nerd," Louie said, throwing a pillow at him.
"Enough! Sleep!" Huey said. He flung the pillow back toward the top bunk and it smacked Louie in the face. "Night, Llewellyn."
"I hate you so much," Louie grumbled.
"This is...normal brother stuff, right?" she asked, uncertain.
"It's normal," Dewey assured her. "Just be careful they don't fight to the death in front of you. That might kill your appetite later."
"Fight to the death?" she asked, both alarmed and intrigued.
"He's kidding," Huey said.
"Mostly," Louie added.
"Night!" the three boys said in unison and she closed her eyes. She didn't think she could fall asleep, but it was so warm in between Dewey and Louie. And she hadn't slept very well before…
Within minutes, she had passed out between the two with both of them holding her.
"You're saying that Wren called you?" Scrooge asked the next morning over breakfast. "Wren?"
"So? Who is she?" Louie asked around a mouthful of corn flakes. No one was going to reprimand him about talking with his mouth full. That would've been Mrs. Beakley's job.
"She's Webby's mother," he said. Webby, who had been fiddling with the phone again, dropped it on the table. She'd barely touched her waffles; her appetite had fled again. True, she'd gotten a few hours sleep between the boys, but everything tasted like ash again. How could she enjoy anything?
"Seriously?" Louie exclaimed.
Della cast a curious glance at Webby. "I knew your mother, but only briefly."
"Strange timing," Scrooge remarked.
"She was looking for Granny," Webby said dully. She pushed the waffle plate away. "Can I be excused?"
"In a minute," he said and cast her a sharp gaze. Webby didn't meet his eyes.
"You're not going to eat?" Huey asked, concerned. "I prepared those according to an old Junior Woodchuck Guidebook recipe."
"No wonder they taste like sawdust," Louie quipped and Huey kicked him under the table. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Jeez. You take things so seriously."
"I'm not hungry," Webby mumbled.
"You need to eat something, lass," Scrooge reprimanded her and she took a forkful, ate it, and then pushed the plate away again. She spied the adults exchanging glances over her head. Knowing she was being rude but feeling like remaining at the table was a trial she couldn't endure any longer, she shoved her chair back and walked away. Lena jumped up too, as did Dewey. Louie was still eating; it'd take more than that to chase him away from food.
"I didn't excuse you, Webbigail," Scrooge reminded her.
She lifted her head with an effort and stared at him. "I'm not hungry, like I said. And I don't know what there is to talk about. If this woman is my mom, then she didn't care enough to show up until just now. And if she isn't, then she won't show up anyway."
She was being borderline insolent and she knew it. Once she was finished, she lowered her head again. Her grandmother would've been ashamed that she'd been mouthing off. Dewey and Lena stepped closer to her and her chest was tight. Memories from last night flooded in.
"It was a rough night," Dewey explained. "She was sleeping with us for a while."
"Do you have your grandmother's phone?" Scrooge asked and Webby plucked it up from the table. She handed it, mutely, to Scrooge.
It vibrated again, startling the children and prompting the adults to exchange looks again. What was that supposed to mean? Were they having some sort of secret cabal over there?
Scrooge answered and, despite herself, Webby was interested. He hit the speaker button and Webby stilled, her beak going dry.
"Uncle Scrooge?" Wren asked.
"We can discuss your claim to that moniker later," he said. "Are you actually interested in your daughter?"
Wren paused and Webby feared the worst.
"I'm sorry," Wren said and Webby waited for the rest, for her to hang up and never bother them again. She both wanted and dreaded it. She reached for Lena's hand and Lena squeezed it. Dewey took her other hand.
"I shouldn't have left her. I panicked," Wren continued. "And when I heard that Magica had returned to Duckburg, I feared the worst, especially when Mother didn't respond."
The children exchanged glances and Scrooge sniffed. He wasn't buying it, not that Webby blamed him. She wasn't sure how much she believed either. At least Lena's hand was warm and comforting in hers. The older girl had assumed a defensive stance near her as if Wren might materialize beyond the phone and threaten her girlfriend.
"What if I return on a conditional basis?" Wren suggested. "I can stay in a hotel and come to see Webbigail with someone supervising."
"And to what am I supposed to attribute this sudden change of heart?" Scrooge asked.
"You're going to have a funeral, right? I want to be there," Wren blurted.
"I haven't said anything about a funeral," he said and depressed the speaker button. He waved his arm to gesture for the kids to leave and they did, huffing. Webby was so sick of being left out of the loop. On the plus side, she didn't have to keep poking at unappetizing food. Then again, this had finally gotten interesting, enough to pique what little interest she had in life.
"Aye, there will be," she heard him say as they left the room.
"Do you trust her?" Huey asked once the door was closed behind them.
"I wouldn't," Lena commented. "Her timing is too coincidental."
"Maybe she really does want to help," Webby protested, her voice weak.
"Maybe," Lena said. "But I'm not buying it."
"So, what do we do?" Dewey asked. "Block her from entering the manor?"
"I don't think we can do that," Huey replied. "But...we'll keep a close eye on her."
Webby's lips quirked. She couldn't bring herself to smile, but she was grateful for them. They were being overprotective, perhaps, but they only had her best interests at heart. She hugged Dewey and Lena and reached out for Huey and Louie, the latter of whom was grumping about missing the rest of his breakfast. She rolled her eyes at him.
"You wanna go to Funso's?" Dewey asked.
"What's a Funso?" Lena asked, wrinkling her beak.
"C'mon, it'll be fun," Dewey said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Just as long as you don't set anything on fire or make kids cry or hit a Beagle Boy in disguise and make him trip over an important arcade game wire."
"You set something on fire, pink?" Lena asked, smirking. "This sounds like a story I should hear."
"I panicked and hit it with my grappling hook," Webby protested. She wasn't sure she was in the mood to leave the manor, much less do something fun. It felt like cheating on her grandmother's memory, to continue being a kid when all of these horrible things had happened. She wanted to retreat to her room with her dolly and lock the door behind her. Yet she doubted that the others would let her.
"You really are something else," Lena said, a hint of pride in her voice. She grinned at her.
"I guess we can go to Funso's…" she allowed and the boys whooped. They did, after all, have all of those free tokens. She felt almost like they ought to tell someone they were going, but she could hear raised voices coming from behind the door. Scrooge was growing agitated, presumably with Wren, and she didn't want any part of that.
"That's the spirit," Louie said. "Well, not quite the spirit, but c'mon, we can pretend we're beating the Beagle Boys again and that'll cheer you up."
No, probably not, because she was thinking of sinking the knife into the Bloodhound Gang leader's chest, but she feigned a smile for Louie's benefit. He grimaced.
"Yeah, that's not fooling anyone," he informed her.
"Sorry," she mumbled.
"We'll make you get excited," Louie said and then paused. "Okay, no, because that sounds like a threat. But you'll see."
"You're great at this," Lena said, snickering. "And you think I'm bad."
Louie reddened and Huey cleared his throat to prevent an argument.
"Where else would you like to go? A bookstore?" he asked and the other boys groused. Lena, surprisingly, said nothing. Perhaps she was a book nerd too, albeit a closeted one because she never mentioned reading.
Webby brightened slightly. "A bookstore would be good. I've never been to one. Granny always brought me books from outside. I've always wanted to go, though."
"And here I was, hoping I could keep up my streak of never being in a bookstore," Louie grumbled and Huey elbowed him in the ribs.
"We'll go to Funso and then to the bookstore," Huey promised and Webby rewarded him with a weak smile, still more substantial and honest than what she'd delivered earlier.
"If you're going to a bookstore, I'm skipping out after Funso," Louie warned.
"Be our guest," Huey scoffed, rolling his eyes. "In case the books attack you. We'll make it a date."
Lena tensed and Louie glowered. Webby glanced at each of the triplets in turn. Dewey hadn't said anything in objection to the bookstore, but he hadn't liked his brother's wording either. Huey had to know that they had crushes on her. Ugh. Why was everything so complicated? Why couldn't they just all be family and Lena her girlfriend?
"Then I'm going," Louie proclaimed. "But I won't enjoy it."
"I wouldn't expect you to," Huey said with a smirk.
"Good," Louie huffed.
"Good," Huey said.
"Uh…" Webby was at a loss.
"It's a boy thing," Lena said and then paused. "I think. C'mon, let's go before they break their tiny brains."
"They're not tiny!" the boys said in unison and Lena snickered.
"Could've fooled me," she said sweetly, tugging Webby along. She didn't even know the way to Funso's, especially if she'd never heard of it. She was probably just trying to get Webby out of their reach and they huffed, surging to the front of the line.
"We probably should tell your mom, at least," Webby said to the triplets. "Or your uncle Donald."
"We'll tell Uncle Donald," Dewey said. "He'll be fine with it. And it is not tiny."
"Methinks the duck doth protest too much," Lena said, smirking still. They gaped at her and she scoffed. "I was the only one who was forced to sit through boarding school? Jeez. Aren't you guys lucky."
"I never went to school at all," Webby commented. "Granny didn't want to let me out of the manor, so the tutors came to me instead of the other way around."
"No wonder you've never been to a bookstore," Lena said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not saying that you need to get out more to the worst parts of Duckburg, because you already have, but you need to see the better stuff. You can't see anything if you're locked up in this stuffy house all the time."
Webby hesitated. What if something else happened? Then again, the last time she'd gone out with the boys and Lena, everything had been all right. Could she trust that she'd be all right in broad daylight with everyone around her? She wasn't sure; she didn't trust herself anymore.
"Relax," Dewey told her. "The worst thing that'll happen is that we'll end up having to pay for fruit punch. Right, Louie?"
Louie rolled his eyes. "That was Webby's fault. I never pay for it normally."
"Webby's fault or yours for gaming the system?" Huey asked, raising his eyebrows.
"The system was set out to be gamed," Louie retorted.
"Wanna ditch these losers?" Lena murmured.
"I think I'll be okay," Webby said. She wasn't sure she believed it, but she didn't know if she had an alternative. It seemed like the boys were determined to make her have fun, regardless.