Chapter 12: Mortician
13-15-18-20-9-3-9-1-14
16-15-19-20-5-4 16 1-21-7-21-19-20 2015
It all started with Bill lying on the floor of the living room, his face buried in the old carpet as he moaned, "I'm bored!"
In any other situation, Mabel would have been more than happy to bust out the Monopoly board and spend the rest of the day bartering with fake money. But today was a Paint-With-Watercolors-While-Dealing-With-the-Bank kind of day filled with portraits of the dubuck (the love child of a buck and a duck) and hours long back-and-forths with stupid bank managers who refused to believe that someone would want to give her a check worth millions of dollars. "I'm a bit busy right now," she had replied, eyes trained on her painting. "Stop being a baby and go find something fun to do."
In retrospect, telling Bill Cipher to do "something fun" was the worst thing she could have said. For Bill, "fun" was shoving cucumbers down toilets and making mixtapes of the noise. "Fun" was going into the woods and harassing any poor tourist couple looking for a romantic getaway. "Fun" was vandalizing the nearby diner just for the shits and giggles. Looking back, Mabel knew she should have offered him her paintbrush instead of telling him to go find something "fun" to do because Bill's special brand of fun would always lead to something horrible for her.
But she wasn't focusing on Bill, or the way he fetched rice from the kitchen, or turned off all the lights in the shack. The segments of her brain dedicated to being a functioning adult were in control as a nice lady at the bank explained to her the villainy of forging checks. "Listen, it's not fake," Mabel told her as she painted extra yellow on her dubuck's adorable bill. She could only bear to do this kind of boring stuff when she was doing art. Otherwise she felt like she was going to rip her hair out. "I don't know who the PTC is, but they left me this check… no, you don't need to call the FBI—"
Bill ran into the living room, holding a glass of water in one hand. He placed it on the top of the ancient set before turning the screen on. Mabel watched him flip through the first few channels before coming upon a screen with nothing but buzzing static. He hid behind the set for a moment, closing his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them, he grinned at her perplexed expression. "Be right back!" He ran out, a little too giddy for her liking. But the lady on the other side was reconnecting Mabel to a higher up, and Mabel couldn't spare a moment to take away her attention again.
That is, until Bill ran back into the living room. He hid behind the TV again, this time tucking his knees close to his chest for a long wait. Chill jazz played on the phone as she waited for the higher up to take her off hold. She outlined the form of her yellow-feathered dubuck, trying to pay Bill no heed. But then the little pitter-patter of feet started to cut through her concentration. The volume of the TV swelled to painful levels before dropping back down again.
She shot her attention towards Bill, expecting to see him fiddling with the volume knob. Instead she saw him tuck safely behind the TV, looking like he was having the time of his life with his hands kept to himself. Her curiosity finally overwhelmed her. She put the phone down. "Bill, what the hell are you doing?"
The smile immediately dropped from his face. "Shoot!" He grabbed at his hair, pulling the gold locks as a look of panic consumed him. "I totally forgot!"
"Forgot what?"
"Okay, so have you ever heard of One Man Tag where you summon a spirit to possess a doll and then you guys chase each other down with a knife?"
"Did you summon a spirit to possess a doll so that you can chase it down with a knife and vice versa?"
He looked genuinely impressed. "Glad to see you're catching on quickly, Shooting Star. Especially since these spirits have a tendency to either possess or kill anyone who's not participating in the game. AKA: you."
"Bill!" She looked down at the phone, pressing her ear to it in time to hear the higher up asking if she was alright. She panicked. "Sorry, but my kid cousin is kinda wreaking havoc right now so I'm going to have to call you back." She ended the call before slamming her cellphone onto the table.
"I'm not your cousin!" Bill snapped, making a tight frown.
"Does that even matter right now, Mister Homicidal Maniac?" She jumped from her chair, nearly knocking over her cup of dirty paint water. She glanced at the love seat where she knew the gun was hidden. "So what're we gonna do to fix this?"
"We? Sorry honey, but I came out here to play tag with a possessed doll and I am not giving that up so that you don't get possessed."
"Bill!" She threw her arms in the air so high that they knocked into the stain glass lamp hanging above the table. "I swear to God, if you don't…" Her mouth fell open, useless. From where she stood, she had the perfect view of the hallway staircase. The soft steps of the doll met her ears, along with the scraping of the knife on the wood floors. A louder thud would interrupt the sound periodically, like it was climbing down the stairs. Then, without warning, she saw the old rag doll—hair of dirty red yarn, missing a button eye—hop into view. A red-stitched line traveled down its front as it carried the kitchen knife like a heavy broad sword.
Mabel froze, feeling her blood ice over at the sight. "Oh shit." She gripped the edge of the table, taking a heavy step back. She wanted to look away from the nightmarish sight, but she was afraid breaking eye contact would lead to the possessed doll turning on her. So she pointed at the direction of the doll, hissing Bill's name to gain his attention.
"No worries, Shooting Star. I got this." He quickly took a large gulp of the water, but he didn't swallow it. With the glass in hand, he jogged to where the doll stood at the foot of the stairs. He waved his free hand in the air like a maniac, humming his taunts before dashing down the hallway. The doll hurried after him, leaving Mabel alone in the living room with nothing but her cellphone and her portrait of the dubuck.
She didn't know what to do next, which in most cases she didn't mind. She was used to letting life take her by the hand and dealing with whatever it threw at her. But spirits who could kill her were a completely different story. She had no idea what she was supposed to do to defeat it, or how to defend herself from it. There had to be some way she could learn how to, like an instructional video or an online course. After all, Dipper learned how to deal with all this magic crap. If he could do it, so could she. As if on cue, a nagging voice in her head insisted that she was too stupid to ever do anything like that.
The breaking of glass brought her back to her senses, one that was followed by a very loud groan from Bill. He hummed his words again in such a way that it sounded like he was saying "Shit, not the vase!"
Mabel decided she needed to leave the Mystery Shack immediately.
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Mabel would have taken the time alone in town to explore a quaint coffee shop or refill her prescription (she noticed that morning that her bottle of lithium was starting to get low), but in the hurry of escaping the possessed doll, she had left her wallet in her room. She might have taken the opportunity to call the bank back or call Hale to see how production was coming along, but her phone was still sitting on the table. She couldn't even take the time to wander through woods since her utility belt was still at the shack and she didn't trust the gnomes to leave her alone.
So the only thing she felt capable of doing was meander the streets of Gravity Falls and pray that some distraction would come along to entertain her. She hummed a little tune, singing the words under her breath as she dragged a stick along a wrought iron fence. She didn't have enough energy to keep up a brisk pace, but she still had a little dance in her step. The sun was a pleasant kind of warm, and the heat wave that had plagued the earlier week seemed to have ended. The air was the signature summer cool that made the Oregon woods so likable. It was a nice change of pace to be able to wear one of her large sweaters at the end of June. In Burbank the weather heated so quickly that, by the beginning days of July, it felt impossible to breathe.
The tips of her shorts peeked out from the ends of her orange sweater as her sandals smacked the pavement with each step. Minus the possessed doll on the run, the looming threat of the bank, and the fact she had trouble rising from bed again: she felt like today was going to be a good day.
The very thought made her frown. She knew that her good mood was flimsy when she was still caught in the ropes of this sour mood. All she had to do was think about the wrong thing and her happiness would be gone—like how Arjun was still ignoring her, or that she still hadn't made up with Wendy yet…
She added a little extra skip to her step, determined to maintain her optimism when she noticed a man a few yards in front of her. He was tall, made mostly of spindly legs and jutting bones. A loose shirt hanged off his frame as he struggled to carry six overflowing grocery bags. The very thought of striking conversation with someone who would ultimately treat her like her brother's prodigy made Mabel hesitate to offer any help.
She wanted to slap herself across the cheek. What was she thinking? She didn't know what this guy thought of her, especially since she hadn't even met him yet. She bet he was actually a really nice guy. (Besides, she had no excuse for refusing help to anyone so clearly in need).
"Hey Mister!" He turned in time to see her jog to his side, revealing his large nose and acne scarred cheeks. His milk white skin was flushed red from effort. He looked normal enough, and Mabel couldn't help but to be dazzled by the small piercing he had on each earlobe. When she was by his side, she made sure to give him the friendliest smile she could muster. "Do you need any help with those?"
He looked between her face and the bags in his hands, embarrassed. "Nah, I got this," he said. "Besides, I could use the exercise." He looked down at his hanging gut, obviously uncomfortable with his growing potbelly.
Mabel snorted. "Ha, so when's the baby coming?" He gave her a dark look before continuing his way down the street. She followed after him, excitement radiating off her skin as she said, "it just so happens that I am an excellent personal trainer, and I will be more than happy to motivate you free of charge."
"You're annoying." He didn't even bother looking at her.
She winked. "It's one of my pluses."
He spared the slight trace of a laugh, though it seemed more like a pant. She followed him as he passed through the gates of the cemetery. He walked through, oblivious to the odd looks Mabel passed him. Her eyes scanned the chipped grave stones and neatly cut grass as she continued her encouragements, urging the man to never give up on his dreams. As they trekked up a hill that led to the funeral director's office, she started quoting the motivation speeches actors playing presidents give in alien invasion movies.
By the time they reached the top, the man was huffing. He stepped onto the porch, dropping his groceries in relief. "Good job, Mystery Man!" Mabel exclaimed, scooping the bags into her arms. "You looked death in the eye and showed no fear and said 'not today, Jesus. Not today.'"
He groaned as he braced himself against the front door where a tree had been carved on the door frame. "Do you ever shut up?" he asked, panting. His worn hands unclipped a keyring from his jeans.
Mabel smacked her thighs, saying, "Well they don't call me Thunder Thigh Pines for nothing!"
"You're thighs have nothing to do with this—wait." He gave her a scrutinizing look. "Did you say Pines?"
She nodded, already feeling the dread of the moment of truth. "Yup."
"As in Mabel Pines?"
That was new. Mabel gave him a curious look, eyeing up and down the length of his gangly form. "The one and only," she chirped
"Oh." He pushed his key into the door lock, purposefully avoiding eye contact. "Nice to, uh… do you wanta help me bring this stuff inside or something?" He had an aura of nervous awkwardness about him that reminded Mabel of Arjun, but this man's was more sad than cute. She watched him fumble with his keys before swinging the door open and letting her follow him inside.
By looking alone, Mabel could tell that the first floor was not of the man's taste. Every inch was dripping Victorian filled with gentle pastels and floral prints. It must have been for business reasons since the parlor alone looked like it was designed to also function as a wake room. The man brought Mabel to the kitchen where she placed the bags on the table. "I'll put everything away," he said when Mabel reached for the bag. "I know where everything's supposed to go and… um, do you want a soda or anything?"
Mabel lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs, noting how picturesque the bright wallpaper and clean tile floor was. She felt like she had stepped into one of those home decorating magazines, except the issue was focusing on grandma kitchens. "I'll take a Pitt Cola if you got it."
He had one and they spent the next few minutes in complete silence. Mabel tapped her fingers on the wood table as he organized the groceries, returning to the tune she had hummed earlier. She studied the fridge where various photos of a younger version of the man posed in a punk outfit with a guitar. Then there were slightly older versions of him standing with whom Mabel could only supposed are his parents, holding a degree of some sort. The most recent additions to the fridge were photos of the parents in front of European landmarks, beaming like newlyweds. She tapped her finger on the soda can, searching for a topic of conversation. "So… what did you say your name was again?"
He buried his face in the pantry. "Robbie."
"Robbie." She nodded to herself, tasting the bland name on her tongue. "Awesome, I like how it rhymes with Scottie," she said. "So… is there anything in particular you wanna talk about because I got like fifty different small talk openers I can use right now."
He released a long breath. "Yeah, there is." He closed the pantry door, finally dropping his awkward state. Mabel would have welcomed the change of pace if it wasn't for the new dolorous look consuming his eyes. "Let me go grab it real quick." He rushed out of the kitchen, leaving Mabel alone with her soda and dread. What in the world did she do to make him so sad? Why couldn't she meet one person who could just stay happy?
Robbie returned ten minutes later with a manila folder. "Here." He dropped it on the table, not meeting her eyes as he slid into a chair across the table. He kept his hands folded on the table as he looked off to the side. Mabel gave him an odd look before finally looking down at the folder.
She nearly choked on her drink.
There, printed on the side tab, was her brother's name. A red stamp branded the yellow folder, declaring the contents to be CONFIDENTIAL. Mabel stared down at it, too afraid to even touch it. "What is this?"
Robbie rubbed his chin, frown thickening. "It's… I'm a mortician. When they found your brother's body, the police called me in to help. They said that scene was so gruesome that neither Blubs or Durland could bear to take pictures of it. I work with dead bodies all the time, so they insisted that I do it for them. Inside are pictures of Dipper before the agents came along and started tampering with things."
"Tampering?" Mabel stared down at her drink, swirling the soda within the can. She tried to imagine Arjun—her Arjun—with a cold stone face, eyes shadowed as he stood with the other suited agents, defacing the place Dipper had died. She chewed her bottom lip, unable to get rid of the horrible feeling rooting within her. Wendy had said that those agents were trouble...
Robbie reached forward and slid the folder back towards himself. He flipped it open, scanning through the papers. "Brace yourself." He held up a photo for her to see. She could see the limp hand of her brother at the edge of the frame, white enough to make her feel sick as she jolted in her seat. She launched a hand outwards, hitting the photo from his hand. Robbie gave her a careful look. "Watch it. Are you alright?"
Mabel gripped the edge of the table, staring into the grandma kitchen behind him. She couldn't get rid of the sight of a small pool of blood lingering beneath the dead flesh from her head. Granted, Dipper's hand wasn't the main focus of the photograph. The majority of it was the corner portions of a circle—one filled with strange symbols and letters—that was burned into the wood floor beneath her brother. Shaking, Mabel watched Robbie pick the photograph off the ground. "W-why did you show me that?" she demanded.
"Because I thought..." He trailed off as he rethought his argument. Robbie returned to his seat, placing the photo back on the table. He tapped the circle. "Wendy and I determined that this is some kind of magic circle or something. Either way, the agents didn't like the sight of it. They told me to destroy whatever photos I had of it. One of them was even mentioning getting rid of it themselves."
Mabel stared at the picture, wishing she had Bill with her. He was the one who could handle this kind of stuff. She felt like she was standing at the bank of a wide river, knowing that she had to cross but aware she couldn't swim. The water was the only passage to helping Dipper, but the tumid road would drown her. Even at the edge, feet only wet, she couldn't breathe. "Was that the only thing they messed with?"
"That I know of, by there's something else." Robbie flipped through a few more photos, selecting a few from the stack to hand to her. He paused when her hands clamped blindly on it. "Please don't freak out," he begged.
Mabel tried her best to give him a steady look. Everything Robbie was telling her was going to help her figure this whole Dipper-dealio out. She couldn't afford to lose her cool again and risk missing something important. She looked down at the picture.
Once again, her whole being was thrown off balance.
The time, it wasn't just a glimpse of Dipper's hand. It was Dipper from the waist up to his neck, paper-white and laying on a metal slab. Parts of his skin were deep shades of purple or black and bright red scratches. Something in her unhinged and she felt all her nerves dissipate. She couldn't do this. This was Dipper's dead body, she shouldn't be looking at this.
In her moment of panic, she almost didn't notice the markings on his chest. Under his sparse chest hair laid red marks akin to the birthmark on his forehead—little faint dots splattered like wet paint and connected by faint thin lines like constellations. They mapped his skin all the way from his shoulder down to the very edge of his pubes. But Mabel didn't focus too long on it. She slammed it back on the table, her limbs shaking more than the time before. Already she could feel a swell of tears circling the brim of her eyelids.
"You know how there was a blizzard around the time he died, right?" Robbie said, oblivious of her shock. "He died four weeks before the snow cleared long enough for someone to check on him. Records say that he died due to blood loss." She raised her face, nodding a confirmation since she didn't trust her voice to not leave her sobbing. She remembered her dad demanding what caused the blood loss, but the reporting officer being unable to give a concise answer. "But the roads were still blocked, so they had to take him to my morgue to preserve his body. I was able to look him over and…"
Robbie leaned forward, flipping the picture over. Mabel looked away as his finger pointed to some of the scratches littering her brother's skin. "I couldn't find a cause of death. He was beaten up, but nothing seemed severe enough to kill him. No blunt force trauma or anything."
Mabel swallowed, trying to keep herself from crumbling. "So he didn't die from blood loss?"
"No, he did." Robbie sat back down, resuming his stare down with a far-off corner. "At the scene, there was about of pint of blood on the floor. In the morgue, I discovered he had about another pint frozen in his veins. That's four liters of blood missing."
Her breath hitched in her throat as she placed a trembling hand over her mouth. "So someone—"
"Yeah, but there weren't any needle marks on him so I don't know how they did it."
She looked down at the can of Pitt Cola, feeling like she was about to barf. "But who would do that?" she demanded, voice breaking.
"There were only two people who had the opportunity: the murderer and those agents."
An image of Arjun and the other agents—Gunn, Trigger—standing around Dipper's body with cups full of his blood swamped her mind's eye. Imaginary Arjun was laughing maniacally at the process, but she knew the real Arjun and he would never do that. He wouldn't do this to her brother he was honest and sweet and—
She just didn't know anymore. And, for once in her life, not knowing scared her. She couldn't trust herself to make the right judgement and that scared her more.
She buried her face in her hands, saying "why would anyone wanna—" when she burst into tears.
She sobbed shamelessly into her palms, the image of her brother dead on a metal slab plaguing her head. She didn't want to ever see her brother as a corpse. She didn't want to see the red scratches on his biceps and belly, the bruises coloring the skin on his collar bone, the constellations on his chest—another fact about himself he never told her.
She wanted her ignorance back. She wanted to go back to Burbank and pretend she never received Dipper's letter. She wanted to go back to her life before Dipper died. She didn't want him to be dead. She never asked for him to die and he did. She didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve this. She wanted to go back—
Robbie's hand touched her shoulder, but she didn't notice. His monotone, uncertain voice was the blade that cut through her emotions, grabbing her ankles and dragging her back down into reality. "Look, Mabel. I don't know why they took his blood, so can you please stop crying now? I, um… I'm sorry for your loss, so please just stop." He sighed. "God, Wendy was right."
She looked at him, snot dripping from her nose as she sniffled. "Wendy?"
Robbie bit his chapped lip, debating whether or not he should explain. "Wendy told me you were looking for the guy who killed Dipper. She's really worried about you. She didn't want me to tell you any of this."
"Wendy's worried about me?" she asked.
"Look, Wendy's great but she had trouble dealing with the whole grief thing. She took Dipper's death hard." He picked up the photos. "All this was originally Wendy's. She wanted to find the man who did this. It took me months to get her to leave this all alone."
Mabel didn't know what to make of it. Wendy was trying to do her job before she even came here? Wendy's interference at the Summerween part wasn't because she wanted to lie, but because she was trying to protect her? Mabel wiped the snot from her face. "Then why are you telling me?" she asked.
Robbie shrugged. "You put the sign back up—the Pine Tree one. I don't know. For some reason I thought that you were going to be just like your brother. You are as annoying as him." She laughed hollowly, feeling her sadness lessened. Most of it stayed rooted in her chest, waiting until the night when her depressive cycle will conquer her once again. He looked off to the side again, resuming his meekness. "I know that I'm kinda horrible at comforting people, but I am a funeral director. I'm trained to help people with grief, so if you ever want to talk, I'm here."
She gave him a gentle smile. "I think I just might take you up on that."
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Mabel opened the door of the Mystery Shack in time to see Bill pour his cup of water on the doll. The possessed toy stumbled forwards a few paces, trying to reach the stairs, when Bill spat the water in his mouth on it at well. It finally fell to the ground, limp, the knife falling out of its hands. Mabel clutched the front door's frame, the screen door against her back as she held the Robbie's folder against her chest. She couldn't help the sharp "what the hell" that fell from her lips.
"Hey toots!" Bill grinned and gave her a quick wave, oblivious to the scratches that marked his skin. She marveled how it took him two hours to defeat an armed doll when he was ten times its size and twice as fast, and yet somehow managed to get injured. But Bill didn't seem to mind the injuries as he crouched down to the doll, taking the kitchen knife in hand. "Where're you been?" he asked, slicing the thick stitches that held together its chest. Rice poured out like blood. "I needed you half an hour ago for an ambush."
"Investigating." Mabel held up the folder for him to see. "I got us some more clues."
"You did? Nice." He unwrapped the bandage from his left hand, saying, "Is it something on our mystery woman?" The naked, scarred hand picked up the remains of the doll, and in an instant it was engulfed in his electric blue flames. Mabel noticed the slightest hints of a grimace on his face, one he tried his best to conceal.
"No, it's…" She looked down at it, feeling melancholic all over again. "It's on the crime scene… someone messed with Dipper's body, Bill."
She watched him freeze as the meaning of her words sunk in. He stared at the blue flames, face darkening, refusing to meet her eyes as he said, "like what?" She went into the folder, carefully fishing the image of the circle. She held it for him to see, explaining in a heavy voice about the tampering. His mouth twisted into a tight frown. "Why didn't the idiot take a picture of the full thing?" he growled. "I need to see all of it to know what it does."
"But what can you tell from it?" she asked.
He squinted at it. "I see a few runes symbolic of transformation, but I don't of what." He winced as the flames ate away his skin.
Mabel placed the picture back in the folder, saying, "look at this later. Maybe we'll find something else in here." She placed it on the side table with the taxidermy dodo bird, giving an askance glance at the half-demon. He extinguished the fire in his hands, staring at his new burns with a look of pensiveness. If Mabel didn't know better, she would have thought he looked lost.
But she did know better. Bill was better than her at keeping things together. She had to get tougher if she was going to continue chasing after Dipper's shadow. Still, she wished she was allowed to help him. She wanted to kiss away his burns, treat him with the same affections she would give her baby brother. But she knew he would only push her away with assertions of his own strength.
Mabel ambled into the living room, resuming her place at the dining table. Robbie's story echoed in her head as she picked up her cell phone and dialed a number. This time, it wasn't the hopeless line of the bank. It was the number of a friend, one who picked up at the first rang to only hear Mabel say, "I'm sorry, Wendy."
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MW: This week was horrible writing wise. I'm moving a week from tomorrow so we're trying to get all my shit together but now apparently my health info never went through and they didn't receive my tuition payment. This next week's gonna be big too since it's the last week at work, my birthday, and my final day in California. Pray for me readers…
So this chapter's an interesting one. The idea of Bill playing One Man Tag (find it on sixpence) was originally going to be used in chapter 7, but I put it here instead so that the stuff he told Mabel wouldn't be overshadowed by the doll.
I'm aiming for two updates this upcoming week, but the chance of me getting my crap together long enough to do that is slim. Let's hope I can!
Thank you for reading! I'll hopefully see you all on Tuesday!