Chapter 27—Powwow
16-15-23-23-15-23
16-15-19-20-5-4 5 10-21-14-5 2015
Mabel leaned back until she lay in the plush grass growing in the forest. She was in a perfect clearing, a circular plot of land surrounded by a thick wall of trees she could never hope to break through. Above her was the map of the sky, those glittering specks of stars that shifted with the passing time. She watched them move across the dark plate until the sky brightened into a crisp blue, then return after the sky turned orange and back to black.
Clouds drifted above her, birds sang, and the grass beneath her danced with the wind.
Over and over again night appeared, followed by dawn and day, then dusk and night again.
Black, blue, orange, black.
Black, blue, orange, black.
Over and over again: black blue orange…
LBJR TORR
Mabel bolted upright. A few feet in front of her was a bizarre statue aged with time. She crept towards it on her knees. She couldn't remember seeing this when she entered the clearing, though at this moment she couldn't remember how she got here. She swore she had never seen any statue quite like this one before: a moss-covered, one-eyed triangle topped with a tall hat, an arm extended to her. At least, it looked like it was trying to shake her hand. Half of its body was buried underground and tilted at an odd angle. It could have been pointed at anyone.
But she was here and it was aimed at her.
LBJR TORR… YKU PDJJKT TOUQT ABH…
AR'Q LGDYBJS D TOBPF…
She crawled until she was a breath away, the outstretched hand poised in front of her face.
Above her clouds drifted, the birds sang, and the grass stood still. The sky was a deep shade of bloody red. The world imbued in its color, turning its peaceful shades into treacherous silhouettes.
Something told her to take its hand.
LGRDQR GBQTRJ TK HR… AR'Q D GBDO…
She reached out—
AR'GG IUOJ YKU TAR QDHR WDY AR'Q IUOJRE HR…
—and clasped its hand with hers.
She screamed when blue flames engulfed her hand. Sobbing, she tried to pull away but the stone hand held hers in place with the force of a tidal wave. The flames spread to the trees, surrounding her. Mabel writhed, screaming and crying as she tried to wretch her hand from the statue's. She kicked its eye. She pleaded for it to let go, but it held on, tighter than before.
Blue overpowered the red painted world as the flames stretched higher and higher.
Her voice wasn't working anymore, but screams still filled the air. Adult, child, man woman—their screams grew louder and louder until she cried from the pain in her ears. The wind assaulted her face, thrashing her hair in every which direction.
She thought she was going to die.
gbqtrj tk hr lbjr torr…
She pulled her hand free, yelping as she fell backwards into a pool of water.
The cool water soothed her body, calming the rage still storming through her blood stream. She took a deep breath, amazed to find that she didn't need air. Relaxing, Mabel let herself sink deeper and deeper into the depths. A soft glow shined from the distance, its color indescribable, but familiar nonetheless.
Mabel felt its warmth fill her whole being as she stared.
nbje tar hktaro irnkor bt'q tkk gdtr
Mabel gasped as her consciousness was finally released from her dream.
She laid on the window seat in Dipper's library, three open books piled on top of her. Sunlight brushed her face as she stared blearily out the window. The sun was only starting its climb into the sky, prepared to shine down on another summer's day. She sat up, grimacing when her back protested. The burn Bill had given her in his hypnotic state was mostly healed, save for the scar it left behind. In a few years, when the flesh was less puffy, it might pass for a quirky tattoo. For now, it was the insignia of that bizarre Fourth of July.
Mabel leaned against the wall, reminding her lungs how to breathe. She was never one to be prone to nightmares, yet lately, they were the only dreams she had. She either slept in a world of blackness or was subjected to surreal imagery that made her skin crawl. She couldn't help but to massage her wrist from just thinking about that strange statue she saw in the woods. It looked like the Bill in that letter Dipper had given her. Why would her brain piece him with such terror? She felt like she would feel better if she knew what that gibberish voice telling her. But the fact was she didn't know and an even stranger feeling in her chest told her that she didn't want to.
Her confusion only grew when she changed clothes later that morning. The rash that plagued her chest had traveled down her arm overnight, leaving her a map of red dots connected by little red lines. She stood in the middle of her attic bedroom, stunned as her eyes jumped from each dot. If this was a rash, it was one she had never experienced before. There was no swelling and her skin didn't itch. The red marks only sat on her skin like ink.
She needed to tell someone about this, but she couldn't think who. Arjun would spiral into an endless worry and Bill wouldn't give her a straight answer. She looked across the room to where her brother's hat sat on her desk, waiting for her to wear it. Someone will turn around and they would be able to tell her what was going on. Knowing her, she was probably overreacting anyways. She wouldn't be surprised to find out that she was sleeping next to some mold she was allergic to.
She swallowed. Still, she hated not having answers.
The morning was hot, but she decided that today would be a good day for a sweater.
B UQRE TK ADVR D JDHR
"Well, this is a surprise." Gideon stood at the doorway of his dressing room, frowning at the sight of Harper lounging on one of his couches. He told the immature witch to keep low until he formulated another plan against Bill Cipher. Seeing her sprawled so carelessly on his furniture—broom stick hovering a few feet above her head, familiar sleeping on her lap—did nothing to appease his already aggravated spirits. The latest forest fire started too close to a bank he shared some power over. If the fire had been allowed to spread just a few more yards, his business would have been toast and he would lose more power over the town to that damn Northwest girl.
He folded his arms over his chest, tapping his performance shoes as he waited for the witch to respond. Harper hardly spared him a glance, raising a sloppy hand in greeting before turning the page in the magazine she was reading. Gideon figured she would be scourging through the contents of some pamphlet relating to the paranormal, instead but she was captivated by Hollywood's best dressed celebrities.
Enough was enough, he decided as he coughed into his fist. "Miss Wilcox, a word?"
Harper finally looked his way, letting her gaze linger on the tacky cape he only wore for his performances. She threw his head back and laughed, oblivious to the way his cheeks glowed red with anger. "Wow. Nice outfit, Gideon. Did it come with the sparkles or did you add them yourself?"
"What are you doin' here? In my dressin' room?" Gideon marched towards her, letting the door slam shut behind him. "I told you to stay in your apartment until I said otherwise."
"Yeah, like you expect me to just sit around and do nothing?" Behemoth began to stir, meowing softly until she finally scratched a finger behind his ear. Her vibrant green eyes narrowed into a sharp glare. "I can't afford to wait around and do bat shit nothing while Cipher's out there doing whatever he wants."
Gideon felt an angry shout rise up his throat like bile, but he steered emotions. This girl, though a witch, was nothing more than a simple teenager. Yelling at her would only make things worse. "These kinds of plans take time to formulate," he said, keeping his tone calmer than he felt. "Especially if we want the results to be lasting."
Harper groaned, sinking deeper into the cushions. "Then give me something to do! I'm so freaking bored! There's nothing left to do on my blog today and I'm freaking desperate." She sat up, watching him sit in the stool before his vanity. "I'll join your magic act, show, thing. Get some real magic in there."
"You'll have to follow my dress code then and look more professional." He sat at his vanity, turning his tired face to the mirror. He needed to hire a new makeup artist. The one he had wasn't sealing the concealer right. "Your hair's the first thing that'll have to go."
"The moment I get rid of my dreads for a white man is the moment I shoot myself."
"Then performing with me is out of the question."
She groaned again, laying back down to stare at the ceiling. "It can't be that hard to come up with some kind of plan," she complained. "I mean, you just gotta get through some annoying girl and that cursed guy to get to Cipher. It's not that hard."
Gideon perked up, suddenly turning back to her. "Did you by chance just say 'cursed?'"
She nodded.
"That agent's cursed?"
"Well, yeah!" She was starting to get annoyed, brows furrowing as she gave him a harsh look. "Any person with a real sense for magic can feel it a mile away."
Gideon nodded, tapping a finger to his round cheek. "What kinda curse?"
"Seriously? It's been years and no one'll shut up about this guy! He had 'the curse of the century,' or some shit like that."
Gideon's eyes widen. "Wait—that's him? I've heard of him! When they said the government's took him in, they really meant it." He thought back to the doors he had opened in Arjun's mindscape, quickly piecing together the man's narrative. A sly smile slowly stretched across his face. When he looked at Harper again, it was with the calculating gaze of an army general before the plans to change the tides of war. "Miss Wilcox, I have a plan but it will take a considerable amount waitin' until the right moment will come. Until then, I'll need you to do a few errands for me."
Harper nodded, still irritated but willing to listen. Her compliance was nothing more than a begrudging method of maintaining some sense of freedom under her blackmail. Gideon knew this as much as she did. They shared the silent knowledge that she would turn on him the moment the opportunity presented itself. The moment it happened, Gideon was sure he would have a way to deflect her rage.
Harper stood and grabbed the shaft of her broom. "What first?"
IUT QKHRKJR QTKGR BT
"I would like to thank everyone for being here for this spectacular family powwow." It was a familiar scene, one Mabel had seen before when Bill lectured her on the intricacies of witches. But this time, it was her standing at the front of the room, armed with a handful of notecards and a series of poster boards. Her, Bill, and Arjun had been trying to have this meeting since Gideon and Harper revealed their alliance, but their schedules were never able to line up. Arjun had to work extra hours to make up for the time an injured Cooper could not clock in and the incident with cupid's dust had left Bill too weak to leave his bed. Bill could finally stand without wanting to barf and, with Cooper finally making a full recovery, Arjun finally had some time away from work.
The delay left Mabel plenty of time to compile everything they knew about Dipper's murder. During her nightly bouts of insomnia, she would take a break from studying to create the poster boards she now had stacked up behind the easel she set up next to the living room TV. She buzzed with excitement as Arjun sat attentively on the floor while Bill laid on the love seat. The blond stretched a lazy arm over his head to poke absently at Grunkle Stan's tank. Schrödinger lay curled on his lap, and he scratched his bandaged hand behind the tabby's ear. Occasionally, Arjun would glance behind to look at Schrödinger in amazement.
Earlier, when Mabel and Bill argued about whose responsibility it was to feed the (obviously) dead cat, Arjun had placed his ear to Schrödinger's chest. "I think I hear a pulse," he said, "but I'm not sure. I can't really tell."
Now, with the meeting finally starting, Arjun's attention was anywhere but the cat. He couldn't help but to let the corners of his lips curl in a humored simper. "Am I part of this family now?" he asked.
"Of course you are," Mabel said, taking a moment to tap the sides of her notecards on her thigh. "I'm appalled you would think otherwise."
"Well, he hasn't proposed yet," Bill offered as Grunkle Stan stared absently at the finger he pressed against the glass.
Mabel huffed as Arjun's cheeks darkened with an unacknowledged blush. "We're not even dating," Mabel said. At least, that was what she thought. Arjun hadn't asked her out again since breaking up with her and their friendship seemed to be working fine. If he asked her again, she wouldn't say no, but she definitely didn't want to pressure him into a decision. She could see the relief play on his face as she said, "honestly, you're the one who won't shut up about us being together. Are you trying to play matchmaker or something 'cause that's usually my job."
Bill rolled his eyes, grumbling like a little kid who was told he couldn't stay up past bedtime. "Just get on with the presentation now, Shooting Star."
"Yeah." Arjun leaned forward, eager. "What do we know?"
Mabel couldn't hide her gleeful smile as she cleared her throat. There was something undeniably nice about being the one with all the answers. She pulled up the first poster board, the one that showed off pictures and newspaper articles of the crime scene. The pictures Robbie had given them were the centerpiece, and she surrounded them with glitter and little doodles to distract herself from the pain of the loss. "So we know that Dipper had been working on something, as evident by that whole conspiracy thing we found in his bathroom. He came back to Piedmont for Christmas, only to leave that night to probably take care of whatever went wrong with his work. He arrived at the Mystery Shack shortly after with Soos Ramirez and they were trapped there when the end of the year blizzard hit."
"That means that somewhere between late December and early January, someone else in the house managed to take my brother and use him as a sacrifice to perform the humanus spell that turned Bill human. This same person then chased down Soos when he tried to escape and killed him in the woods." She gestured to a map of the forest she had pasted in the corner where a fruit sticker marked the place where Soos's body was discovered. "Bill said that he woke up in the middle of the woods, so that means that the murderer—after performing the spell—dropped him off there."
Arjun turned his head, giving Bill a questioning look. He shrugged and nodded his head. While bound to his bed, he helped Mabel piece together that fateful night as best as he could, growing more and more frustrated by the murderer's trick of separating him from the scene of the crime. "Why make me human before abandoning me?" he asked Mabel at one point of time. "The only reason anyone would make me a human in the first place would be to kill me. So why leave me there?"
Mabel didn't know the answer then, and she sure didn't know it now. "No one realized that Dipper and Soos were missing until a couple of days after the blizzard, which would mean that the murderer had until mid-January to make their escape." She switched the boards to one covered with photos and doodles, labeled with glitter pens. "Evidence wise, we actually don't have a lot." She picked up a stick she found on the porch that morning and used it to point to everything as she listed it. "So far, we have the burnt picture we found in Dipper's old room, the weird conspiracy collage none of us can figure out, the photos of the humanus circle, and the strand of brown hair."
She threw the stick to the side, trying not to flinch when it made sharp contact with the wall behind her. "We're already halfway through July and we don't really have any suspects."
"Well, we know the murderer's probably a brunet," Bill said.
"There's a lot of brunets in the world," Arjun replied. "We already checked the strand with samples we collected from Dipper and Soos and neither matched. At this rate, we're going to have to check every brown-haired person in Gravity Falls. Even then, the murderer might have already left this place and be on the other side of the world by now."
Bill stretched his back like a languid cat. "You have brown hair."
It took Mabel a moment to realize that the statement was directed at her. She made a sour face as she switched the poster boards again, saying, "Do you want my alibi first or can I just point out how much sense that doesn't make?"
He shrugged. "Just sayin'. Don't kill the messenger."
"So we can't pin point the murderer with hair alone," Arjun said, quick to salvage the powwow.
Mabel felt a pang of anger towards Arjun and the very reason why only made her more fed up with herself. She felt like Arjun didn't think she could handle this meeting herself, but she knew that she was jumping to paranoid conclusions. She had to remind that pugnacious voice in the back of her head that he was only trying to help. He wasn't trying to undermine her. (Another part of her wondered when she got so irritable and if it had anything to do with her insomnia, but she couldn't bring the conscious parts of her to give a frank shit).
Arjun's voice called her back to reality. "Where does that lead us, Miss Pines?" He wagged his brows for emphasis, corny enough to make Mabel giggle.
"I'm glad you asked." She stepped back, showing off the last board with a pair of jazz hands. This one had no evidence glued to it. Instead, a single pine tree had been drawn in vibrant blue ink. "This leads us back to the man himself—Dipper Pines. Whatever caused him to come rushing back to Gravity Falls at Christmas has to be related to why all of this happened to begin with. I bet once we get that sorted out, we'll be one step closer to figuring all this out."
Arjun looked confused, but Mabel saw him seal his lips tight before he could ask. She wondered why he looked so conflicted, why he gave her such odd looks. She didn't get long to think about it when Bill spoke up. "Too bad none of us can figure out that weird photo map Pine Tree had in his bathroom." He sounded as bored as he look, which made no sense to Mabel since he was as invested in figuring out this whole mystery as she was.
"At least, not the whole picture," Arjun said. "I mean, I don't know what the increase in paranormal hotspots has to do with you, Mabel, but your brother had to have been onto something."
Mabel fidgeted, realizing for the first time that she had no idea what he was talking about. She remembered seeing Dipper's handmade map hanging in the bathroom, but the whole concept seemed to be lost only on her. Even his letters mentioned the hotspots and she didn't think to ask about them until now. How stupid could she get? She played with a loose lock of hair, trying not to look too shy when she asked, "um, what do 'paranormal hotspots' mean anyway?"
Arjun looked like he couldn't believe she didn't know, but hid it before she could be even more ashamed. "Well, it's what Gravity Falls is. There are about half a dozen places on each continent where incidences of paranormal activity commonly happen. For the past two decades, these hotspots have increased across the globe and no one knows why."
Bill laughed. "Are you serious?" he asked, not even bothering to look at him. "Has no one in the United States government never really put two and two together?"
"What do you mean?" Mabel asked.
"The incidences of 'paranormal hotspots'—" Here he bent his fingers in quotation marks before chuckling at an unseen irony. "—started what did you say? Two decades? Stop rounding up, it's seventeen years. What else happened seventeen years ago?"
Arjun's mouth dropped and his eye lit with realization. "Weirdmaggedon."
"Bingo! Give the sap a medal!" Bill sunk deeper into the love seat, his mouth drawn in a jester's maniacal grin. "Old Fordsy would tell ya that the rift between dimensions repaired itself the moment he defeated me. Of course, he was spouting shit. That rift's still there and the fabric that separates our realities is damaged. It's been wearing away for years and it will keep doing so until someone fixes it."
Mabel swallowed, feeling her panic rise.
Dipper's letter.
That was everything Dipper told her in the last letter. No wonder Arjun looked so confuse; he remembered the letter, even when she didn't. It's been a long time since she had even thought about the mantel Dipper had meant for her to uphold. She looked at the board on the easel, eyes pinned to the blue pine tree. When making the boards, she didn't think to use her brother's letters to her as evidence. Not when she was missing one and she never got the chance to pour over the written scripture like she did with the first one she found. Not when every page Dipper addressed to her was so personal, the one piece of Dipper he left behind just for her. She looked at her poster board, realizing that she already knew what Dipper had been working on so desperately until his death. But even now, staring down a new path in her brother's murder case, she didn't want Bill to know about the letters. She didn't want him anywhere near something her brother had given to her.
But with the fate of the universe at stake, she would have to be a pretty horrible person to keep this secret any longer. She lifted her brother's hat off her head, swiping a hand over her scalp as she sat on the ground. "Bill, there's something I need to tell you."
Arjun looked at her like he knew exactly what she was about to do, eyes wide as he searched for a way to get out before the fight.
Bill looked at her like he couldn't care what she said, yet another thought lingered beneath the mask, one that worried that there was something about her she had managed to keep hidden from him. She couldn't name the emotion on his face.
She picked at the carpet, teasing the old strands between the pads of her fingers. "I kind of knew about the rift already," she said. She waited, expecting him to say that he had known about the letters this whole time, that he somehow had a hand in penning them. But he was quiet, waiting for her to finish. So, she did. "Dipper left me letters, explaining everything."
"He what?" Bill sat up with such force that his torso looked like it had been propelled from the cushions. He seized, eye glazing over before covering his mouth as he coughed.
"Bill!" She reached for him, but Arjun was faster.
He patted the half-demon's back, asking if how he was feeling. When Bill's lungs finally calmed, he pulled away his hands to revealed the black staining his bandages. Arjun muttered a swear as Bill started shrugging him away. "I'm fine! What do you think I am? Bronte? I can handle a little blood!"
"Are you sure you don't need anything?" Mabel asked. "Seltzer water, or—"
"If you think this'll make me not want to slaughter you any less, you're out of luck toots," Bill sneered viciously.
Mabel flinched and Arjun took this as an excuse to flee. "I'll go get you new bandages for your hands," he said. He gave Bill a pointed look, as if to order the blond to be nice, before striding away. He gave Mabel a sympathetic frown as he passed.
"They're in the vending machine. They'll cost ya!" Bill shouted at his back. Mabel tugged nervously at her hair as Bill glared a hole through the spot between her eyes. She didn't blame Arjun for running away, not when Bill looked ready to murder a school house full of children. He didn't even wait for the Gift Shop door to stop swinging when he blew. "What the fuck? Pine Tree left you letters? Explaining everything?"
"Yeah, kind of." She wanted to curl into herself. She didn't know how to get out of this without ruining the trust she had finally built with Bill. Whatever progress she had made with their relationship over the summer could be completely destroyed if she didn't say the right things perfectly.
Her mouth wasn't working right. Her jaw was stiff and, the moment she tried to speak, she vomited a slew of anxious, panicky words. "I mean, I've only found two so far and they've just been about Dipper's life and he mentioned the rift and you and I haven't found the rest yet, but he has some kind of mission for me but I don't know what because he has them scattered across a bunch of different letters and I just got to the part where you appeared and I know he wants me to fix the rift but I don't know how!"
She was panting, out of breath, but relieved. Not even the sight of Bill pinching the bridge of his nose as he prepared himself for an impassioned rant could take away the feeling of having that the weight of her lie off her chest. Whatever happened next, she could deal with. She could be honest and rebuild whatever trust she lost with him.
Bill took a deep breath and opened his mouth. "Shooting Star, you—"
"Oh my God!" Bill and Mabel froze as the sound of creaking metal and the bang of a heavy instrument locking in place. "Guys! You need to see this now!"
Mabel and Bill rushed to the Gift Shop, one lingering behind the other, to be greeted by the sight of a helpless Arjun and the vending machine swung open like a secret door.
PG ARSNNHDEBC ISWNG WI HDA GAPAO
SOPRV PDOP BOJ XS JDH SDOP WS OASIH
You know, I had this summer so meticulously planned. If I write X amount of chapters a month, I could get through the second half of the story before school starts up again. Then stuff like life happens and I don't get enough time to sit down and write. It's really frustrating, especially since this chapter was cut short. We were supposed explore what's on the other side of the vending machine as well, but the chapter was getting too long. I had to cut it in half, which ruins my concept of the whole story flipping on a single chapter.
On top of that, this was supposed to be the first of many plot-heavy chapters, but without the second half, this seems a lot like filler. I hope you guys don't mind. Like, I added a scene of Gideon and Harper in hopes that a little glimpse at their plans would help satisfy you.
Either way, I hope you all enjoyed. I want the next chapter to come out sometime this week, but please doubt me. I am incapable of sticking to a schedule.
Thank you for reading! Good luck with finals!
