The rain pelted against a rooftop. Which rooftop he couldn't be sure – the shack's, his castle's, perhaps the rooftop of the world? The noise was a distant echo that reverberated through the walls, thrumming on the floors, down to his feet. It was so far yet so close, a barrier unseen but vigilant to protect him from the onslaught of the weather, dreary and pale and unflattering against his gold. How often did it rain in Gravity Falls? He'd been too cooped up to remember.
His awakening must have been a miracle. No, not a miracle; a success. He had invoked their name and in doing so earned his right back into the world.
"This is not Gravity Falls."
The voice was dissonant, harrowing. The source was too unclear to pinpoint. The energy at his fingertips ebbed away to nothing.
"Do you realise how much trouble you have caused for us? Your power trip tampered with one of our most trusted. Through him we avoided much work, and now we must tend to it because you could not find a more suitable place to party. Was the realm of the nightmares not up to your standards?"
One of our most trusted… That wasn't ringing any bells. His usurp had killed well into the double digits at least, and after the fifth day all the names that were screamed into the air began to merge. He tapped a finger on the space under his eye and hummed out into the open. It bounced around him, the sound of the rain briefly shuddering to a heightened volume.
"Do not play the fool with us. You know what you have done and it was by your own volition that you chose to begin recompense."
He laughed. It had a hard edge. "Me, the fool? Buddy, do you even know who I am? If you'll hand me the forms I need to sign to wave this under the bridge, sign off my soul to you, plead insanity, yada yada… I think I'll be on my way."
"It is not so simple. Your crimes do not end with the attempted desecration of a dimension. You meddle with humans as if they are your playthings. You have broken multiple time laws, one of which includes the possession of a member of the Time Anomaly Removal Crew. You, Bill Cipher, are quite the nuisance."
He waved his hand. "Yeah, yeah, 'Bill Cipher's the worst, Bill tried to kill my family, Bill slaughtered his home dimension in a show of agony and suffering'. Yeesh! At least the Victorians just cut to the point and sold money for old rope. Can we move this along?"
"Very well. Our first consideration was to inflict upon you eternal suffering, each molecule of your body torn from its roots then threaded back together again." The voice huffed. "Then Jerry down in Resource Management reminded us of the workload you have pushed upon us. You present to us a… vessel. Though distasteful, you are rather efficient in your methods. Fulfil our requests and you may see a sunny day yet."
His eye widened. "You're asking me to do community service?" He tilted back in the air. "Ahahaha – that's rich! Stop trying to slack off and do your own jobs."
"Need I remind you that we are not the ones asking to repent?This is not a suggestion, it is an alternative to an otherwise painful and unending fate. You will be fitted with the details in due time, and you will do as we say."
"Listen pal, I'm the one who makes contracts here. If you think for one second –"
"Farewell for this time, Bill Cipher. We shall meet again in Gravity Falls."
Bill continued his refusal. The voice left him unheard, he knew as much, but it was satisfying to get the centuries of repressed anger thrown out to the walls.
She squinted against the sun's bright rays, bringing a hand up to shield her eyes. Dipper breezed past her, jumping over the bus steps and onto the gravel, quickly headed to the Mystery Shack. She adjusted the straps of her backpack and skipped after him.
Two years had passed since their first and last visit to Gravity Falls. It had taken two week's worth of begging and several hunger strikes to earn a trip back to the area. The trees were greener than she remembered, crisp edges of the leaves highlighted with a yellow as magnificent as gold. The sound of the nearby creek echoed around her head, birds chiming along to the tune with their honeyed chirps.
Dipper's nose was right in his book, running fast ahead. "Dipper, wait up –!" she called, right before she tripped over a fallen log and landed face-first into the dirt. She pulled herself up with a sigh and rubbed the tender area. Suddenly, something caught her attention; a shake of shrubbery, the gentle padding of small paws.
"Hello?" she said, pulling her backpack to her chest and rifling through for food offerings. There was a sandwich, but she wasn't willing to part with it yet. She waited a few minutes before righting herself and following her brother's path, carefully stepping over a wilted flower along the way.
The Mystery Shack had never looked so beautiful! It was repainted with shiny new colours, emphasised by the sunlight. Stalls had been placed out front to give customers a better look into what awaited them in the shop. She stopped by the left stall to tap her finger against a styrofoam goblin skull, giggling at the way its loosely tied jaws clicked open.
"Mabel! Are you coming?"
She looked up. Dipper was waiting for her by the doorway. In the time she'd taken to gawk over the skull he'd found himself a replacement of his old blue hat and was beaming with satisfaction. She returned a grin of her own and joined him inside. Soos manned the counter, greeting them with a wave. He looked stronger than she remembered, body more shaped and eyes brighter.
"Yo, dudes! You excited to stay another summer?" He pushed two small packages onto the counter. "Got some gifts for you."
Mabel didn't waste time opening the packaging. Inside was a pretty pink journal, cover rough with leather. She looked over at Dipper. His journal was the same material, only blue with linings of gold.
"These were Wendy's idea. She said you two might like journals or something." Soos rubbed the back of his neck. "She's not in today, but you can probably catch her later."
Dipper fiddled with his backpack.
Mabel grinned knowingly. "Thanks Soos. Dipper already has a journal, though! He made one a couple weeks after we got back, and he's been writing in it everyday."
"It's almost full, so don't worry." Dipper said, showing off the journal in question. It was a schoolbook with a piece of paper glued to the cover, bedazzled with doodles of triangular figures, gnomes and unicorns. The unicorns might have been Mabel's doing. He packed both journals back into the backpack and zipped it up.
"Do you have any idea when Grunkle Stan will be back?" Mabel asked.
Soos shrugged.
She raised her eyebrow.
"That's what he told me to do," he said, pulling out his phone and showing off the screen. Its text read: 'If the kids ask when I'll be back, do this.' Attached was an image of Stan shrugging his shoulders.
Both twins sighed. Mabel had been excited to see Stan again and she knew Dipper was eager to talk about his mystery junk with Grunkle Ford. Most of his reasoning for his makeshift journal was to have something to show him. She placed a hand on his shoulder and they shared a small smile.
She was hit with a wave of nostalgia entering their old room. Homely, cosy, with bed covers slightly out of place and window curtains cooling each corner of the walls. There wasn't a triangle in sight, no eye to peer into their business. A baited breath escaped her at that realisation and she was sure Dipper mimicked the feeling. He tucked straight into organisation, unpacking his bag and pushing both journals beneath the bed. He held himself with tense shoulders and a twitch to his eye.
"I hope Grunkle Stan comes with us on our adventures this time," Mabel said, leaning her bag against the side of her bed and sitting on the soft blankets provided. "Imagine if he helped us bust a ghost!"
Dipper joined her on the covers. "I'm sure they'll both have lots of cool stories to tell us when they get back. They fought a Kraken."
Mabel gasped. "The Kraken?"
"Well.. Maybe not the Kraken, but one of them!"
That raised a pressing concern. "Are you saying the Kraken has a whole family?"
"I'm telling you, that thing has a kid. I saw two of those suckers down there and I'm not ready to fight with an angry mother!"
"Squids don't care for their young, Stanley."
"Well maybe krakens do! You have no way of knowing for sure."
"I can make an educated guess."
Stan leaned back in his chair, turning his head to the sky. They had managed to avoid a storm and were set for clear skies for the rest of their trip back to the Falls. The kraken Ford had insisted they track had started to track them, and he could only hope they made it back before he had to listen to another mumbo jumbo spell to ward the too-many-legged freak away.
Ford was sat opposite to him, one leg crossed over the other with a journal spread open on his knee. One finger skimmed lazily over atrocious handwriting, the kind that looped so much it somehow managed to form a knot on the page. His glasses were glaring the sun into Stan's eye, so he got up from his seat and headed to the edge of the ship.
"Do you think the kids will be excited to be back?" he asked, watching the horizon.
"Hm? Of course. They loved it there last time. Dipper especially." Ford grunted. "Well, when there wasn't an apocalypse happening."
Stan bit back a comment of how little time Ford had spent during their trip, but he had to admit he was right. Dipper was always out wrangling some odd forest animal and Mabel had never hatched so many devious boy-getting plans. He only wished he'd pushed harder to spend time with them, considering all that had happened.
"It's just… Well. There's a lot of bad memories there, don't you think?" His fingers drummed against the wood. "I wanna be able to protect them."
Ford closed his book with a loud thump. "I would like that as well, Stanley, and we'll do it." His boots tapped against the flooring and a six-fingered hand rested on Stan's shoulder. "With Bill gone, there's nothing worry about."
"Yeah," Stan said. Then, with more confidence, "Yeah. You're right."
Ford smiled. "I always am."
A long song wavered in the distance.
He broke the contact and headed to the back of the ship, resting a foot against a barrel as he unsheathed a knife from his belt strap and punctured a hole into it. Pink fluid oozed out while he rolled it to the edge. "Now," he said, "Let's drop this bait off so the kraken doesn't try to eat everyone in Gravity Falls when we arrive."
It was the second day of their visit and Soos had managed to pull a date out of Grunkle Stan. The two would be back by the end of tomorrow, and Mabel wanted to make them something nice. They'd have enough stories to tell and they deserved something in return!
Summer in Gravity Falls was never too warm, always just right. The sun peeked out to glimmer over the forest's flora but never pushed enough to burn her skin. The clouds drifted lazily over sheets of blue. Squirrels scurried over branches, causing leaves to fall daintily to the dry dirt below. She loved listening to the loose twigs crackle under her feet; exploring was a dream. Not everything had to be an adventure. Her backpack was snug over her shoulders.
Dipper stayed back, having promised to do something together later. He was spending more and more time in his books; they never played like they used to.
She strayed further from the shack than normal, searching for perennial flowers, pinks and blues and yellows. There was a small field of them in a clearing the trees didn't touch, bees buzzing about in the air. Mabel picked them delicately, avoiding the ones that were occupied. A rainbow of plucked petals was stuffed into her backpack within an hour, and the warmth on her back convinced her to lay back for a quick nap before she headed back.
She didn't know how long it had been before she woke up. Sitting up, there was a blur in her eyes that made the world appear saturated. A rustle in the dried up thickets nearby caught her attention. They parted to reveal a slim cat; pale grey, pointed ears; wide slitted eyes. They were a shade of yellow that would've met well with the sun if its light hadn't been so grey. It sat at the border between the field and the forest.
"Hi, kitty!" Mabel rubbed her eyes, then offered her hand and clicked her tongue. "What are you doing out here?"
The cat's ears twitched and the upper part of its lip lifted, irritated by the vibration of her voice. It regarded her with a neutral stance, back slouched and rump pressed to the ground. The blades of grass at its paws were fragile and golden, gasping for energy.
Cats didn't come to Gravity Falls often, if ever, and she couldn't help but think it belonged the someone. There was no collar around its neck but its fur was tightly groomed; it was clean and smoothed in one direction to cascade down its back perfectly. There was no way a cat wandering the forest would look so refined. She abandoned her flower picking and rose to her feet, taking slow steps towards it.
"Come here," she said. "I'll help you find your owner."
It wrinkled its nose. Mabel had never seen a cat express genuine disgust until that moment. With a turn of its tail that sent the dead grass scattering, it disappeared back into the trees. She looked at the flowers in her hand. The petals had already turned concave and browned at the edges. Surely her craft could wait if it meant returning someone's lost pet.
She fixed her bag's straps tighter over her shoulders and followed the cat through the trees. It couldn't go far; it only had little legs and it had looked awfully thin. There was a trail of crisp leaves to track, the bark of the trees around her beginning to leak and weep around the shapes of eyes. The scene was eerie and the air felt cold, but she pressed on when she heard motion up ahead.
Sure enough the cat was there, sat on a hollow log and watching her. The moment she crossed a meter between them it jumped down and scattered back through the underbrush, expanding the trail. She called after it and broke into a jog, collected flowers gliding through the air from the hole left by the zipper of her bag.
The further they went the more the slits of the trees leered. There was a deathly silence that hung heavy like smog, cut short by the rumble and splash of a waterfall. She skidded to a stop at the edge of its lake. Fish bobbed on the surface, capsized, scales as dreary as the world around her. There was a small stone by the mouth of the waterfall where the sleek cat stared at her expectantly.
Her empathy for the cat was then an uneasiness in her belly.
The cat blinked one eye at a time. It cocked its head towards the waterfall and stretched a paw over the edge of the stone, falling behind the curtains of water. When minutes passed it poked its head back through. Waiting.
"I – I'm not following you," Mabel said, taking a step back.
The cat looked past her shoulders. She turned her head to see a dying forest. It gave her a pointed look when she next met its eyes.
She sighed.
The cat was enveloped by the waterfall once more. Mabel followed it through into a dank cave lit by dim blue torches. Symbols were etched into the walls, needle-thin strands of white paint flooding through the indents. Her eyes followed the ceiling then dropped to the floor where the cat was awaiting her next few steps, eager to lead her through. She gave the entrance of the cave, the exit of the waterfall, one last glance.
Around her, voices whispered in a language she couldn't figure out. The syllables sounded familiar but the words were jumbled. It reminded her of the text in the journals where each word was written in a way that sat irritatingly at the tip of her tongue. The cat's ears swivelled in every direction, tracking the points of the voices.
The corridor of the cave felt like it went on forever. It was just her and the pitter patter of the cat's paws. She was grateful for the colour that the torches provided, pale as it was.
"Sooo… This is obviously a dream, right? Are you, like… my guardian angel or something?" she said. She brought her hands to her cheeks. "Are you my spirit animal?"
The cat looked back at her. It seemed unimpressed. Definitely not my spirit animal.
They stopped after a while; in front of her, laid directly in the middle of the path, was a small, sharp headstone. That wasn't something she expected to find in the middle of the cave. Why would someone want to be buried in a cave? Even if this was in her mind, she was sure she would've pictured a perfect place to be buried being a lovely field of flowers or a huge, green mountain.
Translucent strands of membrane surrounded it, suspended in the air as if time itself had stopped only for them. Dragonfly wings, she realised, from their lengthy shape. She was tempted to reach out and touch them.
"Did your owner die?" she asked, crouching down to squint at the face of the grave. It was blank, though there appeared to be two boxes of uneven sizes that glitched in and out of the stone.
The cat's eyes had been on the headstone as well, flicking back to run over her face. It seemed dissatisfied with her reaction and puffed a moody breath of air, brushing past to continue on. Mabel tapped the headstone curiously, secretly hoping a zombie might crawl out of the floor, then kept walking when it stayed stagnant.
Walking, walking and more walking… It must've been hours before they reached the end.
There was a wall. Too smooth to be natural, too perfect to be entirely manmade. The blue torches whooshed away and there was a twinkle in the air as a golden circle made itself known to the world, freshly engraved into the stone ahead. A smaller circle lit up brilliantly inside, then tendrils began to form segments, all of which harboured symbols. Symbol upon symbol upon symbol, so bright and so clear it was as if Mabel had been transported right back into the Fearamid. Her hand itched to hold another.
Three dots flickered then connected. Thick, yellow lines, then
Wait! No no NO, I'm not DONE! Can you just give me five more –
"Mabel!"
She shot up. Her head was spinning and her body was sore, but the warmth of the sun had returned and the colours of the world were more vibrant than ever.
"Mabel, are you okay?" Dipper had a firm grip on both of her shoulders, eyebrows knit together and lips pressed firm. "You shouldn't fall asleep out here. What if the gnomes got you again?"
She laughed and pushed him away, checking for her bag. All the flowers were in there, thankfully. "I… was just taking a little nap. Your sleepy ways are rubbing off on me, huh?"
"Ha-ha," Dipper deadpanned. He glanced around. "Well, I found you, so can we head back now?"
She was more than happy to once she'd zipped up her bag. There was an unsettling feeling about the forest that she couldn't figure out the meaning of. The sun was beginning to dip down to its afternoon point; she must've just been eager to get back to the shack. She walked side by side with Dipper, whistling a tune, when he bumped her shoulder to quiet her.
"You looked pretty stressed before I woke you up," he said. "What were you dreaming about?"
She glanced to the left and thought. "I don't really remember. I know I lost my flowers, though, and that's a pretty stressful event."
Dipper grinned. "You're right about that. What're you gonna make with them?"
"You'll see," she singsonged, skipping ahead and leaving him to catch up.
Gravity Falls was quiet that night. The birds were tucked safely within covens of sticks, the forest critters had taken to their own shelter and the gnomes had retired to bed long ago. When the clock struck three a light breeze jostled the trees, wind whistling and weaving through the cracks of the bark. Solemn, alone, yet ever resolute; a voice lingered, backed by the echo of a thousand.
"Stars shining bright above you,
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you,"
A pause, allowing the mood to settle.
Another echo, more spectral than the last.
"Birds singing in the sycamore tree,
Dream a little dream of me."