6: The Mysterious Voyage of Mason Pines
(June 25-26, 2017)
There's no telling exactly why it started. Possibly the near-collision in the rain had startled Dipper more than he realized and his subconscious had revved into overdrive because of that. Possibly a tiny bit of Smile Dip—either from the genie's prank or from Mabel's secret stash—somehow got into his food or drink at dinner Sunday evening. Or maybe Someone was trying to tell him Something.
Or it could have been just one of those things that happen.
At any rate, sometime during Sunday night Dipper felt himself rocking and opened his eyes. Heat was his first impression—a dry, baking heat. His second impression was help, I'm on a horse.
Dipper had ridden horses a very few times in his life, and he had come to the conclusion that (A) he didn't like riding because (B) he was rotten at controlling an animal that weighed approximately the same as his house, (C) horses were scary, and (D) the position in the saddle hurt him in places he didn't like being hurt. Yet here he was, reins in hand, butt in the creaking leather saddle, riding a slow horse under a pitiless glaring white sky. "Whoa," he said.
The horse kept walking. It was a standard-issue brown horse with a tan mane. Its muscles worked beneath the hide, flexing and relaxing rhythmically. The ground had to be hard—the hooves clop-clopped along at a steady pace. "Whoa," he said again, tugging on the reins. The horse ignored him and kept walking.
Where the heck am I? Dipper looked around at an arid landscape, tawny light-brown sand, orange-red rocks, gray straggling vegetation bare of leaves. And overhead the pale sky and, hung high, the sun. The heat hit him with brutal pressure.
"Come on, stop," Dipper said.
The horse kept walking.
"Come on, horse—what's your name?"
Without looking around, the horse said, "I don't have one."
This has to be a bad dream. Wake up, me!
But it also had to be the most boring nightmare he'd ever had—because the horse just kept pacing, never swerving, across the dry land. In the far distance ahead and to the right Dipper could see some pale purple smudges on the horizon that just might be far-away mountains, but dead ahead the horizon lay flat. The sky there did show a strange sort of glow.
"You can talk?" Dipper asked.
"So can you."
"Where are we going?" Dipper asked the horse.
"You're the one in the saddle."
The horse really was talking. It actually formed words and spoke them aloud, though the bit in its mouth slurred its speech—the last sentence had come out as "Oor ee un in ee addle." Didn't matter. Dipper understood it.
"Um—would you like me to take the bit out?" he asked after a while.
"Wait until night."
Dipper's rear end already ached. And his back was hurting. "I'm not a good rider," he said.
"That's OK. I'm an excellent horse."
After what could have been half a mile—the scenery all looked the same, it was hard to tell—Dipper said, "It's hot."
"Feels good to get out of the rain, though."
"Yeah," Dipper agreed. "It—wait, what?"
He looked around. Now for the first time he noticed that the low rocks—the reddish ones—lay not randomly, but set in circles that ranged from three or four feet to many yards across. It was not a natural landscape. It was more like an imagined desert.
Frowning, Dipper said, "I see rocks and rings and sand and stuff. And I'm riding through the desert on a horse with no name."
"Yeah," the horse said. "So?"
Dipper closed his eyes. "This is that song that Grunkle Stan plays sometimes in the car. It's like the one CD that he has, and he never takes it out of the player."
"I prefer the Eagles myself," the horse said. "Want to sing 'Hotel California' with me?"
"Before my time, I don't know the words, and I don't sing all that well," Dipper said. "OK, I'm wearing boots, which I never do, at least not cowboy boots, and these heavy jeans, and a blue long-sleeved shirt, and I got a bandana around my neck, and a Stetson hat. Am I supposed to be a cowboy?"
"Don't know. You got horns?"
Dipper actually felt his head with a palm. "No."
"Probably not, then." For a long time they didn't speak, and then the horse asked, "You got a name?"
"Dipper Pines."
"OK. I would've named you Lonestar myself, but I'm just a horse."
"Where are we going?" Dipper asked.
"To the horizon."
"OK. Am I going to wake up?"
"Probably. Most people do."
Dipper found he could drop the reins. They made no difference, anyway. He pinched his left arm. It hurt like a self-administered pinch. "I could take the reins off," he said.
"I'm used to them. Wait until night."
Somehow, and he couldn't say how, Dipper rode for three days. The first night he did remove the bit and the reins, and from then on just rode with them draped over the horse's neck ahead of the saddle. It didn't matter. He didn't think he'd fall off even if he tried.
Nights he and the nameless horse camped, the horse not even tied, and he grazed on the dry brush and the scant thistly plants that grew in the shadows of the largest rocks. The horse found water for them, too, at least once every day—a creek in a broad bed, but only a bare trickle over rocks, or a frankly muddy waterhole from which coyotes scrambled as they approached. No food that Dipper could eat, but Dipper was never hungry.
"If I just let you go—" Dipper began on the third day. His shirt was stained with his sweat, but his hands were red with sunburn, so he didn't roll up the sleeves.
"Not yet. Six more days," the horse said.
"Do you want to be free?" Dipper asked.
"Free is a state of mind."
On the fourth morning, Dipper said, "Look, this is just getting boring. Is there any point to this?"
The horse remained silent for at least five minutes, and then as music from some invisible orchestra swelled, he began to croon:
Once in every tale
Comes an episode like this,
When some poor baffled male
Wonders what's not real, what is—
This is the time you question me—
"Oh, my God, now it's a musical!" Dipper said. "You know what? Never mind. I'll just find out as we go."
The music ended, not all at once, but trailing off discordantly, as if parts of the orchestra gave up before others did. "I had four verses and a chorus," the horse mumbled reproachfully, but he stopped singing.
On the sixth day, bored out of his mind, Dipper asked, "How long has it been, really?"
"Since when?"
"Since I started this dream."
"The dream is eternal. You just drift in and out of it."
"Is that Zen?"
"Zat was Zen, zis is now."
"Please," Dipper groaned.
On the morning of the ninth day they came within sight of—
"The ocean?" Dipper asked.
"It's another desert," the horse said. "Just a wet one."
But along with the rocks and sand and rings and things, now Dipper saw green trees and the lovely, cool-looking blue sea. "I guess this is where I set you free," he told the horse.
"Thanks," the horse said with no enthusiasm.
Dipper piled the saddle and reins on the ground and said, "Well—thanks for the ride. And the company."
"You're welcome."
The horse turned and began to plod back toward the desert. Dipper limped toward the ocean.
He reached it before sunset—although the red sun was sinking down toward the waves. He heard the regular chuff of water breaking on sand, and it sounded like breathing. A thin voice said, "Hello."
Dipper looked down. A brown dog walked beside him. "Tripper?"
"No, another dog of the same breed."
"What's your name?"
"Don't have—"
"I'm Dipper. I'll call you Lonestar."
The dog wasn't looking at him, but at the beach. "That's a good name. Let's go for a swim."
Dipper stripped—the shirt was stiff from sweat—and then they waded and let the waves wash over them. Lonestar swam a little; Dipper just soaked. He realized that his saddle sores must have healed, because his aches and pains washed away in the salt water. The sun touched the rim of the horizon. Then they got out of the surf, and Dipper dressed again. "Is there some place where-?"
"Follow me."
A short way down the beach the dog led him inland. A stream fed into the sea there, but first it passed through—well, a sort of oasis: a broad freshwater pool, lined with trees. Dipper drank and then realized that for the last nine days of his dream, he had not eaten—and the trees around the pool swayed low with pears and peaches. The sight of them made him ravenous. In the twilight, he picked enough to blunt his hunger. "I don't have anything to give you," he apologized to the dog.
"That's all right. I caught a fish this morning before you arrived. I'm good."
"Where do I go now?"
"I'm glad you asked," Lonestar said. "I'm your spirit guide."
The sky overhead was darkening. Stars were coming out, in strange constellations, none of which he recognized. Dipper lay back. The dog curled near his head. "I'm asleep, aren't I?" Dipper asked.
Lonestar said, "For a certain definition of sleep, yes you are. From another point of view, you're in another dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind—"
"That sounds familiar," Dipper said.
"If you go to sleep here—"
"I'll wake up in the Mystery Shack?"
"Who knows?"
"Jheselbraum," Dipper said. "The Oracle. Am I right?"
A woman suddenly sat where Lonestar had been. "You're a good guesser."
"Hello," Dipper said to the Oracle.
"You are growing up to be very much like your great-uncle," the seven-eyed Oracle said. Dipper had sat up. Though full night had come, with no moon, somehow he could see her—a tall, feminine form wearing a sort of cowl and a long lavender dress. She smiled at him.
"Why the trip across the desert?" he asked.
"That was to prepare your mind. To clear it of everything that swarmed on the surface."
"Because you want to talk to me about Bill Cipher," Dipper said.
"Very perceptive. Are you upset?"
"No. That's odd, but I'm really not. I'm a little scared, though."
"The Axolotl assures me that you will survive the process. The bits of Bill lodged in your heart must be removed. It will be physically painless."
"That's good to know. Will I go crazy?" Dipper asked.
The Oracle hesitated just for a moment. "Your perceptions may shift, we think. Honestly, we do not know for certain."
"We? You and—"
"The Axolotl, yes." After what seemed like minutes, the Oracle added, "Before meeting Stanford, I really did not know much about humans. I learned much from him. But I sensed he was . . . incomplete."
"Well, he's half of a whole," Dipper said without thinking. Then, more slowly, he said, "Twins. Stanford Pines is . . . logical and dispassionate. His joy is knowledge. Stanley Pines is instinctive and emotional. They . . . they balance, don't they?"
"I did not at first know that Stanford had a twin," the Oracle said.
"Me and Mabel," Dipper murmured.
"You also have someone to balance you," the Oracle said softly. "Bill's leaving you will not damage you—as long as you remember that."
"And Wendy," Dipper said.
"Ah. Remember, though, you did not conquer her."
With a sudden flash of anger, Dipper said, "What? I never—"
"Love is sharing, not domination."
Defensively, Dipper almost pleaded, "I'd never—would I?"
"Dipper Pines, what is your deep fear?" the Oracle asked. "You can tell yourself."
Dipper swallowed. "That—that Wendy—that she started just by feeling sorry for me—" He gulped hard.
"At times of the greatest stress," the Oracle said kindly, "you humans have a remarkable ability to see truth. Do you remember what you told Gideon?"
"You can't force someone to love you," Dipper whispered. "The best you can do is strive—" he choked up completely.
"Wendy finds you worthy of loving," the Oracle said. "When the time comes, do not allow yourself to fall prey to doubt. Remember what you have taught yourself. Trust your sister and trust Wendy. You will need their help not to slip into despair."
"Will it be OK?" Dipper asked.
Reassuringly, she said, "You can make it that way."
More time passed as they sat silently side by side. Then Dipper asked, "Are you really talking to me? Or is this just a dream?"
"There's no practical difference," she said.
"You—you really hate Bill, don't you?"
"I hate what he has done. I fear that when he knows himself thoroughly, he will fall into his old ways. The Axolotl says he must have the chance. He has the free will to try to make amends. I do not know why. He has not earned it."
"Maybe," Dipper said, but then he stopped.
"Say it. The lesson for this day. Then you can go."
"Maybe," Dipper said slowly, "mercy is not something that has to be earned. It has to be something that is given freely. Is that it?"
"Huh?" Wendy asked. "Is what what?"
Dipper opened his eyes. Wendy was leaning over him, grinning. "Hey, dork, you gonna lay in bed all day, or are we gonna run or what? It's a little bit cooler this morning."
For a moment Dipper, his mind still in the Eden on the edge of a boundless sea, couldn't think what to say. But then his heart spoke for him.
"I love you."