7: On the Track of Dreams

(June 26, 2017)

That last week in June shaped up to be sweltering. Monday morning on the radio, Toby Determined (he had given up "Bodacious T" a few years earlier) observed, "It's official folks! This is already the hottest summer since 2012. Expect daytime temperatures to soar above 100 degrees every day for the rest of this week, touching a hundred and five on Friday and Saturday. There may be some relief after the weekend, but until at least Sunday night, think cool thoughts!"

"Blargghh!" Mabel said on Monday afternoon. She looked wilted. She, Teek, Wendy, and Dipper had first gone to the municipal pool, but it was so full of fellow heat sufferers there was no room for four more. The lake was a little less crowded, but the water was on the tepid side of cool.

"Look," Wendy said, pointing.

The largest of the Valley's many waterfalls—Gravity Falls Falls itself—had dwindled by half. "Even with the rain we had?" Dipper asked.

"Thunderstorms dump a lot at once, but it runs off all at once, too," Wendy said. "What we need is a good long soaking rain, two or three days of it. Sometimes we get 'em in the summer, but if this heat keeps up, the waterfalls may just about dry up before the normal rains start in October."

As it was, the sun overhead made them reluctant to spend much time out on the raft or on the beach. Dipper and Wendy stood in neck-deep water for most of the time. Every once in awhile one or the other would duck completely under to cool the hot spots the sun made on the tops of their heads.

"We could try some rain magic," Mabel suggested. She was dipping in and out of the lake, retreating with Teek to the shade up at the head of the beach between swims.

"Bad idea," Teek said. The two of them came to rest, toes on the bottom—they were a little farther out from the beach than Dipper and Wendy—and Mabel said, "Boo! Wet blanket. Hot wet blanket."

"I think I agree with Teek," Dipper said. "First, Grunkle Stanford says there's no such thing as magic. Second, he also says it's dangerous to fool around with it."

"Huh," Wendy said. "Seems like a weird thing for Dr. P. to say. I mean, zombies and ghosts and witches and so on? That's not magic? What are they?"

"Yeah, chopped liver?" Mabel demanded. "Guh, it's too hot for chopped liver. I'm making myself sick. To the shore!"

She and Teek swam away.

Dipper said, "I'll ask Grunkle Ford, but I think it's along the line of 'There's a scientific explanation for everything, and for things we don't understand at all, there's a scientific explanation that hasn't been discovered yet.'"

"Whatever," Wendy said. "One second." She submerged, then came back up, pushing the hair out of her eyes. "Whoof! Wanna get out and go find someplace cooler?"

"This isn't so bad," Dipper said. "It's only 101 today. By Friday—"

"Don't say it, dude. Hundred and five, I heard the weatherman. Hey, for the next few days, you better move your car under shelter. I got a place for the Green Machine—"

"Shelter from heat? For a car? Never heard of that. Just a sec." Dipper bent his knees and ducked under the surface. Water gurgled in his ears and he heard the strangely magnified sounds of the lake. He kept his eyes open, too, the better to admire Wendy's cherry-red bikini, though admittedly the water of Lake Gravity Falls wasn't crystal-clear.

He came back up. "OK, why shelter a car?"

"Cars are greenhouses," Wendy said. "They get hotter than hell in full sun, 'specially on days like these. One summer my dad cooked eggs and biscuits on the dash of his pickup! Soos says it's OK for employees to pull off the parking lot and under the trees. Shade stays there all day, and it keeps stuff like vinyl from melting—no, really, it's happened before! Knew a guy in high school who'd put clear vinyl on his car seats to protect the leather, and one hot day he jumped in the car, and the vinyl split under and behind him, even stuck to his clothes like it had been glued. Anyhow, the extreme heat's bad for the wiring and so on. There's room under the trees—you and Mabes should park your cars there, too, until this heat wave breaks."

"That's why you parked so far away from the beach," Dipper said, glancing toward the shore. Most of the cars stood right out in the open, but Wendy had gone to a far corner, pulling her Dodge Dart into a pool of shade. Which, he noticed, was shrinking as the afternoon went on. "I think you're right, though. I'm getting pruny. Time to get out. Want to go to a movie?"

"Nah, nothing I really want to see," Wendy said. "Bowling?"

"I thought you hated bowling."

"Meh, it's OK, little boring for me. I think it's 'cause my dad and brothers are so nuts about it. And maybe I kinda resent it that they never wanted me to go with them, 'cause first, I'm a girl, and second, I could beat everybody 'cept Dad. But bowling's OK every once in a while."

When they got out of the lake, they checked out the local bowling lanes—but everybody else had the same idea. Nothing available, and they didn't want to wait. "Let's just go to the Shack, sit in the parlor, and crank the air-conditioning way up," Wendy said.

"Abuelita gets cold," Dipper pointed out. She was sensitive to cold and weathered the heat better than anyone else in the family.

"The bunker was cool even in the middle of summer," Wendy said.

"Yeah . . . but I don't think Great-Uncle Ford likes us going down there," Dipper told her. "He keeps saying he's got to clean out some of the real dangerous stuff, but he never gets around to it."

In the end, they went back to the Shack, set up a floor fan in the parlor, and made do with the current thermostat setting. Soos, surprisingly, was out in the heat mowing the Mystery Trail—on his riding mower, and he wore a big sombrero, but still, it wasn't a job that Dipper envied. Melody was working in the gift shop, restocking the shelves, and she turned down their offer of help—"I'm glad to get some alone time," she said. Abuelita and the kids were in the nursery, probably all three taking a siesta.

So Wendy and Dipper sprawled on the sofa, the fan stirring the air, their hands clasping. And they chatted, mentally.

So do you think it was just a dream, or was the Oracle really warning you?

—I don't know. Seemed really real for a dream, somehow. For one thing, I don't often dream in color. I can remember colors from the—vision, whatever. Yellowish sand, red rocks, eventually a real deep blue ocean. Never seen anything like it.

You're worried about what's gonna happen at the end of the summer, aren't you?

—Well, yeah. I mean, Bill saved my life that time. And now for years a few of his molecules have been riding around inside me. And sometimes I think that getting the—Stan would call it gumption—to go out for track and even ask you to dance and date you and all—I'm afraid that might be Bill goading me on, not me at all.

She nuzzled his neck. Told you before, man. Like the Oracle said, you are worthy of loving. All on your own, without anybody's help. And I love you.

—I love you too, Magic Girl. But—when I'm just me again—maybe I won't measure up. I don't know. Just another thing for me to fret about.

Don't worry, dude. I'll be there. And that same day—we're getting married. That scares me just a little bit. I know it does you.

—Mom keeps muttering, "You two are so young." And she's right, but—nobody's had what we have, so I know it'll work—wait a minute.

I'm ahead of you, man. What if our telepathy goes away with Bill.

—That would be horrible!

Not gonna happen. Bill didn't give it to us. He can't take it away.

—I hope not. I'm so used to this now. It makes the whole world a lot less lonely.

They hugged a little and kissed a little, but man—it was hot, even with the AC and the fan going.

That evening after dinner, Dipper walked down the hill to Grunkle Ford's house, where Ford and Lorena were clearing the dinner dishes. "You just missed having dinner with us!" she said. "There's home-made pie, if you'd like some—coconut cream."

"I've eaten, thanks," Dipper said. "Are you busy tonight?"

"I am," Lorena said, drying her hands on a towel. She glanced at the clock. "In fact, I'd better be on my way. There's a meeting of the History Museum board. We've got to make sure all our preparations for the Fourth and for Pioneer Day are complete."

"I'm at loose ends," Ford said with a smile. "The Institute barely needs me until school starts again in September, the Agency is unusually quiet—I suppose the supernatural elements don't like the heat—and I've just been slowly writing up a few Journal accounts."

Lorena kissed his cheek. "You boys have a good time," she said. "I should be back by ten, darling."

"Drive safely," Ford said.

When they were alone, Dipper didn't quite know how to begin. Ford took him to his home office—"The coolest place in the house these days," he said—and parked him on the loveseat. Ford didn't sit at his desk, but took the armchair instead. "I sense you have something on your mind," he said. "Some supernatural threat?"

"I don't think so," Dipper said. "Not a threat. Um. OK, Great-Uncle Ford, tell me—does the Oracle ever communicate with you?"

Ford's eyebrows rose. "How do you mean?"

"Well, like in dreams?"

"Ah. You've dreamed of Jheselbraum the Unswerving," Ford said with a smile. "So have I, a good many times over the past years. And to answer your question—I'm not sure. She was extremely kind to me when I was traveling through the dimensions and was hurt and sick. She even installed this." He tapped his head, producing a metallic sound from the plate imbedded beneath the skin. "However, I suspect there's some rule—maybe more of a guideline—that discourages direct communication with this dimension from her own."

"So they're just dreams," Dipper said, not knowing whether to feel relieved or alarmed.

"Possibly," Ford said. "Oh, I know you want a definite answer, Mason, but truthfully I cannot supply one. There have been times when I've felt that yes, she has somehow come through the Mindscape and into my dreaming mind—moments when she gave me advice or warnings that later proved to be what I needed. Other times, well, I suppose my mind just conjures up images of her from memory. She's a most imposing figure. Not . . ." he paused, tilting his head back. "Not frightening. Even with seven eyes. In her presence I felt a kind of, well, there's no word for it but love. Not attraction, mind—a sharing, a caring for others."

"Well, I did dream about her," Dipper said when it didn't seem that Ford had anything more to say. "It was odd. It started out with a trip across a desert."

Ford leaned back and tented all twelve of his fingers. "Interesting."

"Why?" Dipper asked.

"Well, dream imagery is a difficult pattern to unravel—"

"But not magic?"

Ford smiled sympathetically. "I hate to be paradoxical, but yes and no. Things that we perceive as magical happen—quite often, here in Gravity Falls—but if we could fully understand them, nine times out of ten the occurrences would follow clear scientific laws. The catch is that the scientific laws might be borrowed from a dimension very different from ours, where the physics and chemistry are completely different."

"So it seems magical to us—"

"But really is a simple entanglement of dimensions." Ford shrugged. "Of course, that's assuming a unique definition of 'simple.' Where was I?"

"Dream imagery," Dipper said. "The desert."

"Yes. Some interpreters say that dreaming of a desert symbolizes a condition of confusion, a sense of impending loss. Others say that it represents a clearing of the mind, a preparation to comprehend things formerly not understood."

"There was a talking horse," Dipper said.

"Ed?" asked Ford with a broad smile.

"Huh?" asked Dipper. "Uh, no. It didn't have a name, actually."

Ford pursed his lips. "By any chance, have you been riding with Stanley in his automobile this summer?"

"Um, no, maybe once—"

"Did he play that song I can never get out of my head? Sometimes I wish Wendy hadn't installed a CD player in the automobile. That's probably—"

"You know," Dipper said, "I remember thinking that—the song about riding through the desert on a horse with no name, and even hearing it over and over in the car. Only, no, I don't think I really knew about the CD player and the record. When did Wendy install it?"

"Oh, weeks before you and Mabel came up. It was back in February or March, I think. Sheila found it on sale, and Wendy installed it. But the only CD he has in it is—"

"The one with the song about the horse," Dipper said.

"Yes, that's one of the tracks. The album is by the musical group America, which, I believe, was formed, paradoxically enough, in England," Ford said. "Stanley had mentioned to me that he listened to their music a lot back in the seventies. I learned a compact disc version of their most successful compositions was now available, and I gave it to him as a present. Mea culpa!"

"But I didn't know all that," Dipper said, frowning. "I mean, I've heard the song, but I don't remember Grunkle Stan playing it, ever. So—"

"You were privy to information you had no easily explained way of knowing," Ford said. "That is a kind of magic, by most definitions. What else?"

"A talking dog," Dipper said. "He looked like Tripper—or she, I'm not sure. Anyway, when I got through the desert, the horse went away and the dog was there, and the dog and I walked to the beach. It was a beautiful ocean, very deep blue, sort of sapphire. I've never seen anything like it in real life."

Ford nodded. "That's actually a hopeful sign. Dream interpreters say that a dog is a symbol for a protective influence in your life, and that to dream of the ocean signifies that you are approaching a period of clear understanding, tranquility, and happiness. A time of renewal and increased appreciation of life. So once you clarify your mind—the desert part—you arrive at a new awakening."

"Well, it was close to night, so the dog led me to this—I saw it as an oasis, I guess. A big wild garden with fruit trees and a pond of clear, cold, refreshing water. And the dog went away, or else it transformed, and the Oracle was there."

"The garden," said Ford, "could represent the fulfillment of your work and your struggles. It implies success, accomplishment. However, I must add that I don't fully accept dream interpretation, but for what it's worth, these dream images are positive."

"I actually feel better now," Dipper admitted. "The Oracle said I had to prepare for when Bill Cipher fully leaves me. It won't hurt physically—but what if Cipher gave me the determination to do the stuff I've done? The track team, playing the guitar, the writing." He bit his lip. "Wendy and me."

"Why do you think he may have helped?" Ford asked.

Dipper took a deep breath. "Because I'm not sure I'm really good enough for any of that on my own. Especially Wendy. I keep wondering, what if she just loves the Bill side of me?"

"Honestly, Mason," Stanford said, "I think I know Bill better than anyone in the world, perhaps with two exceptions—Stanley and you. That said, I don't recognize even a trace of Bill in you. Do you think he's corrupted you?"

"I don't know," confessed Dipper. I—I hope not."

"Well, he corrupted me once. Take it from me, you'd know for sure if he had." Ford squinted. "You seem to think he was like a vampire—that he turned you into a version of himself. That he vampirized you in some fashion."

"I don't know."

"Well, he didn't. You have none of his dark side—the love of chaos for the sake of chaos, the urge to dominate everyone, the desire to tear down, not build. That's everything you are not. Judging by what I know of young Billy Sheaffer, and what you've told me about him, I think—just my opinion, mind—I think that Cipher's merging his molecules with you didn't, um, cipherize you—it Dippered him!"

Dipper gazed at him blankly.

Ford shrugged, holding his hands palms-up. "We're in unknown territory here, but I mean I think his being able to share your fears and your hopes, your sorrows and your joys, over the years has . . . well, maybe not 'humanized' him, but has led him to appreciate the tough challenge he'll face in trying to redeem himself. Or, from what I understand, to earn the chance of redemption—because, you know, the Axolotl is testing him with his life as Billy Sheaffer. Only if he comes through it with his worse qualities mastered does he go on to get a chance at becoming his old self again, to go back in time to before his destructive course was chosen, and this time be a positive force, not a negative one."

"You still don't trust him," Dipper said.

"No, in fact I do not," Ford said. "And that, perhaps, is my failing. However—" he leaned forward and put his hand on Dipper's shoulder—"I will always trust you, Mason. Always."

Dipper nodded, his heart too full at the moment to allow him to speak.