"And, in conclusion, the man in the tube is a traitorous leech upon all the Northwests stood for." Preston finished, as he ground up the ingredients in a particularly occultish-looking pestle and mortar. "And deserved it, you see?"

"He's remarkably well preserved," Priscilla said, her eyes still wide.

"He should be. Coating him with lake water and some special essences is a surefire way to keep a man well. My ancestors had all of their water piped up from the Gravity Falls. Clean, perfect water. Taken from this town's very liquor of life, my dear."

"I uh - must remember to make it part of my skincare routine… he did treat said water, of course?"

"No." Preston huffed. "No… My father, thankfully, had the pipes upstairs replaced before I was born. He almost swallowed a salamander."

"Small mercies."

"The equipment down here is still as it was, mind. Not been properly used for some time. Speaking of, this little uh … experiment needs a good dose of the stuff. Be a dear and full a beaker at the faucet, won't you?"

Priscilla grimaced. She wasn't particularly used to doing as she was told. Not by her husband. But he seemed sincere. He seemed as determined as she was. For the first time in quite a while, she didn't find him weak.

It might all work out, after all.

The pipes rattled and shook around the room as she opened the faucet. The sounds of antique metalwork quaking, roaring and rumbling, followed by the gurgle and belch of water.

It was far from the clear, pure liquid that Preston had brought her to expect. In its place, a thick, brown substance - like molasses - began releasing from the pipe in a long tube, like particularly unpleasant toothpaste. She recoiled and grimaced, almost transfixed by the sheer disgust of over 100 years of filth flowing in a coiling, thick trail of sticky slime.

Then, with a final burp, it cut out and was replaced by equally unpleasant - but, at least, liquid - water. It was a smokey sort of consistency. Not so much dirty as it was simply grey and unpleasant, loaded with what she could only presume to be strange calciums and minerals from the valley around them.

When she gingerly held it up to the flickering lights of the laboratory, it seemed to take on an ethereal blue…

"Preston, are you-"

"Not now, dear." He interrupted, creating a twisted seance circle on the creaking, uneven laboratory floor, much to her fascination. The Northwest Matriarch knew of the family's interests in the occult, certainly, but hadn't seen this sort of thing in practice.

He took the beaker and examined it. "Yes, yes - this looks perfect."

She filed her nails as she watched him load up a pipette with the bizarre water. "I do so hope this works, Preston. Our marriage counsellor would be most disappointed if there was another failure."

"Our marriage counsellor is Toby Determined in a wig. He feels how we tell him." He replied, firmly, as he began adding a spot of water with every pivot point of the big summoning circle. It did, naturally, nothing.

"Well, if it doesn't, you do realise this could be a divorce-level failure. Don't you?"

Preston started and squeezed the pipette a little too hard. The remaining fluid flew out in a thick, slightly blue-tinted trail and lifted, unnaturally, from its path. Instead, the liquid shot towards the remains of Cornelius Northwest flew into his vacant, blackened eye socket…

And disappeared.

"What the-"

"What do you mean divorce level?!" Preston barked. "I'm doing everything I can! I'm - I'm raising the dead over a court case!"

"Preston, did you not-"

"Priscilla, please, explain!"

"Preston!" She yelled back, grabbing the pipette and beaker. "Look!"

Right enough she squeezed the pipette - and it diverted upwards, into the eye socket of the petrified skull, its jaw hanging open, slackened and coated in its thin, phlegmy lacquer. It remained perfectly still. Frozen in its empty gaze.

Something about it was piercing. Glaring. As if, behind the body's empty stare, there was a slight - ever-so-slight - but definite expression of fury and vengeance upon the skull's face. She peered at it in fascination. She leaned closer, and closer, and closer to the empty lump of bone, wondering what she could see.

The smell of fennel and aniseed was overpowering, with a scent of soft, woody burning behind it. It stuck to her nostrils and made her eyes water. As if whatever foreign substances on the body were concentrated to a fierce degree.

Preston gritted his teeth, staying as far back as he could, as his wife glared at the vacant sockets of the long-forgotten family member. The tension seemed to grow thicker and thicker like it could be cut with a knife. Like something was bound to scream, or leap out, or attack his increasingly estranged wife….

The room was silent... A tension throbbed around them as she peered close at the desiccated corpse of the railroad manager. Finally, gingerly, her hand shaking, she tapped the empty bonce of the skeleton in its worn, silk suit.

But nothing happened.

A single, rotten tooth fell from the slack-jawed head and clattered to the bottom of its storage tube. Priscilla looked back to her husband, who sighed with relief and got back to the experiment.

"Preston, doesn't this seem strange to you?"

"Oh, yes, when I found out about Cornelius, I was rather perturbed by it all. But-"

"I mean the water. It's like it's being… absorbed into something."

"There must be a logical conclusion," Preston replied while pretending he was working on a logical solution to their problem. "These things can seem very odd down here. Probably some sort of uh - s-subterranean atmospheric disruption...Or uh… y'know- the- hm."

"...What?"

"Shhh, shh, darling, it's starting!"

A fog seemed to descend across the room. The laboratory seemed to momentarily sink into a soft, smoky blue air. Floorboards started to leap and rock. The sounds of clanking chains in the distance, and a thick white beam of light reflecting and glowing between the porous bricks.

The couple stared as bolted-down desks and counters lept and bounced. Jars and flasks plummeted from the heavy oak shelves as they seemed to vibrate and rattle wildly. They smashed onto the floor, releasing all kinds of suitably grotesque-looking specimens into the increasingly clagging air.

They backed away in awe, Preston gripping her hand and looking at her with genuine excitement. All of these years as the wimp of the family, as the 'not quite Northwest-y enough Northwest', and here he was. Committing a grand act that deserved to be remembered. Something big. Something grand. Something impressive.

There, in the centre of a developing pool of thick, bloody mucus, sprouted thin strips of bone. They moved into the air, stretching out thin strands of putrid-smelling phlegm, flicking them clear as it gathered a thin, translucent layer of muscle fibres and flesh.

Frail, bone-thin digits were soon writhing and crawling, developing inky black spreads of fibrous palms below them. Preston was sure he was seeing his ancestor constructed, millimetre vessel by millimetre vessel, before his eyes - and he was enraptured.

…Unfortunately, the entire process had, so far, taken three hours. And Nathaniel Northwest was nary more than an index finger, ring finger and pinkie on each side.

The excitement died down quickly, and soon became a matter of tedious routine. Another capillary. Another inch of flesh. Perhaps a fingernail. Grotesque it remained, and utterly fascinating - but painfully slow.

After the first hour, they had grown weary. Now, three hours in, they were beyond sick of the process. They were themselves up against the leftmost counter, brows furrowed and eyelids drooping heavily.

Preston lit up a cigar, only for his wife to grab it a take a long, hard inhale herself.

"This is taking too long, Preston."

"I suppose they had a different idea of immediacy back in the day. Perhaps we should leave it to continue?" Preston rubbed his chin.

"You want to just… leave a body to gestate from our floor? Preston, I'm really not sure if-"

"This is what you wanted!"

"I didn't tell you to go off raising the dead!"

"I'm doing what I can, darling!"

"And I- I appreciate that, but good grief, look at the mess it's making!"

"That mess is my great-grandfather!"

"We don't even know if he IS Nathaniel until he at least grows a skull!"

"Oh, I don't know, he was well known for having a distinctive birthmark on his-"

"I don't want to know. Fine, fine. One day! One day, and if we don't get any closer, I want you to - to - to undo all of this!"

"Of course." Preston smiled. Though he had absolutely no clue how such a thing was meant to be done, he was eager to please his wife. After all, the Pines may have taken his daughter - but Priscilla was his according to a marriage contract! And he wasn't giving up any of his market value to her. No, sir…

He glanced at the bubbling, slippery, thrashing mess of muscular miscellany on the rattling laboratory floor, furrowed his brow…

And slammed shut the several-inch-thick iron door, plunging the gory display into darkness.