i'd feel better just knowing

It's about eleven or so in the morning and Dipper is just finishing his undercooked scrambled eggs, ignoring their unpleasant texture in favor of being ready for the day that much sooner. The rains that prevented outdoor excursions earlier in the week have passed and it's warm and bright outside, the valley looking welcoming outside the windows. He's not sure who's up for an excursion and who's busy, but he can figure that out in a minute. First, he wants to check in with Great-Uncle Ford and see how things are progressing with the data.

The lab is oddly quiet when Dipper steps out of the elevator. He moves through the observation room and enters the vast space of the lab proper, its concrete floor becoming ever more occupied with tables, consoles, and artifacts. He doesn't see Ford at first; it takes him a minute to discern his great-uncle sitting to one side, perched on an upturned crate near the wire cradle which holds the never-still heart from the maze. Ford is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, the bottom half of his face hidden behind clasped hands as he stares intently at the heart, his brow furrowed in thought.

"Great-Uncle Ford?" Dipper says, announcing his approach.

"Sit with me, my boy," Ford says, posture unchanging. "Help me think."

Dipper pulls a stool out from a nearby workbench and wheels it over, sitting next to the heart and facing Ford. "About the heart?"

"Indeed." Ford exhales through his nose and drops his hands, leaning back. "In a whole valley full of anomalies, this one presents… a unique challenge."

"Because it's not naturally occurring," Dipper assumes.

"Not necessarily. Greg's staff is no less artificial, but we know how and why he made it. No, the issue is that the heart's provenance remains unknown. We've found nothing else like it."

"Maybe it's extraterrestrial," Dipper suggests.

"We can't simply assume. However, I can't help but wonder…"

"It could have come from Omega."

"It doesn't match the other samples from the crash, not even close."

"Well… could it be something they brought with them from somewhere else?"

Ford slowly nods. "I doubt there's any extant records of that, but we should look." His countenance darkens and he leans in closer to the heart, staring at it. "There's something about this heart, Dipper. It's different. I can't quite put it into words." He lets out a short, unamused laugh. "I should be used to being stumped at this point; it's been something of a habit ever since I first came here. But there is… there is something about it. Feelings, of course, are not facts. Still… I sometimes feel as if, as I watch it, it's watching me…"

Dipper hasn't spent much time with the heart since he and the girls recovered it from the Enchanted Forest. He doesn't recall feeling that the heart was a sinister presence as Pacifica carried it back, and neither Pacifica nor Mabel have ever voiced such misgivings. But in the wake of Ford's observations, the squirming green cubes of the perpetually wiggling heart take on a more malevolent cast. Is it watching them? If so, how? Who had made it, and why was it created to form a maze?

Ford's mind has been following a similar path. "A maze. A trap, yes, but a non-lethal one," he murmurs. "To what end? To trap whom?"

"It wasn't even that hard of a maze," Dipper admits. "We were never stuck for very long."

"Hmm. Less of a trap, perhaps, and more of a test." Ford stands and gestures. "Have a look at this."

He leads Dipper over to a console that Dipper recognizes as one of the older iterations of the Weirdness Emissions Spectrometer. Ford has been slowly phasing the clunkier versions out, but they still get some use every now and then, if only because the newer equipment is still being worked on and needs something to be tested against. Ford flicks the green monitor on, and it slowly buzzes to life.

"I was scanning the heart with this before I moved on to our new model. This is a chart of about eight hours' worth of data," Ford explains.

Dipper leans in to get a better look. For the most part, the line of the chart is roughly even along its unique wavelength, as is expected—objects tend to radiate weirdness with approximately the same intensity at all times. However, there is a series of tall spikes peppered throughout the data, so short in duration that they appear to be single lines.

"It's pulsing?" Dipper says, startled.

"Every seventy-seven minutes; or so I thought at first. I brought the handheld scanner over for a second opinion and discovered that it isn't the heart that's pulsing. Something else is, on the same wavelength." Ford strides over to a map of Gravity Falls that's up on a corkboard along one wall. He presses a finger against the mountain range to the south of the valley, past the farm fields and the sloping back of the crater. "It's this way. You picked up the same signal when you were recording the general spectrum in the Enchanted Forest, just before the timberwave hit. The strength and direction are identical."

Dipper can think of only one likely answer. "Do you think it's another heart?"

"That, or something like it." Ford's jaw is tight, and his eyes are wary. "We need to track it down. First, however, we're going to build a Faraday shield for this heart."

Dipper blinks. "You said this one wasn't pulsing, though."

"Not in the time I've examined it. It could have been emitting a signal prior to your finding it, or after you inadvertently activated it, or at any other time since it's been in our possession. We just don't know." Ford seems troubled by this.

Dipper is beginning to feel uneasy; Ford appears to be genuinely concerned. "Do you think it's really that dangerous? I mean, we could take it to the bunker…"

"I don't know," Ford confesses. He takes his glasses off and rubs at his eyes, appearing tired. "I saw many things in the multiverse, Dipper. Things both wonderful and terrible. It was often impossible to tell which was which before it was too late." He smiles ruefully. "I suppose it's not much different here on Earth. But these pulses—they're regular. They're not random. They could be a signal. And if they are a signal, then someone might be listening. Anyone could be listening."

A chill runs down Dipper's spine. He remembers the split sky over the valley last summer and all the monsters who had been waiting on the other side. He considers the skin of the universe, the dimensional membrane which is now so much more permeable in the wake of Weirdmageddon. Earth had been protected from Bill and his ilk by the nature of that separation, and they had entered only through Ford's misguided machinations; is it so much easier now? Dipper remembers the Thing writhing in the naturally formed portal, mysterious and dangerous, unearthly.

It is possible, of course, that the pulses are no more than some as-yet-unknown phenomenon, emitted by an anomaly akin to an earthbound pulsar. But the possibility lurks, unable to be dismissed, that it goes much further—that it makes a connection. And who can say what might be at the other end?

"Uh… I'll get the welder," Dipper says.

It takes a few hours to put together the shield. They use whatever they can find: steel girders, copper tubes, some of the lead plating that had been part of the portal shell. By the time they cut and grind it all into the shapes they need and weld them into place, they're both grimy, sweaty, and tired. They take a break on a couple of empty crates near the lab fridge, where cans of Pitt share the shelves with beakers of chilled samples and rows of test tubes containing swabs of various origins.

The whole lab is like that—everything has dual purpose. The crates they sit on double as supports when a two-by-four or length of steel needs cutting, every console a shelf, the folding cot along one wall currently home to a druid stone. Dipper likes it this way. It feels like home, like the lab isn't really its own little world at all, but a true extension of the Shack above. And it also serves as a reminder that Ford, for all his eccentric qualities, is much like his brother in some important ways.

"Overkill, perhaps, but it eases my mind," Ford says, looking over the shield with satisfaction. "Now we need to silence the other."

"Now?" Dipper says, unsure he has the energy for a full-on adventure.

"No, we won't have time before it gets dark. However, we should gather up everything we need and see if we can't narrow down the signal's general location. If we can get a better estimate to work with, we can camp out nearby tonight and start the search tomorrow."

A night spent under the stars sounds appealing to Dipper. He drains the last of his Pitt and tosses the can into the nearby recycling. "I'll go tell Mabel and Pacifica," he says, standing.

"Wait," Ford says.

Dipper stops, turning back around. "Yeah?"

Ford's expression has darkened again. He's looking at the Faraday shield with distant eyes. "I think it would be wiser to keep this between us."

Dipper is bewildered, unsure where this sentiment is coming from. "Pacifica and Mabel won't tell anyone if you don't want them to…"

"I know they're trustworthy. That's not the issue." Ford stands up decisively. "It's a dark, weird road we travel, Dipper. The multiverse is stranger and more dangerous than even you can yet comprehend. When it comes to matters like this, it's better we keep things between us. There's no need to endanger other lives and minds when it's up to us to see this through."

Dipper finds himself torn. On one hand, he couldn't be happier to be one half of Ford's 'us.' On the other, it doesn't strike him as all that fair to leave the girls out now, especially when they worked so hard to get the heart in the first place. Besides, it's not like Dipper and Ford can't use the help. The more of them there are, the better off they'll be—or that's Dipper's experience, anyway.

"It's just… it kind of seems like we could use all the help we can get," Dipper mumbles, unwilling to press harder and risk Ford's disapproval.

"We can handle this. We have to," Ford says grimly. Perhaps noticing Dipper's distress, he softens his tone. "Besides, this may be nothing serious. If it's another heart, I don't expect the maze will be any more difficult than last time."

Dipper will readily admit that he and the girls didn't have too much trouble getting through the maze last time. Still, he remembers the sphinx and the hexagonal pillars at the end, and how easily things could have been different for them. But he nods stiffly, acquiescing to his great-uncle's wishes.

Mabel and Pacifica must be in town or out and about with Candy and Grenda, because neither one is around to notice when Dipper and Ford load their gear into Ford's truck (on loan from McGucket). Dipper clips a bungee cord into place and stands at the edge of the open truck bed, feeling anxious and stuck. Great-Uncle Ford must know what he's doing, but it feels wrong to leave like this. This isn't some great-uncle-and-nephew camping trip just to bond, this is important; maybe really important, if Ford is right about the signal. Someone else should at least know that they're going.

"What about Grunkle Stan?" Dipper says suddenly.

"Stan?" Ford laughs as he heaves his pack into place. "Good luck getting him out of that chair of his."

"I mean we could tell him. Not about the whole thing, just that we're headed out. Shouldn't someone know, just in case?"

Ford twirls the end of a ratchet strap in his hand for a moment, considering that. "That would be pragmatic," he concedes. "I'll let Stanley know we won't be back tonight."

While Ford is gone, Dipper's hand goes to his phone in his pocket, fingers tapping a nervous beat against its glass. What if he texts Pacifica, just to let the girls know he'll be gone? Grunkle Stan can tell them when they get back, but what if they're having a sleepover? Hadn't Grenda been talking about having one? He can't remember. Of course, he could tell them he might be going to find another heart, just to see what they have to say… It's big news after all.

No. No, he'd better not. Great-Uncle Ford knows what he's doing. He has way more experience with this kind of thing than Dipper does. Better to follow his lead. If he's going to be an apprentice, that means listening to his mentor. That makes sense. Everything is under control.

His rationalizations aren't quite sticking. He still feels like he should tell the girls something, but then Ford emerges from the Shack, and the moment passes.

They drive out of the Shack's lot and rattle down Gopher Road, turning into town and cruising through the main strip, or at least what passes for one in Gravity Falls. The town goes by in mere minutes, giving way to the woods at its perimeter. These trees would be considered dense in plenty of other places but are thin and patchy by the valley's standards. These soon give way to sporadic farm fields, even more of which are above the valley, past the end of the crater's rim.

The crater which forms the valley becomes steep enough to be impassable around its edges—the cliffs to the north bend around over half the valley proper. Eventually they taper down, relatively speaking, but the top of the crater remains a daunting proposition for anyone not equipped for mountain climbing. That is, until one reaches the southern end of the crater, just past where the alien vessel came to rest.

When the craft plowed straight into a mountain all those millions of years ago it had been moving so fast that it left the front face of the mountain somewhat intact; the force of its entrance exploded the rest of the rock with such fury that the peak and rear portions were simply blown into nothing, almost instantly transformed into a mushroom cloud of dust and debris, boulders the size of houses flung miles away. Even Ford isn't sure how the strength of the blast was directed in such a way that it didn't also level the front of the mountain, but the still-standing cliffs are evidence enough that it somehow did not.

When coming to rest, the alien ship pushed enough dirt and rock forward to create a gentler slope directly in its path. Millenia later, the shallower curve of the southern crater rim allows for a convenient, if quite steep, paved road which runs up and over the valley's edge and into the southern portions of Roadkill County, where it eventually meanders west and connects with Route 380. This is one of only two land routes out of Gravity Falls, and the distinctly less spectacular one. Regardless, the view of the mountain range along the horizon when cresting the crater is stunning, white-capped peaks rising against the clear sky of the late afternoon.

The spectrometer Ford has taped to the dashboard reveals a steady glow at the top right corner of the screen. They drive for about twenty more minutes through sporadic farm fields separated by fences of darkness, property borders marked with narrow strips of forest so dense they look like barriers of pure night. They are in the county now, having left Gravity Falls proper behind when they crested the crater. The spectrometer shows a commensurate decrease in general background Weirdness, though it remains very high compared to Piedmont. After twenty more minutes, the glow on the screen begins to slowly shift down the right side of the display. At the rate it's moving relative to their position, it can't be that far away. Soon enough it's directly to the west of them.

Ford pulls over to the side of a two-lane county road that has a wide field of wheat to the left and a wall of trees to the right; he stops the truck on the wide outlet of a dirt path. Dipper hops down from the passenger seat and surveys the scene. The dirt path is overgrown, grass sprouting from it thickly enough that it's obvious no one has used it in quite some time. There's a corrugated metal gate just ahead, spanning the gap between two huge pine trees, and it's half-obscured by the grass. A nearby mailbox slumps forward on a bent pole, its door hanging open like a panting tongue, whatever address it might have had erased by rust.

Ford approaches the gate and gives it an experimental tug. There's a length of wire wrapped around a post which serves as its lock, and it has rusted into place so completely that Ford is forced to return to the truck for the tools to cut it off.

"I think it's safe to assume whoever owns this property won't be stopping by," Ford says as he clips the wire and pulls the gate open. "Let's bring the truck through so we don't draw any other attention."

The gate has sunk a bit in the time it has gone unused and they have to force it open, dragging the metal along the ground and making enough noise for Dipper to hope there really isn't anyone around. With the truck on the other side, they close the gate again and Ford puts a new loop of wire in place. The further they drive along the path, the more overgrown and uneven it gets; Dipper holds onto the handle above the door as the truck shifts left and right, sometimes at extreme angles. At one point the path dips down for about thirty feet and most of it is submerged, the truck's tires hissing through the water. Eventually, they reach a dead end. It takes Dipper a moment to notice the house about twenty yards to the right, half-hidden behind the long stalks of grass that used to be a yard.

It's a one-story house that may have once been blue, though it's hard to tell. The windows are boarded over with rotted two-by-fours and the roof is buried beneath years' worth of fallen leaves and branches. The house crouches in the shade of the trees like a moldering stump; younger trees dot the yard, the property being slowly swallowed by the forest. Looking it over, Dipper feels a slight chill; there's something about abandoned places like this that's always evocative, something cold and lonely.

It's a stupid, superstitious reaction, and he forces it down. He's a man of science, after all… or at least a boy of science.

Ford walks around the front of the truck, feet crunching through the thick layer of old brush. He's got the handheld spectrometer, holding it out towards the house. "Towards the house and a bit to the left," he says as he takes a reading. "Yes… Yes, this is the place. Let's get our gear."

His gear settled on his back, Dipper sets his sights on the woods past the house, but Ford has a different idea.

"I'd like to take a look at the place first," Ford says as he begins tramping down the tall weeds. "Just a hunch!"

Despite his earlier feelings, Dipper is not immune to the allure of abandoned places—far from it. Whatever Ford's reasoning might be, Dipper is curious to see what's inside. He follows his great-uncle to the mossy concrete steps at the foot of the front door. Ford tries the handle and looks unsurprised when it proves to be locked.

"The doorframe is soft," he notes. He extracts a screwdriver from somewhere in his trench coat and works it between the door and the jamb, showering the top step with flecks of decayed wood.

Dipper's attention wanders while Ford works on the door. There's a large bramble growing just below the steps to the right, choking other plants of sunlight and leaving a dirt patch beneath its branches. Dipper spies something yellow sticking up out of the dirt; it has the unnatural sheen of plastic. He pushes the bramble back with his arm and pinches the yellow plastic between his thumb and forefinger, pulling at it. It turns out to be a long strip, buried in the dirt. It snakes out of the ground as Dipper tugs at it, breaking the earth and uprooting a few small weeds.

The ribbon of plastic is sun-faded and stained with earth, but the text is clear enough: POLICE LINE — DO NOT CROSS.

Dipper wordlessly shows this to Ford, who pauses his attempt to break in. "I wouldn't worry," he says. "Whatever happened here, happened a long time ago." He sets his shoulder against the door and with a splintering crack, it opens, revealing a dusty corridor.

They step inside, the bare floor creaking, their footsteps echoing with that hollow ringing that rooms without furniture always seem to have. Dipper is surprised to see that not every room is empty. There's a table in what must have been the dining room, and several shelves still riveted to the walls. Some of the corners are filled with trash, old mattresses and broken chairs, children's toys caked with dust. As Ford pokes his head into the bathroom, Dipper approaches the table. It's stacked with yellowed newspapers, the faded print just barely visible in the thin light that peeks between the boards over the window.

Dipper picks up the newspaper on top of the pile; it's still in its plastic sleeve, unopened. It's a local one he's never seen before, The Roadkill County Report. On the front page the headline reads, 'Remembering the Dawsons.' Below it is a black and white picture of a family, somewhat distorted by time and moisture. A woman sits next to a man at a table; standing between them is a child, grinning at the camera with several missing teeth. The way they're dressed makes Dipper think of the seventies. He can't make out the caption anymore, but there's something about the picture that captures his attention, tugging at the back of his brain.

A shiver runs through him when he realizes they are sitting at the table that Dipper is standing next to.

Much of the article has been lost to age, but he can make out some of it:

…Dawson returned home to find her husband, Jacob Dawson, 36, and her daughter Emilia, 7, missing… Despite the ensuing search being the largest in Roadkill County history, no trace of Jacob or Emilia Dawson was ever found. No credible suspects were…

His eyes dart up to the top of the page: September 7th, 1991.

"Find anything?" Ford asks.

The sudden sound of his great-uncle's voice makes Dipper jump—he nearly drops the paper. Clearing his throat to hide his embarrassment, he passes the paper to Ford.

"Can't say I ever heard of them. Of course, I wasn't the most sociable man in the valley," Ford murmurs as he reads. "When I saw the house, I wondered…" He sets the paper back on the table and turns away.

They leave the house and trudge through the overgrown field that had once been the backyard. Soon they are enveloped by the familiar trees, though this brand of woods is a bit less impressive than in the valley. While much of Oregon shares Gravity Falls' forestation, it doesn't share the wild energies and origin that give the valley its unique grandeur. They don't go too far in, stopping in a small clearing. The house is no longer in sight but it's not more than a ten-minute walk back to the truck.

"We'll camp here," Ford says, his eyes glued to his handheld spectrometer.

"Are we close?" Dipper asks, clicking open the front strap of his pack and shrugging it off.

"Very. Once I finetune the scanner for the wavelength, I don't think we'll have any trouble locating the anomaly tomorrow."

Once camp is set up, the clearing feels almost cozy. There's a small fire going in the center, a cooking rack laid over it, and a coffee pot nearby. Dipper and Ford each have their own pop-up tent and folding chair, seated at opposite sides of the fire. Dipper finishes his flame-charred hot dog and looks up at the sky where the stars are just beginning to glow. He wonders what the girls are up to.

He still has a curiosity which is unsatisfied. "Do you really think the people who disappeared are related to the pulse?" he asks Ford.

Ford sits in his fold out chair, staring into the fire as it crackles; the leaping flames reflecting on his glasses obscure his eyes. "It's easy for us to forget how dangerous anomalies can be to the uninitiated. The people of Gravity Falls are accustomed to Weirdness; it's literally in their very DNA. The valley's long history of habitation by humans and sentient nonhumans has produced an environment that, despite its sheer Weirdness, is habitable. It's… a domesticated sort of strangeness. Which is not to say that Gravity Falls is without its sharp edges, of course. But consider all that there is, known and unknown, in the confines of that crater. The fact that a town can survive there tells us something."

"To be fair, it almost didn't survive," Dipper says.

"Our entire world almost didn't. But that was a threat from without, not within," Ford reminds. "My point is that a semi-challenging jaunt through a maze for someone as capable as yourself could be a far worse venture for someone less experienced. We can hypothesize that the maze was nonlethal or intended to test its occupants, but neither statement can be given the weight of fact."

Dipper nods, trying to process that and not liking the realizations that come with it.

"But we've speculated more than enough. I think we should refrain from making any more guesses, educated or not," Ford says.

As much as Dipper respects Ford and the scientific method, he can't prevent his brain from conjuring all kinds of scenarios to fill in the blanks. As the twilight morphs into true darkness, he prepares his sleeping area and crawls into his tent, the slick outer skin of his sleeping bag whispering beneath him. He looks up through the mesh sections in the roof of his tent; the forecast says he doesn't need to worry about the rain fly.

The forest is loud in the night, filled with the chirr of insects. An owl hoots somewhere in the distance, and something small and quick rustles by in the brush close to the clearing. The dark of the woods, usually so peaceful, now seems oppressive. Dipper is not that far from where he usually lays his head, and yet that distance feels infinite. He and Ford are divided from the world of light.

Dipper thinks about all the people who never came home from Mystery Mountain. He thinks about how easy it would have been to die on Summerween, or at the hands of the wax figures, or during Globnar. He thinks about the maze, and its long, dark halls, and the sphinx, and the hexagonal pillars' indecipherable movements. And now it is his mind which can't escape the twisting halls, which becomes fixated on the thought of being separated from the girls, of being unable to find them. He was so confident that he would; so naively certain they would be just around the next bend. Just because he was right doesn't mean it had to be that way. Maybe he and Mabel might have walked out the other side, missing their closest friend, returning to the maze and finding nothing… while Pacifica sat trapped in the dark—alone, afraid.

The Pines twins returned home to find Pacifica Northwest, 14, missing.

Dipper doesn't get much sleep the rest of the night.

I'd Feel Better Just Knowing by New New England (Artistic Integrity, 2016)