How Is the Weather


(February 2019)

5-Woman to Woman

They drove, carefully, to Gravity Falls that Friday evening. Wendy had taken the precaution of mounting snow tires on Dipper's Land Runner. They managed to leave about three in the afternoon and stopped every two hours to let the dogs have a potty break.

Oregon had taken a bigger hit from snow than northern California had. Crescent City wound up with one skoosh more than an inch, on top of freezing rain. West of the Cascades the snow had piled up into drifts three feet deep in places. They drove to Medford and then turned north. West of the mountains the snow was not as deep, but still a foot lay on the ground and more burdened the pines.

In California when the storm ended, the temperature crept back up: a high of 30 on Wednesday, 41 on Thursday, and 48 on Friday, and by the time they left school for the drive north, most of the icy stuff had melted except in places where deep shadows lived. Oregon was still chilling, though. Luckily, the roads had been plowed and treated, and the drive wasn't too bad.

Mabel didn't want to drive. She was antsy about slick pavements, having once piled up her car when she skidded to miss a careless deer who crossed the road right in front of her. Dipper and Wendy traded off, every time they stopped. They had drive-through burgers as they headed north toward Bend—Chicken Nuglets for the dogs, which they loved but rarely got.

And then they were in the Valley. Dipper was at the wheel, so Wendy called Stan and said they were in town for a day or two, and could they stay in the Shack.

Dipper could hear his great-uncle's voice even with the phone not on speaker: "Why'd you wanna do a crazy thing like that? We got plenty of room, the house is already warm, Sheila would love to see you—"

"Speaker," Dipper told Wendy.

She clicked the button and Stan said, "—if you're worried you're gonna put us out, that's nuts—"

"Grunkle Stan!" Dipper said. "Thanks, but we sort of need a home base for tonight and tomorrow. How about we come by for dinner Saturday?"

"Oh, so you're invitin' yourselves, huh?" growled Stan. Then he laughed. "Uh, I suppose Mabel didn't—"

"I'm here!" she said from the back seat. "If you really, really want, they can drop me off and I'll spend tonight in your guest room. Me and the dogs."

"Pumpkin! Sure. I forget, the dogs are housebroken, ain't they?"

"They are sooo housebroken," Mabel said.

"Great! What time will you be rollin' in?"

Wendy said, "In about five minutes, Stan. Put on some pants."

"Yeah, good idea. Hey, I had Ludlow scrape the drive here, but not at the Shack. You might wanna park here and just walk up the hill the rest of the way. That'd be copacetic."

"What?" Mabel asked. "You speak French now?"

"Huh? 'Copacetic,' you mean? That ain't French, Sweetie, it's, uh, mob-ese."

"Still impressive," Mabel assured him.

Ludlow Baxter, who was the town's equivalent of Soos, a guy who could do pretty much anything, ran the snowplow. He'd conscientiously cleared one lane up Gopher Road, and Dipper carefully kept to the plowed pavement. He took the long paved driveway—completely clear, not just a lane—and parked on the concrete apron in front of Stan and Sheila's garage.

The couple came out to meet them, Stan grinning ear to ear. "Come to build a snowman, huh? Hey, listen, no top hats! That's a law in town after that unpleasant incident a couple years back. Who would've thought ya had to stab a living snowman in the heart with a carrot? Come hug your Grunkle, Sweetie! Hey, dogs, lay off for a second!"

Sheila and Stan both made it abundantly clear that they were welcome, but Wendy said, "We're kinda researching a mystery, and we'll do that better on our own. But thanks, and we'll definitely come down for dinner tomorrow."

"Come at six," Stan said. "Dinner won't be until later, but I want to see you knuckleheads! We don't get together often enough."

They promised and then slogged up the hill to the Shack. Stan, or maybe Ludlow, had shoveled out the path, but they still slipped a little. As soon as they got inside, Wendy turned up the heat—it was a very cool 62 at first—and Dipper built a fire in the grate. By ten that night they sat in front of it. "We'll leave about nine tomorrow morning," Wendy said. "Aunt Sallie says any time after that's fine, but she's got chores to do. I'll call Mabel about eight so she can take care of the dogs and have breakfast."

"You're worried," Dipper said.

Nestling against him, she admitted, "Yeah, I kinda am. But if anybody can make sense of this, Aunt Sallie can. From when I was just a little kid on, she always told me that Corduroy women usually get powers."

"She ought to know," Dipper said. Sallie's power was what she called Second Sight—a limited ability to foresee the future. It didn't work all the time, and she had to be in the presence of whoever the prophecy involved, but the first time she had met Dipper, she had almost instantly told Wendy, "He's the one. Don't let him get away." Or words to that effect. They wee still waiting to learn if her prediction that they would one day have red-headed twins would come true. That would have to be after college, though—

Since they wee cuddling, Wendy read his mind. You're thinking of our babies!

Well, Sallie said we were fated to have them.

Seems like a big responsibility.

Especially if they turn out to be as much of a handful as Mabel and me.

But it would be a hell of a ride, man!

I'm not worried. They'd have the coolest mom in the world.

Sweet of you man. Hey, Dip! What if this right here is my Corduroy gift? Our telepathy? Maybe I don't have anything to do with the weather.

Dipper thought about that. –I don't know. I think this was a gift that Numina gave us. Remember how at first we nearly went crazy because we were in each other's heads all the time?

That was true. For a brief period, the two constantly overheard each other's thoughts and experienced each other's feelings. That proved a huge problem, especially when Dipper, without even meaning to, tuned into Wendy taking a warm, sensual shower. Fortunately, after the two had broken free of Numina's influence, what they were left with was touch-telepathy. They could only commune mentally while touching skin to skin, and even then they had learned to keep certain things private.

Reluctantly, and aloud, Wendy said, "Yeah, I guess you're right. Aunt Sallie's always told me that the Corduroy gift comes only after you're 'a woman grown,' as she says. So—well, anyway, if I've got it, I'm gonna ask her about it and see if there's a way of refusing the gift, or getting rid of it." She yawned. "Sunday before we go back, we gotta stop in and see Dad. He's proposed to Ruby, and I told him we'd meet them in Greasy's for Sunday breakfast."

"I want to meet Ruby," Dipper said, smiling. Dan had met her, a retired Marine sergeant, and the two had clicked. Dan fell in love like a redwood chopped through with a felling axe. And Wendy said that when Ruby dealt with her rowdy brothers, she had shaped them up and—according to Dan, anyway—now they kept the place tidy, did work around the house, and made up their beds every morning. With hospital corners.

Ruby must be quite a woman.


They slept in the attic, under a blanket and a hand-made quilt that Abuelita had given them at Christmas. Even so, it was chilly enough that both of them wore pajamas, but loose ones, so that if they wanted to slip their hands against the other's skin for a little, um, warmth, it was easy to do.

Dipper's inner clock, which many times he wished he could turn off, woke him at five-thirty sharp. He waited another forty minutes or thereabouts until Wendy opened her eyes and smiled at him.

After the necessary kisses, they got up, showered—the bathroom filled with steam—and put on winter clothes. The Shack phone rang just as they were rummaging to see if there was anything they could throw together for breakfast. It was Stan. "Hey, kid," he said to Dipper. "You two awake?"

"Yeah, we've been up for a while," Dipper said.

"You got any clothes at all on?"

"What? Sure!"

"What's the matter with you, then? Good-looking wife like Wendy, you're lettin' her down. Anyways, there's not much in the Shack to eat 'cause nobody's living there to caretake. You two get your butts down to our house and have breakfast. That's a direct quote from Sheila."

In the background, Sheila yelled, "It is not!"

"Well, it's a power saw. Wait, wait, a paraphrase. Seriously, come down whenever you're ready. Mabel's dogs woke her up, so we can eat soon as you get here."

They made the slippery descent to Stan's house and walked into warmth and mouth-watering aromas. Sheila had made a breakfast casserole with potatoes, turkey sausage, eggs, and lots of creamy cheese, and she'd even baked home-made biscuits from scratch. "These are great!" Mabel pronounced through a mouthful of biscuit and melted butter. "Just like your aunt's, Wendy!"

"That's where I got the recipe," Sheila said, smiling. "But hers are fluffier, somehow."

"Pretty close, though," Wendy said. "And these are tasty!"

They had finished by seven-thirty, and they spent an hour and a half chatting and catching up. Stan said, "This year the statute of limitations is up on what I brought back from the Arctic. Well, Ford kinda got it exempted anyway, but I didn't want to spread the word around. So I can tell you now, I found like a trove of gold and jewels. Is trove the right word? Sounds funny. Anyhow, Ford took care of the paperwork, and next September I can legally claim it, long as I pay taxes."

"Were there pirates in the Arctic?" Dipper asked.

Stan grinned. "Who said anything about pirates? Nah, this was like the lost treasure of the Tsars."

"Get out of town!" Mabel said. "What stars?"

"Not stars, T-sars," Stan said. "The guys who used to run Russia. You know, my Mom was a Romanoff."

"Wait, wait, my head hurts," Mabel said. "Like a Romanoff Romanoff? Like Tsar what's his name—"

"Romanov, Dipper added helpfully.

"—whatever. Same family as great-grandmom?"

"Yeah, her branch changed the spellin' a little, but she was like a fifteenth cousin or some deal," Stan said. "Anyways, I got a legitimate claim on it. But no more about that, and don't go shootin' your mouths off before September! I don't wanna jinx it."

Stan and Sheila agreed to watch the dogs, so Mabel explained to Tripper and DC that she was going to visit the pigs and that it was a really snowy drive and they'd be happier here in front of the warm fireplace. The dogs settled down with no objection.

At nine Mabel, Wendy, and Dipper set off.


The drive out of the Valley and north usually took from thirty to forty minutes, but this time it was a little more than an hour's trip. Sallie met them, hugged them, and sent Mabel out to commune with Waddles and Widdles in their heated pigsty—really a mini-barn—and cautioned her, "It's fine with me if you drop in on the chickens, but don't let them out of the chicken house. Too blame cold for them, and there's been a fox lurking around the last day or two."

Then she held both of Wendy's hands in hers. Finally, Sallie turned her bright gaze on Dipper. "This isn't man stuff," she said. "Dipper, I love you like a son, but I'll ask you kindly to go in the back parlor and let me and my niece here have a talk, woman to woman. The little television's in there. If you want, you can go outside with Mabel, of course, but stick to the paths, the drifts are pretty durn deep. Does that hurt your feelings?"

Dipper smiled and shook his head. "I trust you as much as Wendy does," he said.

"Good man."

When Dipper had left them, Sallie took Wendy into the kitchen and brewed some tea. "You got a visitation, didn't you?" she asked as they sat at the small kitchen table.

"I don't know," Wendy admitted. "Something weird's going on." She told the story, briefly and clearly. They finished their tea.

"All right," Sallie said. "Give me your hands again." Her work-roughened ones closed on Wendy's. "Look me straight in the eye."

The matching Corduroy eyes, green and green, gazed at each other. Sallie's eyelids half-closed. "Oh, yes, there's power here. Poor girl. I thought you might get the Sight—it can be annoying. No controlling it. It comes and goes, but imagine goin' to church and stopping to chat with the minister and all of a sudden knowing that his wife is gonna be dead in a week and there's not one blessed thing you nor anybody else can do to stop it. That's the burden of the Second Sight, child. You give people news. Sometimes it's happy. Sometimes not. Sometimes you just have to keep it inside yourself and cry about it."

"If I'm not getting that—" Wendy said, but left the question unasked.

"I'm afraid that you're a weather caller," Sallie said. "Now let me explain why you have to be extra-extra careful from this minute on, the rest of your life."