How Is the Weather?


(March 2019)

8-Eyes On You

From the Journals of Dipper Pines:

Sunday, March 11—First entry since last Wednesday, but a lot has been going on. Yesterday was the big Regional meet, and WAU just shaded into first place. I helped, winning the 100 meter and coming in second in the 800. I'm getting frustrated by that one. Coach says I'm doing fine, but I can't find that extra burst I need at the end. Anyway, it was a good experience, and we got back from Sacramento super late, because Dad and Mom came up to see the meet. We had dinner with them, everything was good.

Mabel, who is working hard on her classes, gave the meet a pass. When we got home at one in the morning, though, she woke up and popped out of her room long enough to say, "Call Grunkle Ford in the morning, Broseph. How'd it go?"

"He won first in the hundred, second in the 800," Wendy said.

"Good for you. Mabel's going back to sleep now."

As we got ready for bed, I fretted a little about what Ford might want. Wendy told me to chill. "It's obviously not an emergency," she said. "If it had been, he would've called me down in Sacramento."

So—that was a point. Now it's, let me check, it's nine in the morning and we just got up and had breakfast. So I'll sign off now and next entry, I'll put down the details of my new three-book contract. Nice terms, and by the time we graduate, our nest egg should be enough to launch us out into what the professors keep calling "the real world." More about that later, future Dipper!

If you ever get depressed, read this and think about the books and the TV show and most of all Mabel and Wendy and tell yourself, "I am a lucky guy."


Dipper put away his journal and reached for his phone.

Which rang. Ford's ring tone.

Dipper answered it: "I was just about to call you, Grunkle Ford," he said. "Hi!"

"I know you were, Mason," his great-uncle said.

"You knew—uh, do you have the house bugged?" Dipper asked, some of his old paranoia kicking in.

Ford sounded indulgent: "The Agency never bugs members of the family. Well, there was that once, but the device they planted in the Shack malfunctioned and they didn't get anything intelligible. No, I have someone with me who wants to speak to you and Wendy."

"Sure," Dipper said. "Put them on."

"No, you don't understand," Ford says. "She doesn't use telephones. Just a second." Dipper heard some murmuring—two voices—and then Ford said, "How is the weather in Crescent City right now?"

That made Dipper tense up like a bird dog scenting a quail. "Uh—mid-fifties, partly cloudy. Little breezy. Why is that important?"

"Mason, please do me a great favor. I'm going to ask you to go out into your backyard. Find a place that is roughly centered and flat. Take your computer phone with you."

"Sure," Dipper said.

Wendy was at the table with the morning newspaper—on her tablet. Delivery didn't come this far down what was essentially a dead-end and mostly unpopulated road. "Where you heading?" she asked.

"Ford wants me to go outside," he told her. "Don't know why."

"Uh-oh. Agent Hazard's probably on the way in a helicopter."

"I'll let you know."

Dipper went out on the deck and then down the stair to the yard, the dogs tagging along. They raced around the inside periphery of the fence, pausing under the nut trees to sniff the recent work Dipper and Wendy had done—the drain that led flooding water away and under the fence to the creek beyond.

"OK," Dipper said into the phone. "I'm about in the center of the yard now."

"Hold still," Ford said. "I'm going to take your precise GPS reading from your telephone. Don't move . . . don't move . . . there, I've recorded it. Now the next step—oh, I suppose Wendy is there?"

"Inside the house," Dipper said. "We just had breakfast."

"Both of you get dressed if you aren't already. And you'll need shoes."

"We . . . both have shoes on already. And clothes," Dipper said.

"Oh, and if the pets are outside, please get them in. This is for their own safety. One moment. What? I'll ask him. Mason, are there any creatures in your yard larger than a mouse?"

"Just the dogs," Dipper said. "We do get squirrels, but I don't see any right now."

"We'll risk the squirrels."

"What does that even—"

"Mason, please. All will become clear. Make sure your pets are inside, go inside yourself, and just wait. I'll follow the GPS tracker to make sure the distance is suitable. More later."

Ford hung up.

No wonder Grunkle Stan gets frustrated with him!

Dipper whistled—Mabel could stick two fingers in her mouth and send out a deafening tweet, but Dipper didn't have that knack and just pursed his lips and blew a shrill whoo-weet!

The dogs came dashing up and went back inside with him as though that was the one thing that would make their doggy lives paradise. Once in, Dipper stooped and fastened the doggy door. "What's going on?" Wendy asked.

"Search me. Ford's in one of his inscrutable moods. He wanted me to go stand in the yard, took my GPS position reading, and then told me to get the animals inside. He didn't ex—what's wrong with the lights?"

They had all dimmed, and then they went out. From Mabel's room came an exasperated "What the heck? Dipper! Wendy! Somebody! Go check the circuit breakers or whatever—never mind, my hair dryer's back on."

The lights came back, too. "Lost the wi-fi," Wendy said.

"The router will reboot itself," Dipper told her. "But it shouldn't have happened. We're off the grid, all the power comes from McGucket's cube out behind the—now what?"

Wendy jumped up and they stood side by side at the sliding glass door, looking out beyond the deck and into the yard.

Mabel, behind them, said, "I thought my dryer had—whoa! Is the good witch of the north looking for Munchkins?"

"Don't know what it is," Dipper said.

What it looked like was an enormous silver soap bubble the size of a minibus, hovering a few feet above the grass. It settled gently and then the surface started to swirl with rainbow hues, again like a monstrous soap bubble—but one about to pop.

"Hey," Wendy said. "Isn't that Ford and somebody else?"

Hard to tell, because at first Dipper could only see silhouettes. One did have the outlines of Ford, broad-shouldered, wearing what seemed to be a long coat, holding something in his hand. Next to him was a tall, odd-looking shape, like an exceptionally willowy person wearing a dark hooded robe. Whoever it was stood at least a head taller than Ford, who was not a short man.

"It's clearing up," Mabel said. "Yay, it is Grunkle Ford!" She rushed toward the door, but Dipper stopped her.

"Sis, Ford said to stay inside until—"

"He's calling us," Mabel said.

Dipper's phone rang.

"I knew 'cause he has his phone out," Mabel explained to Wendy.

"Great-Uncle Ford?" said Dipper as he answered his phone. "What? Sure, I—no, we'll leave the dogs inside. We'll be out—what? Mabel's right here. Uh, OK, I'll tell her. We can come out the downstairs door."

"What's up and can I get one of those bubbles?" Mabel asked.

I don't really know what's up, and Ford says you can't come outside. Just Wendy and me."

Mabel's expression flashed from excited to outraged. "What! He can't do that to me, Mabel!"

"Your job is to stay here inside and keep the dogs from getting excited," Dipper improvised. "That's vitally important to Ford's mission."

Another instant change. "Understood, mon frère Jacques! But he owes me!"

"Let's go downstairs," Dipper said to Wendy. "We'll go out under the deck."

On the stairs, she asked, "What's going on, Dipper?"

"He didn't say Only when he called me earlier he was real specific about what the weather was like."

"Did you tell him—"

"No. They went through the finished basement—a really nice little guest room could go there, if only they could put in a window or two—and out the door beneath the deck. Somehow the stranger standing beside Ford seemed to waver in and out of focus as Wendy and Dipper walked across the grass.

"Here they are," Ford said. "Thank you for agreeing to meet us in this unorthodox way. Do you mind taking a little trip? It will take no time at all."

"Literally?" asked Dipper.

With a reassuring smile, Ford said, "Literally, Mason. Oh, where are my manners? You already know my great-nephew and his wife, Wendy. Wendy, Mason, this is the one who saved my life many years ago in Dimension 52."

"The Oracle," Dipper said.

The figure standing beside Ford looked up. She was like a woman—with seven eyes, two rows of three and one of four. They did not blink in unison. Dipper heard her voice, or thought he did—but then realized it was in his head, as Wendy's was when they communicated telepathically: [Your sister is watching. Let us go quickly. Stand closer.]

"All right," Wendy said, taking a couple of steps forward.

At least I'm not the only one who heard that, Dipper thought.

Anyone can hear me if I wish to communicate with them, the voice came again. Now you may wish to close your eyes.

Neither Dipper nor Wendy did, Dipper out of curiosity and Wendy out of Corduroyness. The bubble reappeared, first transparent, then a rapid swirl of silver, and finally moon-colored and softly glowing. Dipper felt no sense of motion, but he took Wendy's hand in his.

I think this is a dimensional portal.

[You are correct.]

Dipper, we're not alone in here!

[You also are correct.]

Ford said, "Now, your ears may pop."

Dipper's did, anyway. The bubble clarified again, and Dipper saw, all around him and, most improbably, below him an unending sea of clouds, as if he were high over a storm system in an airplane. No, not an airplane, as if he were on the broad summit of a mountain—

[My home.]

Aloud, Dipper asked, "Great-Uncle Ford, are you hearing this?"

"Ah. The Oracle often communicates mind to mind, but she has been speaking to me."

"I apologize." The voice was—warm, somehow, and caring, and soft. And yet it had a strange lilt, a trace of an unknown accent. The figure now lost her slight transparency and became quite solid. She pulled her hood back. Her skin was a pale blue, her mouth wide, her lips rather thin, her nose absent without leave.

"Hi," Wendy said. "You know us, but—"

"I've seen you in dreams," Dipper told the Oracle. "And I've heard that you healed my great-uncle. And that you disapprove of Bill Cipher."

The Oracle hesitated for a brief moment. Then she said, "I am not called the Unswerving for nothing. A greater than I has granted Bill Cipher his second chance, and we will not discuss him. Come into my home. I know this world seems strange to you whose senses are Earthly. We will be more comfortable here."

Somehow they were inside an exotic room, with a high domed ceiling. There were no chairs, but banks of cushions. Ford looked around. "It hasn't changed," he said.

"It never does," the Oracle said. "Sit if you wish." She gestured, and the cushions formed themselves into soft chairs for Ford, Wendy, and Dipper. Theirs was like a loveseat, so they could sit close together. "Wendy. I hope all this has not alarmed you."

Wendy smiled. "After all the three of us have been through? It takes more than this, uh—"

"My name," the Oracle said, "is Jheselbraum."

"Jheselbraum," repeated Wendy.

The seven eyes blinked and the Oracle glanced at Ford. "She has a good ear. It took you three times to pronounce it."

"My niece-in-law is a remarkable person," Ford said.

"Yes. And you are troubled now because you have discovered within yourself an ability to alter your environment, true?"

"Weather—magic, I guess," Wendy said. "Yeah."

"I'd like to interview you about that," Ford said.

Wendy shrugged. "Long as my aunt says it's OK. You might want to talk to her, too. She probably already knows if you do or not." Turning to the Oracle, she asked, "Can you take that from me?"

"No. I do not intervene like that. Or—" the eyes blinked again—"rather say that I very rarely do. What I can do is to offer you reassurance. You must stay with me for about a month of your time for training."

"I—I'm sorry, I have a life," Wendy said. "I have a husband and I have my schooling."

"It will seem like a month to you. In your dimension, only seconds will have passed."

Wendy squeezed Dipper's hand. "Uh, Jheselbraum, I'm going to talk things over with Dipper. Would you mind not listening, please?"

"The concept of privacy." The Oracle closed all her eyes. "You may speak."

Dipper, I don't know what to say.

Grunkle Ford trusts her. And when I was so confused about Bill Cipher, I saw her once or twice. In dreams, I mean. I think she's good. And if she wants to offer you help, Wendy—it means that your weather ability is more serious than you think it is.

How could it be, man?

The Oracle doesn't just concern herself with interdimensional demons like the old Bill. She looks out for . . . ripples, I guess. Things that can cause trouble across dimensional lines. So she must think this is really important.

Should I say yes?"

Whatever you decide, I'll support you.

Is it OK to kiss in front of a being from another dimension?

Don't see why not.

A moment later, Wendy said, "All right. I'll trust you."

"I value your trust," the Oracle said. "Stanford, it is good to see you here and well. You and Mason return with my best wishes for you. And when you return, at once go into your shelter."

"The house," Ford said.

"Yes." The Oracle beckoned. "Come with me. Wendy will be there a little later."

They walked outside, Wendy embraced Dipper and then she and the Oracle stood back.

The bubble formed again, swirls first, then slivery, then moon-pale.

"Your ears are going to pop again," Ford warned. "That's why the bubble dissolves gradually—but there's always a change in air pressure."

Their bubble popped, and Ford said, "Quickly, into the house!" He wasn't the trained sprinter that Dipper was, but they almost made a race of it. Beneath the deck, Ford said, "This is good enough. Any moment now—"

And the bubble, which had dissolved, reformed, shimmered, and Wendy stepped out. "Man!" she said. She came running up and threw herself into Dipper's arms. "It's so good to be back, Dip!"

"Uh—you haven't really been away—" Dipper said.

Ford touched his shoulder. "For Wendy," he said, "it's been at least a month."

"Yeah," Wendy said. "I have to get my head around all this. Wow."

"Let's go inside," Ford said.

"Wait, wait, I have to do something first," Wendy said. She walked back to the center of the yard, paused, and then looked up into the sky. After a few moments, she nodded. Then she came back.

"Uh—" Dipper began.

"It's cool," Wendy said.

"What did you do?" Ford asked.

"Changed the weather a little bit—not here, but a little further away. I'll tell you about it. I'm not gonna do this often—maybe not even once a year—but this time it's important." She tugged Dipper's arm. "Come on, I want to be home again! And then I'll tell you about my training."