Norman and the Pines twins made it to the inn first, taking a quick walk around the perimeter before quietly using a spare key taped under the doormat. Norman almost risked knocking when he noticed a soft light from the living room, this light he readily placed as Wirt likely haven fallen asleep while watching television. Norman decided against waking Wirt due to the late hour.
They slunk quietly inside, setting a few belongings down on the shoe cabinet near the door. Upon hearing no sound from the tv, they all noticed that the cable had been turned off but the television set still on. The soft bluish light from the inactive AV input cast an eerie glow onto their faces. Norman guarded the window by the door to quietly let Wybie and Coraline in when they arrived, using the spare time to put socks on and put his shoes back on.
"So, a witch's tarot, huh? Bet that was on your list of things you thought you'd never hear." Dipper whispered quietly to Mabel, trying to joke to ease the tension they all felt.
"Frankly, Dip, I'm too jaded at this point to even really be surprised anymore. The monster has been the only surprise so far." Mabel could barely keep her eyes open from drowsiness, leaning her head against the back of the loveseat. "We'll make it out of this, right?"
"I want to comfort you," Norman interrupted, "but I'm sure this is only the beginning."
"Why do you say that?" Mabel asked.
"Is it that?" Dipper nuanced.
"Yeah, there's been a victim hanging around this house. She's... scared for us." Dipper realized he hadn't told Mabel about his gift, turning quickly to face her. "Mabel, I can-"
"I know, the whole 'I see dead people' thing, right? Didn't mean to eavesdrop but I overheard you two talking about seeing your friend's dog. It's cool, Norman. I had a crush on a merman, a bunch of gnomes... So we are all listed under Odd in the dictionary. No big deal."
Norman wished he could enjoy the unimpressed way they reacted, unlike anyone else he had ever told. No exaggerated reactions of disbelief, disgust, sympathy, or shock. This thought was then interrupted as an unaccompanied Wybie and Coraline stepped onto the wooden porch and eased open the screen door to be let in.
"So, here's the short version-" Coraline recounted the situation as she took off her jacket and shoes and sat on the arm of the couch. She did not bother explaining how they walked there so quickly without being driven. (They had taken a shortcut through the forest and ran the entire way, something they did not plan on divulging to the older three.)
Coraline took to leaning forward dramatically towards the coffee table, cards in hand. To prove the validity of her story, she shuffled and dealt the cards six times. Each time she shuffled, regardless of for how long or how she shuffled she managed to get the same cards, placement, and orientation every time.
"The Beldam Witch's tarot is no joke. Her residual energy was infused into the deck itself- Coraline found them hidden in the floorboards under the old house. Anyhow, that being said, we can't change our fatebut now that we know what is happening we can be more prepared for it." Wybie chimed in.
"Wouldn't that just be self-fulfilling prophecy then, since now we know what will happen?" Mabel asked, yawning as she spoke.
"If you believe in that kind of thing," Norman muttered more to himself than to anyone as he stared out the window in a daze. Norman's eyes lingered on the spirit outside the window across the street, the one he had seen before from Wendy's truck. It just wouldn't dissipate.
"Anyway," Dipper huffed, scrunching his face before wiping the sour expression away with his hand. "The point is: we get along fine, then something goes wrong and we lose momentum, then something goes really wrong. Am I understanding this right, Cor?"
"More or less... I mean, the big recurring theme of The Tower is destruction and in our case the only clear line I can draw in the sand is that it's a physical upheaval. Everything will change. I mean- I guess that could be a positive thing but the odds are stacked against us in terms of having any kind of positives here."
"What's all the fervent whispering about?" Wirt rasped, hair sticking straight up and eyes half-open.
The five let out various reactions of surprise that ranged from Mabel's startled yell to Coraline almost falling off the couch armrest in surprise. Wirt shushed them in a fatigue-induced exaggerated fashion before sitting by Norman who remained by the window. "People are trying to sleep."
"The thing we're after," Norman spoke in a borderline monotone, "its killing can't be random... Something has to connect them..." Norman's distant gazing out the window suddenly sharpened and his head snapped back to the attention of the group. "Dipper! Do you think Wendy can look up personal histories of the victims?"
"Uh, I can try to ask," Dipper muttered, unsure, but getting out his phone and texting deliberately. "I'm on it."
"What makes you think that they're related?" Coraline quipped. "According to the news it has no pattern."
Shocked at her sharp tone, "Call it a hunch, I guess." he defended.
"We can't move solely on a hunch!" Mabel interjected.
"Got any better ideas?" Dipper drug his eyes from his phone for a moment to look crossly at his sister who put up her hands in mock surrender.
"Sure. Fine. You win. When we hear back from Wendy we need to make a game plan and work fast. Probably don't have a lot of time to stop this thing- who's to say it won't leave Gravity Falls once it's had its fill? It could become an epidemic, especially if it can turn others." Mabel conceded, worry laced in her voice. "All this is giving me a bad feeling."
"Usually that's the body's way of telling you you're in over your head and you need to retreat." Wirt crossed his arms, "Believe me, listening to the little voice in your head that screams danger does a lot of good." A couple of the kids turned to Wirt, frowning. "You guys seriously forgot I was standing here, didn't you?"
Dipper spoke up then faltered to a hush as to avoid waking those trying to sleep at the inn, "Wendy said it's doable. Finding access to the names of victims and possible criminal records are easy enough but beyond that only the deed information and death certificates in the library archives may be of any use. She is worried it may be too risky to get access to coroners' reports firsthand but she may be able to relay information since she and the coroner's daughter used to date and still holds a torch for Wendy."
Mabel exhaled, "Huh. Wendy didn't seem like the type to date a coroner's daughter."
"Yeah, I thought the same thing. I asked. She said it's because she was a, uh, how did she put it," he scrolled to her message and relayed it aloud. " 'She was a lolita girl and bubblegum goth and I was a hundred percent there for it. Also she always tasted like butterscotch, so ya know, yum.' The 'yum' was in all caps, hence my emphasis."
Wirt exhaled sharply, irritated, "Is that really relevant right now, you guys?"
"Right," Coraline nodded, "So it seems like all this info has to be read through and cross-checked, then we have to find a motive, yeah? Where can we find info on what we're looking for?"
"Hate to say it, but it could be a number of things," Mabel shrugged. "We assume it's a werewolf because it looks like a dog but there are dozens of legendary or mythical dog-like creatures that probably exist. After I found out about manotaurs I won't rule anything out."
"So we could easily be looking at a simple werewolf or something else entirely-" Norman shrugged. "Just off the top of my head I can think of werewolves, hellhounds, skinwalkers, chupacabra, or even chimera can all be canine-like and possible to mistake for one another. We need motive, then we can find out what it is from that."
"So the point is-" Wybie hissed sardonically, "Since you guys insist Coraline and I are not allowed the danger of being boots on the ground, we're stuck to the responsibility of research duty. Am I getting this right?"
"It would be extremely helpful;" Mabel admitted, "if we split up, then we can work different angles."
Coraline stood, "Frankly, I'm okay with not seeing the main action. I'm still recovering from Beldam, so you guys go for it. Wybie, looks like all those folklore and mythology books at the library have our names on them."
Wybie sighed, only half relieved that he was staying out of the crosshairs with Coraline. Coraline being around was always a silver lining.
"You can set up shop here," Wirt instructed to Wybie and Coraline, "I've got a couple of books in the truck that may help and I can go by the library and get the books for you in the morning- well, daytime. This house is warded from most negative entities I know about, so you should be safe here."
"And you guys," Wirt continued to the other three children. "Stay safe, okay? I don't want any of you guys getting hurt. What you're doing is adult business, it's dangerous."
"My Grunkles Stan and Ford should be coming in any day, they're experienced in these matters too," Dipper assured, "but we can't wait on them or more people may die."
"I just don't want you guys going home to your families in wooden boxes, okay?" Wirt choked on his words but steadied himself. "I'm taking charge as primary caregiver for you guys right now. You're all involved and this is the safest place to be. I'm calling Wybie's grandmother and Soos at the Shack come daylight so they'll understand that your safety requires you to be here; plus that way they do not get harmed just for being nearby. The only guests I have right now are leaving in the morning and I'll call to cancel the other bookings so this place is empty except for us."
"Wirt, the money you'll be turning away-" Norman interjected, standing to look at him.
"My bank account can take a hit, you guys may not be able to take the hits alone. I'm here for you guys. Gregg will be here too. Just focus, I'll take care of your meals. Just get everything you need here in the morning, settle in different rooms and you'll basically be under house arrest 'til you three" he pointed at Norman and the twins, "need to get out there. This is home base, it'll be safe. I'll double the wardings and artifacts just to be sure of its potency."
A couple beats of silence ensued as everything sunk into their minds. They were back at The Bluebird Inn, this time without much of a choice. The plan was nearly set but until dawn arrived all that could be done was to wait and rest.
The kids filed into a empty room, the three boys deciding to share the bed and the girls on the daybed in the corner of the room. None had considered splitting rooms, finding comfort in numbers and fading fast towards sleep.
"I used to use the cards a lot," Coraline whispered to a barely-conscious Mabel after the boys had all fallen asleep, "after Beldam, they brought me peace for a while. Because I knew they were imbued with her magic, I knew their accuracy would give me a sense of control when I asked the cards how to solve my troubles. Now I feel like the cards are just taunting me because I don't know how to fill the blanks in the reading."
"There's no real such thing as control, you know," Mabel whispered back to her, "it's all an illusion. There's a great cycle happening around us and with every breath the wheel turns whether we like it or not. Not that there's a set path in life- nothing's set in stone- but, control isn't important. All you need is understanding that change can occur with intervention, but only to a humanly possible extent." Mabel yawned, signalling the heavy drowsiness betraying her. "We'll do what we can. It's all we can do. Either we succeed, fail, or die trying; but they could happen together and in different succession, so why worry? Just live for now. We'll worry later. Right now, we need sleep."
With that, the mystery kids all fell asleep into their fitful dreams of screams ripping painfully from the throats of deformed corpses, people fallen victim to a beast; the victims no longer able to retain their faces or names beneath the gore and the grime of forest muck.