A/N: Sorry for the delay, everyone! This has been an extremely eventful week; one of these days, I'm going to have a nice, relaxing, orderly month in which nothing happens except for writing. One of these days, it will happen.

Anyway, enough of my grumbling: without further ado, the latest chapter! Read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Gravity Falls, TSW, and The Park are still not mine.

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MENTIONS AND DEPICTIONS OF SUICIDE.

This chapter's soundtrack is We Cry by Joe Wong.


Stan wasn't sure how far he'd managed to travel when exhaustion had finally caught up with him.

He remembered clambering up the path leading from the foot of the cliffs all the way to the bluffs with Colonel Utterson still slung over one shoulder, and he remembered reaching a narrow country lane and heading north along it before fatigue had started getting the better of him. However, he couldn't quite recall the exact moment when he'd pitched forward and lost consciousness, though by then he was pretty sure that he'd been more than entitled to pass out, what with his injuries.

However, there was one thing that had stuck out in those wearied, sleep-deprived moments – well, two things. First, as he'd been staggering across the fields, hoping to god that he didn't have to outrun any more monsters, he'd caught a brief glimpse of something crimson flickering across the countryside – a vivid red trenchcoat flapping in the breeze as its owner galloped past Stan at high speed. It was hard to tell at this range, but he could have sworn he could see a child-sized figure piggyback-riding on the red-coated figure's shoulders.

Then, just as he'd begun to topple forward for the first of many times, Stan had caught a glimpse of something trundling down the road towards him; at a distance, it was hard to work out what it was, but judging by the shape, it looked like a vehicle of some kind – a van, a truck, maybe even an ambulance if he was lucky.

Next thing he knew, he was waking up on a stretcher in some dimly-lit back room.

From what little Stan could see of the place, the room had clearly once been an office, but the desks and computers had long since been pushed aside to make room for a rickety series of camping beds – either sleeping quarters or a heavily jerry-rigged field hospital. The latter seemed the safer bet, given the oddly-coloured bandages around his arms and legs.

Nor was he the only patient here: in the bed to his left, Colonel Utterson lay unconscious, his face almost hidden beneath a nasal splint, his gauze-swathed hands still missing numerous fingers, his legs encased in plaster casts, his body dotted with dozens of bandages to cover the electrical burns. Above his head, a handwritten sign read 'High-priority patient: magical treatment ASAP.'

Next to him, Nicholas Winter lay in a bed of his own. From what Stan could see from here, he didn't appear to be harmed apart from a few visible bumps and bruises; however, he'd been handcuffed to the bed, and the sign above him read 'Low-priority patient: sober up and interrogate.'

However, as he surveyed the room, Stan slowly became aware that someone was sitting next to him. It took a little effort to turn around, for while the pain in his face and limbs had dwindled to a dull tingling against his skin, his body felt like it was made of concrete and about half as flexible; plus, every time he moved, the camping bed juddered so violently that he swore the thing might collapse. Eventually, though, he managed to swivel around far enough to get a good look at the figure next to him… and with a jolt of surprise, he realized at once that it was none other than Ford.

Sitting in a rickety folding chair by the bed, Ford looked to have nodded off while waiting for Stan to regain consciousness, still clutching the stack of papers he'd been reading when sleep had sprung an ambush on him. No sooner had Stan observed this, though, Ford twitched suddenly and snapped awake, frantically scanning the field hospital for threats; by now, Stan knew from the long, rambling conversations they'd shared post-Weirdmageddon that Ford had learned the fine art of sleeping lightly after many years spent on the run… but even if he'd remained silent on that front, Stan would have recognized that sudden start and anxious sweep of the room by sight, for he'd had to learn the same trick to escape the cops and creditors.

"You're awake," Ford gasped.

"Aaargh. Am I? Doesn't feel like it. Ouch. Where are we?"

"Innsmouth Academy. The Illuminati have been bringing the survivors of this morning's battle here for treatment and recovery; once I told them about you, they made you a priority patient in exchange for certain services rendered on my part."

"Oh. Great. Um, is there any reason why you're working with the Illuminati?"

"That's a very, very long story, Stanley, and I'll be happy to share it once Dipper and Mabel are safe."

Stanley shot bolt-upright, the camping bed rattling violently under him as he lurched into a sitting position. "Where are they?" he all but shouted. "What happened to them?!"

"We're still tracking them down; we still don't know where Mabel ran off to after Lorraine attacked the boat convoy, but we're pretty sure that Dipper is still with Lorraine. Hopefully, she'll be able to keep him safe for the time being…" He offered his best attempt at a reassuring smile, which looked about as genuine as Piltdown Man. "The good news is that the Illuminati are sweeping the island with all the drones they can spare; they'll find Mabel soon."

"And what's been happening in the meantime?"

"Well, once we found you, I asked to be sent back to Solomon Island to keep an eye on you. Truth be told, that wasn't the only reason: that place was creeping me out, and I needed somewhere to review these files without Bob looking over my shoulder."

"…okay, I'll bite: what files, and who the hell is Bob?"

By way of a replay, Ford held up a battered-looking stack of papers. "These were in Lorraine's bag alongside the remains of the final psychological evaluation; I haven't had a chance to take a look at them up until now, but according to the letterheads and signatures, most of them were taken right from the desk of your friend over there." He nodded at Utterson. "I had my suspicions about him-"

"You had suspicions about him? Just suspicions? Ford, the bastard tried to use Dipper as a human shield a few hours ago! The only reason why I didn't leave him for the zombies is because I wanted to see this guy behind bars for the rest of his life!"

A moue of distaste rippled across Ford's stubbled features. "Unfortunately," he said gloomily, "he might be able to get a reduced sentence given the circumstances; after all, he's an officer in the Council's black-ops division, and Dipper doesn't officially exist. But that's not the point. Remember how I said that there were scraps of a destroyed psych evaluation at the front of these files?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Well, I looked through the rest of the memoranda, but most of them were written in code. However, it didn't take much effort to decode them – and one of them was the complete evaluation. It proves that Utterson's been lying, not just to us but to his forces and his superiors as well. Listen to the conclusion…" He drew the report from the stack of papers and began to read aloud.

"In summary, Lorraine Maillard is an extremely troubled woman suffering from serious long-term depression, rage, derealization, and anxieties consistent with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, all of which have gone untreated for nearly thirty years. Worse still, I suspect she was already suffering from chronic depression at the time of the incident at Atlantic Island Park, a condition that has been exacerbated by repeated traumas, isolation, and psychic damage inflicted on her in the bonding process. She should not be allowed to continue active duty any longer, nor should she be allowed to continue her current lifestyle: the possibility of further mental deterioration (and further suicide attempts) cannot be underestimated. To this end, I am recommending the following emergency measures: no further drug treatment to be actioned; at least six months paid leave – if not longer; mandatory grief counselling."

"So?"

"Stanley, this report was dated five years ago. There's even a letter of complaint from the psychiatrist demanding to know why Lorraine hasn't been taken off active duty – fully encoded and partly destroyed. Utterson hasn't just been exploiting this situation for all its worth, but he's been actively exacerbating it behind the backs of everyone in the Council! He wanted Lorraine to get crazier!"

"Why? What's in it for him?"

"Paradoxically, it made her easier to control: the more depressed she got, the more isolated she got – the psychiatrist's letter of complaint made it clear that she was only getting harder to reach. If you keep someone isolated, convince them that you're their only friend, make them paranoid about everyone… well, you make them your puppet. Utterson wanted to keep Lorraine dancing on strings and keeping her from getting help guaranteed that."

"…how the hell do you know that? I'm pretty sure the psychiatrist didn't mention anything like that."

Ford's expression turned grim; almost unconsciously, his right hand strayed to the corner of his eye and began to ever-so-gently scratch. "I have personal experience with that trick," he said, darkly.

Stan winced, realizing at once what he meant. The events leading up to their unpleasant reunion in Gravity Falls had been a mystery to him up until a few days ago; even while still remembering the events of his past, it had easily been one of the worst moments in Ford's explanation, and neither of them had any desire to hear about it a second time, even if it had brought them closer together in the long run.

"But that's not all," Ford continued. "There's even proof here that Lorraine wasn't attempting something diabolic with her ritual up at the Overlook – Lorraine's diary of all things. Don't you see, Stanley? Most of the people who've been hurt or killed on this mission – they all thought they were being sent out to retrieve a dangerous fugitive who might have access to top-secret magical information; they were told that Lorraine was a murderous psychopath, a deranged killer who'd betrayed the Council and stole all manner of vital secrets… and those were the members of Utterson's inner circle! The rank and file are even more clueless about why they've been assigned to this mission-"

"Because if they ever learned why they were really sweeping this island, they'd know that their boss had one of Gaia's Chosen doing his dirty work off the books. And the Council would know that they've been signing off on all kinds of dodgy deals without even knowing it." Stan mopped his brow with the back of his sleeve. "And I thought dealing with Powers and Trigger was bad enough. So, what do we do?"

"I'm hoping that, if we can get this information to Utterson's higher-ups, then we might be able to prevent Utterson from calling in any more reinforcements. As long as he's still got Council authority, he can summon all the help he needs to recapture Lorraine and get his asset working for him again; if the main body of the Council were to ever find out how far off-book he's gone-"

"We could shut him down for good?"

"And make rescuing Dipper a whole lot easier, with any luck."

"There's always the other option, Ford."

"What's that?"

By way of explanation, Stan nodded meaningfully at the colonel's supine figure in the bed next to them. "Utterson's lying right there," he pointed out. "And he is unconscious… and there's no guards around…"

"Stanley…"

"I'm not saying that we have to kill him, but I'm pretty sure you've got a doctorate in medicine. How easy would it be to give him an extra-strong dose of painkillers, just enough to keep him out cold until we've found Dipper and Mabel? Then we can tell the Council everything."

"That might not work, Stanley. For one thing, these people are using drugs I'm not familiar with; I could easily kill him. More to the point, we're in Illuminati territory; they're probably intending to hand Utterson over to the Council, make a big humiliating show of returning their screw-up to the fold so that they can publicly embarrass Venice. I'm hoping that if we had over these papers, we can get the Council working in tandem with the Illuminati, and together, we can get Dipper and Lorraine out of Atlantic Island Park without everything going horribly-"

There was a sharp hiss from the door, and Stan looked up just in time to see a lumbering giant of a man in a blue uniform and a gas mask stride into view.

"The Pyramidion wants to see you," he barked. "Now."


For what felt like hours, Dipper remained silent. After all, it wasn't as if he had anything worth saying: he'd screwed up so badly that he'd left both him and Lorraine right in the lion's den with no way out and no way of rescued, and Lorraine didn't seem to be in any fit state to speak to him.

After sixty seconds had gone by, however, he heard footsteps, and he saw Lorraine drifting towards him like a sleepwalker. She was once again fully clothed, but now the Council agent uniform was lying in tattered strips of white cloth all over the floor and her gear was nowhere to be seen; now, she was dressed in her old civilian clothes – the blue jeans, the black blouse, the ribboned hairband, and the leather jacket that Don had bought for her, sleeves rolled up to reveal the tiny heart tattoo on her right wrist – the one with Don's name inscribed inside it. In fact, the only thing that was missing was the hatchet-shaped pendant she'd worn around her neck.

However, this transformation wasn't just limited to her clothes, for Lorraine now wore an expression that he hadn't seen since he'd explored her memories; it was the same look of shell-shocked horror and crippling despair that she's sported on the morning after that final visit to the park – a look of utter helplessness that was so unlike Lorraine's usual deranged protectiveness and simmering anger that Dipper almost cringed at the sight of it.

Very slowly, she reached out to touch him, very gently tracing the contours of his face with her fingers. "Callum," she murmured, her voice low and dreamy, her eyes focusing on something that wasn't there. The terror was gone from her tone, but so was the lucidity: whatever Auldman had just done to her, it had really done a number on her brain on top of all the weirdness he'd inflicted on her perceptions since Dipper had arrived on the island.

"Where are we, Callum?" she asked in her faraway voice. "Mommy's been having the strangest dream, but she's awake now. She just doesn't know where we are… or when we are. Was it your third birthday last week, Little Duck, or was it your fifth? Your first? I… I can't tell anymore. Mommy keeps losing track of time. You look like you could be any age: you're so grown-up and tall… but you're so tiny and sweet. Are you a baby or are you old enough to walk on your own? Mommy can't tell anymore."

Dipper opened his mouth to say something important – to tell Lorraine who he really was, to warn her that the Bogeyman was playing with her mind again, that she needed to wake up – but all that emerged was a childish squeak of "Mommy, I feel really weird."

Not good, he thought. If I'm losing control of my speech, then it probably won't be long until my mind goes the same way. I need to think of something, and quick…

"It's okay, Callum. Everything's going to be alright. Ev…"

Lorraine's eyes fluttered, as if on the verge of passing out. "…rything's going to be just fine… just…"

She trailed off, eyelids fluttering wilder than ever, a trail of drool oozing from her suddenly-slack jaw. Dipper almost tried to speak again, even though he knew it probably would only result in another generic Callum line spilling out of his mouth… but then his own eyes started to flutter, and he would have lost consciousness right then and there if he hadn't instinctively bitten the inside of his cheek, but even that brief adrenaline surge wouldn't last long; he could feel the sense of overwhelming fatigue creeping over him again, slowly drawing him back down against the slab as if it was the softest of beds. He had to think of something that could break the spell ASAP, but what could he possibly do? He was unarmed, his voice box didn't belong to him anymore, and he could only move one arm. Apart from tapping Lorraine in the face, there wasn't much he could do right now.

And then, as it so often did when he was out of ideas, memory came to his aid: Grunkle Ford had mentioned that the two of them might be able to enter each other's mindscapes at will if their psychic link was ever stable enough – and that the connections would only get stronger in high-magical environment. Auldman Northwest had specifically stated that this pocket reality was flooded with the power that he'd stolen from the Gaia Engine, ready to be used at his will; perhaps that was the kind of magic that Dipper needed to make a stable of all, all he'd need to do in order to activate the link was to touch Lorraine on the forehead.

So, with his eyelids drooping lower and lower, Dipper bit his tongue, stretched out his arm as far as it could possibly go, and tried to reach Lorraine's forehead. It took every last atom of his strength, for reaching that far wasn't easy with the rest of his body essentially cemented to the slab, but after ten agonizing seconds of wrenching and stretching, he finally managed to get his index finger to finally brush against Lorraine's sweat-beaded brow. Then, as he felt the surge of energy ripple down his arm, he focussed. He focussed until he thought his head might burst, concentrating all his thought upon connecting with Lorraine, on fusing his mindscape with hers.

For a split-second, he thought it wasn't going to work-

Then his mind lit up.

For a moment, it was like the spell to enter the mindscape all over again, all dazzling white light and magical energies and tumbling headlong into a new world… but then Dipper felt something else move with him, something that felt uncannily like an entire planet. He wasn't being plunged alone into Lorraine's mind: his mindscape was following him like a mobile home, crossing space through the connection they'd forged. In turn, he felt Lorraine hurtling towards him, her own mindscape in tow, slowly connecting to his own like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. It wasn't an invasion or an infiltration – if anything, it felt like preparing for a conference on neutral ground, a summit meeting of connected minds, drawing the two of them closer than ever before.

He was dimly aware of the clock on the wall behind Lorraine, the tick and tock of passing seconds seeming unnaturally loud and bewildering placid. Even from here, he could see the hands of the clock moving slower and slower as Dipper's thoughts began to pick up speed and real-world time dribbled away into dream-world unreality…

Then-

Dipper opened his eyes to find himself once again standing on the road that bordered Lorraine's mindscape, with a lonely country lane leading off into Solomon Island on his right and a granite-paved Venetian street on his left. Ahead, lay the jumbled mess of architecture that was the heart of Lorraine's psyche, complete with the weird stone cube hovering over it (what was that thing? It didn't look like the Gaia Engine, but what else could it be?)

But behind Dipper, his own mindscape had rippled into existence. Instead of the dark forests of Solomon Island, his mental world was bordered by the woods of Gravity Falls, lush, verdant, and quirky, full of mysterious corners and incredible creatures – a place of adventure, not fear. If you looked carefully enough, you could see all the familiar sites of the town, even the ones that should have been invisible from this deep in the woods: the video arcade, Northwest Manor, the library, Wendy's house, the pool, the lake, and all of Dipper's favourite places. At the centre of it all was a place that wasn't quite the Mystery Shack: a lot of the Shack had gone into its construction, but it was also his own house back in Piedmont, the crashed UFO under Gravity Falls, even the portal, a combination of all that was comforting and exciting at the centre of Dipper's life – here, a bit of suburban home, here the arch of the portal, there the vast domed body of the UFO.

That wasn't the only reassuring sight to be found here, though. It took a minute or so for Dipper to realize that his view on the scenery seemed a tiny bit taller than usual and that his clothes weren't quite as loose and baggy as they'd been for most of the day, but eventually he happened to look down at himself and realize the truth: he was twelve again!

Of course, this was probably just the magic of the mindscape working in his favour; back in the real world, he'd still be a five-year-old, but it was nice to be his proper age again, if only for a little while.

However, there was one thing missing from this picture…

"Lorraine?" he called out. "Where are you?"

There was a pause, and then from the ramshackle front door of the mindscape across the road, a figure suddenly appeared; Dipper knew at once that it had to be Lorraine, but as she stepped into view, he found himself gawping in astonishment at the sight of her: she couldn't be much older than fifteen or sixteen, for she had taken the form of the teenage version of her that he'd seen during his first visit to her memories – the one that had reminded him so much of Wendy.

Young Lorraine looked around in mild confusion. "Where are we?" she asked, her voice eerily calm considering the situation they'd just escaped from. "I think I've been here before, but… it seems different somehow."

"We're inside our mindscapes," Dipper explained. "Right now, we're communicating through a psychic link; I thought this might be our only chance to talk before we lose consciousness and Auldman brainwashes us all the way."

Lorraine blinked. "Oh," she said flatly. "That's nice."

"…are you okay?"

"Hmm. Absolutely peachy." She looked the Mystery Shack up and down, a brief smile brightening her face. "This is your mind? It's… kind of nice."

Strange as it seemed, Dipper actually found this somewhat understandable: from what he could recall of his last trip through her mind, most of the places she'd been to over the course of her life had been pretty miserable; Solomon Island had been a grim place to grow up even before the Fog had arrived, and her career had seemed to consist of murdering people in gloomy parking garages. Even her mind was a sorry place to stay, especially with the Bogeyman's spectral image haunting the corridors of the Mindscape and the Bee trying to get through to her.

Next to this, his memories of Gravity Falls would look like a vision of paradise.

"But why do you look like a kid?" he asked. "Are you from one of your earlier memories? I mean, I've never seen people leave their own memories and dreams so they can go wandering around the Mindscape, but I haven't used this spell before, so maybe it's just-"

Lorraine shrugged. "This is how I've always looked – at least to myself. You can ascribe something deep and meaningful to that if you like, but to me, it's just a fact: this is just how I see myself… when I don't see myself as the Witch, of course."

Dipper's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. He'd heard her use that name before, back towards the tail-end of Lorraine's most painful memories. But he couldn't afford to think about that now. He needed to get right to the point… and that meant getting the most unpleasant confessions out of the way ASAP.

"Lorraine, I'm gonna need you to focus on what I'm telling you: hopefully, Auldman's brainwashing doesn't work in here and you can actually see me as I really am. I'm not really your son, okay? I'm not Callum."

If Lorraine was in any way shocked or upset by this revelation, she showed no sign of it.

"My name is Dipper Pines. I'm from Gravity Falls, Oregon… in another world. I'm from another dimension," he added unnecessarily.

Yet again, Lorraine appeared to accept this without so much as a ripple of surprise, her expression remaining completely blasé.

"You've already met my sister Mabel and my Great Uncle Stanley. The only reason why I looked like Callum when we first met was because the Bogeyman was playing with your head. He's trying to make you repeat what happened that night at the park with Callum, trying to make you feel as much despair as possible so it can unlock the Gaia Engine and turn him into a god or something."

There was a pause, as Lorraine once again completely failed to react to what should have been an earth-shattering reveal.

Dipper sighed; this was the part of the discussion he hadn't been looking forward to, but right now, it was unavoidable. He needed to be honest; maybe, if he could make Lorraine understand, he might be able to break the Bogeyman's influence over her, or If Lorraine didn't see him as her son, Auldman wouldn't get the dose of despair he was hoping for. It was a long shot, but right now it was all he could think of.

"Callum's dead, Lorraine," he said. "He's been dead for thirty years, and he never really came back to life; that was just me seen through the brainwashing. And I lied to you: I let you think I was Callum, and I snuck into your brain so I could look for a way of fixing you when I didn't need to fix you, and I spent most of the first few hours thinking you were out of your mind, and I just want you to know I'm very, very sorry-"

"It doesn't matter," said Lorraine, her tone flat and unemotional.

"Wha- of course it matters! I made a stupid, thoughtless mistake, and I only ended up making things even worse, and-"

Without saying a word, Lorraine reached out and very gently put a hand over Dipper's mouth, instantly silencing him.

"I know," she said softly. "And like I said, it doesn't matter: I already know that you're not Callum. Deep down, I think I've always known – I just haven't been able to consciously acknowledge it up until now… but in here, this deep inside our minds, there's no illusions. You can't lie to yourself, not really – and that's what the Bogeyman's trick depended on, wasn't it? I wanted to be fooled; I wanted to see Callum again, and I'd have accepted any compromise to get it, even if it meant living a lie. So, when you get right down to it… it's still my fault that this worked in the first place, and you lying to me was just a drop in the ocean."

She took her hand away from his mouth, once again not showing a flicker of emotion. Frankly, Dipper would have felt a lot better if she was screaming at the top of her lungs and sobbing waterfalls; if nothing else, it would at least have been a sign that Dipper had gotten through to her – or at the very least, that she might be willing to confront the problem at hand.

"I think you should go now, Dipper," she said, her voice a deathly whisper. "You've said all you've needed to."

"No, I haven't!" Dipper all but exploded. "We need to figure out a way to stop the Bogeyman before he finishes setting up the next round of brainwashing, or we're both as good as dead: he'll make you kill me, and he'll probably kill you as well once he's gotten everything he wants out of you! We need to think of something that can break his machines, find some way of undoing his control long enough to stick a banana in the tailpipe or something-"

"Why?"

Dipper briefly floundered. "I… what? What?! What do you mean 'why?' We're going to die, Lorraine, and if Auldman Northwest – or Nathaniel Winter, or the Old Man, or the Bogeyman, or whatever you want to call him – if he gets his way, he'll take over the world and spend the rest of eternity doing horrible things to people!"

"It probably won't go the way he plans, Dipper. But that's beside the point: why try fighting back when he's already won? Why bother doing anything when there's no point?"

Dipper's heart sank. Too late, he realized why Lorraine had sounded so toneless over the last couple of minutes; this was going to be just like that time Mabel had lost all hope and started bashing her head against that totem pole, only worse. Hopefully, this wasn't a problem that could only be solved through time travel, because the time police probably didn't exist in this universe; then again, it wasn't as if he had any idea of how to comfort someone who'd been forced to kill their only son, so it wasn't as if trying to talk Lorraine down wasn't going to be easier than finding a time machine… but right now, the only other option was to admit defeat and everything that went with it.

"If this is what the Bogeyman said about you and Callum," he began, "then you really need to stop listening: he lies, Lorraine – he's been lying to just about everyone he's ever met, as far as I can tell. And yeah, I haven't seen all of your memories, but I know for a fact that you'd never murder Callum of your own free will. Um, I admit you weren't a perfect mom; you made plenty of mistakes, but that doesn't make you responsible for his death-"

"Why do you think Callum was hanging around outside a condemned amusement park in the first place, Dipper? He was trying to get away from me; he couldn't stand my habits any longer – the drinking, the antidepressants, the dark moments, the sudden rages – he just couldn't deal with it a second longer and he had to get away from me for a little while, and I didn't notice until I'd sobered up and I realized that he wasn't in his bedroom. That was how the Bogeyman snatched him up in the first place: Callum wouldn't have been in that position if I'd been a proper mother to him… so in the end, it is my fault."

"Look, you made mistakes, Lorraine, but so what? Everyone makes mistakes! That doesn't make you a murderer-"

"Wrong again," Lorraine sighed. "You're trying to talk me down from a ledge, Dipper, and you have no idea who you're trying to save. I know for a fact that you didn't see all my memories – not the ones I try to keep myself from remembering, at any rate. If you did, you'd have given up on me a long time ago. You need to see the truth…"

She snapped her fingers – and suddenly, with barely a flicker of transition, they were standing right in the bowels of Lorraine's psyche, deep in the labyrinth of passageways that made up her memories. Dipper could tell from the barred doors around them that they'd emerged in the restricted section, but for some reason, the one directly ahead of him was now open.

"This is how it happens," Lorraine whispered. "Every time I go to sleep, I relive this moment and every moment leading up to it from the moment I set foot in the park for the last time. In my heart and mind, I always return to Atlantic Island Park... and I always will."

She made no move to enter, but merely held the door open for him, bidding him to step inside… and though every instinct in his brain was telling him that this was a bad idea, Dipper found himself tentatively stepping into the waiting memory.

As expected, he found himself back in the House of Horror's basement; though it was thirty years in the past, nothing about it had changed… except now there was a different figure on the slab: Callum – the real Callum – was lying unconscious on his back, looking for all the world like he was taking a nap. Dressed in his favourite "Tentacled Avenger" T-Shirt and sweatpants, he might have looked like he was in the middle of a very unusual sleepover… if it hadn't been for the missing shoe and the subtle tears in his right-hand sleeve.

Moments later, 1980s-era Lorraine came hurtling down the stairs, covered in dust, wreathed in cobwebs, and seemingly on the verge of hysteria. "Callum!" she all but screamed. "Callum!" Skidding to a halt right next to the slab, she frantically checked his pulse, almost collapsing with relief as she realized that Callum was alive and unharmed. She took a moment to get her breath back, absently wiping sweat from her brow as she did so; then, she reached out to gather Callum into her arms.

Then, without warning, the Bogeyman was standing behind her, the lone finger of his right hand creeping across Lorraine's wrist, gleefully tracing patterns across the tattoo. Lorraine didn't seem to notice he was there, even though the nail of his finger looked sharp enough to draw blood at the slightest touch. In fact, her eyes seemed to be fixed on her hand… and the fact that there was now an icepick clutched in it.

Like a puppeteer at the controls of a marionette, the Bogeyman raised his mismatched hands – and Lorraine's arms followed entirely of their own accord. Unable to resist, all Lorraine could do was follow the Bogeyman's directions, slowly bringing the icepick through the air – towards Callum – her eyes wide and uncomprehending, her expression a mask of terror and disbelief.

The icepick finally stopped directly over Callum's heart, Lorraine's hands shaking as the Bogeyman finished manoeuvring her into position. For a moment, he held her there, his slobbery grin quivering with perverse delight as he surveyed the scene; then, without a word, he released her and stepped back into the shadows of the basement, spreading his arms wide as if to say "ta-dah!"

For a split-second, Lorraine stood there, holding the icepick and staring down at Callum's slumbering form as if not knowing what to do next.

Then, a flurry of text rippled in and out of existence around her, her thoughts once again being transposed on the mindscape. Dipper didn't have a chance to read most of it, but a few sentences stood out:

HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU

LITTLE LIFE-SUCKING MONSTERS

YOU HATE ME ANYWAY

HE OWES ME EVERYTHING

NOTHING EVER GOT ANY BETTER AFTER YOUR FATHER DIED

IT WOULD SERVE THE LITTLE FUCK RIGHT

HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE

Suddenly, Lorraine's face was a mask of hatred, her pallid features curling into a bestial, rage-distorted snarl… and as if she had finally remembered that the icepick was still in her hands, she brought it down with a furious lunge, burying it up to the hilt in Callum's chest.

Dipper immediately slammed his eyes shut, but he could still hear the awful thudding, ripping, crunching sounds of the icepick tearing through flesh and bone, heard Lorraine snarling incoherently, and heard the faint patter of Callum's feet drumming back and forth on the slab. He wasn't screaming, though, and that somehow made things even worse. For ten horrible seconds, all he could do was stand there, eyes clenched shut, letting those awful sounds wash over him until silence finally blossomed across the room again.

When he finally opened his eyes again, Lorraine was staggering back from the slab, the icepick falling from her bloodstreaked hands as she finally came to her senses. For a moment, all she could do was stare down at her hands, as if unable to believe what she'd just done; then she rushed over to Callum's side, clearly hoping that it wasn't too late to save him – but a quick glance confirmed that it was already too late. Callum wasn't dead yet, but even if Lorraine hadn't torn his heart open or puncture a lung, he was bleeding out very rapidly, his breathing now reduced to a faltering procession of wheezing gasps.

The dying child looked up at Lorraine – not with horror or sorrow or even pain, but puzzlement, as if he'd just seen something mildly confusing. Then, learning upwards ever so slightly despite his wounds, he whispered a single sentence into his mother's ear:

"Emma… wants… her… teddy bear."

Then Callum was slumping back onto the slab, his final words lost in a sickening procession of bubbling gurgles as he slowly drowned in his own blood. And in the midst of it all, Lorraine began to scream – a bloodcurdling scream of horror, grief, self-loathing, and madness as the awful reality of what she'd just done crashed in on her all at once.

And then Dipper turned and ran, out of the memory, away from the awful, awful sight, and didn't stop until he finally crashed into Lorraine's dream-self – still standing outside in the corridor.

"So now you know," she said quietly. "Now you know what kind of a person I am, and now you know why there's no saving me. I thought I could be a good mother, once upon a time, back when I was reading Hansel and Gretel to Callum whenever the power was switched off; I never thought I'd be like the woodcutter's wife in the story… but I was. And I never wanted to be the Witch… but I am."

For a split-second, Lorraine was an adult, her face contorted into a hideous, cackling gap, her teeth filed into points, her eyes pitch-black and weeping tears of blood, until she was almost identical to the ghastly face of the House of Horrors – the Witch as Nathaniel Winter had designed it.

Then, she was herself again: small, spindly, older than she looked, her eyes lifeless as glass marbles.

"Well, now you know," she said. "Now you understand why there's no point fighting back."


"What do you mean 'it's up to us?' Ford, who the hell is this guy, why is he a floating TV screen, and what are we doing standing around playing Max Headroom when lives are at stake?!"

"His name is Bob, and I suggest we leave it at that."

There was a pause, as Bob's hovering drone made a few slight adjustments to its transmission, widened its broadcasting monitor, and tried again. "I have located your nephew, Mr Pines," said Bob tersely. "Say thank you, magic man. More importantly, you are currently the only forces I can spare to retrieve him… because you are the only ones who might be able to resist the effects."

"The effects of what?"

"The effects of emotional siphoning. You've both been exposed to psychic manipulation before, yes? Answer truthfully or not, I don't give a shit, I'll find out either way."

"He means we've both had Bill Cipher playing around inside our heads," said Ford helpfully.

"Yes, that's true-"

"Then it is quite literally all up to you. And me." The tiny blue triangle on the monitor briefly flickered with static, a buzz of microphone feedback tearing through the speakers like enraged hornets. "Because that chinless kittenfucker over in Atlantic Island Park has opened Pandora's Fucking Box and he's dropped trou and curled a massive steamer into it just for shits and giggles."

Ford blinked. "Okay, now I'm lost. What are you talking about?"

"The bug on Dipper's clothing is now paying dividends: I know that the Bogeyman residing in Atlantic Island is none other than Auldman Northwest, the brat I thought I let drown in a river a century ago."

"WHAT?"

"Did I stutter? This was in the days before the Internet and surveillance drones, not to mention little things like DNA testing, otherwise I'd have found out that Northwest had become Winter and snuffed him out early… but unfortunately, the little bastard slipped the net by vanishing prior to the 21st century. Epic fail. And now the rat motherfucker is planning his own route to godhood using Lorraine and Dipper as human sacrifices."

Stan executed a near-perfect double-take. "Wait, WHAT?!"

"You see why I need your help, don't you? I can't use my own magic against him; inside that pocket reality, he's beyond my reach, and even if I could get a drone close enough to access it, there's no telling what might happen when my powers interact with the harvesting machines. If I send any of my troops into that hellhole, they'll be murdering each other within a matter of minutes… but if send you two in, you might just be able to resist the emotional siphoning long enough to make a difference. This is your mission, should you choose to accept it."

"And you literally can't do anything? You haven't got enough drones to rescue Dipper?"

"Drones aren't resilient enough to conduct a mission of this magnitude. Ideally, I should be using the Bees, but all our operatives are still tied up with the mission to Tokyo and they won't be able to get here in time to stop Northwest. It's up to you, kid."

"Well, there has to be something better to do than to just send us in without backup against… whatever Auldman Northwest is. I mean, haven't you got a plan B if this doesn't work?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," said Bob, ever-so-slightly coy. "If this doesn't work out, I'm going to nuke this island. You have no chance to survive, make your time."

"…I'm sorry, what?"

"Believe me, Mr Pines, the only reason why I haven't done that right here and now is the fear that I might damage the Gaia Engine. The two of you are now my agents in this venture, and as much as it hurts me to potentially lose the bounty of wonderous images inside your minds, you're all I have until our operatives return from Tokyo. If you fail, then any suffering on your part will be immediately ended by a nuclear firestorm and enough radioactivity to leave Solomon Island glowing in the dark for the next century and a half. No pressure."

Stan took a deep breath. "Can I at least ask a few questions?" he said plaintively. "I mean, what's a Gaia Engine? What's Northwest trying to do? What does he need Dipper for? What's emotional siphoning?"

"I'll have to explain to you on the way," said Ford, who was already checking his pockets for useful equipment. "Bob, how soon can we get moving?"

"There's a car waiting for you out front. I suggest you get moving as quickly as possible: based on what I was able to overhear, we don't have much time before Tophat McShit begins the ritual, so explain things to your brother as quickly as possible…"


There was a pause, as Dipper struggled to collect his thoughts.

He was dimly aware that they were drifting along the corridor now, back through the memories as if they were planted on a conveyer belt leading back to the surface of Lorraine's mindscape, but his own thoughts were elsewhere. All he could think of was that horrible, guilt-ridden scream, the sickening thud of blades through flesh, and those strange, slightly-bewildered last words.

"But… but you were being controlled," he said at last, trying to sound more certain than he was. "You can't be blamed, not really: you were being siphoned, just like I was. You didn't have a say in what was going on – not after what the siphons did to you. Even the idea of the Witch – that was something Northwest put in your head. No matter what way you look at it, it was still the Bogeyman's fault-"

"It was my hatred, Dipper. The Bogeyman might have given me the icepick and pushed me into position, but he didn't put those thoughts in my head; the siphons can't make you feel anything that you haven't already felt at some point, even if those emotions are buried so deep that you'll never be able to consciously acknowledge them. And that's why I know that I'm a failure as a mother and always have been, because the Bogeyman's game wouldn't have worked unless I was a neurotic, drunken, depressive mess who had no business being a parent in the first place. I mean, what kind of a mother has those thoughts, even for a moment? What kind of a monster could… could…"

Her face quivered, and for a moment, she looked as if she was about to cry.

"That's why there's no point," she said at last.

"In what?"

"In anything. If you've seen my memories, you'll know what I was trying to do when I handed myself over to the police: I wanted to die, Dipper. I wanted to get what I deserved more than anything else in the world, and the Council stole that from me and gave me-"

An earsplitting shriek tore through the corridors, a howl of raw, undiluted agony combining the sounds of nails on a chalkboard and an airhorn being blasted directly into an undefended ear, all of it rippling through the hallways of Lorraine's mind like a gale-force wind. Dipper only felt the touch of the screaming breeze for a second or two, but that was enough: the sound was bad, but the sensation of the wave against his skin felt like someone was driving white-hot needles up his spine and into his skull.

"What was that?" Dipper gasped.

"That was the Bee: that's what it feels like on my end whenever it gets upset. Turns out implanting a supernatural entity into a human vessel against its consent has side-effects, most commonly those cluster headache-like pains. That was what first drove me to it, you see: after I was first bonded – and once the pain inside my head had stopped long enough for the doctors to give me a recuperation period – I tried to…"

A door to Dipper's left snapped open, and he caught a blood-curdling glimpse of past-Lorraine lying on the floor of a shower – fully clothed, soaking wet, and bleeding heavily: she'd slashed her arms open, long vertical cuts running from her wrists to her elbows, both gushing blood across the grey bathroom tiles around her.

"It didn't take," Lorraine sighed, slamming the door shut. "I just woke up again a few minutes later. No matter what I tried, no matter what monsters the Council pitted me against, I just couldn't die… and the Bee inside me only screamed louder for every single failed attempt and the pain only got worse."

Once again, a clue that had been stored away in the back of Dipper's head suddenly went off like a firework. "That's why you were asking Utterson about methods of killing Bees," he realized aloud.

In spite of herself, Lorraine actually managed a bitter laugh. "Of course, he wouldn't actually tell me the precise means; he wasn't that stupid. But it was enough to put me on the right path… and eventually, I learned the secret of Sparagmos. I turned my nightmares into a blade and used them to cut the Bee inside me apart, one dream at a time; it was a long journey, beginning in the 90s and taking me all over the world in search of the places of power where my dreams could be properly empowered. Not all the places I found worked; the Sasquatch tree rejected me, and Stonehenge got too violent for me to even find a moment to sleep, so I had go back to hunting through war zones and backwaters for anything that could give me the peace I sought…"

She almost smiled for a minute, as if briefly recalling a happy memory. "Eventually, my suicide attempts started to take hold. The minutes before the spirit world spat me back out again got longer and longer, until I almost died permanently… and eventually, I found myself mortal again, with no powers, and no hope of resurrection – or so I thought. But still, I prepared myself for the worst: I used mortal sorcery, planted an image of myself elsewhere to throw off any pursuers, even armed my spirit as best as I could. Then I booked myself a room at Tabula Rasa in London…"

A door to their right snapped open, and as they drifted slowly past, Dipper saw Lorraine's past self stepping through the lobby of an impossible hotel – a hotel where the ceiling of the concourse was an infinite night sky, and the rooms were enchanted cubes that hovered endlessly across it (finally, Dipper recognized the unfamiliar cube shape that had appeared in the background of the mindscape). Stepping into one of the rooms just as it began to ascend, Lorraine locked the door tight behind her, sat down on the bed, and drew a razor from her pocket-

Dipper looked away.

And then he heard Lorraine's voice, echoing up from another door across from him:

"This was the only dream I really wanted. They offered me Gaia and I took her because I didn't have a choice. But she chips, she chips away at us. Can't you feel it? Don't you feel what she's taking from you? You can't feel it, can you? You don't even know."

Lorraine's past incarnation took a deep breath.

"And now you're going to bring me back," she said quietly. "I don't want to go. I don't want to be back there. This was the only way."

The rest of her monologue was lost in a hail of gunfire and screams.

"What happened?" Dipper asked.

"My fellow members of Gaia's Chosen happened," present Lorraine snarled. "They followed me through every single one of my nightmares, retrieved all the bits of the Bee I'd carved off, even tracked me down to my dying dream and – once they'd finished fighting my ghost into submission – put the pieces back together again… and the Council's work held true: the damn Bee was forced right back into my body, and I woke up in a morgue. I tried and tried and tried to repeat the trick, but no matter how many times I got it to work, Gaia's Chosen were always there to undo my work. So, I gave up… and I went back to Solomon Island for my one last throw of the dice. That was where you met me, Dipper."

"You mean, that ritual at the Overlook Motel? That was a suicide attempt?"

"In a way. You saw my memories of the last investigation into that place: once I realized that there was a portal to the Hell Dimensions opened, I realized that if I couldn't rest in peace, then at least I could make sure that justice was done. It wasn't easy, but eventually I managed to rework Theodore Wicker's ritual to allow myself to remain on the other side of the veil permanently."

Dipper's jaw very slowly thundered open in shock. "…You were trying to send yourself to Hell?!"

"Since nobody had ever found a way of stopping the Bogeyman and nobody would hold me accountable for the crime, it seemed like the nearest thing to justice Callum would ever get."

"But… Hell? It's been a while since we talked about religion in school, but… doesn't God decide who goes to Hell?"

"It doesn't work that way, Dipper. Gaia is the god with a capital G in this reality, and she doesn't handle the damnation of sinners; she doesn't do anything except keep the world running smoothly, make the flowers blossom on time, and try to keep her favourite children from facing extinction… for what little it's worth. In fact, most people who end up in the Hell Dimensions end up there because the locals got lucky and were able to snag their souls on their way to better places, or because they were stupid enough to try to bargain with the Hellspawn. And that's exactly why I knew I'd be perfect for them."

Another door creaked open, and Dipper could only cringe as he found himself looking back on the vision of Hell that Lorraine had witnessed during her first visit to the Overlook.

"The Hell Dimensions are a desperate, starving place," Lorraine explained. "They were an experimental prototype, the first draft of the universe as imagined by the angels; once the Host got it right with our dimension, they abandoned Hell, cut it off from the life force of the cosmos and left it to rot. With no other way to survive, the Hellspawn were forced to steal whatever souls they could reach from within their prison… or prostitute themselves to human wizards; see, anyone who sells their soul to the Devil is really sacrificing their Anima to a starving mob of desperate scavengers. With the Anima-channelling Bee still in place, I'd be able to keep them fed for centuries, maybe for thousands of years, but the ordeal would end eventually – and with my soul devoured, there'd be no chance of me waking up elsewhere ever again."

"But that didn't work either, did it?"

"Unfortunately, yes. My attempt at a modified ritual failed. And now, I'm right back right at the start of the nightmare, hoping that this round, the Bogeyman kills me as well – and can make it stick this time."

Dipper tried to summon up a thimbleful of outrage, to make himself at least halfway angry at Lorraine's failure to act, but by now he was so worn-out by all the horrible things he'd just witnessed that the most he could manage was a tone that – if you were feeling charitable – might have sounded mildly annoyed.

"You're not even going to try to save the world, then? Lorraine, I don't know if I'm up to showing you my memories, but I've seen apocalypses before: back in my home dimension, I actually got to see what a total collapse of reality could be like when Bill Cipher took over Gravity Falls, and it was one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen in my life – time breaking down, bubbles of pure madness, demons walking the streets, people being petrified and being used to build a throne for Bill… and yeah, he didn't even get a chance to spread it to the rest of the world before he died, but that was bad enough! If Auldman Northwest gets his way, we are in R.E.M. territory: it will literally be the end of the world as we know it, and millions of people just like you and Callum will suffer, die, and worse. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Lorraine gave him a pitying look. "Like I said, it probably won't turn out the way he thinks it will. Northwest isn't the first man in the world to get within inches of chaining the Dreamers to his will, and the last time someone tried, it went very badly."

"…how badly?"

"The world ended."

"What."

"The Dreamer woke up in the middle of the process. It was only awake for a few minutes, and it didn't have a chance to wake up any of the others, but it brought about the apocalypse all the same; the stars burned, humanity died off, and the universe was damaged beyond repair. Only Gaia remained, critically damaged but still alive enough to resort to her usual routine."

She paused for effect, and then continued: "Then the Gaia Engines kicked into gear and reset the universe to factory settings, just like they did in every single world-ending disaster beforehand. And that was the end of the Third Age and the beginning of the Fourth."

"How do you know that?"

"I met some very strange people in my search for Sparagmos, Dipper. One of them tried to recruit me for some Prometheus Initiative, and eventually admitted to witnessing the end of the Third Age firsthand – had actually caused it, if you can believe it. Now, that was just from an attempt to command a Dreamer outside the limitations of the Gaia Engine, and it was being attempted by two of the greatest intellects in the known universe: they were being careful, they were being clever, and they were aided by Third-Age technology in its prime… and the Dreamer woke up anyway."

Lorraine gave Dipper a sad, sickly-looking smile entirely without levity or warmth.

"Now think of the man trying the same thing this time around. Auldman Northwest isn't the best or the brightest, he's using prototype thaumaturgical tech without the instruction manual, and he's not interested in being careful. Tell me, how do you think the Dreamer under Solomon Island will react when it wakes up this time… and finds that Auldman Northwest is trying to steal its powers – not just harness them, but actually take its power away and infuse himself with it?"

"You're saying it'll try to fight him?"

"Best-case scenario, it'll simply crush Northwest like a bug, wake up the rest of the Dreamers, destroy the planet, and then devour every last star in the sky before moving on to some other galaxy. And that's if we're lucky; if we aren't so fortunate, then Northwest might just be able to steal enough power to get into a tug-of-war with the Dreamer, and the two of them will probably end up destroying most of the universe and each other in the process. So, it'll be an apocalypse ether way you slice it… but it won't be the kind the Bogeyman wants."

"Then how are you so calm?" roared Dipper. "Why doesn't this matter to you? You're talking about the end of everything! We could at least try to stop it, Lorraine: if you're immune to the brainwashing in here, then maybe you could undo whatever Auldman's been doing with your conscious mind, free us both. Then, once he's been taken care of and we've saved the world, we can shut down Utterson, get you out of Council service, maybe even find a way to remove your Bee. Doesn't that stir anything in you?"

Lorraine gave him a pitying look. "You really think I can get justice for what was done to me in a world ruled by secret societies and corrupt institutions?"

"It's worth a try at least."

"And do you think I even deserve justice, after all the horrible things I've done? Do you think I deserve to be happy?"

Dipper took a deep breath; this was going to push his powers of persuasion to their very limits, and it was probably going to result in him confronting his own guilt over everything he'd said and done so far in this universe, but he had to try. The alternative would be worse than Weirdmageddon. Besides, even if he was more like Grunkle Ford than Grunkle Stan, he'd managed to talk his way through some dark moments: Pacifica had listened when she'd believed that she was just another link in the world's worst chain; Mabel had listened when it seemed that she'd given up on reality altogether; why couldn't he talk Lorraine out of her despair?

"If you're not going to listen to me about how it wasn't your fault, then listen to this," he said solemnly. "I wouldn't wish what you've suffered on my worst enemy: nobody deserves what happened to you, and after thirty years of pain, I'd say you've more than paid for your crime – if you can call it that. You're not a monster, Lorraine: you're a victim of this place, just like me, just like Callum, just like everyone the Bogeyman's lured in since it opened; it doesn't matter if you had all those emotions deep down in you – I mean, you heard what Auldman said about me when we were talking, right? What matter is what you do now that you've got a second chance: Northwest thinks he's going to replay everything that happened that day, right up until the moment you kill Callum. Well, no matter how hopeless things looks, there's always a chance to set things right. This is the moment when you get to prove Auldman Northwest wrong. This is when you can turn the tables on him and prove that he was wrong about you, that you're better than him. And once we're out of here, you can go home a hero – because you saved the world and you proved that you deserve good things in your life."

For perhaps fifteen seconds, there was silence as the corridors blurred around them, and in that silence, Dipper was certain that he'd gotten through to her at long last – that this would be the moment the tide turned.

And then Lorraine turned to him with that sad smile on her face and asked, "So what happens when the Dreamers wake up anyway?"

"…by 'when,' you mean 'if', right?"

"I'm sorry, kiddo."

Dipper sagged like a deflating balloon. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"I've been one of Gaia's Chosen for more than thirty years, and everything I've seen in the field since I was first imbued is just another bit of evidence adding up to the same inevitable conclusion: if the Gaia Engines are leaking Filth, then they can't hold back the Dreamers for much longer, and they can't restore the world to factory settings anymore. All over the world, the Filth is spreading, aided by those who worship the Dreamers and those they've duped into serving them: a cloud of airborne Filth shrouding Solomon Island, the return of the Black Pharoah in Egypt, a Gaia Engine being unearthed in Romania, and a doomsday cult detonating a Filth bomb on the Tokyo subways – the rise of the Black Signal! And now, there's Filth in Agartha – the one place on Earth that should be safe from the Dreamers' influence."

"What does all that mean, though?"

"Gaia is dying, Dipper. God is dying, and when she goes, we go. It's a race to see whether the Filth consumes the divine biocomputer from the inside-out, or if the Dreamers are released from captivity, but either way, the end is so nigh it hurts. Soon – maybe a month, maybe a year – the Dreamers will be all that's left, and once they're finished eating the stars, they'll leave without ever looking back… and the only monument to our passing will be a dead universe studded with the corpses of planets and the fading ghosts of black holes."

Lorraine sighed, wiping away a few errant tears as she did so. "And I know it sounds selfish, but maybe that's the only way I'll finally be able to die. And if you think about it, maybe it's the nearest thing to mercy that this universe will ever get to experience."

"…what?"

"Think about it: the world as we know is just a patchwork of empires owned by secret societies who don't give a damn about the people who get oppressed or hurt or killed in the power struggles; the only thing keeping them in line is the Council, and it barely has the power to do that; in the contested areas, monsters prey on humans, humans prey on the peaceful, and the peaceful become monsters. As for Gaia, she was only ever programmed to keep things on an even keel, and her creators don't care enough to fix anything – they're still too busy arguing about whether they should do nothing or exploit Gaia to her last breath. And if the world's had a death sentence hanging over it since the beginning and nobody's allowed the apocalypse to stick for the last three Ages, maybe it's better if we just let nature take its course. Let it die peacefully. Let the suffering end."

"So that's it?" said Dipper. "You're just giving up on the entire planet? Just because everything seems hopeless right now?"

Lorraine sighed deeply. "I've been swimming against the current my entire life. Every day, I've been trying to keep my head above water, trying to do something halfway worthwhile despite everything this world threw at me. When I was still on speaking terms with Don's ghost, he kept telling me that "every day will be a little better than the last," and for a while, I forced myself to believe him; you might not believe it, but I actually tried to do a little good when I was working for the Council, tried to save a few people here and there. But it wasn't to be. Saving people isn't on Venice's agenda, not when there's laws to abide by and a status quo to cling to, not when we're constantly worrying about how the Illuminati will construe any missed step as a sign of weakness to pounce on. And all that struggling, even if it's for something as simple as suicide… well, it wears you down. So, I'm not giving up just now, Dipper: I've been giving up for years, bit by bit, every year a little more hopeless. Right now, I'm no longer swimming against the current; I'm not even trying to sink to the bottom now, because I'll probably just bob to the surface again. I'm just letting the river take me where it will… because I know that soon, it'll all be over."

"But-"

Once again, Lorraine reached out and gently put a hand over Dipper's mouth. "There's nothing you can say or do that can change my mind, kiddo. Even if either of us stood a chance against Northwest, there'd be no point in trying to recover our lives; you're still trapped in our world by the looks of things, I'm still a horrible person, and neither of us will have a chance to set things right because the Dreamers will soon awaken and render it all pointless. And that's why I'm not going to fight the brainwashing; I know what happens when you try to resist the process… and by now, I know it's easier just to give Auldman what he wants – because sooner or later, he'll get it anyway. At least this way, there won't be pain anymore."

She took a deep breath, and then stepped away from him, sliding almost imperceptibly backwards into the darkness of the corridor network. "You should go now," she said softly. "I'm pretty sure Auldman will kick you out of my mind if he catches you; the ritual's due to begin within the hour, and he'll want both of us properly brainwashed by then… so I guess this is the only real goodbye we'll get."

In spite of herself, Lorraine smiled. "If it makes you feel any better, it'll only hurt for a moment. And for what it's worth, Dipper, I'm glad you lied to me. It was nice to pretend to be a good person for a little while. And it was nice to feel hope again… even if it did turn out to be for nothing."

Then she was gone.

For a moment, Dipper could only stand there, paralysed with indecision, wondering what the hell he could possibly do next.

Then, he remembered Callum's last words.

"Emma wants her teddy bear."

What could that mean?

It could just be the kind of random, nonsensical thought that sprung to mind in the moments before you died… but on the other hand, Utterson had mentioned that Lorraine had possessed some psychic ability before being bonded with the Bee – it was what had allowed her to the ghosts haunting her house, after all. What if Callum had inherited that? Maybe he'd seen the future, or the past, or something else important enough to tell Lorraine about in his final moments.

So, who was Emma?

And why did Dipper get the feeling that he'd heard that name before, maybe in one of Lorraine's earlier memories-

But no sooner had he tried to remember, something was drawing him away, out of the unearthly reality of the Mindscape and back into the real world. For the briefest of moments, he felt fear as he found himself back on the concrete slab once again, with the ritual now barely an hour away.

Then, he sneezed - and for a heartbeat, he had an impression of golden light and the sound of thousands of Bees rumbling in chorus, and wondered if his allergies were synching up again.

Then he felt Lorraine's arms around him, and he was ignorant of everything and anything other than the deep, childish sense of calm now pouring through his brains…


A/N: Feel free to let me know your theories as to what will happen next :)

For everyone else... there's the code:

Uork gsv Pmrtsg Lu Xfkh
Hsv dzh lmxv z Ullo. Kviszkh hsv hgroo rh.
Dv'ev trevm svi zoo dv xzm ztzrmhg gsv Svinrg.
Z tfrwv gszg dzh z dzhk zmw z kizbvi gszg gzhgvh lu slmvb.
Mld, hsv nfhg kozb svi kzig -
zolmthrwv gsv gsv Nztrxrzmh zmw gsv Ullo
Hlnvlmv nfhg xfg gsv mllhv
Gsviv ziv lgsvi dzbh lu ovggrmt tl