"Ow" Dipper grumbled as the windowpane swung down and cracked across his skull,
"Shit, sorry" Wybie said with a wince, going back to the window and holding it open wide so that the other teen could climb into the room,
"Thanks" he replied as he found his footing in the bedroom, his hand rubbing his cap sorely against his battered scalp.
Wybie wasn't proud of it, but guessing that Mel probably wouldn't let him back into Coraline's room in a hurry, let alone with Dipper at his side, he had instead suggested that they go around the side of the Pink Palace, and 'let themselves into her room'. That was a less illegal sounding way of saying that they would climb through her window.
"Where did you look?" Dipper asked, glancing about the room,
"Eh, just the wardrobe really" he replied, "I only had ten minutes"
"Right" the other teen nodded, "Do you know where she hides stuff?" he suggested, absentmindedly flicking a windchime hanging by the window, making it twinkle with sound.
Wybie quickly reached out and grabbed hold of the chimes, so that their music ceased suddenly, "We've got to be quiet" he whispered, "Charlie's office is downstairs",
Dipper nodded his understanding and started into the room, stooping to look under the desk and at the lower shelves, "What're we looking for?" he asked after a few moments, now flipping though some stacked books.
"I don't know, you're the one who knows about weird stuff" Wybie answered, opening one of the window seats to find it filled with old toys,
"Weird stuff is a given in Coraline's room" he said with a shrug, pointedly frowning at some of the statuettes she had received from Norman.
"Suspicious stuff then" he nearly snapped in response,
"Sorry" Dipper sighed, "I'm just still having a hard time taking this seriously, or you know, caring"
"I know, but it would mean a lot to me if you were a little more concerned at least"
"Honestly I'm struggling to figure out why you care so much, if you hadn't noticed, Coraline can be, well- a nasty bitch sometimes-" he said with a grimace, "-even to you"
Wybie frowned, he was of course, completely right.
"Yes, I know that, but she's still our friend"
"Debatable" Dipper added, opening a desk draw and staring down into it,
"She is" he replied, "Whether you admit it or not, she is still your friend"
The other teenager shrugged softly, "I guess, she's just a bad friend, on occasion"
"Just because friends can be difficult sometimes, doesn't mean you give up on them" Wybie was now finishing with the last of the three window seats, annoyed that he'd found nothing out of the ordinary, but thankful at least that he hadn't stumble onto anymore underwear, or indeed anything that would cause more concern for her wellbeing.
"Hmm" was Dipper's reply as he gave anther glance to the shelves he had already searched, "Nothing is screaming 'suspicious' to me, how about you?" he asked, sliding his hands back into his jeans pockets,
"No" the other replied with a sigh.
"Then I'm not sure why I'm here" Dipper shrugged, ambling back over to the taller teen and pivoting impatiently on his heels,
"Maybe we're just not looking in the right places" Wybie replied, shaking his head, "Where else would she go? Where else is simpatico?"
"What's that?"
"'Simpatico'? Like friendly to, or compatible" he explained,
"No, what's that?" he repeated, pointing towards the bed.
The other followed his hand and spotted a dark purplish, sort of greying blob, just poking out from under the bed, obscured by the hanging covers and the small table it was jammed against.
"It's her bag!" Wybie replied, rushing to the bed and yanking it free,
"Well that's not exactly weird, but is it odd" Dipper frowned,
"It is?"
"Yeah, I mean, she wouldn't go anywhere without it right?"
The taller of the two rolled his eyes, "Why? Because she's a girl?"
The other rolled his eyes right back, "No, because Coraline is like me, she carries about a thousand things and always has her bag" as if to prove the point, he then tugged on the strap of his own satchel, which was slung over his body, resting on his hip,
It was true, now he mentioned it, Wybie wasn't sure he'd ever seen Coraline without this old thing, except for perhaps the night before, but he had been rather distracted.
He shrugged and looked back to the bag which he had placed on the bed, "Isn't is like, rude, to through someone's bag?" he asked,
"Given the fact you're so worried, I think she'll forgive you" Dipper replied, unzipping it, "That, and we've already searched the rest of her room, her privacy has already been invaded"
"Point" he nodded, before placing one hand into the bag, grimacing as he did.
He was met with a cold, plastic surface and he lifted out the item, weighing it in hand,
"Her phone" he said, turning it over, revealing the badly cracked screen that was splattered with mud, "She definitely wouldn't go anywhere without this"
"It's pretty messed up" Dipper frowned, now reaching into the bag himself, "Wait-" he started to take out more things, "-wallet, keys, ID- you're right, this is getting weird"
Wybie wasn't glad that he was right however, he had been dreading hearing those words from the other boy.
"What else is in here?" he then asked, putting down the phone and regarding the bag once more,
There seemed to be many of the usual things, crumpled receipts, tins of lip balm, loose change and gum wrappers. However, at the bottom of the bag lay a shape he couldn't identify- it was made of fabric mostly, save for an odd, rigid core. The material was strange to the touch too, not soft or comfortable against the skin, in fact it was almost coarse. An umbrella perhaps?
Wybie took hold of the item and pulled it out, other bits and pieces tumbling out of the way as it came up.
As soon as it came into view and he recognised just what it was however, he quickly dropped it onto the bed and backed away,
"Shit"
Dipper sighed defeatedly, "It's a doll"
It was indeed a doll, a doll which held the visage of Coraline as she was now, at seventeen years of age. The doll looked worn though, old and even a little flat, as though all the stuffing had started to compact beneath the fabric,
"You know what this means don't you?" Wybie asked quietly, feeling his hands start to shake at his sides,
"Of course I do" he replied gravely, "Coraline told me what to write in the journal"
0o0o0
The ride back to the Mystery Shack was a quick one, Wybie drove way above the speed limit in the places he knew he could get away with it, and sometimes even the places he wasn't so sure about. The additional weight of Dipper gripping onto the back of the bike made it all the more dangerous, but now that they were both on the same page in regards to the seriousness of the situation, neither minded putting themselves in harm's way so much.
The corner round to the shack was quite possibly the worst part of the journey, and once the bike finally came to a stop, they were both glad to have their feet back on solid ground,
"Come on, they're in the attic" Dipper said heading for the cabin, wobbling on his first couple of steps, but then breaking into a jog,
Wybie quickly dismounted and followed him up to the porch where he was waiting, holding open the door to the gift shop.
It had been a little while since he had been in the Mystery Shack, but not a huge amount had changed,
"Oh hey dude" Soos said with a nod as they rushed past the counter, "You here to help Dipper with the holes?" he asked, leaning on the table top and watching them, "We're putting up a fence" he then added,
"I'll finish it up later Soos!" Dipper called, already half way up the first set of the stairs,
"Sorry!" Wybie added, as he too slipped through the doorway leading to the steps,
"Oh come on dudes!" Soos whined, "I got no help right now! Wendy's still on vacation!"
They were far too distracted to reply however, and by now the teenagers were almost on at the next flight of stairs leading to the attic.
The room had been converted into a permanent office and bedroom for Dipper since he had moved more definitely to Gravity Falls, while Mabel had taken Grunkle Stan's bedroom, after it had undergone a deep, deep cleaning,
These days, Stan and Ford were somewhere in the Adriatic ocean, sending postcards whenever they could.
"One, two, three and-" Dipper paused, reaching into the back of his desk cabinet, the one that was filled with nothing but his notes, "Four" he concluded, placing the journals on the desk top, "Just in case", he added with a shrug,
Journal four was of his own creation, having been started about two years earlier when journal three was fit to burst,
It also contained the page on the Beldam.
"Better start with that one actually" Wybie said taking up the thick book and turning it over, "So we have a starting point and-" he paused, frowning,
"And to make sure it is her" Dipper concluded, "We don't want to get ahead of ourselves"
"Yeah, that too" he nodded.
The page on the Beldam was fairly extensive- Coraline had always been rather resistant to talk about the events of her childhood, but after a thorough bout of persuasion by Dipper, she had told him everything she could, in the interest of never letting it happen again. That was something she couldn't stand the idea of, someone else falling victim to the Beldam, and her winning.
Wybie froze at seeing Coraline's handwriting in the margin of the page- she had added in extra notes once Dipper had done the bulk of the writing,
The ink she used was like a late-night sky in colour, and she'd done her very best to use her most perfect handwriting, with swirls and flourishes to each letter.
The images had been sketched by Dipper; there were buttons, small drawings of doors, keys and little triangles with circles in the middle of them- the lost things finder that had been provide by Spink and Forcible. Unfortunately, neither lived in the Pink Palace anymore, they had been moved to an old folk's home several miles away. At first they felt rather spurned, as though they were being cast aside by their respective families, but then at finding that they were far closer to a much larger theatre, they soon quietened down.
"I know all of this" Wybie sighed after a few moments of reading; he knew the story of Coraline and Beldam the best out of all of their friends, "I was barely involved last time, she figured it all out by herself",
"There must be something we can do" Dipper replied, "I mean, you gave Coraline the doll the first time, right?"
"Don't remind me" he groaned in response, rubbing his eyes tiredly,
"And then your grandmother told you about her sister, the little girl that Coraline had seen the ghost of?" the other continued, ignoring his self-pity,
As far as he was concerned, there was no time for that, he just wanted to understand the facts of the situation, and to lay them out one by one.
"Yes" he nodded, sighing,
"Could we go to her? Your grandmother?" Dipper suggested,
He shook his head, "She didn't know anything about the Beldam, all she knew was that one day she had a sister, and the next she was gone"
Thinking about the great-aunt he never knew always made Wybie a little sad. He knew that many people didn't know their more distant relatives such as that, but living with his grandmother for most of his life anyway, he liked to think that were she still alive, he, his grandmother and his great-aunt too would all live together.
"Hmm" the other teen said with a frown, "So then you intercepted the Beldam when she was trying to take Coraline to the well?"
"Kind of" Wybie said with a shrug, "It was her hand"
"Where is the well?" Dipper asked, reaching across his desk to take up an ordinance map of Oregon,
"You won't find it on the map" he replied, waving it away dismissively, "But I know where it is" he added.
"Care to share?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow,
"It's just up the hill from the Palace, there's a woodland path that leads to it, but it's mostly overgrown now" he said with a shrug,
"And the other entrance to the 'Other World' is in the apartment, right? Behind the little door?"
"Yeah but apart from the fact that we're not getting back into the Jones' apartment in a hurry, they've also had it covered again, by a layer of brick" Wybie said, frowning.
"So our best bet is the well?"
He raised his brow at the idea, "I guess"
"Then let's go?" Dipper said with a shrug, quickly closing the journal and starting from the room,
The other blinked and followed him out, only to be stopped once more when he got to the bottom of the stairs.
Mabel was locked in conversation with her brother, brandishing a leaflet of some kind, covered in brightly coloured text,
"Maybe" Dipper said with a wince, "I'm just kind of busy right now"
"Busy doing what bro-bro?" she frowned, pushing out her bottom lip into a pout, her expression quickly changed when she caught sight of Wybie stood behind him however, "Wybie?"
"Hey Mabel" he said with a half wave, "How are you"
"Err, good" she replied, "What're you doing here?"
"Just a quick catch up" Dipper said quickly before he could respond, "But now it's time to go, so we'll be back later, bye Mabe" he said, expertly skirting around his sister, and swiftly making his way down the set of stairs she had been blocking off.
She pouted once more and then turned back to Wybie, still looking incredibly unsure about his presence,
"It's nice to see you Mabel" he said after second, smiling what he hoped seemed to be a genuine and convincing smile,
The girl dropped her tensed shoulders and smiled back, "You too Wybie, take care" she nodded.
Wybie returned the gesture and headed the way her brother had gone, meeting him once more on the porch outside and thankfully missing Soos on the way.
He was thinking about Mabel still by the time he got there however, he couldn't help but feel guilty about everything that had happened regarding her. To put it simply, Coraline had said some more than unkind things to the Pine's twin, things that cut so deeply that even Mabel found it hard to forgive her. As the person closest to Coraline, Wybie had of course also lost contact with Mabel.
There were more present issues at hand however,
"I know we're in a rush, but maybe don't try and kill us this time?" Dipper asked as he threw Wybie's helmet to him,
The teenager caught it and nodded, "I'll try my damnedest" he nodded.
0o0o0
About half way up the hill by the Pink Palace, Wybie and Dipper had had to dismount the bike and continue on foot. The path was dense these days, completely covered by overgrown trees and shrubs, most of which were scattered with thorns and rash inducing leaves.
They whined and complained as they fought past them, until Wybie finally suggested that they take a break in a clear stretch,
"I've never been here before" Dipper said, wincing about at their surroundings, "It's kind of, grey?" he suggested,
The forest was indeed grey, and the trees that barricaded them in at that point were no exception. The overhanging sky was filled with swirling, but lifeless clouds, and the mud coating their shoes was colourless too,
Wybie nodded, "It's always been like this"
"Little odd wouldn't you say?"
He nodded again, not taken aback by the suggestion- he had often thought that himself, "The well is a secondary entrance to the Other World, the Other Mother drains the life from her victims. When she's desperate, she must take the energy from the environment too"
"Hmm" Dipper said, taking a bottle of water from his bag, "Solid idea" he said taking a sip from it, "I'll add that to the journal I think" he added, offering the other teen a drink,
He gladly took it, "I'm honoured", he then took a large gulp of water, "Coraline said that all the furniture in the apartment was made from giant bugs, they were kind of like her henchmen. Mr Bobinsky's mice were also rats in disguise, they were her scouts. Rats and bugs are the sorts of things that would be in the well, that must be where she gets them from"
The other frowned briefly, taking the bottle back from him, "You seem to have given this a lot of thought" he said, putting the cap back on it, "For someone who doesn't usually 'want to get involved with this sort of thing', that is"
Wybie grimaced and remained silent.
But Dipper clearly wasn't accepting silence as an answer, "Come on, that's almost reaching my level of supernatural analysis. Why have you put all these ideas together?"
He took in a deep breath and held it for a moment, rolling his neck about a few times, "Because I was worried" he said, releasing the lungful of air,
"Worried about what?"
It was obvious that Wybie wasn't comfortable sharing his reasoning, and he once again craned his neck, as though there were a trapped nerve in it that was giving him pain, "Coraline?" he suggested, "And I was worried that what happened to her, could happen again?" he then winced, "And it did" he added,
"We don't know that" Dipper replied quickly,
"I thought for a long time after it happened" he went on, almost as though he hadn't heard the other's attempt at reassuring him, "First I was trying to figure out how any of it was possible, and then after I realised that it was impossible to actually explain, I tried to understand aspects of it individually. I tried to rationalise the details, in case it became important in the future",
A sort of respectful silence fell between them.
Dipper and Wybie had never been the closest within their friend group, and Dipper had never realised just how smart the other was, or how similar they really were,
"And that's all I do" he replied, smiling over to him, "That's what the journals are. I know I can't explain anything that happens in Gravity Falls, not really, I think my head would implode if I even tried. But I write down everything I can, and make educated assumptions, that way I have a good idea of how to deal with stuff when it shows up"
Wybie lifted his head and gave a half smile in response, not quite knowing what to say, "We should probably keep going" he added after a little more time,
Dipper nodded and stood, looking through the thick wall of branches again.
They started through the foliage and haze, their clothes snagging on the especially sharp twigs that they passed,
"How long has this well been here?" Dipper asked after few minutes, pulling his sleeve over his hand so he could more comfortably take hold of the brambles that were getting in the way of the path,
"I don't know really, just that it's been a long time" Wybie replied with a shrug, "It was around when my grandma was a kid, and way before that I think",
"What was that phrase she uses about it?" he said, wincing as he tried to remember himself,
"She said that it was so deep, if you fell down it, even in the middle of the day, you'd see a sky full of stars above you" he answered, narrowly dodging a spiked branch that was swinging towards him, having been dislodged by their movements thought the forest,
"And what is that meant to mean exactly?"
"I'm not too sure" Wybie shrugged, "That it's dark maybe?"
Dipper frowned, "Then why would there be stars? Stars are lights" he paused, feeling his converse starting to sink further into the wet ground, "Maybe it means that when you fall down the well in the day, it's so deep that you travel far enough to end up somewhere else altogether, somewhere where it's night"
"The Other World" he nodded, climbing up onto a solid rock that protruded from the ground,
The shorter of the two sidled onto a thick tree root to the same effect and stopped again, taking his chin in hand as he thought, "The well, it's surrounded by mushrooms isn't it? Like toad stools?"
Wybie blinked and nodded, "I thought you hadn't been there before?",
"It was a guess" Dipper replied, "Circles of toadstools mark gateways, they're called fairy rings. They mark areas of danger or ill-fortune; some people think they might be places where witches used to cast, like where they burnt fires for their cauldrons, making the spot barren so only mushrooms could grow there. The fungi grow deep underground, feeding on nutrients"
"You sound a bit like encyclopaedia sometimes" Wybie then said, jumping down from the rock and trudging up the path where it started to increase in altitude,
Dipper let out a gruff sigh, "I know" he admitted.
Soon enough, they broke the tree line, climbing the rockier side of the hill where they could to keep the mud and harsher foliage away.
The clearing was as plain as Wybie remembered, if not more so,
They immediately made their way to the centre, spanning the grey mud tiredly,
"So?" Wybie asked, folding his arms and looking to the other boy,
Dipper put his hands on his hips, looking down at the wide, flat circle of mud that lay in the middle of a ring of tiny mushrooms, "It's about what I expected" he said, shrugging.
The other quirked his brow and gaped at him a little, "Really? Because I wasn't"
"No?" he replied,
"No!" he said shaking his head, "I thought it would be open, or at the very least the mud would be disturbed"
"But surely this is a good sign?" Dipper replied, now folding his arms across his body too,
"How is this a 'good sign'?" Wybie replied, starting to get aggravated.
The other seemed taken aback, mostly because Wybie was the last person he'd expect to get angry at something so simple, "Because maybe it means that the Beldam isn't involved?",
This didn't satisfy him, and he shook his head, "No" he said resolutely, "Don't do this. I'd only just gotten you to agree with me, and now you're trying to get out of helping again!"
Dipper blinked at him, "What?!" he asked, partly offended, "Are you serious! I don't even need to be here! But I am, helping you, and I'm telling you that this could be a good thing. It might mean that Coraline's in no danger at all!"
"Think about it Dipper. Her bag was in her room, her phone was in it with her wallet and ID, and her phone was trashed, covered in mud! Something happened!" Wybie was shouting now- he wouldn't deny that he was being unreasonable, but he couldn't help it.
"And what?" Dipper replied, "'Something happened'? And then she went back home, dropped her bag off, and then went right back to whatever disaster smashed her phone?" he said harshly, "It doesn't make any sense Wybie!",
"Maybe!" he yelled, "Maybe that's exactly what happened! We don't know!",
Birds resting in the trees far from the clearing suddenly jumped to life and scattered into the sky, disturbed by the screaming match that was developing between the two teenagers.
"You're right! We don't know!" Dipper countered, cocking his hips and raising his brow defiantly,
Wybie frowned, realising what he needed to say to convince the other boy, "She left me a note",
He paused and dropped his offensive stance, "What?" he asked softly, "Why didn't you say anything before? What did it say?"
He sighed and shrugged, "It didn't say a lot, but she said that she left because she'd run out of time" he replied,
"'Run out of time'?" he asked, wincing at the choice of words, he then sighed and shook his head, "Why didn't you tell me earlier?",
"It- it's embarrassing" he admitted,
"Why would it be embarrassing?" Dipper said with a shrug,
A blush bloomed across the other's cheeks, "We- before she disappeared, we-"
He wasn't entirely sure he knew exactly what he was suggesting, but he quickly cut Wybie off when he could tell that he was struggling and when he figured out that it probably wasn't anything to do with the girl's disappearance, "You don't need to tell me" he said quickly, "Are you sure that's what she said? That she'd 'run out of time'?"
Wybie nodded wordlessly.
"So it sounds like she knew she was going somewhere" Dipper said with a sigh,
"Yeah, but not just anywhere, she seemed-" he came to an abrupt stop, searching for the right word,
"Scared?" the other suggested, grimacing,
He nodded gravely, "Yeah",
"So wherever it was that she was going, she was scared-"
"When have you ever known Coraline to be scared?" Wybie added,
"-and she also knew that she didn't need to take anything with her" he now began to pace, making a deep track in the mud, "-and she didn't even tell you where she was going-" Dipper frowned, "-but she came to see you before she left",
"You know what that all suggests" Wybie said softly,
He nodded, glancing over to the still covered well and sighing, "Then I guess we're going spelunking-" he concluded, coming to a stop by Wybie, "-once we figure out exactly how we're going to get Coraline back"
0o0o0
Wybie and Dipper made it back to the Mystery Shack in record time and they even managed to make it through the gift shop without being waylaid by Soos. They did not however, avoid Mabel,
She met them once more on the landing before the steps up to the attic, but so involved in their conversation, Wybie and Dipper didn't notice as she followed them into the office.
"Can we please talk now?" she asked as Dipper pulled a spare chair up to his desk for Wybie,
"Kind of busy right now" he said, turning on his laptop, "Try journal one" he then added, passing the book in question to the other boy, "Journal two can be a little difficult to decipher sometimes, but I can read it",
"Bro-bro?" Mabel asked, quirking her brow at him, "What're you doing?"
"Emergency" he replied, his eyes focusing on the glowing screen of his computer now.
"'Emergency'?" she echoed, "What kind of emergency?"
Dipper sighed, and gave her frown in response, "It's kind of, well-"
"A Coraline emergency" Wybie said, saving the other boy the trouble of admitting it,
Mabel looked between them, "Is she in trouble?" her voice was soft as she spoke,
"Yeah, yeah she is" the taller of the two young men answered.
Mabel reached across the desk and took up journal three, holding it to her chest, "What can I do to help?",
Wybie blinked, quite sure he'd misunderstood her,
"What?" he asked,
"Are you sure?" Dipper asked, giving his sister an unsure look,
"Definitely" she replied, nodding vigorously and sitting on his bed as she opened the journal in her lap, "So what're we looking for?"