Yesterday's Tomorrows
(Sunday, August 7, 2016)
Chapter 6: Round and Round We Go
"Spirit," asked Scrooge, "are these the shadows of things that WILL be, or are they the shadows of things that MAY be only?"
Everyone knows the Christmas Carol story. Old Scrooge, a miser, a grasping, wrenching, squeezing, covetous old sinner, receives the blessing (or curse?) of being visited by four Spirits, all of whom show him visions. Marley's Ghost shows him chains and weights destined to trap his soul after death, and he threatens Scrooge with eternal punishment if he doesn't mend his ways. Then three Spirits of Christmas, past, present, and future, take Scrooge on a tour of his life from his schoolboy days to his old age and—worse. In fact, the familiar tale may be the very first time-travel story.
From each period of time, the Spirits show Scrooge images of what was, is, and will be. Shadows, they call them, merely moving mental pictures, memories—the Ghost of Christmas Past gently keeps the elderly Scrooge from wasting his breath by calling out joyfully to his old school chums, who are still merely youngsters: "These are only the shadows of things that have been. They have no consciousness of us."
By the end of the tale, when Scrooge fearfully asks the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come his question—Will be? or only May be?—the answer will make an enormous difference. If the visions show things that will be, Scrooge is doomed to a pitiful, lonely, desolate old age and death, and burial in a neglected graveyard where no one will visit to remember him. However, if they are only warnings of what may be—he can sponge away the writing on his tombstone, change his life, and live to be loved, cherished, and fondly remembered as a man who made a difference for good in the world.
And now Wendy and Dipper found themselves in Scrooge's place. After Billy Sheaffer's warning, they both felt a certain reluctance to begin. However, they could think of no other way back, and Dipper had a sick feeling that if Mabel was shortly to be 81, Grunkle Ford would no longer be around to offer help, so they had no expert to call on. Still—
"It's so hard to trust Cipher," Dipper muttered, standing in the diffused glow of his flashlight, which made the glyphs on the wall look oddly threatening.
Wendy sighed. "Yeah, I know, Dip. But right now—I think we have to trust him."
Sheaffer had warned that it might take one trial, or maybe a hundred. That could mean they were stuck here for a long time. Dipper said, "I hope the flashlight batteries hold out."
Wendy said, "Turn it off when the pictures are lighting up the place. And stand with your hand close to the bow tie, so you can find it even in the dark. Worst comes to worst, I've got, let's see . . . an eighty per cent charge in my phone, so I could use the flashlight app. That would buy us a couple hours or so."
For a full minute, Dipper stood next to Wendy and breathed in the earthy, cool scent of the cave, building up his courage. I hope I can be strong if we see bad stuff. Strong for Wendy and strong for myself. Then he took a deep breath and asked, "Could I have a kiss for luck?"
"That's the Bill Cipher in you," she teased.
He gave her a weak grin. "No. It's pure Dipper Pines, I swear."
They stood pressed close together and kissed for luck, and if luck is to be measured by the duration of the kiss, that day they were fated to be among the luckiest people on the West Coast (at least). Then Dipper inhaled again and braced himself. "Hold my hand." She took his left, and he experimentally tried to turn the bowtie with his right. As Billy Sheaffer had advised, he turned it to the right, clockwise.
It swiveled—with a low stony grating, but it turned with very little resistance halfway around—and he pressed it, feeling it sink a little and then hearing it click. This time he also felt, rather than heard, a very soft hum, more a vibration in the air itself—or just in his mind.
"Here we go," Wendy said, squeezing his hand. "Something's happening."
The foggy silver light faded up, and Dipper turned off his flashlight. Colors shimmered in the glowing cloud and condensed into vague figures. Then they saw themselves. Or a version of themselves.
"Hey," Wendy said. "I think this is our wedding day!"
"Not what we need to see," Dipper said, reaching to turn the bowtie again.
"Wait, let's at least see what it's gonna be like."
Wendy was wearing a white dress with a crown of daisies around her head. She was absolutely beautiful. Her hair was longer—it had grown back to its full length at whatever date the image showed—and her expectant smile looked radiant.
But . . . it quickly changed to an angry frown.
Dipper, in a dark gray suit, had opened a door and approached her. He looked upset and said something that, judging from his expression, was not pleasant—the picture was still silent—and she responded. Agitated, waving their arms, they began to yell at each other, red-faced, and finally Wendy snatched the engagement ring off her finger, hurled it to the floor, ripped the flowers off her head—Mabel's touch! Dipper thought as the torn petals fluttered—and she stormed out the door.
"Oh, dude!" Wendy said, her voice upset. "Turn it, please."
Dipper did, but he hesitated in the dark before pressing it. He sent her a thought:
—I don't think that would ever happen.
I can't see how it would.
But he could tell she was badly shaken.
He clicked the tie, and the disturbing moving image went out. "Guess I'll have to turn it and push it again to see another one," he said.
"Before you do—Dipper, straight up, that wouldn't happen to us, would it? The vision's a lie."
—Maybe it's just, you know, more of a warning. But no, I can't think of anything that could make us that mad at each other.
Me neither, Dip. OK, we're real good at making and keeping pledges. Let's make another one before we see the next show. We ever get mad at each other, let's pledge right here and now that we'll talk it all out and really listen to each other before we like blow up. Deal?
—That's a deal. But this is just one of those might-be things, I know it. I mean, you have a temper, and so do I, but me—well, I always get madder at myself than at anybody else. And somebody has to hurt you a lot to make you get your rage on. Like those stupid car thieves.
Yeah, or Bill Cipher back when he kidnapped my whole family. Anyhow, if I ever do or even say anything at all that makes you the least bit mad, you'll tell me right off and we'll talk it out, and I promise the same with you. Are we good?
—We're good. Ready for the next one?
Not really, but we gotta do it. Let 'er rip.
Oh, the things they saw, there underground in the darkness and the dust. Some of the scenes were so bad it made them look away and cringe:
Wendy, half fallen out of her car after a terrible crash when her Dodge Dart collided head-on with a lumber truck. Serious blood dripped down the crushed side of the car and pooled on the pavement. Her body hung limp from the side window, arms twisted in wrong ways. She looked dead.
Quick turn.
Dipper, coming home from—college classes, he guessed, because he looked older—with books under his arm. He hurried along under street lights, bundled up in a warm coat, walking fast, but in between lights, three thugs jumped him and beat on him, the books fell and leaves tore from them and scattered, and then one thug pulled a gun—
Quick turn.
Both of them, older, sitting side-by-side in an airplane that was rolling over and over as it fell uncontrollably from the air.
Quick turn.
Dipper going into their bedroom and finding on the pillow a note from Wendy—they couldn't see what it said, beyond her signature, but it made him collapse like a marionette with cut strings.
Quick turn.
"Man," Wendy complained as they took a breather in the dark. "Is this the bad-luck theater? There's nothing good here! All these things are awful. It can't all be true."
"I don't think any of it's true," Dipper said. "I think—yeah, I'm pretty sure—this must be a booby trap of Bill's. I mean Triangle Bill, when he set this—what did he call it? Prognosticator up. I'd bet anything that anybody other than Bill trying it gets these horrible premonitions of disaster. Enough of them to prevent them from sticking with it long enough to see the truth."
"Sounds like something Cipher would do," Wendy agreed. "So—we just gotta watch and suffer until we get to the one good part? Is that it?"
"Maybe not," Dipper said. "I have a microscopic part of Bill inside me. Maybe I just have to, I don't know, call on my inner Bill? If the device detects that, maybe it'd behave itself."
"Why didn't Sheaffer just tell us that, then?" Wendy asked.
It was a good question. "Well, Cipher's always tricky. I mean, even when he's done good stuff, he's made it like a kind of game. And he's always sowing confusion, even if it's harmless, like the codes and all."
"Hey," Wendy said. "Something about what we've been seeing just struck me. None of our pictures have had subtitles, like the first ones did. What's with that?"
"We're not Bill," Dipper said. "Somehow, I guess it knows that. Or maybe Bill wrote reminders and observations to himself when he set it all up, the way I do in my Journals." He paused. "Want me to try to see if I can contact Bill in the Mindscape and ask him for help? I won't if you think it's a bad idea."
"No, it's OK, try to summon up your Cipher," Wendy said. "I don't think I can take much more of all this gloom and doom. It's really getting to me."
"Yeah, I know what your mean. OK, I have to sit down. Hold my hand, and if I get myself in trouble, wake me up. Even if you have to slap me hard. You'll know if I need it."
They sat on the soft, cool sand, leaning back against the cave wall. On that sweltering summer day, it would have felt pleasant if the dire possible futures they had glimpsed didn't hang heavy over their heads. There alone in the cool dark, they might even have snuck in some very private cuddle time—but no, anxiety spurred them to get out of the cave and get back to their own time.
So Dipper did his relaxation, his autohypnosis, and sank into the Mindscape.
Wow. Absolutely darkness surrounded him. He might have been a coal or diamond miner deep below the surface of the Earth, or Jonah in the belly of the whale. "Great fish," he mentally corrected. The Bible story of Jonah never mentioned whales.
Dipper thought, So dark even here. Even in the Mindscape, I'm still here in this cave. OK. Bill Cipher! You probably know what's going on. What am I doing wrong? How can I make the Prognosticator help us back onto our own time line?
And though he still couldn't see a thing, in his trance, it seemed to Dipper that he could hear a familiar voice: Well, would you look at this. Pine Tree is stumped! Ah-ha-ha-ha! Get it? Tree? Stumped? That's a lumberjack joke! What, not even a chuckle? I'm unappreciated in my own time.
—Come on, Bill. It's not a time for joking, all right? I'm asking for your help here. You know where we are, don't you?
Sure. You and Red stumbled into Modoc's old lodge, huh? Bad move, Pine Tree! You don't belong here. You're not lodge members. Get that one? No? You're no fun! However, this little adventure at least let you meet my grown-up avatar, and he's not bad, if I do say so ourselves. Are you listening, Axolotl? Bill Sheaffer ain't BAD, get it? Huh? No response? Between you and me, Pine Tree, Old Frilly's no fun either, and he never answers his phony. Where were we, kid?
—Bill, please, focus. Me and Wendy are trapped! We somehow got off on the wrong time line, and Billy Sheaffer says we have to use your Prognosticator to see ourselves as we are at this moment and somehow that'll fix things. But it just keeps showing us disasters.
Hey, kid, did you know "disaster" means "evil star?" Man, if I'd gone for Mabel instead of you, I'd be ruling your universe about now. Me and the Queen of Chaos, baby! She'd make a fabulous Goth chick. OK, OK, don't lose your cool, Dipper. I'll spill the secret. It's so simple you'll kick yourself! Look, this thing operates on extradimensional physics, OK? You know what Arthur C. Clarke said? "If it's real good tech, it's the same as magic."
—He didn't say that! Or write it!
I got the GIST, Pine Tree! So you gotta understand, to me the thing's tech, OK? To you meatbags, it's magic. Therefore, before you turn the dial and push the button, you just have to say the magic word.
—What's the magic word?
No, What's on second! Ah-ha-ha-ha! Wow, hard audience. Seriously, I could tell you, Pine Tree, but then it wouldn't work. The catch is you gotta find the magic word yourself! Real simple. Good luck, kid. The voice broke into a singsong lilt: You're gonna nee—eed it!
Dipper woke with a jerk. "Whoa!" he said.
Wendy squeezed his hand. "I'm here, dude. I think I got that, or most of it. Come on, we can figure it out."
"Magic word, magic word," Dipper said, catching his breath. "I guess we can try the old standbys. Here goes. Abracadabra!"
He turned and pressed the tie.
And immediately clicked the horrible images off.
They showed Wendy, trapped motionless but fully aware in the banner, as she had been when Bill caught them in the Fearamid during Weirdmageddon. And Triangle Bill snapped his fingers, and the banner began to burn from hem upwards, flames destroying the silently screaming Wendy, and Dipper, sprawled on the stone floor of the Fearamid, staring up in helpless horror, shrieked—
"God, that was a bad one!" Wendy said. "When I have nightmares, I'm stuck in that damn banner!"
"Presto?" Dipper mumbled furiously. "Alakazam? Shazam? Hocus pocus?"
"Bibbidi-bobbidy-boo?" Wendy asked. "Sim Sala Bim? Klaatu barada nikto?"
"None of those feels right," Dipper said. He slapped his head. "Think! Think! It's gotta be a trick of Bill's! A rotten joke!"
"Maybe they're in Bill's language," Wendy said. "The magic words, I mean."
"Could be, but somehow that seems wrong," Dipper said. "Wouldn't be something we could never guess, or it wouldn't be fun for him to taunt us with the simplicity of it. Something real esoteric, maybe? I've read about magic words and phrases in Ford's Journals. What are some of the stranger ones? Ajji majji la tarajji. Jantar Mantar Jadu Mantar. {{CURRENTYEAR}}."
"Huh?" Wendy asked.
"The last one? It's a hexadecimal command. That one makes a program display the year. Programmers call things like that 'magic words.'"
"Did not know that. Might be worth a try."
"I . . . don't think so," Dipper said. "Doesn't seem like Cipher's style. But then he was talking about tech. OK, let's try it and see if it works."
It did not. The images showed Dipper and Wendy as skeletons stretched out on the sandy floor of the cave.
"Bill, you drive me crazy!" Dipper said between his teeth. "Magic words. Magic words. Ma—hah!"
"You got something?" Wendy asked.
"I'm about sixty per cent sure," Dipper said. "Oh, man, if I'm right—here, let's get ready. We're gonna try one more time!"