So. Magic is real.

Magic is real, and I can use it. But it hurt…

It scares me.

Rowan was back on her bed in her room at Oma's. It was dark and quiet. She had nothing to do but think of yesterday.

Waking up in her room, without memory of her arm injury. Bothersome.

Giant mosquito. That was bizarre.

Monster hunter kids. Weird, but cool.

And… and magic. Magic is painful and tiring

After the spell, Oma had rushed in, worried and demanding answers. Taking in the shards of glass covering the carpet, she had hurried to Rowan and looked her over for injury as Pacifica lied smoothly, playing the innocent, scared girl. She convinced Oma that they had just been studying Dipper's journal when the lights brightened inexplicably before shattering. Dipper added that it might have been a power surge, "And you know Mrs. Vesta, the electric wiring in this store is pretty old." Oma seemed doubtful, but accepted their answers when Rowan had assured her, "We're fine, Oma. I'm fine." Before long, she had ushered the three out of her store, and was driving Rowan home.

Rowan felt sapped. Casting that spell had drained her of energy, and now she was simultaneously starving and sleepy. The ten-minute car ride lulled her to sleep, and although she ate ravenously, she still was in a daze at dinner. The meal was a quiet one.

Seeing her exhaustion, Oma excused her from cleaning up, and Rowan immediately went to bed. She fell asleep with her clothes on.

At about 2:15 AM, she woke suddenly, terrified. She had dreamed yet another nightmare. She couldn't quite remember what it was about, but it was as distressing as before. She didn't know if it was the same dream or if it was just remarkably similar, but both gave her an impression of an inescapable holocaust. A tear trickled down her cheek. Furiously she swiped it away. It was just a dream, it doesn't have the right to scare me like that.

She discovered that her leg was caught in the twisted sheets. Rowan guessed that she had been kicking in her sleep. It took her a moment to untangle it in the night's dark before curling up under the covers, hugging the blankets tightly. Gradually her breath returned to a normal pace.

Despite calming down from the terror, sleep still eluded her. Instead of being tired like earlier, her senses seemed hyper-aware, and she felt fully refreshed and awake on barely four hours of sleep (compared to her usual nine). After a few futile attempts to go back to sleep, she sighed. Maybe if she detangled her thoughts, she could find some peace. Rowan sat up and centered herself on her bed, situating into a cross-legged position.

Oma's place seemed to be a place of nightmares for Rowan. A while back, Rowan's family had visited Oma for a weekend in the middle of summer. One night, she started to cry out in her sleep. By the time her parents reached her room, she was thrashing about her bed, shaking and sobbing. They could not wake her until she woke up on her own, screaming about the sky tearing apart. Her twelve-year-old body shook with violent tremors. Her parents tried vainly to calm her fright, but it wasn't until Oma hurried into the room that Rowan's tears began to slow.

Oma had given her a dreamcatcher that night. It was a beautiful, hand-made creation. The tear-drop ring was made from a thin willow branch, and the intricate web was made from slender leather strings the color of pale sand. The web was beautifully ornamented with smooth jade beads. Oma had found the stones and shaped the beads herself. Three snow-white tail feathers hung below the magical web, eager to dance in any breeze. Curled up on the bed next to her, Oma lulled Rowan to sleep with the tale of how the native peoples of Oregon had formed these sacred devices to guard themselves from nightmares. She explained that the web caught all the bad dreams, while allowing the good dreams to escape through the middle and reach the sleeper's mind. Rowan loved it, and slept soundly for the rest of the night. When she left the next day, she took it with her. For the past four years she'd had it hanging above her bed at home.

Apparently, her nightmare that night was what doctors call a "night terror." This can be caused by location, so her parents had made the elective decision to never let Rowan visit Gravity Falls again. Rowan protested, but it made no difference. Not until the all-changing, dreadful divorce, at least. Her parents seemed to forget their decision as soon as it was convenient for them.

Rowan hated her parents for doing this to her. But, more than anything, she missed them. She missed them, and she ached for her family to be whole again.

The sliver clock on her nightstand read 4:38 AM.

Rowan breathed deeply. Then she made a decision. She wasn't going to get anymore sleep tonight. She slid her feet to the floor and made her way through the moonlit room to her desk, careful not to step where the old floor creaked. Clicking on her desk light, she blinked away the momentary blindness before pulling out two items from her satchel.

The first item was the ornate purse that she had found in the attic trunk. She admired it a bit, then placed it in one of the desk's drawers. The second item was an old book.

The dusty grey cover of The Wiccan Casters of Gravity Falls felt soft on her fingers. She had managed to smuggle it out of the store in her satchel, despite her foggy state of mind. It contained more than basic translations of wiccan glyphs; it was a bona fide history of local magic users and covens. Using her small laptop to cross-reference information, Rowan dove into the twisty world of witch history.

From what she could figure out, there were two types of magic users – Magus and the Wiccans. Magus was the title for the very few non-natural users who could learn to use very elementary magic through brutal training. Most needed the help of a supernatural being for the most basic of spells. However, Wiccans (commonly referred to as witches in some circles) were those for who magic was as natural as breathing. They could learn to harness their own life-energy and the life-energy from nature around them to alter their surroundings. These powers usually passed through the matriarch's family line, often – but not always – skipping the male children. There was a passage stating that these powers tended to manifest pretty early, anywhere from age 4 to age 10.

Could she always do magic? Rowan was thinking back through her childhood, trying to remember anything unusual. Nothing really stood out. But it was impossible for her to be a magus and have successfully casted a spell, since she hadn't been through any training. And she had definitely cast a spell in the bookstore. (After confirming that she did in fact see teenagers rodeo and miniaturize a giant mosquito, Rowan swore she was never doubting her senses again.)

Ugh. If only there was someone I could ask about my childhood, who wouldn't think I'm crazy…

Then it dawned on Rowan, Oma might know. That is crazy. Oma doesn't know about magic. Her thoughts travelled back to the story of the dreamcatcher. But that's a local legend, anyone could know about dreamcatchers. Still, Rowan had never had another nightmare, until, of course, she came back to Oma's of course.

Oma only had one child, a son – Rowan's dad. And the men of the family are not often Wiccan.

Rowan slammed the book closed and gave the cover a hard stare.

There is no way that I am ever believing that Oma is a witch.

But Rowan already did.