A tangle of limbs on the sofa, the cousins looked with apprehension at Abel Pines, standing before them with a phone in his hand, mouthpiece covered.
"So, guys," he began, a little fidgety himself, "you don't have plans today, right?"
They just continued to stare, a silent confirmation.
"Well, Mr. Gleeful is on the phone, and they need a short-notice babysitter, and they were wondering if maybe you guys could do it."
"Have you told 'em anything yet?" Cassandra asked her dad.
"I said I'd ask," he assured her.
Cassandra's face quirked in apprehension, but Ashwin was ready,
"Sure! We could babysit! How old is the kid?"
"Their little girl is four."
"Pshh! We can babysit a four year old!" Ashwin confirmed, "No problem!"
"Alright," Abel said, putting the phone back to his ear and confirming that the Pines cousins could, in fact, babysit that night.
"So, you like babysitting?" Cassandra prompted.
"Oh, yeah!" Ashwin responded, "Every kid's an angel until proven otherwise. Plus, it's easier if I've got backup."
"I count as backup?" Cassandra asked.
"Faith, you comin' with?"
His little sister let out an unsure groan,
"Do I have to?"
"I mean, not really, but you'll be the only one here at the house with the parents-"
"Ugh! I guess!" she resigned, throwing herself back into the sofa.
When they pulled up in the golf cart the sun was just barely starting to set, glinting off one of the cabin's windows. The Gleefuls, like the Northwest-Passage family, actually owned a cabin in Gravity Falls, though they didn't live in town. Rich people could do that, Cassandra supposed.
Ashwin was the one with courage enough to knock on the door, and a tall, perky woman answered the door.
"Oh, hello!" she beamed, herding them in, "You must be the Pines' children. Little GIlda's already had dinner, and she should probably be put to bed around seven-thirty to get her to sleep by eight. There's a bunch of her favorite movies queued up on the TV, her room is full of toys - she knows how to keep herself entertained, just try to go along with her and you'll be fine."
"You can trust us, ma'am," Ashwin assured her, "I'm heavily certified - CPR training and all - Cassie is a master nerd and monster hunter, and Faith is a professional child-"
Faith gave a self-assured salute,
"-I'm sure we can handle this."
Mrs. Gleeful giggled, "I'm sure you can."
"Let's go, Darlin'!" Mr. Gleeful beamed, throwing an arm around his wife, "You children make sure nothin' blows up, ya' hear?" he added, waving to them over his shoulder as the two of them climbed in their car. Ashwin chuckled at the comment, returning the wave as they drove off. The three cousins turned to the task at hand: Gilda.
The four year old was sitting on the sofa, platinum-blonde hair done up in little pigtails that stuck straight out on either side of her head, and she was dressed in poofy pink pajamas, clutching a stuffed cat. She blinked at them with her big, blue eyes and Ashwin struck up a conversation.
"Hey, Gilda! We're gonna' stay with you tonight. I'm Ashwin, this is Cassandra, and my sister, Faith."
"Hello," Gilda squeaked to the other girls.
"Hi," Cassandra offered back, not entirely comfortable with children.
"So, what do you want to do, Gilda?" Ashwin asked, "Watch a movie, play pretend-?"
"We're gonna' watch a movie," Gilda decided, taking the remote and navigating the TV controls with ease.
"Ok, then," Ashwin accepted, sitting down on the sofa with her. Faith and Cassandra dropped down into arm chairs as the ark was drawn over the castle and the music crescendoed.
The movie's credits rolling, Cassandra felt a buzz in her back pocket. She retrieved the phone and grinned in spite of herself when she read the caller ID. She left the room to take the call, grinning big.
"Hey," she acknowledged, accepting the call.
"Hey, nerd. What're you doing?" Meranda's voice asked.
"Oh, we're just babysitting the Gleefuls' kid. They needed somebody short notice."
"Sounds fun," Meranda responded half-heartedly. "I'm bored. The ladies are eating dinner, and they're not much fun anyway."
"You have a phone," Cassandra pointed out, "play some phone games."
"I could, but I'm talking to you right now."
"Sorry I'm such an inconvenience," Cassandra smirked. "I guess a bathtub is pretty boring, though. How's the bite?"
"Better," Meranda assured her, "it hasn't bled all day."
"And your fins?"
There was a silence.
"It'll probably be OK," Meranda finally responded.
Meranda said something else, but all of a sudden Ashwin bustled in, gaining her attention,
"She's asleep on the sofa," he explained, "can you get her to bed? I gotta' clean up after the ice cream we gave her."
"OK," she returned, "listen, Meranda, I'm sorry, I gotta' go. Duty calls."
"Oh. OK. Have fun, I guess."
"Talk to you in the morning?"
"OK."
Cassandra ended the call and strode back out to the living room, where Gilda was all curled up, a little bundle of pink fluff. Cassandra swallowed hard, hoping she could successfully lift a four year old. She chose her points of support carefully, and hefted the little girl up. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that Gilda wrapped her little arms around Cassandra's neck. Standing there, arms full of small child, Cassandra had a realization:
"Ash," she whispered, stepping up behind her cousin, "where's her room?"
Ashwin pointed up the stairs,
"It's obvious," he assured her.
The stairs weren't fun to traverse while weighed down by forty-to-fifty pounds of little girl, but Ashwin was right, her room was obvious. Cassandra was not sure she had ever seen so much pink. And sparkles. If it wasn't pink, it sparkled, and even if it was pink, it might sparkle. Cassandra carefully placed the girl amongst piles of fluffy blankets and pillows on her bed and turned to leave, hoping for the best, but the little girl piped up,
"Pines girl…?" she asked blearily. Cassandra turned around,
"Yeah?"
"Can you gimme' the pehdant?"
"What?"
"The peh-dant," she repeated, pointing to a tall shelf. The girl could never reach it on her own.
Cassandra followed her gesture and found a small star-shaped charm, maybe the size of a brooch or a girl-scout patch. She turned it over in her hand for a moment, attracted by the different colors of each point, and the stylized eye staring back at her from the center.
"This one?" she offered, holding it up for the girl to see.
Gilda nodded.
"OK," she said, handing the metal and ceramic creation over. "You good now? Ready to go to sleep?"
Gilda nodded, and curled up, clutching the pendant. Cassandra stepped out of the room and let out a quiet sigh, relieved to be free of her small charge. But before her foot reached the first step she heard something hit the wall of Gilda's room. She turned back to the door with curiosity and apprehension. Something else hit the floor and she heard Gilda giggle. She opened the door and found the last thing she expected: half of the items in the room - all stuffed and several sparkly - were suspended in the air, surrounded by a pale blue glow. Her eyes fell on the only other thing in the room with that glow - the pendant clutched in Gilda's little hand.
Cassandra locked eyes with the four year old, who grinned big,
"Fly!" she squeaked, and in an instant Cassandra found her feet no longer touched the ground. She couldn't help but flail, suddenly suspended in the air.
"ASHWIN!" Cassandra called, panic in her gut.
Both her cousins were there, then, in the doorway, staring in awe at the spectacle before them.
"Now that I haven't seen," Ashwin noted.
"I AM SUSPENDED IN THE AIR BY A TODDLER," Cassandra pointed out, still flailing above him.
"I'm a big girl!" Gilda corrected, and Cassandra could feel a surge in the power, sending a wave through everything under the child's control. She shuddered to think what would happen if you really made her mad.
"Sorry," Cassandra amended, "I'm suspended in the air by the great an powerful Gilda Gleeful!"
Gilda giggled at the impressive title.
Faith dashed from the room, struck with an idea.
"Gilda, could you maybe let Cassandra down?" Ashwin asked in the sweetest voice he could muster considering the situation.
"Why?" Gilda asked.
"Um, well, she's kind of uncomfortable-"
"Nuh-uh! Flying is fun!" she insisted, "Try it!" Ashwin was whipped into the air by the blue glow, letting out an involuntary squawk. "See?" Gilda prompted. Ashwin had no idea how to respond.
Faith strode back into the room, brandishing Gilda's plush cat.
"Do you want Mr. Whiskers?" Faith asked, gaining Gilda's attention.
Gilda scampered over, arms outstretched for the cat, leaving the pendant unattended on the bed and releasing everything from the psychic power.
The two teenagers grunted as they hit the floor.
Dragging the cat behind her Gilda returned to the bed, grabbing the pendant back up before it occurred to anyone to take it back. It did occur to Ashwin to get everyone the heck out of that room.
"G'night, Gilda!" he chirped, grabbing Cassie and Faith's arms and yanking them from the room. Door closed behind them he added, "Don't let the bedbugs bite!" getting away from the door the three cousins huddled together. "OK," Ashwin started, "we can deal with this. We've fought zombies and gnomes, we can handle a four-year-old girl."
"…with a magic pendant," Cassandra added. "that's a very important part of the equation."
"Noted," Ashwin said, "we need to get that pendant away from her and get her to sleep before her parents get back."
"We need help," Cassandra concluded, "we're good, but we're not this good. Who knows how to deal with supernatural stuff?"
"Mervin?" Ashwin offered.
"Ew, no," Cassandra retorted. "he doesn't actually know how to deal with anything anyway."
"Sylvia," Faith piped up.
The teenagers looked at her for a moment, thinking it over.
The time: 8:00 PM. Cassandra walked into the woods, somewhat unnerved by the darkness and the occasional stiff breeze, wondering how on earth she was supposed to summon Sylvia. A shiver ran down her spine, and something like a flash of lightening, paired with a shockwave, disoriented her for a moment.
"Hon, y'alright?" Sylvia asked, suddenly beside her.
Cassandra jumped, turning to look at the ghost.
"Y-yes?" Cassandra responded.
"Good. Something powerful is going on in these woods tonight-"
"I'll say!" Cassandra retorted, "Mr. Gleeful's kid has a some sort of pendant and is throwing everything around the house with, like, magic or something!"
Sylvia stared at the Cassandra for a moment. She blinked.
"Right," Sylvia accepted half-heartedly. That was not, in fact, what the spirit had sensed, but she wasn't about to tell this girl what was really happening in the deep, dark woods. The child could stand to be ignorant. "You say you got an ornery child?" Sylvia responded, "I bet I could help you with that. I had five kids and at least twelve grandkids."
"OK, but did any of them use weird, magical pendants?" Cassandra asked, leading her back to the gleeful house.
"No, but several were biters, and I'm a ghost. I bet you I can take the little brat. How old?"
"Four."
"Oh good lord, I think I can handle a four year old," Sylvia assured her.
Cassandra opened the door and Sylvia glided in.
"Oh my gosh you found her," Ashwin sighed, relieved, "so, do you think you could get the pendant away from her? Or at least get her away from the pendant, or-?"
"I got ya' covered, hon," the ghost assured him.
The cousins trailed her up the stairs with bated breath. They opened the door a crack after Sylvia had drifted through it, unable to resist their own curiosity.
"Hey, hun," she cooed, gaining Gilda's attention. "Can you see me?" The toys and books stopped swirling around the room and hung still in midair. Gilda stared, wide-eyed at Sylvia. "you having fun?" the old ghost offered.
Gilda nodded.
"Looks like it. But it's getting late, are you sure you aren't tired?"
"No," Gilda insisted, shaking her head, "M'not sleepy."
"Hm. Is that so. Do you want to hear a ghost story?"
"Ghost story?" Gilda echoed, a mix of curiosity and fear in her squeaky little voice.
"Mm-hm," Sylvia confirmed, drifting over to sit beside Gilda on her infinitely fluffy bed. "and by ghost story I mean a story told by a ghost."
"Ooh," Gilda acknowledged, her attention drawn to Sylvia, the toys slowly starting to drop towards the ground as her focus wandered.
"Now, I'm a very old woman," Sylvia explained, "I lived long and hard, so I was already real ancient when I died, and I've got a good eighty-some-odd years on top of that, now. But that still doesn't make me old enough to remember the old pioneer days. Still, my grandma used to tell me a story about a darning needle - particularly if I ever got bent out of shape about having lost something. Do you want to hear about the darning needle?"
Gilda nodded, and snuggled up in her pillows as close to the spirit as she could muster. If Sylvia had had any physical form she would have leaned on the old woman.
"Well, you see, the folks traveling the Oregon Trail looking for a new life left almost everything behind when they made the 2000 mile journey in their covered wagons. As the trail grew harder and the mountains more treacherous, they had to abandon furniture and luxuries of all sorts to make it easier to move the wagons. They lost a lot on those old, tough trails.
"So by the time the settlers reached Oregon, the few goods they had were precious indeed. The people that settled here in the old Gravity Falls were no different. The tiny settlement was so isolated that the villagers had no way of getting anything from the outside world and had to make do with what they brought with them. So they got down to that last darning needle real quick."
"What's a darning needle?" Gilda asked, barely above a whisper.
"It's not too different from your regular old needle, and in those days it was used for everything from sewing clothing to darning socks to mending busted buttons. For everybody to have just one darning needle was a big problem. The settlers took real good care of that needle. They passed it from family to family, and for two or three days at a time, the women in each family would sew and darn like crazy to get all the mending done before passing the needle on to the next household.
"Then one day, little Jimmy Befufftlefumpter was assigned the task of carrying the needle to Old Woman Drain's cottage on the other side of the woods. To keep the needle safe, his mother threaded it with bright red wool knotted firmly through the eye of the needle. Then she stuck it into a potato and gave the precious needle to her small son.
As the little boy walked along the trail, he heard a rustling in the bushes. Ahead of him, a Mama bear and her two cubs ambled into view. startled, Jimmy ducked behind a serviceberry bush, hoping the Mama bear wouldn't notice him. He sat real still, short of trembling from head to toe, until he couldn't hear the bears no more. Then he crept back out onto the trail, checked carefully in both directions, and continued toward Old Woman Drain's cabin. And that's when he realized his hand was empty! He'd lost the potato with the needle stuck into it!"
At Sylvia's exclamation Gilda blinked away some of the sleep dragging her eyelids down. The floating toys - barely an inch from the ground zipped up an inch or two, the blue energy around them flaring up.
"Little Jimmy looked everywhere," Sylvia went on, "but there were many serviceberry bushes, and he couldn't find the exact place where he'd hid. But it was the only needle for miles, so the whole town turned out to look! They combed the woods for hours, and it was the despairing little Jimmy who finally caught a glimpse of red wool in the bracken and swooped inside to rescue the darning needle.
"But things wear out regardless. With so much heavy use and so much time spent stuck into the juice of the potato, the needle grew weak, and it broke in Old Woman Drain's hand the day after it was found in the woods. It was a sad day in Gravity Falls, but no one blamed Old Woman Drain for breaking it. It could have happened to any of them. But all sewing and mending in the village had to stop, and clothing grew tattered, socks and stockings had gaping holes in them, and folks shook their heads, wondering what to do.
"And now little Jimmy Befufftlefumpter was just beside himself; he blamed himself for the loss of the precious needle. If only he hadn't lost it! If it hadn't been stuck so long in the potato, it might not have broken in Old Woman Drain's hand! He fretted and moped about the lost darning needle, and his parents couldn't do nothing about it.
"At that time, a young man in California decided he wanted a life of adventure. He came up north to Portland Oregon, set himself up with a mule and wagon of goods, and started roaming the mountains and valleys, visiting villages and mining camps and farming towns," as she went on Gilda's head started to droop. The toys landed gently on the ground. "and then it just so happened that a month to the day after the breaking of the last darning needle, he wandered into old Gravity Falls with his peddler's wagon," Sylvia was speaking softer now.
"News of the peddler spread like wildfire. Soon he was swarmed by families admiring his wares and chattering excitedly. The young man heard the woeful tale of the needle from Mrs. Befufftlefumpter, and he watched little Jimmy stroking the horse's man and pretending not to listen as his mother talked…" she glanced down at the sleeping girl, all the power gone from the amulet in her little hand, "…of losing the needle, and the bear appearing, and finding it again, and then losing it again when it broke…" Sylvia's voice was real soft now as she went on, "so the peddler went over and asked little Jimmy if he was thinking of giving out a christmas present to his friends and family that year… He hadn't thought about Christmas until that moment, but he said he was thinking of giving them something. The man knelt down beside little Jimmy and offered to help him give everybody an early present; he took a small packet of needles out of the pocket of his coat for Jimmy to give to every family in town. And little Jimmy passed the needles out, his face beaming with pride, and the peddler did it for free, and always stopped by, and everybody lived happily every after with all the darning needles they wanted, the end." Done with her tale, having sped through the end to make sure the girl was sleeping, Sylvia wafted out of the bed and back through the door.
She tossed a glance at Cassandra as she drifted by with a distinct air of 'See? I told you so.'
She didn't stop to talk, just drifted down the stairs, and the cousins all followed dutifully behind her.
"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" she commented, voice still low in the silent house. "The old darning needle story is a real knockout - enough tension to keep the kid from wandering off, dull enough to put 'em to sleep."
"You're a saint," Cassandra concluded.
"You've got skill," Ashwin agreed.
"I've got over ninety years of experience with kids," Sylvia corrected them. "Now you three keep yourselves out of trouble and have a nice night. And Cassie-" she added, making eye contact with Cassandra, "take care of yourself."
"OK," Cassandra responded sensing a seriousness in the spirit's tone that sent a small shiver down her spine. G-g'night," she offered, as Sylvia drifted through the door and into the night.
8:00 PM, deep in the woods of Gravity Falls. Mervin stood in a clearing before the elaborate setup he'd spent all day creating. Candles had been placed around the summoning circle, a printed photo fluttering in the night wind. A selfie Cassandra took last year smiled into the sky, eyes scratched over in red marker. Mervin spoke the ancient spell:
"Triangulum, entangulum. Meteforis dominus ventium. Meteforis venetisarium!" He fell to his knees, eyes glowing blue. "egassem sdrawkcab, egassem sdrawkcab, egassem sdrawkcab-!" he found himself compelled to chant.
In a jolt the color washed out of the world. When he shook off the effects of the summoning he discovered a whited-out world like a crude graphite drawing, only faint lines where edges of trees or sky or anything should be. Time slowed to a stop. Slowly a black, triangular void grew into existence, rising up from base to apex, and drearily opening a single eye most of the way. This black pit in reality looked down bleakly on Mervin with it's single eye. It blinked once, and spoke:
"Whadda' you want, kid?" it sighed.
Mervin stumbled, a little shaken by the casual, long-suffering tone.
"I- I summoned another demon - He-Hectorgon - and he told me to summon you. He- he said you were ancient, all-knowing, powerful-!" he tried to explain.
"Was," the demon corrected him, "I was powerful. Once. Now I can't even offer you a full set of deer teeth. Would you settle for a molar?" he asked, a tooth popping out of a doe's mouth and falling into Mervin's hand.
"Um, n-no thanks," he apologized.
"Welp, then there's not much I can do for you," the being admitted, starting to close back up into nothingness.
"Wait!" Mervin called in desperation, "I need someone to do something about this frickin' Pines girl!"
The demon stopped collapsing into nothingness, hesitated, and unfurled back out into a full triangle.
"…What did you say?" he asked, drawing closer to Mervin.
"There's this girl, Cassandra Pines, and she's the cool, new, mystery-loving, city kid in town, and that's supposed to be ME! And she doesn't even think I'm cool! She just brushes me off-!"
"Any relation to a Stan Pines? Or a Dipper?" the triangle asked, looming over Mervin, only a couple inches away from him now, the sheer and utter blackness of its form driving fear into Mervin's heart.
"Um, I- I think there's a Stan. Her dad's name is Abel-"
"What a weird name," the triangle scoffed, drifting back, away from Mervin, "no wonder he ditched it! A'right kid, you've got my interest," he confirmed, arms and legs forming out of thin, mind-scape air for him to massage his non-existent chin in thought. "I'll just need you to do some work for me, and then I can help you. Some simple prodding to get the girl where I want her, no biggie. Do we got a deal?" he asked, holding out a black, noodle-esque arm.
There was a hesitation, fear and excitement and adrenaline pumping through Mervin's veins.
"Deal," Mervin agreed.
"The name's Bill, by the way," the demon added, gaining some brick-looking features and a top hat and bow tie, as blue flame sealed the pact of their handshake, "Bill Cipher. Together, we'll go places."
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Tale of the darning needle: /folklore/2009/05/the_last_darning_