Mabel hardly noticed the arrival of the dawn, as she was too lost in her own thoughts. Her legs were beginning to hurt from the hug she'd given them for the past hour. Sitting right in the middle of the bed with Waddles at her left hip, she stared into the darkness. The good news was her long nap and some quiet time alone with Dipper had at least allowed the shock and disgust to fade. The bad news was the vacuum they left behind was filled with a numbness that was just as bad, if not worse. The silence outside, combined with the silence in her mind, made her deeply uneasy. She needed someone to talk to.

And Dipper wasn't it. He was sleeping too soundly for her to disturb without feeling guilty. So she gingerly slipped out of bed and grabbed her smartphone. The on-screen clock told her it was about six in the morning as she dialed.

"Hello? Mabel?"

Winter's voice, definitely. She sighed with relief and settled back on her bed. "Hey. Did I wake you up? I just needed a buddy."

"No, we were already awake. Did something happen?"

"No. I... um." She scratched at her mousy hair and groped for something to say. "How's that woman? Did you help her?" No response, which was answer enough. "Don't hold out on me. Give it to me straight. I can take it."

"Are you sure?"

Mabel swallowed hard, but fought her dread. "Yeah. Hit me."

"Very well. We took a look at her yesterday. I'm not sure there's anything we can do. I think the amount and type of magic she has is locking up her ability to function. We could extract it... but it might be keeping her alive at this point. Removing it could be fatal."

"Frick," she said, sighing with disappointment. "Frick a brick!"

"Mm. For now she's been converted to object form. At least in this state she won't be suffering."

"Fine, I'll take what I can get." Mabel froze as her brother stirred, only relaxing after he was still again. "What else did I miss? What exploded? I've got a feeling something somewhere done blowed up."

"Not... not as far as I know. A few things happened with Wendy and she's staying with us for the moment. I'll let her tell you about them if she wants. Also, someone left a note on our door about watching us. I suspect they mean just us and not all of you, based on—never mind. It's not important right now."

"Again?" Mabel's brow furrowed. "Who would be watching... oh no." Her eyes abruptly narrowed. "Bill. Nah, wait, Bill doesn't seem like the note-leaving type."

"Agreed. Since whoever it is was nice enough to tell us, perhaps they don't mean any harm. I'm still suspicious." Winter was silent for a moment. "How are you?"

Mabel shrugged to herself as she stared at the snoozing Waddles. "I'm... I dunno. I think I'm better? I mean I don't feel like crying but I do feel kinda numbish."

"I know the feeling. By the way, Summer and I have decided to remove the magic from the area. Perhaps you and Dipper could come along if you want something else to do? We'll need the journals anyway."

Mabel crossed her free arm, her face crinkling. "Hold up. What does remove mean?"

"Transforming its containers into easily portable objects and taking them home with us."

Her initial reaction to this plan surprised herself. "But... that's what makes Gravity Falls so Gravity Falls-y." She blinked a few times. "Even if it could accidentally screw over the world."

"Wendy said something like that too, but even if the magic doesn't mean to it may not be able to stop itself from irreparably altering your planet. It will be safer back where it belongs."

"I guess." Mabel weighed her options with a few adorable grunts. "Sure. We're in. Anything else I should know?"

"We might be meeting with the Society some time today. Whether you want to tag along is up to you."

"Blegh. I don't know." It was now light enough to see her surroundings, so she distracted herself with looking around. "We'll think about it I guess? I just wanna do something normal-ish for once." Sound from across the way got her attention; Dipper had rolled over and was now facing her. "Give Wendy a high-five for me and broface. I'm gonna try and catch another nap."

As the morning fully blossomed it became clear that she wasn't the only one who wanted to find a way back to normal. The distinct sounds of an arriving tour group – obnoxious bus engine, muffled conversation, Stan's vocal herding – reached Mabel's ears through the exterior wall. The last of these was enough to finally rouse Dipper from his slumber. "Hrngh?" he groaned, snapping alert when he saw Mabel was already awake. "Oh! Hey. Uh. Sorry. I guess I was exhausted."

"No worries, bro. I just woke up again my own self." She blew at an errant lock a few times, but it would not leave the vicinity of her lips. "Dang it. Just so you know, I signed us up for an adventure with the super-twins. Bring your weird books."

"What?" Dipper cocked his head with worry. "What adventure? Where are we going?"

"Wherever the wind takes us, Dipper! Hopefully somewhere less freaky than the last few days. At least it'll get us outside." Mabel hopped off the bed, trying fruitlessly to pat down her messy hair. "And away from here."

"Away from..." he trailed off as she left the room. As he glanced around, the memories of yesterday and beyond made him cringe faintly. "Maybe she has a point." After another moment of thought, he too got up and looked for clean clothes to wear, then wandered off to the kitchen. A few moments later Mabel came in, clad in a red and pink striped sweater with a front pouch and a gray skirt as he was making a pair of sandwiches. "That was fast."

She waved him off with a smirk. "Yeah, I'm bein' lazy. Is that peanut butter?"

"Sure is. I don't even think it's expired. Little miracles, I guess."

"Woo! Protein and sugar and more sugar. Gimmie." She snatched one off the plate and rammed it into her mouth. "Mmm. Mfmf. Mrrrrrrm," she said, smiling as best she could at Dipper's disapproving look. A flash of reflected sunlight from the window made them look; Winter's dark blue Charger was just coming to a stop in the parking lot. With a loud swallow, she cleared her mouth and frowned. "Looks like the party's about to start."

They met Winter and Summer in the gift shop, where the first thing to throw them off was the way the twins were dressed. The blue-eyed woman was actually in a dress for once, a strapless, knee-length turquoise number with a black stripe that wrapped around her body, and matching wedge heels. Her sister was the one in jeans and sneakers, which were topped off by a black shirt with red raglan sleeves. "Oh, is it opposite day?" Mabel asked. "Dipper! Give me your vest!"

"Dude, stop," he complained, swatting away her attempts to grab him. Once she stopped, he looked at Wendy. She'd come in with the older twins and he couldn't figure out why. "Huh, hey. How did end up with them? Or am I just jumping to conclusions again?"

"No, but don't even ask, dude," she replied, taking up her usual position behind the register. "Why am I here right now? I feel so weird."

"Routine – almost any routine – is more comforting than uncertainty." Winter peered down at the Pines for a moment to gauge their wellness. "Mm. I see Stan is back to tours. Perhaps he has the same idea."

"Maybe. It'll be nice to let my brain empty out for once." Wendy's face screwed up at the ghostly swirling in the back of her consciousness. "However empty it can get, I guess. What are you guys gonna be up to?"

"We're finally going to put our detection to good use!" Summer replied happily. "With the journals' help."

Dipper's face lit up. "Oh yeah, I gotta go get them. Hold on."

Since a tour group arrived from the museum just after he departed, those left behind were stuck with awkward silence – or in the elder twins' case, signing a few more autographs while Stan collected proceeds from their signatures. Summer took this chance to explain their plans for the day via some whispers in the old man's ear. "Eh, fine," he eventually grumbled. "Just be careful."

"Of course," she assured him with a smile. Dipper returned from the living room shortly after, carrying journal two and three, but not one. "Ready to go?"

"As ready as I'll be," he replied with a shrug and a weak grin. "Mabel?"

"Yep!" she nodded. "But where are we goin'?"

Winter looked over her shoulder and out the open gift shop door. "For a little walk in the woods."

"So, like, what's up with those wings on your back, Winter?"

Mabel's question made her glance back as they traveled through the forest. The "wings" in question were two small, black, highly stylized tattoo-like markings, one on each of her shoulder blades. "Those are where we focus our flight magic. Summer has them too."

"I get it. So that's how you fly around," Dipper remarked, flipping through the pages of journal three as he walked.

"Actually, no. We don't want to make a scene when we fly here, so we use our telekinesis. That's why you tingle when we carry you," Summer explained happily. "It also happens to people at home when we do it to them. It's very rare for someone to have the magical strength to lift another person. The feeling can be pretty surprising." She giggled briefly. "And funny."

Mabel darted in front of them to get them to stop. "Hold on, what does 'make a scene' mean? You're already flyin'. That's a scene."

Winter and Summer shared a look before the former shrugged and said, "I suppose it won't hurt to show you. Dipper, stand with your sister."

"Uh, okay."

Once he was in position, the twins put some distance between each other and snapped their fingers. But instead of some random object becoming another random object, they sprouted wings – glittering, huge black appendages with red or blue sparkles strewn throughout their feathers, depending on which woman you looked at. Folded up, they were long enough to drape to their ankles. While Dipper regarded them with silent awe, Mabel started to whine and run in place.

"What?" Summer asked her, head tilted.

"I want them! I want wings! I want your wings!" she babbled, dashing around to get a better look. "It's like fairy wings and angel wings had a beautiful anti-hero wing child! Gimmie!"

"How cute." The red-eyed woman looked back as Mabel stroked a few of her magical pinions. "If we need to fly really fast or really far, we use these. But because they're so shiny, a lot of people would see us. Even in the daytime."

"No kidding!" Dipper agreed. "You look like angels. You'd attract all the attention, and I do mean all the attention. I guess you know about our religions by now, right?" He nodded as Winter nodded. "Yeah. No wonder you keep 'em to yourself."

"Exactly." Winter dismissed her wings with another snap. Summer followed suit a moment later, leaving Mabel to groan with disappointment. "We're sorry. Come on, let's keep going. I detect something fairly close by."

Eventually they ended up in a spot that should have been familiar to the older twins, but wasn't – until they sniffed the air. In a particular stand of redwood they detected that fleshy, magical scent again; Summer caught on first and brought the group to a halt. Dipper, reading journal two, ran right into the back of her. "Oof!" he exclaimed, rubbing his nose. "Geez, I feel like I just ran into a statue."

"Sorry." While she looked in one direction, her sister gazed in the other. "Do you smell that?"

While Mabel did smell something, it wasn't the same odor their companions were thinking of. "It's probably either bro-bro or me. Neither of us actually showered so... yeah. Gonna go with him." She sniffed again. "Definitely him. Ew."

"Hey! I'm..." he trailed off, lifting an arm and taking a sniff underneath, "I put on deodorant. I'm good." He watched the identical twins shuffle about. "We can't smell what you're smelling, can we?"

"I doubt it," Winter replied. Her gaze went to the mossy earth. "We came through here after the first time we visited the Mystery Shack. I still can't figure out what this is."

"Moss? It's, uh, it's a plant from the phylum Bryophyta." Before he could go on, odd staring from Mabel made him stop and fidget. "What? I don't know if they have moss on their planet."

"We do," Summer assured him with a cheerful smile. "She means the scent. It seems to be coming from the ground. Should we dig?"

Winter produced a spade from thin air as she dropped to one knee. "Carefully." One spadeful of earth revealed nothing but a few unhappy worms, which she gently tossed aside. On the second try, her tool struck something hard. "Mm?" she murmured, dismissing it and clawing at the soil with her hands. Soon, the end of a bone was exposed – and from experience, she knew it was a human's femur. "Well, then."

"What?" Summer stopped to look at it herself, only to grow more pallid than usual. "Oh my."

"Oh my what?" Mabel darted over to see what they'd found, Dipper close behind. "Is this a bone? What kind of bone? Oh! Is it a baby dinosaur bone?!"

"Ah... probably not." Winter wrapped her fingers around the end and tried to pull it free, only to find it was stuck fast in the dark earth. Unwilling to put too much force on it, she instead magically swept the dirt away to reveal more. The other end of the bone was fused to a second bone, which was barely visible. With Summer's help they kept excavating – even Dipper and Mabel pitched in, using their hands to move the soil. Before long it became clear they'd stumbled on a mass grave. All the victims' skeletons were fused together, forming a literal ball of bones in the ground. The first skull to appear made the Pines turn and groan at various volumes.

Mabel rubbed her eyes and walked away a few steps. Her back was to the group. "Cool. Now I'm in an episode of CSI. At least these guys are dead. You know you've seen some stuff when death's an improvement." As she dropped her hands, motion behind a tree trunk caught her attention. Human-sized and cloaked in mottled green, it was barely visible for a second before vanishing. "Huh...?" Curious, she began to move toward the tree it hid behind.

"The graveyard didn't smell like this," Summer noted, hands on her hips as she stared at their discovery. She glanced over as Mabel kept getting farther away. "Where are you going?"

"Someone's back here!" she shouted in reply. Her eyes remained on the tree as she approached.

"Wh—Mabel! Don't go over there by yourself!" Dipper scolded. He quickly rushed to join her with the older twins right behind him. "What did you see?"

"It looked like a person," she said, pressing her back against the tree in question as they arrived. "Somebody check. Preferably not me 'cause I'm freaking out a little."

Winter and Summer carefully moved around the trunk to investigate. Nothing was there. "I don't see anything," the red-eyed woman noted. She went around while Winter stayed with the kids, scanning the undergrowth for anything out of place. "Nothing," she confirmed upon coming back into view. "Are you sure you saw something?"

"Yeah! Like someone wearing camo—ugh." The memories of their last journey into the woods were too heavy for Mabel to talk through for a moment. "I'm not dead yet, so I guess it's not the guys from last time," she finally added, mopping sweat off her brow. "I swore I saw somebody."

Dipper looked back at the exposed bones with a scowl. "I don't like this. Let's re-bury this stuff and get out of here." He glanced around and started to walk before seeing a square-shaped white leaf of paper on the dirt ahead. "Wait, was that there before?"

Before the kids could rush over to see what it was, Winter magically snatched it up and yanked it over. "Someone's left a note again." She turned it over in her hands to examine the back before returning to the text. In scrawled print was a four-word sentence. "The discovery's first victims?" she read out loud. "What discovery?"

"Can I see it?" He took the note and stared at it for a while. "Wow. And people say my handwriting sucks." He opened journal three and compared the writing in its pages to the note. "I'm gonna go with inconclusive. I can barely read this."

Summer took it upon herself to break away and stride toward the nearest skeleton. Before Winter could speak or even follow, she reached down and grabbed a skull, pulling it free of the clump with a sharp snap. Dipper and Mabel winced, but the older twins had something else to contemplate: a new magical return flowing from the broken bone. She tossed it to Winter with a grim sigh. "Look at the marrow."

It wasn't marrow she found; the internal structure was crystalline, shrieking a ghostly song more akin to the magic in the pit than the mellower cloud strewn through the valley. Without tons of rock in the way, Winter could compare the two signals. "If I didn't know better, I'd say this was magic straight from home."

"Magic? Wait... the portal?" Dipper winced as she haphazardly tossed the skull back onto the pile. "That's kind of disrespectful, man."

Summer looked at him over her shoulder. "More so than what killed them?"

"Uh... you got me there."

"Hey hey hey hey hey, Pine Tree! Put that human part thing back together! I'm waiting on—oh. Oh. It's them. You never heard this! I'm not real!"

Despite the voice's harsh echoing, Mabel and Dipper recognized it immediately and whirled with anger, facing the direction they thought it came from. "Bill!" she yelled. "What the flip are you doin' here?! Show yourself!" Meanwhile, Winter and Summer had dropped into a defensive stance, fingers curled and ready to strike as they looked around for the source.

"There is no Bill! My name is, uh, my name is George!"

Dipper crossed his arms, glancing up as the older twins stood next to him. "You're acting a little weirder than usual, Cipher."

At last the demon popped into sight, pointing an angry black finger at the two sisters and growling. "You."

"Us?" Summer countered with all her usual cheer. "So you're Bill Cipher! How cute!"

"Cute?!" Bill's eyebrow creased with anger, but he maintained his size and color – and his distance. "Do you even know who I am?"

"You're a buttface!" Mabel snapped. "A butt... a butt triangle! A buttangle!" She ignored Dipper's facepalm and sigh and smiled cruelly.

The demon's face dropped with surprise. "I've been alive a long time and I've never been called a buttangle before. Well done, Shooting Star."

"We've read enough about you to get the gist," Winter said. "Did you leave the notes?"

"What's a note?"

"Words you write down on paper for other people to read," Dipper explained through clenched teeth.

"What's writing? What's paper?" Bill cackled at the boy's exasperated growl. "Ha! I'm yanking your branches, Pine Tree. No. I didn't leave any notes. I'm not the note-leaving type."

Mabel pumped a fist. "Nailed it!"

"Look, as interesting as you little squishboxes are, I'm not talking to you with these abominations around." Arms folded, Bill turned his back on the group. A greenish shape in the distance caught his eye. "Hey! I see you! Stay out of this!"

Mabel cocked her head. "Uh, who are you talking to?"

"Nobody. You stay out of the thing I'm telling him to stay out of. No wait, I mean you stay out of me staying out of... I..." Bill rubbed his edges with a frustrated sigh as he faced them again. All his attention was on Summer and Winter. "What are you freaks, huh? You're not like any humans I've ever seen, and trust me, I've seen a lot of humans."

They shared a brief glance before Summer stepped back and put her hands on Mabel and Dipper's shoulders. "Let's let my sister handle this, shall we? We'll wait over there."

"By the mass grave?" Mabel objected, motioning at the exposed bones.

"Don't be silly. I meant over there." She nodded at the blue-eyed woman. "We'll be around."

Winter nodded back with a light smile, watching them move through the trees and out of sight before her turquoise orbs went back to Bill. "What do you think we are?"

Eye widening, Bill floated back a bit before regaining his composure. "Wh-what? Hey! I'm asking the questions here."

"Why do you seem afraid?"

"What did I just say?!" He swelled up and reddened, looming over Winter as if he'd become the evening sun. All she did was fold her arms and stare at him silently. "You will fear me!" he bellowed. "Everyone fears me! I'm scary! Start being scared!"

Winter's light smile blossomed into a dark, angry smirk. "No."

The demon deflated in an instant, hovering away from her with a piercing stare. "What are..." His body began to display a series of images – a manila folder full of white pages, a dark cave with a metal square in its wall, and a human shape curled up against what seemed to be a cage. The slideshow stopped on a man in a lab coat surrounded by scientific equipment. His back was turned. In a second more the yellow brick pattern washed it out. "So much like... but you're not! I don't understand you and it's incredibly annoying!"

She detached from the earth and hovered, putting Bill at eye-level. He swung his cane wildly at her – not once coming close, as he was unwilling to move nearer. "Who were you talking to?"

"None of your—hmm. Wait." His eye rolled in thought. "I'll tell you. I'll tell you if..." A blue flame engulfed his right hand as he raised it. "If you tell me something. Huh? A little exchange of ideas. Isn't that what your species is built on?"

There was no controlling her grin any longer. Winter's left hand lit up with a sparkling black flame. "Are you sure?"

"Gah!" Bill zipped away, shielding himself with his top hat. "I do that! Not people! Wait. You're not human, are you? You're something else."

"Now you understand." Those majestic black wings unfurled from her back again, spreading wide. "I am the child of necessity and paranoia – one of a set of clockwork princesses from a world beyond your imagination. My name is Winter. You wish to make a deal?" She pointed her left palm at him; the flesh withdrew, revealing a flat, diamond-shaped black crystal with gold trim. The flame around her hand exploded in size and started to make a strange sound, akin to an endless chime. "Then come shake the hand of despair."

Bill did no such thing, instead throwing up his arms and vanishing with an unpleasant screech. Still smiling to herself, Winter concealed the crystal, dismissed her wings, and dropped gracefully back to the ground. "Sister?" she called loudly. "We're done for now."

A minute or so went by before she returned with the Pines, apparently in the middle of a conversation. "Mabel, I'm not sure if altering your body is a good idea."

"I don't care! Make like the Red Bull and give me wings, girl!" she huffed in reply. "You could totally just undo it if you mess up. You're a sorceress. Come on! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?"

Dipper rolled his eyes. "Mabel, let it go. Seriously."

Summer limited her response to a smile, keeping her focus on Winter. "Hmm. So, how did it go?"

"We have a problem," she said. "Bill showed... I'm not sure how to put this. His body was like a television. There were pictures on it."

"Oh, yeah," Mabel confirmed with a nod. "He did that when Gideon summoned him. What did you see?"

Winter idly dusted off her shoulder and looked around. "The cave under the Mystery Shack where we found that woman – and possibly the woman herself. He either knows her or invaded the mind of someone who did."

"Oh, great," Dipper said with a sigh. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. If he works through dreams he probably knows and sees a lot of stuff. Yeesh. Freaks me out. What do we do about it?"

"For now? Nothing. I don't think he knows about her current state." After straightening her dress, she turned to stare off through the forest at something only she and Summer could see. "Let's just continue on. As I said earlier, there's something nearby. And it isn't the grave."

"Great! Let's blow this-" Mabel hesitated, making a disgusted face at the skeletons. "-ick-sicle stand."

Despite her revulsion, she helped them carefully bury the bones. So did Dipper. "Wow, look at me. Gravedigger. I bet mom would be thrilled."

"It doesn't bother us so much. We've dug a couple of graves in our time," Summer assured him. The odd tenor of his silence made her glance over. "Our other sisters."

"Wait, hold on." Mabel dropped the handful of dirt she was carrying and stared at them. "What other sisters?"

"Spring and Autumn. The ones that didn't survive birth." The red-eyed woman cocked her head. "Didn't Wendy tell you? Winter told her about it the night we saw Wilhelm for the first time."

"She absolutely did not!" Mabel almost flung herself at Summer, latching on in a tight hug after making contact. "You!" she waved at Winter. "Get over here! Hug time! Right now!"

"But-"

"No room for buts! Only hugs!"

Dipper was content to remain out of the embrace, but he did offer a "Dude, that sucks. Sorry." to the pile of condolences Mabel was dumping on the twins. Despite the reason, though, a large part of him was glad to see his sister acting so close to herself again. "Don't squeeze them too hard, man. Come on. Let's go find this magic whatever it is before the sun fries us."