Calamity Crossroads


22-The Way

I am somewhere that looks like nowhere. Nothing but darkness all around—no earth beneath me, no sky overhead, no horizon. Yet I can see, without any source of light.

Maybe I'm in Limbo or something like it. Maybe I can't get back home ever.

The portal gun remained dark except for the taunting orange-glowing letters that wanted him to refuel the thing. The thumb switch set it to 3, but when he tried to engage the portal, nothing happened, except the digital letters told him to REFUEL.

Dipper closed his eyes. Wendy, I love you. If our telepathy can work, let it work now! I'm in so much trouble. I love you. I don't know what's going to happen to me, but I know that. I love you, Wendy.

All right. He opened his eyes. Could he walk in this strange nowhere place? He tried but had no sensation of moving. He was like someone floating upright in water, moving his feet as if walking, but felt nothing underfoot. And even if he were moving, there was in the darkness no destination.

He remembered his and Mabel's first experiences with the time-travel tape measure. They had flashed through centuries, eons, and at the end they had wound up in a place of terrible darkness . . . and stench. Dipper had thought they had gone to the end of time, but it proved to be a Portable-Potty at the cheap fair that Grunkle Stan had rented.

This didn't smell like that. Or at all.

He thought of the time when he, Wendy, and Soos had entered Mabel's bubble, the lotus-eater prison that Cipher had consigned her to. The earth crackled and broke away under them, and the next thing he knew, he and Wendy struggled to breathe as Soos threw his arms tight around them and they plummeted, Soos yelling, "Guys, if I'm gonna die, I wanna die hugging!"

But Mabel Land turned out to be made of bouncy-castle stuff, and they survived. That time when the Horroracle had tried to freeze time, and he had wandered in a gray Gravity Falls where time had stopped for everyone but him. Other times when he'd been close to death—floating in the frigid Pacific, holding on to Wendy as they both began to lose consciousness.

Brujo, who for a horrible time tried to assassinate the whole Pines family.

Briefly, with Wendy, re-enacting the last moments on Earth of a doomed Native American couple.

Confronting a vengeful spirit in a cursed high school, of all places.

"I got out of those," Tripper told himself. "Think! What can I do here? What do I have going for me?"

Well . . . air. He wasn't in outer space, not really. Or maybe—he didn't need air any longer? But if a person was dead, he or she was supposed to see a light. And there was only black darkness all around.

He filled his lungs with maybe-air and as loudly as he could, he shouted, "Can anyone hear me? I need help!'

He heard himself, anyway.

Maybe nobody else existed here.

Maybe he was all alone.

Hell is other people.

Or hell was existence without Wendy, Mabel, Grunkle Ford, Grunkle Stan . . ..

An eternity of loneliness.

Anguished, Dipper turned in a tight circle, looking in every direction. At nothing.

Including up.

"Oh, no."

Because now, at last, he saw what looked like a distant speck.

Of light.


"Why isn't he back?" Mabel asked.

Ford rubbed his chin. "I can't say. We don't know how long the extraction will take, you know. There are discontinuities among the time line. Perhaps to Mason, only a few seconds have passed. We can't give up hope."

"I think he's in trouble," said Wendy, her voice unhappy. "Can't you think of a way to communicate with him?"

"I'm afraid not. According to—well, never mind. However, it's been not quite an hour. I'm keeping an eye on my anomaly detector, set specifically for dimensional fluctuations. If you two would like to get some rest, I promise I'll awaken you the moment I get any indication—or when Mason returns."

"I don't think I could sleep," Wendy said.

"I know I can't," Mabel added.

Tripper, catching the mood, whined softly.

Very well," Ford said. "We'll wait it out together."

Mabel extended her hand, palm down. "For Dipper."

Wendy, with a sad smile, put her hand on Mabel's "For Dipper."

And Ford's huge hand completely covered both of theirs. "Yes. For Dipper."


Dipper did not move toward the light. It moved toward him—

And yet, second by second, it became clear that the spot wasn't a glow, a beacon, a beam, but a person?

Yes, definitely, like a skydiver first glimpsed as just a dot, then gradually enlarging as the diver fell, gaining human attributes, head, arms, legs, and then seeming to accelerate—

It was a man, foreign-looking, in a white kimono-like gi, waist bound by an obi wrapped around the middle, feet in geta, Japanese-style wooden shoes. The man had a square chin, dark hair with a topknot, and he descended with his right leg extend, left one bent at the knee. In both hands he grasped the handle of a katana, or at any rate a curved sword—and that was the source of the glow that enclosed him.

Dipper involuntarily tried to back away, and maybe he did, because in the end the man landed kneeling, left fist thrust out to help break his fall.

For a moment they stared at each other. Then the other spoke: "Hello. You are in need of help?"

"Yeah. Uh, I mean, yes. Thank you," Dipper said. "Who are you?"

The man stood and sheathed his sword. In a quiet, serious voice, he said, "I am one who knows what it is like to be stranded in place and time and far from home. My enemy has been conquered. Now I help others. Can you think of your home, strongly?"

"Yes," Dipper said, his voice unsteady.

From within his robe, the man produced what looked like a shining rope, ten or fifteen feet long. He tied it around his waist while he said, "Good. You have loved ones?"

"My wife, my sister, my family," Dipper said, hardly daring to hope.

"Think of them. Picture them in your mind. Let me tie this to you. Our journey must be a strange and dangerous one, and this line will not untie until you safely arrive."

In his mind, fiercely, his heart aching, Dipper pictured Wendy, Mabel, and Ford. He felt the man's hand on his shoulder.

"What is your name?"

"Dipper Pines."

"I feel your desire for home, Dipper Pines. I will now draw my sword. I raise it not in threat nor anger. It was forged by the gods themselves, and it will cut through time and space to let us pass through. Your clear thought will direct our passage."

"I understand. Uh—what's your name?"

For a moment the man did not speak. Then he smiled, ever so slightly. "Just call me Jack. We must go, quickly. Hold onto my arm!"

Dipper grasped the man's left arm. With his right, he raised the sword. And—

Dipper gasped. They were hurtling through what seemed a tunnel, streaks of color spiraling and rushing past them. Dipper felt the rope around his waist, and he clutched Jack's left arm, wondering how long—

"Get ready! There is your destination!"

A rapidly enlarging circle marked the end of the tunnel. "The rope!"

"It is untying itself. Brace yourself—now!"

Whoa!

From thin air, Dipper fell four feet to a carpeted floor, rolled, and flopped onto his back, to be greeted by kisses and slobber.

"Get off!" he yelped, though he was laughing.

Tripper bounded from Dipper to Mabel and then doggy-danced around the room, which to Dipper seemed to be spinning. Then Wendy scooped him up and kissed him, much more pleasantly than Tripper had—

"Hey," he said, "the dog drooled on me!"

"Like I care!"

Ford, who had been standing, collapsed onto the sofa. "Thank God!"

"Brobro, never do that ever ever ever again!"

"How long was I gone?" Dipper asked.

"Days!" Mabel shot back.

"No, you weren't!" Wendy said. "About an hour and a half, tops."

""That didn't look like a portal gun event," Ford said. "What happened?"

Dipper, on his feet now, handed over the portal gun. "It ran out of juice or something."

Ford examined it. "Sanchez assured me it had a full charge! It should have been good for at least a dozen trips." He shook his head. "Its fuel chamber is empty, you're right. Well—at least that will reduce my indebtedness to him. Ah, Mason—about Cipher-?"

"Dipper II and I banished him to the Nightmare Realm," Dipper said, suddenly aware of how exhausted he felt.

"Who's Dipper II?" Mabel demanded.

"He's a version of me at twelve. And his sister is twelve, so they're twins like us."

"Brobo, I want the whole story!"

Dipper shook his head. "It's hard even to remember. Like I've been in a story that the writer was just improvising, without even a plot. I'll tell you later, Mabel, but now I—I'd better go to bed. I want to go back to school tomorrow."

"I'll update your doctor's excuse if you want," Ford offered. "Wait, before you turn in, I must ask—without the portal gun, how did you return?"

"It's weird, but I think a Japanese warrior found me and brought me back."

Ford blinked. "Was his name by any chance Jack?"

"How did you know?"

"He is—kind of a legend," Ford said. "At least among time- and dimensional-travels. You'd better go on to bed now. It's nearly one in the morning."

"This way, tiger," Wendy said, half-leading, half-supporting him.


The next morning was a little unfocused. One of his teachers gave him an intense gaze as he walked into the classroom and beckoned him to the front of the room. "Mr. Pines, are you sure you're well? You're pale and drawn."

"I'm better," Dipper said. "Thank you, Dr. Kennity."

That afternoon, though, the track coach insisted that Dipper just stretch out and then rest while he watched the practice.

And at dinner, back home, a freshly-shaven and more rested Ford said, "As far as I can tell, everything is set right now. Do you think the Mason in the universe where my brother started all this has set things right with his Stanley?"

"It's Stanely there, but yes, I'm pretty sure he has. But in that universe, now I guess I'm going to help him get you home. Oh, you're Staneford there."

"Let's hope," Ford said with a smile. "Well. If I may sleep on your sofa for one more night, tomorrow I'll have to drive back to Oregon. I have much to catch up on there."

"Stay at least for breakfast," Wendy said.

"As long as you have an orange for me," Ford replied, grinning. Though he could be enticed to eat a normal breakfast, he had developed a strong yen for oranges during his years lost in the Multiverse, and his go-to morning meal was a peeled and sectioned fruit and a couple of cups of strong coffee.

"If we don't have any," Mabel said, "I'll drive in and buy you some!"

They all turned in early. Dipper had sleep to catch up on.

But first—

As they snuggled in bed, Wendy said, "Straight up, man, tell me: Are you really and truly my Dipper?"

Touching her—never mind where—Dipper told her telepathically, —It's really and truly me, Magic Girl.

Great. But just to make sure—

And she began touching him, never mind where, and, well, let's say that by the time they fell asleep in each other's embrace, Wendy was convinced, Dipper was convinced, and they both were happy and deeply, deeply in love.


The End