Beware the Banshee
Chapter 7
At first Dipper lay wrapped in a kind of nightmare. He was trying to play his guitar, but the strings were loose and could not be tuned, and then his new pinkies both fell off, while Wendy laughed at him.
He put down the guitar and picked up the fallen fingers, but when he tried to stick them back in place, his other fingers and his thumbs loosened and fell off, too. He looked to Wendy for help, but she had collapsed in helpless laughter. He couldn't even grasp his guitar to pick it up and run away in shame—
And there it was—the dismal, eerie, rising-and-falling scream!
It snatched him right out of sleep, with his heart racing and his breath coming quick and tight. He heard Mabel cry out in wordless alarm.
Dipper fumbled for the battery-powered lantern and turned it on. Across the room from him, Mabel was already trying to slide out of bed, over the bulk of a still-sleeping Waddles.
On the bed itself Widdles squealed in obvious fear, trying to push herself into a corner as far as she could go, and then Waddles woke just as Mabel slipped over his back, her floppy-disk sleep shirt riding up her spine. Waddles gave one cry of terror and then scrambled up onto Mabel's bed to cower with Widdles. The bed sagged and groaned under the weight of a full-grown pig.
"Is that it again?" Mabel asked, her face pale in the lantern glow as she tugged the hem of her shirt down over her pajama bottoms.
Dipper had picked up his phone. "Yeah. Let's go."
They threw on robes and pulled on their shoes, and, as soon as they opened the attic bedroom door, Mabel grabbed Dipper's arm. "Dipper, look! The window! Is that—is that it?"
The window with the triangle-and-eye stained glass flickered from darkness into dim visibility as something white fluttered just outside it. In that billowing whiteness, Dipper had an impression of a face in shadow and eyes that burned orange, like an animal's reflecting light. "Yeah, think so. Come on!" He grabbed Mabel's hands and pulled her to the stairway.
Wendy, her axe in hand, met them at the bottom of the stairs, wearing her flannel shirt over her red running shorts, her bare legs and feet pale. "Dude, is that—"
"Yeah, that's the banshee!" Dipper grabbed a powerful flashlight from the shelf where Soos kept it. He heard sounds as other people stirred: Little Soos began to cry, and Dipper heard Abuelita and Melody trying to soothe him. Soos, barefoot in boxers and a T-shirt, came padding out, gripping a golf putter. "Dudes, there's like a coyote or some junk outside!"
"Not a coyote," Dipper said. "Hold on!" He had dialed Stanford's cell number.
"Dipper?" A voice sleep-fogged but clear.
"Grunkle Ford, it's happening again," Dipper said. "Listen!" He held the phone up as the wail became louder. "Hear that?"
"My word, that's . . . that's chilling. Dipper, listen to me carefully—the banshee herself won't hurt you. Banshees warn, but don't harm. Her form is probably terrifying, but if you can stand it, try to approach and persuade her to tell you anything that might be helpful. I trust you, nephew. You can do this."
"Thanks." Dipper broke the connection as Stan came in from where he'd been sleeping on the sofa, scratching himself. Like Soos, he wore boxers (red and white striped) and an undershirt—a tank top in his case—and slippers. Unlike Soos, everyone was used to seeing him like that. He also carried a baseball bat in his free hand. "We gonna go have it out with this crazy thing?" He pounded the bat into his palm, grinning in anticipation.
"Let's go," Dipper said.
Stan paused a minute. "Soos, for cryin' out loud, go put some pants on! There are girls present! And Wendy, too!"
"Sorry, Mr. Pines, dude. Be with you in a second, guys."
"Thanks for includin' me, Stan," Wendy said.
Dipper didn't wait for Soos, but opened the door. Cool night air flowed in, the sound with it, suddenly louder, almost painful. The wailing didn't seem to come from up as high as the window, which was around the corner—really, it didn't seem to come from anywhere in particular. It was a universal howl and could have been coming up from the earth itself.
"Is Mabel safe?" Dipper, already on edge, jumped at the intrusion of Russ's voice. The boy had melted in from the darkness.
"I'm OK, Russ," Mabel said. "I'm right here, behind my brother."
"It's come close," the red-headed boy said, pointing to the left.
"Let's go and take a look at it," Dipper said. "Wendy, Grunkle Stan, Soos, this is Russ—uh, I don't know your last name."
"Renard," the boy murmured. "I—I don't live far from here. The—I hear the howling when it comes, and I worry, so I—then I come to see if . . . ." He trailed off.
"Hold my hand," Mabel said. Dipper almost reached for it, but then realized she not was speaking to him.
"Here I am, dawgs!" Soos said behind them, stumbling out onto the porch, now wearing his cargo shorts and a pair of flip-flops.
They all walked slowly and softly as they rounded the corner and stepped a little farther away to get a clear view of the upper story. Dipper shone his flashlight up toward the window, but nothing hovered there.
The beam glared on the stained glass, momentarily giving the impression that a triangular, one-eyed entity floated above them, staring down with an enigmatic gaze. Dipper shuddered a little as the circle of light hesitated on the red iris of the stained-glass eye, but he moved the flashlight and the beam passed on. Then he swept it around the yard. Nothing again.
"Where is it, Russ?" Mabel whispered.
Speaking in a slow, reluctant voice, Russ told her, "It's just over there at the edge of the forest. Away from the house. It's a frightful thing."
Wendy clutched Dipper's shoulder and said, "I got it, dudes! Low, under the trees, like it's on the ground, see?"
"Yeah, I see it now. it's a woman in white," Grunkle Stan said. Dipper heard him thunk the bat into his palm two or three times. "Sittin' on a log and cryin' her heart out. Right there, under the pines."
Now Dipper's light found her, but the woman, creature, whatever it was, did not move or shrink from the glare. Wrapped in misery she seemed, bent forward, hands to her face, her voice a keening lament that came from a heart broken and without hope.
All the sorrows of the world seemed to ride in that wordless song of grief, every mother's pain at a soldier's son's loss in wartime, every bride's anguish at a bridegroom fallen and passed on the morn of the wedding, every daughter's despair at the death of a good and kind parent, all woven together as, rising and falling, agony poured into the night like bitter water.
"Aw, dudes, she sounds so miserable," Soos whispered. "The poor thing!"
"You guys wait. I'm going in," Dipper said.
Wendy grabbed his shoulder again as he stepped forward. Her voice came low and fierce: "Like—fun you are!"
"She's right, Dipper," Stan said. "Let me take my Louisville Slugger in an' see what's buggin' her. I'll get it outa her."
"Thanks, Grunkle Stan, but it has to be me. And I have to do it alone. I'm the ghost whisperer," Dipper said. "Nobody else can do it."
He handed Wendy the flashlight. "Keep this on her. Come only if it looks like I'm in real trouble. If I don't—you take care of Mabel, Wendy."
"Dipper, no!" Mabel said. "Russ, let me go!"
"It's better to let your brother do what he must," Russ whispered.
"You can go, Dip, but I'm comin' halfway," Wendy said, brandishing her axe. "And you nor nobody else can stop me!"
"I'll be OK, Sis." Dipper took a deep breath. "Thanks, Wendy. OK. Halfway."
Dipper tried hard to swallow his fear, but those steps were hard to take. "Wait here," he told Wendy roughly midway to the figure. "Keep the light on us. I'll try to signal if I need you."
"I'm here for you, man," Wendy said. "Just yell an' I'm on that thing like a buzz saw on a beech log!"
"I don't think an axe would do any good." Dipper hesitated a fraction of a second and then whispered, "Wendy, I love you."
Her voice, soft: "Back at you, Big Dipper. Be careful."
Just a few more steps and he neared the crying figure. "I'm here," he called in what he hoped was a calm voice. "Dipper Pines. I don't mean any harm. I'm here just to speak with you. I—I'm afraid, but I don't think you mean to hurt me. Tell me what's wrong. Please. I'll listen. I'll help if I can."
The figure looked up, and Wendy's flashlight showed him a face that was—not horrible. Not old, not young, not quite human, but not monstrous. The woman looked red-eyed with long weeping, her expression locked in an expression of woe like the mask of tragedy in theaters, but not evil, not ugly. Dipper came to within ten feet of the figure and stopped. "Hello, Banshee," he said.
And for the first time since it had awakened him that night, the woman's grief-laden voice fell silent. "Aye." Her voice was rough from the wailing, but soft and—no other word for it—caring. "That's what the living call me. I am a banshee."
"Why are you crying, lady?" Dipper asked.
"Oh, in a thousand thousand years, never mortal has yet asked me the why and the wherefore of it until now. I weep out of woe for this house, for the death that approaches," she said in a hoarse voice. "'Tis my burden and my curse and my glory to mourn forever for such deaths."
"Whose—whose death?" Dipper asked, fearing the answer he might get.
Now he could see that, although the night lay perfectly still, an unfelt breeze fluttered and flitted the figure's filmy white garments, toying with her long tangles of red hair. "Whose, ye ask? That name hangs by threads of doubt." Her dark eyes did not actually glow, but in the light they shone deep as black, still, and ancient pools, and they had known sorrow for far, far too long.
Dipper swallowed hard. "Grand-uncle Stanford? Is it him?"
"Ah, there be much hatred toward the man, for he battled bravely and carried the fight forward. But I cannot say for sure, for the future has not yet unfolded. It could be he, or yet another."
Dipper persevered: "Is it Stanley?"
"'Tis possible, sure. He is caught and wrapped in the web. But yet I tell ye, I do not know."
"Not—not Mabel, my sister?"
The banshee's expression twitched, as though she caught his fear and his anxiety. "Alas! Her life stands too in the balance."
"Me," he said.
And then she wailed again. "You—you began it, poor child! You are in great danger, too."
"Then—anyone? It could be anyone? Wendy? Soos, little Soos, Melody, Abuelita?"
"Child, I cannot say, for I do not know! But if fate be not foiled, 'twill be one whose loss could bring crashing down the family's peace and joy forever! All those in and of this house that are linked by lines of love, any one of ye who loves and longs may be taken as tiend."
"What? Tiend?"
But the banshee did not seem interested in offering definitions. She continued: "The unholy thing that comes wishes most to rend your hearts and break ye. It can take only one—it means to take the one that hurts ye all the most!"
"It can be foiled, you said? How can we defeat it?"
"I know not if ye can! I do not know, I cannot know, but I fear it must have its death! It be not of this world, but burns and boils with unholy anger against ye! Look elsewhere for means to fight it, for I have but warning to offer!"
"At least describe this thing—tell me what it is!"
Instead of answering, the banshee stood, extended its arms to its sides, screamed its terrible lament, and rose into the air, slowly, her clothing and hair whipped by winds Dipper could not hear or feel. Her dress billowed and swirled around her—That was the white thing Mabel and I glimpsed at the window!
"Three nights ye have!" it called as it rose. "This is the first!"
The figure faded, and her cry ascended, dwindling, until it was a distant whine like a mosquito, and then the dark sky fell silent.