Beware the Banshee
Chapter 19
From the Journals of Dipper Pines: Friday morning, June 13—Mabel begged the Renards—she's Amoreuse, he is Vulpín (I hope I spelled those right)—to bury Russ where she could visit the grave. Russ's father asked her, very kindly, where—but he told her it should not be within the grounds of the Mystery Shack, for their kind stay away from human buildings.
Wendy volunteered the hillside where her family is buried, but said the grave could be outside the fence, away from the others but not completely isolated. Amoreuse whispered that she would approve of that, and her husband nodded. So while Ford dealt with the bubble containing Xanthar, Grunkle Stan, Wendy, T.K. Mabel and I drove to the base of the hill in Soos's Jeep. The Renards said they would bring their son.
They met us as soon as we climbed the hill. I don't know how they got there so fast, and I didn't want to ask. Grunkle Stan, T.K., and I dug the grave. It didn't have to be very large. He was small as a fox. Wendy cut some fresh branches, and we lined the bottom with those, like a nest. When Russ's father laid the little fox in the grave, Mabel broke down, but she asked if he could be covered with the clothes he'd worn as a human. Again they granted that. T.K. stepped down into the grave and carefully draped the clothes over Russ's body.
Mabel found some wild columbine, picked some, and dropped them in. I noticed their flowers were red—like Russ's hair as a human, or his fur as a fox. After she dropped the flowers, I held her while she sobbed harder than I'd ever heard her cry before. She shook so much that I felt helpless.
Wendy cleared her throat and said, "Uh, I don't know what you foxen believe in, but if you'll let me, I'd like to recite a poem that my Dad wanted to read at my Mom's funeral, but—well, he just couldn't. I've kinda memorized it, though."
"Yes," Amoreuse said. Neither she nor her husband were crying, but their faces showed their grief.
Wendy cleared her throat, and with her voice trembling a little, she said these words:
"Though you think you've lost me,
I am here; just look around.
In all the shining things you'll see,
My love can still be found.
I'll be in every waving leaf
On every swaying tree,
Look not with eyes but with belief,
And there I'll always be.
Hear my voice in every breeze
And let each sigh bring you relief;
My voice whispers in the trees,
'Rest now from your grief.'
In the thunders of the sea,
In the murmur of the brook
There you will always find me,
If you will hear and look.
Weep, but let your tears then dry,
And gaze on the sky above,
I'm always near you, low and high,
When you recall our love."
I reached for Wendy's hand and squeezed it. The Renards bowed to her. Then Mr. Renard floored me. He came and knelt in the grass beside the grave and hugged Mabel tight. "Hurts will heal," he said in the kindest voice. "Hold him in your heart and memory. We believe our dead come back—but not as foxen, as true foxes. He will be unburdened by human feelings and regrets then. The half-life we live between fox and human forms is not joy; it is sorrow. That will be forgotten. But a small red fox may come into your life one day, dear Mabel. Treat it kindly."
He rose, and Amoreuse took his place, kneeling and hugging my sister. "We knew this was coming," she said. "For last night the Banshee herself warned us. We knew there would be a death, and we knew whose. But some things are meant to be. We did not even try to forbid our son from trying to help you, because we knew his heart turned to you." She stroked Mabel's hair. "You think you caused his death, but you did not. He gave his life because he wished to. In that last moment, he knew his sacrifice saved you, and he died happy. I will not tell you not to mourn him. We shall mourn him, too. But I will say what he would say: Life is for the living. Let your heart mend. Find all the joy that still waits to be found."
They both rose and bowed to us all—and then they were foxes, running away side by side into the forest.
Mabel and Wendy sat in the car while we filled in the grave. Stan tamped the earth down firmly, and T.K. and I hauled stones over to build a cairn to protect and mark it.
By the time we finished, all sorts of animals had ventured from the woods—a buck and a doe, bears, a puma, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, possums, but no foxes. And there were more—I can't remember them all. They stood for a while and then walked away, one by one. When we got back to the Jeep, Wendy beckoned T.K. to sit in the back seat with Mabel. She and I went to sit in the front. Grunkle Stan said, "Hey, Wendy—mind drivin' back? I'm havin' a little trouble seein'."
So with him riding shotgun, me in the middle, and my Lumberjack Girl at the wheel, we drove back to the Shack, where Melody, Sheila, and Abuelita were waiting to offer Mabel whatever comfort they could.
Wendy dropped T.K. off at his house, and then the others went back to the Mystery Shack, where Soos already was working on repairs while his son watched from his playpen on the porch.
They missed the fishing opener, and Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy passed on the dance that followed. That night the three women, Wendy, and Mabel went to sit in the bonfire clearing, a cheerful campfire warming them, alternately weeping and laughing at old memories, the way people do.
Stan sacked out early. Dipper and Ford went down to the basement levels. "I used your prototype portal once," Dipper told Ford. "Back when the Horroracle was trying to end the world. I couldn't fit through it, though. But Xanthar's bubble could."
"In a way I hesitate to try," Ford said. "Still—the Mu dimensions aren't very dangerous. Most of the Muthonians are inoffensive. Not civilized, but not hostile or actively evil, and they have no wish to invade our dimension. Do you recall the precise one?"
"Mu 214 slash exclamation point," Dipper said.
"Late in the sequence, then. I'll program that into the computer and patch into the prototype," Ford told him.
As talented and smart as he was, Ford remained a hunt-and-peck typist. Dipper itched to take over, but he sat tight and watched. After about fifteen minutes, Ford pressed "Enter" and they powered up the model of the portal. It buzzed to life—small as it was, it drew so much electricity that the lights momentarily dimmed—and its display flicked through letters, numbers, and cabalistic signs before stabilizing.
The triangular opening shimmered and became what looked like a window into hell. Dipper could see the surface of a planet—but the sky lowered blood-red, heat shimmered in dizzy waves from the sandy red surface, and the two suns in the sky blazed orange-red, too. "That's it," Ford said. "A Muthonian world if I ever saw one." He donned the insulated gloves that he used to handle Xanthar's prison bubble—the alien still lay frozen inside, exactly as he had been from the beginning—and gingerly tossed it through the portal. "Shut it down!" he said.
Dipper pressed the red button, the high-pitched whirring sounds slowed and died, random discharges forked like lightning, and the image faded. "He's through. We sent him home, and I hope he has an uncomfortably warm reception. I'm going to scramble the coordinates I put into the computer. You unplug the portal, just to be sure," Ford said, taking off his gloves.
After he disconnected the power, Dipper joined him over beside the computer and said, "Great-uncle Ford, the Renards told us something kinda weird. They said the banshee visited them last night with a warning."
"Perhaps because when Russ was so close to his death, she at last knew who the victim would be," Ford said, turning off the computer. The screen went black.
Dipper hesitated, but asked, "Do you think we can get in touch with her?"
With a surprised expression, Ford shook his head. "No. No one can summon a banshee. But why?"
Dipper cleared his throat. "Because I wanted to—to thank her, I guess, and to ask her—see, I have a feeling that somehow she saved Mabel's life. I think the one whose death she was lamenting was supposed to be Mabel—but Russ gave himself instead."
"Why do you think that, Mason?" Ford asked.
He calls me by my real name only when he's super-serious. Dipper took a deep breath. "Think about it. If it had been you or Grunkle Stan, the rest of us would've been devastated. But we're still young. We found out last year, and last spring again, that after a death you grieve and heal. If it had been me, even, I think Wendy would have been pretty broken up, and I know you guys would have, but I've been close to death before, and I hope everybody would get over it. I mean, all the close calls I've had, my dying would almost be expected. But—but—Mabel—"
Dipper shuddered with sobs he could no longer hold back. To his astonishment, Stanford put his arms around him. "I know what you mean," he said softly, patting Dipper's back. "Mabel is the soul of joy in the family. Losing her would be like—like losing our hearts."
Still not able to speak without gasping, Dipper said, "And I think—the monster sensed—that. Knew that—taking Mabel—would be the worst—blow it could strike. And Russ—really loved her!" Stanford handed him a handkerchief, and he wiped his eyes. "I think Mabel was halfway in love with him, too. Another month, and she might have gone into the forest with him. Would have become a fox, if that's possible. His grandmother did it, they say."
"Perhaps," Ford suggested gently, "Russ also sensed that Mabel wasn't meant for that kind of life and could never really be his. She's fully human, and her happiness is of the human kind. What is the quotation I've heard at military funerals? No one has greater love than this: to lay down their life for a friend."
Dipper blew his nose. "Will Mabel ever get over this?"
"Mason, believe me, one day she will. A great poet's life was once shattered when his little daughter died. Years later, for some reason he felt for an instant a great, deep happiness, and he wrote a poem about being surprised by joy. He says that such joy is tempered by remembering the lost loved one—that not being able to share that kind of happiness is truly deep sorrow. But life brings everyone both joy and grief. Life is joy and grief. Trust me, son, Mabel will recover, and she'll be stronger for it."
Dipper looked down at his feet. "I hope so. I wish I could help."
Ford smiled. "You can help by being Dipper. Her brobro, as she says. Do things with her. Encourage her. Ask her to go on your mystery hunts. Let her knit and make scrapbooks and do every silly thing that comes into her head, and just—be there for her."
As they started to leave, Dipper looked back at the silent, miniature portal. "I've got one promise to keep," he murmured. "Bill Cipher helped me as much as he could. I owe him a gold nugget."
"The one the manotaur boy gave you last summer?"
"It's the only one I have. I'll go give it to him tomorrow. Do you—no, I won't ask you to come along. Somehow Bill and I have this weird truce, but he tortured you, and—no, forget it. I'll go alone."
Wendy stayed over one last night, and she and Mabel shared the attic. In fact, Mabel pushed her bed next to Wendy's so she could hang onto her hand whenever the tears came. Before the exhausted girl fell asleep, she said in a hoarse voice, "Thanks for saying that poem beside his grave. It must've been hard."
"Yeah, it was, kinda," Wendy admitted. "But I just thought it was right."
"Who's it by?" Mabel asked.
Wendy actually chuckled. "Promise you won't tell anybody?"
"No, but why?"
"'Cause I'm pretty sure my dad wrote it. Long time after Mom passed, I found an old spiral notebook one day when I was cleanin' his bedroom. Nothin' in it but that poem, page after page of it as it developed, and I could see how it had been worked on and reworked and re-copied over an' over, all in Dad's messy print-writing. My aunt later told me he'd meant to read it but broke down and couldn't, so today, I guess I kinda said it for Mom, too. See, I memorized it but never even told Dad I found it. Manly Dan won't want anybody thinkin' he's a poet!"
"I won't tell," Mabel whispered, just as she fell asleep.
The next morning Dipper woke up early—just before sunup. For a moment he was confused before he remembered he'd borrowed the guest room from Mabel. Then he fumbled around, switched on the lamp, and stopped, staring.
A gold nugget the size of a small gumball gleamed on the bedside stand. It rested on a torn sheet of notepaper. And scrawled on it in blue ballpoint ink were the words: "Keep your own nugget, Dipper. It was a gift. And instead take this one to that one-eyed triangle demon. If he asks, tell him I donated it, and when he gets big enough if he resents my doing it—I'll punch him out again!"
The note wasn't signed, but Dipper said quietly, "Ford, you told Stan. Thank you guys."
He got up, dressed in his running clothes, carefully pocketed the nugget, set out to run to the Cipher effigy. Before he was even out of sight of the Shack, he heard pounding footsteps behind him and looked over his shoulder. Wendy, grinning, red hair flying, came even with him. He said, "I'm going—"
"I know, dork," she said cheerfully. "And I got your back."
They said nothing else, but like two graceful foxes on a bright morning, they ran easily side by side through the dappled shade and light of the forest.
The End
Author's Note:
Thanks, everyone, for putting up with this epic. This was a hard one to write because of some personal losses that happened as it was going along and because I felt guilty over what I was doing to poor Mabel—maybe that's why it dragged on so long, because I knew what was coming and hated to write that scene—but I'm glad I finished it. Taking some time off now—not all that long—and I hope the next one will have some laughter in it!
Edited to add: And special thanks to a couple of readers who caught errors and typos! I never mind correcting these.