I'm sorry that I didn't go more in-depth into what happened over the summer in the last chapter, it was still a 3k chapter but some things have to happen off-screen. More importantly, I'm sorry I forgot to include Hooty because that was genuinely an accident lol. Also, to the people who guessed, the stuffed animal that Cary left behind is supposed to be Francois, King's bunny from the show. I thought that would be a nice way to connect Eda's kids. Also, the extent of Cary's own magic abilities (because she does have some magic) will be discussed further later on in the fic. Thank you again for the comments!
One thing that I want to say about why I didn't spend that long in the Boiling Isles is because I really am the most excited about this chapter and the chapters coming. This is probably going to be a 5 arc story (arc 5 would propel us into the "modern-day" and bring Cary back to the world of The Owl House, allowing her to interact with the characters of the show) and arc 2, though not completely plotted out, is one of the things that I've looked forward to writing ever since the beginning. I appreciate the comments and support and I'm glad that people have been enjoying this story, just know that I'm enjoying it too and I think it'll get even better from here.
The second Cary got on the plane she started crying. She'd been in shock when she'd gone back to Nana Whiskey and asked for help getting back to Oregon. Nana Whiskey had ordered a plane ticket and called Stan while Cary took a much-needed nap, one in a real bed where her leg wasn't chained to a pipe. Her head was so foggy and numb that it didn't completely hit her until she was in the air the next day. And then the tears began to stream down her face.
She gripped the necklace Eda had gotten her so hard that she almost ripped it off her neck. Despite all the danger and mystery, Cary had enjoyed the summer. She thought that she and Eda had been bonding, but Eda had made it clear that she didn't want Cary to come back. Even if Eda had the best intentions, it still felt like Eda was banishing her because she was human.
Cary let go of the necklace and let it thump against her chest, wiping her eyes with her jacket sleeves. One of the flight attendants came around and tried to cheer her up with free snacks and ginger ale but the only thing Cary could think of that would cheer her up was getting back home.
To her surprise, Soos was the one to meet her at the airport. They hugged and Cary felt a little more grounded. She was back with her family, back with Team Pines.
"Hey, dude. It's good to have you back. A lot's happened this summer."
"Like what?" Cary asked, desperate for a distraction.
"Like your dad's identical twin returning from another dimension and a demon trying to take over the world."
"Oh, wow, I thought I had an eventful summer… There's a lot you have to fill me in on, then, huh?" Cary couldn't help feeling apprehensive at the idea that she was maybe about to meet her long-lost uncle. Meeting her long-lost mom hadn't turned out so well, and things could always get worse.
"And we will. The big important thing is that your dad sacrificed his memories to get rid of the demon dude once and for all. He's regained most of 'em, but things might still be a bit weird."
Cary stared at Soos, who'd just dropped a complete bomb on her pretty casually.
"Did he forget me?"
"He forgot everything and everyone. But don't worry, we helped him remember. He's really excited to see you again. He'll fill you in on the other important stuff, I just… We thought it was best if somebody warned you."
Once again Cary was tearing up, "Thanks, Soos. I can't even explain how much I missed you, while I was at… Theatre camp."
A lump formed in her throat. She was going to have to drop some bombs on them pretty soon and explain the truth of her absence that summer. But right now she just wanted to get back to her dad. Even if things were weirder now than how she had left them, they'd always be Team Pines.
Stan was waiting outside the Mystery Shack, pacing, when Soos's truck pulled up. Immediately he beamed, looking forward to seeing his daughter, who he'd only seen in pictures, mugshots, and internet videos. He knew he remembered her but he also knew that there were some parts of his memory that had yet to be jogged. He was excited to see and hug Cary again and he was also hopeful that she would help him fill in any missing pieces.
The one thing he wasn't excited about was telling her about his plans with Ford. He'd arranged with the others that they'd let Cary settle back in before breaking the news to her, but he was worried it was going to break her heart. Stan knew he wouldn't be gone forever and that Soos had agreed to let Cary keep living in the Mystery Shack, taking over as Cary's guardian while Stan was gone. But still, he was afraid Cary would be upset about everything that had happened in her absence.
"Carebear," He said, pushing those thoughts down and opening up his arms for a hug. Cary rushed to hug him, beginning to sob in his warm and comforting embrace.
"Oh, kiddo, I've got you, I'm here… What happened?" Stan remembered that at some point in late June he'd stopped getting calls from Cary. When he'd talked to Whiskey Sour on the phone yesterday she'd confirmed that Cary had disappeared for all of July and August and just now reappeared. Stan could only imagine what horrors Cary had faced on her own.
Soos had stayed in his truck to give them privacy and drove away as Stan ushered Cary to the spot on the porch where they'd had a lot of their deep conversations. Cary slumped onto the couch and took a deep breath.
"I found mom," Cary said quietly, still sniffling.
"Was it bad?" Stan asked, keeping a reassuring arm around Cary's shoulders.
"It was great, at first. She seemed like she really cared about me. She said she'd try to help me figure out my dreams and help me learn magic… But then yesterday she basically told me to go home and never return. She said it wasn't safe for me, in her realm."
"In her realm?"
"Oh, yeah. Apparently, mom is a witch who lives in another dimension."
"So you had a busy summer too, huh?" Stan offered her a smile, trying not to linger on the fact that his daughter had been in a dangerous alternate dimension for most of the summer. Had he known that he would have been a lot more worried, and he'd already been pretty stressed.
Cary laughed a little, "Yeah. It's just… Mom told me about the curse, which was helpful, but she also used it as an excuse. She used it to shut people out, to refuse to ask for help. And then she pulled that trick on me. I don't know if I'll ever see her again. I don't know if she wants me to."
"I'm so sorry, Carebear. That's rough. But I'll always have your back. And I am so glad you're home."
"Me too. This is my home. I was never going to stay in the Boiling Isles… I just wish things hadn't gotten so bad at the end."
"Well, she's missing out on the coolest kid I know."
"Thanks, dad. Hey! Soos told me that Uncle Ford is back."
Stan smiled, "Yeah. I finally got my brother back. Things were shaky, at first, but we're in a good place now."
That filled Cary with a lot of warmth and hope.
"So it's possible?" She fidgeted with the necklace.
"Huh?"
"Reconnecting with someone who shut you out, is it really possible?"
"Yeah, it is. You don't owe your mom a second chance, but maybe things will work out eventually."
"I'd like that."
"Let me make you some dinner and you can meet your uncle and tell us more about your bewitching summer."
"Thanks, dad." Cary had cheered up a little, but not completely.
"The house was, uh, demolished a couple of times this summer, so things might be a bit different than when you left them. But we worked to restore or replace most of your things, at least, and I'll get you whatever else you want or need if there's anything we forgot."
"According to Soos, you forgot everything."
"Well, yeah. But you were one of the first things I remembered."
"That's all I need. That and maybe some pancakes."
"How about we go to Greasy's Diner tomorrow for breakfast?" Cary loved that place, it would be a good time to tell her about the upcoming expedition.
"I'd love that." Stan took a deep breath and led her inside.
He was right, the house was different than Cary remembered, but so much of it was the same. One of the strangest new features of the house was the six-fingered man sitting at the breakfast table.
"Greetings, Caryn. Nice to finally meet you, I've heard quite a lot about you."
"Really?"
"It seems, out of all the things Stan has done in the past 30 years, you're the one thing he's the most proud of. He's told me all about you."
"He told me a lot about you, too, but there's still a lot I'd like to know."
"Well, there's a lot I'd like to know about you, too, so I suppose we can take turns filling each other in."
Cary nodded and studied him, noticing something sticking out of Ford's pocket.
"Are those jelly beans?"
"Oh, yeah. They're my favorite."
"Mine too. If you don't mind sharing… We could play a little game."
"What kind of game?"
"Well, you tell me something about you and I tell you something about me and whoever has the most interesting thing gets a jelly bean. It'll help us get to know each other."
"Oh! That's a good idea." Ford set the jelly beans on the table in between them. Stan smiled from the stove where he was making Cary some mac and cheese from scratch. It meant a lot to see his two favorite people already getting along. Maybe this would make telling her his plans tomorrow a little easier.
"Do you want to go first or should I go first?" Cary asked.
"You can go first," Ford said, "I'm interested in hearing about you and your summer adventures."
"It was a mostly good summer, until the end. I went to Connecticut and found a portal to another dimension, some place called the Boiling Isles. And that's where I met my mom, Eda the Owl Lady. She's a wild witch who sells "treasures" from the human realm, which was mostly old junk."
Ford's face went through a series of emotions, surprise, confusion, interest, and then humor, laughing a little at the last part.
"Stan and I know all about peddling junk as treasure, that's all we did at Pines' Pawns."
"I do not miss that place," Stan said, which wasn't completely true.
"I wish I could have seen it… I wish I could have met my paternal grandparents."
"I'm sorry you didn't get to, kiddo," Stan said, before adding, "Ford, I believe it's your turn?"
"Ah, yes. Well, like you, I also have some experience with interdimensional travel. When I got sucked into the portal I traveled through dimensions for thirty years, trying to build a machine that would destroy the being that tricked me into building the portal in the first place. Some places were quite nice and others were quite deadly, and in many of them I became a bit of a fugitive."
"My brother the criminal," Stan said proudly.
"Oh, I was a criminal in the Boiling Isles too. The Emperor wanted to get his hands on me because he knew I was human, plus mom and I ended up beating up a couple of guards…"
"My daughter the criminal," Stan said, sounding even prouder.
"I think we should call it a tie then," Ford said, grabbing a jelly bean for each of them and offering Cary the first pick.
"I know our experiences aren't the same, Uncle Ford, but it's nice to know that I'm not alone in the whole interdimensional criminal thing."
"It is nice to have some common ground," Ford agreed.
"Okay, the next thing… Oh! this isn't something that I've completely figured out, but this summer I realized I might be nonbinary? Mom was telling me about it and I've given it a lot of thought…" Cary was a little shy telling her dad and uncle this, but it was something important that she thought they ought to know.
"What's nonbinary?" Stan asked, supportive but confused.
"Well, it kind of means that I'm not really a girl or a boy. I'm still trying to figure out my gender right now. I feel like I've never fit into either category completely, but I also feel like I fit into all of them. I just want to experiment for now."
Stan nodded supportively, "Gender is a scam, kiddo. I've spent a lot of my life trying to conform to the stereotype of masculinity that my old man pushed, but you don't have to be anything you don't want to be. Do you want me to change how I refer to you?" He'd be thinking of Cary's definition of nonbinary for a while.
"Uh… I'm not sure yet. Right now I'm okay with using she/her pronouns but who knows in the future? Like I said, I'm still experimenting."
"I think that's good. In all of the dimensions I've been in, very few have completely binary sexes or gender. Even in this dimension binary sexes and genders aren't a real thing, because intersex people and people with different chromosomes exist. Society really had no clue what they were doing when they decided that everyone belongs in the girl box or the boy box. Climbing out of that box is very brave, Cary, and I wholeheartedly support you."
Cary beamed at Ford, feeling a lot better about things.
"Thank you, both, for supporting me. And thank you for giving me the time to figure out who I am. I thought I'd be able to figure out all of it this summer but…"
"Hey," Stan left the stove to wrap an arm around Cary, "trust me when I say that these kinds of things take a lifetime to figure out. It's okay to still be working on yourself. You're not even fifteen yet, cut yourself some slack. I'm proud of who you are and who you're becoming, but you don't need to rush into it."
Cary nodded and leaned into the hug until Ford interrupted.
"Stanley, I think the cheese is burning."
Stan booked it back to the stove to try to salvage dinner and Ford took his turn.
"I mentioned that I was tricked into building the portal. Let me tell you more about that." Ford paused and sighed deeply.
"Okay, but you don't have to if it's too hard."
"No, it's important for you to know. It'll help you understand me and it'll help you understand what happened this summer."
"Okay, then."
"Bill was a demon and a very powerful one at that. He looked like a flat pyramid with a single eye, I would draw it for you but, well, when he existed every image of him was a peephole into our reality, and I'm afraid it will take me a long time to shake that superstition. Bill took complete advantage of me and made me into his pawn, but let's be honest, I let myself be tricked. I assume your father told you what occurred when he left home?"
"You mean when he was kicked out? Yeah."
"I was bitter and cocky, and I just wanted to prove to the world that I really was great, instead of just a nobody from New Jersey. And Bill said everything I wanted to hear and gave me answers to questions I didn't even know I should be asking. He was my muse, my partner. And eventually, my blind trust in him led me to create a portal to another dimension. I almost let Bill escape into our world thirty years ago. Instead, I got trapped in his world."
Cary pushed the bag of jelly beans over to Ford, who popped one into his mouth.
"That sounds like hell."
"Some of it was, some of it wasn't. I made some friends, got matching tattoos with some aliens, it was a whole thing, I wrote about it in my journal- ah, I forgot. I got rid of my journal. Sorry, Cary."
"No, it's okay, but that reminds me." Cary reached down and dug into her backpack, pulling out her own journal and setting it on the table.
"That's my next thing, I guess. Over the summer I was able to learn a lot about magic. It seems that if I have any powers other than the visions, they're latent. Mom doesn't think I'm actually cursed, which is good, I guess. I can't help but be bummed that I wasn't able to fit in there, I guess I am just a nobody from Oregon. But still, for research purposes, I suppose my time there was invaluable!" Cary tried to look on the bright side while Ford perused her journal and Stan brought over the mac and cheese.
"You're no nobody, Carebear," Stan said.
"And even if you were, you're a smart nobody. And trust me when I say it's better to be a smart nobody than an easily manipulated somebody. I've said it before, but Stan would've seen right through Bill's lies."
"That's why it was so easy to beat him," Stan said, "He offered me everything in my last moments of original memory. All I wanted, though, was to make sure my family was safe."
"I can't believe you saved the world this summer," Cary said, awe-struck as she offered Stan the last jelly bean.
"You can have it, sweetheart." Being treated like a hero was enough.
They talked a little more about their respective summers, Stan and Ford telling Cary about Mabel and Dipper and Cary talking about Eda, Lilith, Hooty, and Gwendolyn. When she attempted to draw what Hooty looked like all three of them ended up laughing because Cary had absolutely no art skills and Hooty was already so impossible to explain. After dinner, Cary was pretty wiped out and went to bed, leaving Stan and Ford to clean up.
"Hearing Cary talk… Stan, there's something I think I need to tell you."
"Oh, yeah? What's up?"
"I've been to the Boiling Isles. I've met Edalyn Clawthorne."
"No way, really? Why didn't you mention that when Cary was talking?"
"Because I didn't want her to find out that her uncle was also in a relationship with her mom," Ford said in a whisper.
Stan's face went white, "You and I slept with the same witch?"
"It seems so."
"Well… No big deal. What's past is past, Cary doesn't have to find out."
"Stan, it was fifteen years ago."
Now Stan really looked panicked.
"Are you implying…"
"Yes."
"That would explain a lot… We should do a paternity test."
"No."
"No?! We have to know the truth."
"No, we don't. The truth is that you're her father, you raised her and you love her. And she loves you. I'm happy being her uncle and I have no intention of shaking her life up more than it has to be shaken up, but you deserved to know."
"Alright, then… We won't tell her."
"It's for the best." It was one little mystery that Cary never needed to uncover, and it was completely eclipsed by the last bombshell that Stan was about to drop on her at breakfast.
Cary hadn't quite had a vision that night but she woke up with a bad feeling about the day. She tried to shake it off and get ready for breakfast but she couldn't help feeling weird. She didn't know if she wanted things to get back to normal or if she was too changed from her summer away. Either way, more changes were coming that she couldn't have predicted.
Stan didn't need prophetic dreams to have a bad feeling about the day. He'd just gotten Cary back and he didn't want to hurt her. He had to keep telling himself that it wasn't permanent. That he would come back to Gravity Falls and stay in contact with Cary the whole time while he was gone. He was not abandoning his daughter. He was not running away.
If Ford noticed the apprehension in the car he didn't say anything. After being given permission by Cary, he was skimming through her research journal and learning more about the magic system on the Boiling Isles.
"I can't wait to see Wendy again," Cary mentioned as they entered the diner. Greasy's Diner was one of her favorite places to come with Wendy.
"Well, she'll be at work today," Stan said.
"Good. Things are finally getting back to normal…"
Stan cleared his throat, feeling like the worst parent in the world.
"Hey, Carebear? I need to tell you something."
"Did something else happen this summer? Did something happen to Wendy? Did she get a boyfriend?"
"Yes, sort of but she's okay, and yes but they broke up."
"Okay… What else happened?" Cary asked nervously.
"When we were younger, Ford and I had these plans to sail around the world, hunting monsters and looking for treasure. Those plans obviously never came to fruition."
"But?" Cary asked, her heart sinking.
"But Ford recently discovered some paranormal activity in the middle of the ocean. He wants to investigate."
"So Uncle Ford is leaving?" Cary asked.
"He is. And… And I'm going with him. Soos is going to take over the Mystery Shack and you can stay with him."
"You're leaving me?" Cary asked, her voice growing sharp.
"No, no no no, Cary, it's not forever! I'm not running away, it'll just be for a little while. Like your trip to the Boiling Isles. It'll just be for a while…"
Cary saw red. She was about to snap at him, tell him that no matter how he framed it, he was abandoning her right after she'd been cast out by her birth mom. No matter how he intended it, this betrayal hurt like hell.
But that wasn't the only thing that hurt like hell. Her teeth sharpened and her eyes went dark. Cary could feel something growing from her back and had to cast aside the jacket so that it didn't get torn apart. Almost instinctively the growing wings took flight, tearing through the diner and heading home.
It's all coming together! I know you're much more interested in the cliffhanger but I wanted to make a quick note about Cary's gender expression because I know if I don't it'll get super confusing super fast. I recently released the story "Cary's Flag" where I exclusively used they/them pronouns for Cary, which conflicts with the she/her pronouns I've been using so far. But Cary uses all pronouns (mainly he/she/they but also some neopronouns) which I think is pretty fun and cool of them.