i blame the scenery
"I don't know, Dip," Mabel says, sounding worn out.
Dipper is forced to concur. It's the first weekend after Christmas break and he managed to talk his parents into a trip to Leona Canyon, a nearby nature preserve, since the weather has turned mild. He and Mabel gave them the slip not long after arrival in the hope of finding some forest phenomena close to home.
But Leona Canyon isn't like the forests of Gravity Falls. It's well-trod, documented, sort of lived-in, if a forest can be said to be that way. Mabel's grappling hook has taken them to some out of the way places, but they've come up with nothing besides standard wildlife.
Dipper has just asked if they should continue, bringing Mabel's tired response. And he doesn't know either. He sort of wants to continue, but logically it's hard to find any motivation.
"I guess this was a bust," he sighs, looking around what has turned out to be a very normal bunch of woods.
"There's always next time," Mabel says sympathetically, pushing gently on his shoulder.
Dipper nods, trying not to take the failure to heart. He remembers what Great-Uncle Ford said in his letter about anomalies being hard to find when not concentrated like they are in Gravity Falls. He can't expect to wander into the trees and find something weird on the first try. It's just California.
"We should find Mom and Dad before they get worried," he says. He pulls his compass out of his vest and examines it. "We walk… back this way."
"Walking's for chumps!" Mabel declares. She jumps onto his back, nearly knocking him down, and aims the grappling hook over his shoulder.
"Wait, Mabel—"
About half an hour later they're in the car on the way home and nursing about a million scratches from the thorn bushes they flew through. Mom and Dad aren't all that happy that they'd run off, but Dipper has somewhat placated them by showing them the compass he brought and emphasizing all the woodsman training he'd received from Grunkle Stan (he chooses not to divulge that he actually gained most of his experience through the tutelage of Manotaurs, a mysterious journal, and trial and error). The incident with the thorn bushes is a bit harder to explain away; Mom and Dad don't share Grunkle Stan's unique approach to being a caretaker. Accordingly, Mabel has chosen to keep the grappling hook hidden for fear of having it taken away.
It's a safe impulse but it's also one more thing they must keep from Mom and Dad, a weight that seems to grow with every passing day. It's not fair to them. Dipper knows that. But, at the same time, it's not his fault his parents weren't there. Can anyone who wasn't there ever really understand?
Maybe someday he and Mabel can take Mom and Dad to Gravity Falls and show them. It's bound to come up. Does Ford plan on never contacting his family? That seems unlikely, given his new outlook. And the appearance of a new uncle is going to raise some questions.
When they get home, Dipper checks his email. As if the thoughts of him have summoned his correspondence, there's an email from Great-Uncle Ford. Dipper eagerly opens the missive.
Dipper,
Very busy at the moment, so I'll have to keep this brief. I've also wondered if there's some hidden principle at work keeping weirdness out of common knowledge. Perhaps we are unusual in that we have remained relatively normal, in some way insulated from such influences. Gravity Falls' Law of Weirdness Magnetism only explains how so many anomalies came to be concentrated there, not how their presence or migration is so often ignored. It's certainly a subject that demands more study. You and I should investigate, when next we meet.
As for the town itself, I wouldn't worry just yet. Even after thirty years it's about as isolated as a place can be in modern America. I suspect the Law of Weirdness Magnetism is at play in more than one capacity. Does it keep normal things out as easily as it keeps weird things in? Again, something we should look into!
I'm pleased to hear you took care of a Category Two ghost. Great initiative! I'm somewhat surprised you found one in Piedmont. Then again, as far as weirdness goes hauntings are one of the most common manifestations. Be sure to let me know if you find any additional apparitions. Where there's one ghost there tend to be others within a sphere of influence. The weirdness that allows a spirit to linger can lead to multiple incidents in a localized area. That may not be the case, but keep an eye out.
—Great-Uncle Ford
The email raises more questions than answers, but Dipper is excited by Ford's words regarding the future. He still wants to investigate things with Dipper, to share his life's work! Dipper can see himself in the summer, side by side with his great-uncle, searching for evidence to support or disprove their mutual theorizing.
He sits at his desk and reads the email again, wondering if he has it in him to wait.
Later that night he shares the email with Mabel. She's smiling even though Ford's words are all of a scientific concern; the email might not have much to interest her, but it's still from her grunkle and that seems to be enough to make her happy.
"So there's gotta be more ghosts around here somewhere," she observes when she finishes.
"Might be difficult to find, though," Dipper says, absently chewing on an already broken pen.
He's looked around the area for help in the form of other believers, but what he found isn't encouraging. Message boards are a mess of pointless feuds, false sightings, and outright fabrications. There's an informal club at his school for the paranormal and the single meeting he'd attended had been mostly taken up by movie discussions and some haphazard guessing about the nature of creatures Dipper knows are nothing like what was proposed. His experience isolates him; he finds most paranormal speculation laughably off base.
But he still wonders how he and Mabel had managed a ghost encounter so quickly and effortlessly. Are they just that lucky? He looks at Great-Uncle Ford's email again, especially the part about a 'sphere of influence.' What if…
"Mabel, hold on," he says excitedly, rocking forward in his chair. "What if we're the ones who are weird?"
"Who, uth?" Mabel says, pausing with her tongue in a can of cake frosting.
"Just hear me out. During Weirdmageddon, who knows what we were exposed to? Alien radiation, transdimensional weirdness rays; we were basically in Bill's dimension for a while. Or maybe it's not even that, maybe it's just the town! Maybe we're, I don't know, like weirdness magnets. Maybe weird things will always find us, just like they do in the valley!"
Instead of latching on to his excitement, Mabel looks uneasy. "Like the candy monster?"
"Sure, like the candy m—"
"…Or like the tooth-island?"
Now he understands her concern. Most of the weirdness in Gravity Falls is strange and wonderful, but he can't exactly classify it as harmless—and some of it is downright terrifying. "Well… I don't think there's anything like that in Piedmont. We only found a Category Two ghost. I mean, we can't find what isn't there."
"So you don't think any giant vampire bats are going to attack Mom and Dad," she says, making sure.
"I don't think there are any giant vampire bats around here," he says. "But, if there are any more ghosts, we might have a better chance of finding them than anyone else."
Mabel looks down at herself and wiggles her fingers. "If I'm radiated, shouldn't I be glowing?"
"Irradiated. And it doesn't work like that."
"Like you know how weirdness rays work," she scoffs.
Dipper picks up his journal. "Nobody does. That's why it's a theory, and I think it's a pretty good one," he says self-importantly.
"If I'm going to be irradiated, I want superpowers," Mabel declares. "Gravity Girl! No, Weird Woman!"
"You should definitely knit yourself a cape," he says, and even though he's being sarcastic he's pretty sure she's going to do it.
He spends the next few days oscillating between homework and mentally debating whether his theory is workable. The problem is that he can't think of a way in which it is falsifiable without discovering a physical measurement for weirdness; other observations, such as tracking his weird encounters versus a control group, would be strictly qualitative and ultimately inconclusive. And his sample size is so limited. He can't draw any conclusions based on his and Mabel's single paranormal experience outside of Gravity Falls. His theory rests entirely on anecdote.
Wendy and Soos are still in Gravity Falls, so their experiences with the paranormal will be entirely normal, which is to say entirely weird. And Grunkle Stan and Great-Uncle Ford are actively seeking anomalies in the same way Dipper is, albeit with far superior equipment and a better starting point (in retrospect, he really wishes he had asked Ford for some of the stuff from one of the labs before leaving). What he needs is someone else who was exposed to Weirdmageddon but is no longer in the Falls. He knows one person who fits that criteria.
He shoots Pacifica a quick text: Hey let me know if you see anything weird okay
She responds a few minutes later: You mean besides you?
Dipper isn't sure what he'd expected, but it really should have been that.
I mean Weird with a capital, he retorts, guessing she'll understand.
She texts back, Why what's happening, and then, before he can even start to respond, is he back?
Oops. He hadn't been trying to panic her, but he can see now why there's cause for concern. He quickly assuages her fears. No nothing like that, just working on a theory
It takes her almost ten minutes to get back to him. At the eight-minute mark he slumps in his seat and winces. She's probably mad at him.
Dork, she finally replies. And then: Don't ever do that again
"I wasn't trying to," he mutters out loud, then texts her a short apology.
But the next day the thought is still bugging him. He knows he needs to stop thinking about it because there's nothing he can do about it except keep looking for anomalies in Piedmont. Whatever luck led to that ghost has yet to come through again. He thinks the ghost lends some vague credence to his theory, but what if it was just a fluke?
Maybe California just doesn't have enough anomalies for him to find another. It's a big state, sure. Perhaps that's part of the problem.
He won't give up. He knows there's an anomaly out there, somewhere, waiting to be found. He refuses to let go of what he's learned; he can't just settle back into his old patterns and pretend nothing's changed. But he can't let go of his old life, either (Mabel showed him that). So, he goes to school and attends his extracurriculars and plays his games; and it's not that he isn't engaged or never enjoys himself.
It's just that he's also waiting.
It's the middle of an unusually wet February. Rain streaks down Dipper's window as he taps a pencil eraser absently against his teeth, debating his homework answers.
His phone begins to vibrate on his desk. He sighs and swings his legs off his bed and goes over to retrieve it. He checks the caller: it's Pacifica.
It's not quite the surprise it would have once been. He answers it. "Hello?"
Her voice comes through, a sharpened valley girl drawl. "I need your help."