endserenading
It's evening when Dipper hops off the step below the door of Soos' truck just after it has arrived at 618 Gopher Road in Gravity Falls, Oregon. It feels like the first breath after coma.
The air is redolent with the scent of the pine trees, an ocean of rustling green that stretches away to either side until the horizon meets with the hillsides. He knows these woods, their paths and contours. Below the first purple notes of night and the just risen moon, the trunks of the evergreens stand like columns marking the border of a shaded land, fading into the dark of the undergrowth. There are secrets there, in the wooded places; signs and wonders. He can't wait to find them again.
The Shack looks pretty much just like he left it: slightly dilapidated, tacky, anachronistic; home. There's long grass beneath his feet and a clear sky above and summer unfolds before him, beckoning, welcome.
He's back.
He walks forward as if in a trance, vaguely aware that Mabel and Pacifica are with him. Soon, he is running. The wooden panels of the old porch thump beneath his feet and he throws the door open. There are the stairs, crooked and warped and so familiar he can feel them shift beneath his weight without taking a single step. He moves inside and smells the wooden walls, oak and pine and hints of cedar. The TV sits in front of the armchair, dinosaur skull still in its place. Somewhere far beneath his feet, he knows there might be living dinosaurs. It's been awhile since he could think that.
Exiting the living area, he goes to the gift shop. And there's Wendy behind the counter, face buried in a magazine as if it's just another day last summer, as if he never left. Her head raises when she hears him come in. She drops the magazine and springs to her feet.
"Hey, you're back!" she says, delighted. "Dude, I thought you'd be another hour, at least!"
"Yeah, Soos was speeding pretty much ninety percent of the time," he tells her, and then he's accepting a hug and it's not awkward or weird; it's wonderful and steady.
Mabel comes running into the room at full tilt. "Bring it in, Shack Crew! Bring it in!" she exhorts. Soos comes in behind her and puts his arms around all of them, squeezing until they make sounds of protest.
"I'm so stoked you guys are back," Wendy says, stepping away with her hands in pockets, as cool and easygoing as ever. "Hey, Pacifica."
Pacifica is standing by the door, witnessing their reunion. "Hello," she says neutrally.
"I'll go make sure I didn't leave anything in Pacifica's room," Soos says. He and Melody have moved out of the Shack and are renting a small house in town, so Pacifica gets Ford's old room. "You should tell Mr. Pines you're here. Both of them, I mean."
"I'm supposed to be moving stuff out of Stan's truck," Wendy says, jerking a thumb over her shoulder towards the door and rolling her eyes. "He knew I'd be here after work 'cause of you guys. Talk more when you're done?"
"Definitely," Dipper says.
The door to the shop opens and Grunkle Stan comes in, carrying a box. "Wendy!" he shouts. "Why aren't you carrying this box for me? What am I paying you for?"
"Oh, cool, you're paying me overtime?" Wendy says sarcastically, though she does take the box from him.
"Get a union," Grunkle Stan tells her. It's a good thing Wendy took the box, though, because a second later he has to catch Mabel as she throws herself at him.
"Guess who's back for the summer?!" Mabel grins up at him manically.
"You know I just saw you, right?" he grumbles, patting her on the back.
Dipper goes over to give Grunkle Stan a (brief, manly) hug, but his attention is fixated on the vending machine set against the far wall. Below the hidden stairway is his other grunkle and a laboratory that he can't wait to see again. This time he knows it's there, he'll know it for the whole summer, and there will be so much to do and see and discover.
Pacifica notices where his attention lies. "Just go," she says, rolling her eyes at him.
He does, running over and punching in the code. The machine swings open and he ducks inside.
"Hey! If you're already going down there, at least take a box with you!" Grunkle Stan yells after him. Dipper keeps going, figuring between the stairs and the closing vending machine he has plausible denial as to whether he heard or not.
The laboratory is lit up, consoles blinking; the space is underpinned by the deep hum of the ventilation system. The air is cool and dry, and Dipper is assaulted by so many memories that he has to stop for a second and sort his thoughts out. The most momentous occasion of his life started down here.
Great-Uncle Ford is just ahead, surrounded by instrumentation. "Dipper!" he says jovially when he spots his nephew. "I've been parsing the data from our last excursion in between unpacking. The implications are certainly interesting, but I'd like a larger sample space. Up for finding some more anomalies?"
Dipper only has one possible answer. "Yes!" he says excitedly. "When do we start?"
"Tomorrow, I should think," Ford chuckles. "Let's not get caught up in the work just yet. Tonight, family first, Dipper."
Dipper knows that's a lesson Ford learned the hard way. Excited as he is to get started, his great-uncle is right. Tonight is a night for settling in and seeing each other. "Sure, tomorrow," he says, and he can't be that disappointed because there will be a whole summer for science.
Soon after, he's sitting on the floor with Pacifica leaning against his side. There's a terrible black and white horror movie on Gravity Falls Public Access. Mabel is sitting on the chair with Grunkle Stan, saying something that's making him laugh as she furiously texts Candy and Grenda, and Dipper knows they'll both be at the Shack bright and early tomorrow. Soos and Wendy heckle the movie from their borrowed kitchen chairs, scorning the special effects (Soos goes off on a tangent by suggesting they could make a better movie and soon they are trading ideas). And Great-Uncle Ford sits in his own chair, scribbling notes in his journal. Although he isn't joining in the mockery of the film, he seems content to just be there.
It's Dipper's imagined image of this moment, brought to perfect life.
Next to him, Pacifica makes a sound of disbelief. "You can see the microphone," she says, pointing at a boom mic floating over an actor's head.
Her observation brings everyone's attention back to the film and soon they are all laughing as the boom mic goes in and out of frame what must be five or six times in the same scene. Even Ford chortles at the sight.
"And that was their best take!" Wendy cackles.
Dipper rests his head against the fabric of the armchair and just feels it, all of it, everything and everyone around him.
It's late evening. Soos and Wendy have gone home, promising an early return the next day. Dipper is sitting on one of the lawn chairs perched on the roof of the Shack. The sun has sunk behind the pines, the town's water tower backlit with every subtle shade of orange. It looks like a postcard, but he's here, not looking at it on a spinning rack or someone's shelf of memorabilia. This is his, this instant. And there will never be another exactly like it.
He's spent the day trying to keep his feelings from overwhelming him. But this, finally—the wind in the evergreens, the old dirt road and lot, the feeling of the warm, scratchy shingles beneath his bare feet—this makes it all real. He's here. He's home. Summer is before him and he hasn't even begun to tap its potential.
It's a life he hadn't conceived of a year ago, and now it's a life he can't imagine not wanting. This is what he is meant for: this town, these anomalies, this new science. It's his future, laid out in adventure and danger and journals. Ford has so much to teach him.
And Mabel will be there too. He's sure of it.
A sudden noise interrupts his thoughts and he turns to see the next object of his musings climbing the ladder. Pacifica pauses to take in the view, then carefully descends the slope and occupies the other lawn chair.
"Very scenic," she notes, settling in.
"Right? Wendy had the one chair up here and then we kind of took it over," Dipper says.
"It's kind of weird to see the water tower from this side," she says.
Dipper looks at it, its wooden slats tinted by the light of the evening. "I guess Robbie's explosion didn't make it through the reset."
"Explosion?" Pacifica says, confused. "Wait, that graffiti? I thought that was a muffin."
Dipper laughs, each heave of his chest made propulsive by the giddy joy thumping away in his ribcage—he's lighter than air. "It totally was a muffin!"
They laugh together, Pacifica's giggle high and bright in the gathering twilight. As they taper off, it suddenly strikes him that he hadn't even known who she was at this same time last summer. If at some point, somehow, he had known that he would be here, laughing with her on the roof of the Shack… Well, that would have been the weirdest thing of all.
"So what's it like, being back?" he has to ask.
"I don't really know yet," she says.
He knows she must be thinking of the town, a place that might prefer to forget her and her family name. She has nothing to prove to Dipper and Mabel, obviously. It remains to be seen how anyone else feels about it (though Wendy and Soos don't seem to hold a grudge, and Grunkle Stan is slowly coming around).
"It'll be great," he promises her. "And you can track mud wherever you want."
"Oh, wow, just what I always wanted," she says sarcastically.
He just grins at her. "Come on. A whole summer with me and Mabel, adventuring? How could it not be awesome?"
"Well…" She looks out into the sea of trees, a rustling wonderland of pines and the endless enigmas beneath their boughs. "Since it's us… yeah. It has to be awesome."
It's them; it's everyone. It's the evergreens and ever-ready hearts, monsters and mysteries, the light and the laughter, the dim and the dark, the secret spaces and quiet truths. It's the start of the summer at the near end of the world. It's the next great frontier wrapped in the sleepy layers of a little logging town. It's where he found new friends, new family, found himself, and found her.
It's Gravity Falls.
He reaches down and takes her hand between the chairs. Together, they watch as every rendered hue of purple paints itself across the empyrean and stars slip out of the fading light, somewhere above their next true experience.
That night, he crawls into his bed; scratchy sheets, lumpy pillow, scents of lumber and mildew. It's not exactly his well-furnished, modern drywall room back in Piedmont, but it's not worse, either. It's just different, in the best of fashions. It fits him in a way that's hard to describe. It's a better extension of his skin, his self, who he is and who he's becoming.
Outside, the crickets serenade the Shack. The moon casts its rays through the window and lights upon the floor, beaming through the air in a way that gives it physicality, catching on the same specks of dust and dancing pollen that filter through Dipper's lungs. His heart sings in time with the insects and the wind in the trees.
Across the room, Mabel rolls over in her bed to face him. She must be smiling because he can see the glitter of her braces, and the sight sends a spark of recognition careening through him, like it's a painting of a place he's been before.
"Dipper," she whispers loudly.
"Yeah?" he says, the word floating up in the darkness to rattle around the rafters, darting through the moonbeams.
"What are we going to do tomorrow?"
He smiles, sinking back into his pillow. "I bet we'll think of something."
She rolls over again, clutching Waddles to her chest. "Goodnight, Dipper."
"Goodnight, Mabel."
He closes his eyes, and he knows that when he opens them again, he'll be exactly where he wants to be.
anyway, i've been there
0: Anyway, I've Been There by Camber (Deep Elm, 1999)
1: Home, Like Noplace Is There by The Hotelier (Tiny Engines, 2014)
2: Day Three of My New Life by Knapsack (Alias, 1997)
3: I Wrote The Last Chapter For You by Edaline (Law Of Inertia, 1999)
4: Nothing Makes Sense Without It by Kind Of Like Spitting (Slowdance, 1999)
5: Decision Should Be A Desert, Bright And Clear by Amalthea (Ape Must Not Kill Ape, 2009)
6: All I Could Find Was You by Dowsing (Count Your Lucky Stars, 2011)
7: Something to Write Home About by The Get Up Kids (Doghouse, 1999)
8: (Don't Forget To) Breathe by Various Artists (Crank!, 1997)
9: These Are Not Fall Colors by Lync (K, 1994)
10: You Can Just Leave It All by Prawn (Topshelf, 2012)
11: Chemistry for Changing Times by The Blacktop Cadence (Keystone-Ember, 1997)
12: The Lack Long After by Pianos Become The Teeth (Topshelf, 2011)
13: Nothing Feels Good by The Promise Ring (Jade Tree, 1997)
14: Don't Be A Let Down by Messes (Paperweight, 2015)
15: 'Let Me Keep This Memory' from Dreamer On The Run by U137 (Deep Elm, 2013)
16: I'll Keep You In Mind, From Time To Time by Moose Blood (No Sleep, 2014)
17: I Blame The Scenery by Reubens Accomplice (Slowdance, 2000)
18: Catastrophe Keeps Us Together by Rainer Maria (Grunion, 2006)
19: Are You My Lionkiller? by Imbroco (Deep Elm, 2000)
20: At The Window Of Vulnerability by Julia (Bloodlink, 1994)
21: The Comfort and The Confusion by Merit (Boom Blast, 2016)
22: Welcome Home, Kiddo by Our Sunday Affairs (Not On Label, 2011)
23: The Pull Of Gravity by Young and Heartless (Mayfly, 2014)
24: On Long Distance and The Ties That Held Us Together by Brave Season (Ronald, 2015)
25: Sun You've Got To Hurry by Reno Kid (Defiance, 1999)
26: Everything That I Was Afraid of Happening, Happened by Saintly Rows (Not On Label, 2013)
27: Maybe You, No One Else Worth It by Brave Bird (Count Your Lucky Stars, 2013)
28: Moving Mountains by The Casket Lottery (Second Nature, 2000)
29: For the Love of the Wounded by Split Lip (Doghouse, 1993)
30: What It Takes to Move Forward by Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) (Count Your Lucky Stars, 2009)
31: Our First Taste of Escape by Penfold (Milligram, 2001)
32: Are You Driving Me Crazy? by Seam (City Slang, 1995)
33: If They Do by Elliott (Initial, 1999)
34: Hide Here Forever by Strictly Ballroom (Waxploitation, 1997)
35: Two Conversations by The Appleseed Cast (Tiger Style, 2003)
36: Start Here by The Gloria Record (Broken Circles, 2002)
37: Mend, Move On by Trophy Eyes (Hopeless, 2014)
38: Farewell To Introductions by Maya Shore (Music Fellowship, 2000)
39: Today Puberty, Tomorrow the World by Native Nod (Gern Blandsten, 1995)
40: Do You Know Who You Are? by Texas Is The Reason (Revelation, 1996)
41: It Tired Me All The Same by arrows in her (Broken World, 2016)
42: Spelling The Names by Ethel Meserve (Tree, 2000)
43: These Last Days by Evergreen (Gravity, 1997)
44: Guilt Beats Hate by Benton Falls (Deep Elm, 2003)
45: If Arsenic Fails, Try Algebra by Pop Unknown(Deep Elm, 1999)
46: Departures and Landfalls by Boys Life (Headhunter, 1996)
47: Fate's Got A Driver by Chamberlain (Doghouse, 1996)
48: Under The Pretense Of Present Tense by Engine Down (Lovitt, 1999)
49: RE: Dereliction by Acrobat Down (Atact Musicalities, 1999)
50: Leave it to Science to Solve All Your Problems by My Winter Nerve (Not On Label)
51: Real Stories of True People, Who Kind of Looked Like Monsters… by Oso Oso (Soft Speak, 2015)
52: Tell Me About the Long Dark Path Home by The Newfound Interest in Connecticut (We Are Busy Bodies, 2005)
53: Don't Need Regret by The Pine (Alone, 2005)
54: 'At The Top Of This Hill' from Departures by Message To Bears (Dead Pilot, 2009)
55: Take Care, Take Care, Take Care by Explosions in the Sky (Temporary Residence Limited, 2011)
56: EndSerenading by Mineral (Crank!, 1998)