run in all directions
Pacifica watches impatiently as Dipper consults his compass for the hundredth time. She expects the act to yield the same result as the previous ninety-nine consultations.
"It just won't stop spinning," he says, sounding more intrigued than frustrated because of course he does. "Usually it stops after a while."
Anywhere else in the world a spinning compass would probably be shocking, or at least a novelty. In Gravity Falls it's such a regular occurrence that Dipper hadn't even said anything until it persisted. The sun is equally useful for pointing the way, but this is the deep woods, the old growth forest where the trees stretch so far overhead that their interwoven branches might as well be the sky. Sunbeams occasionally cut their way down through the shadows; tracing their path back to the canopy reveals nothing but intermittent splotches of light winking behind the waving limbs of trees. The sun could be anywhere.
Pacifica is a city girl. Or… she was? Either way, she's new to this. Her sense of direction is fledgling at best. Besides, she's not the one who got them lost. That's on Mr. 'This-Spinning-Compass-Sure-Is-Neat.'
"Are we normal lost, or totally super lost?" Mabel asks.
"Um… until this thing starts working, I'm going with totally super lost," Dipper replies.
Wonderful. There go all other plans for the day. …Not that Pacifica has any. God, what a dweeb she's become.
She'd be more concerned if it weren't so much fun.
The three of them have wandered far into what Pacifica assumes is the magical portion of the forest, judging by the occasional flock of fairies and Stonehenge-y ruins. The plants here grow in odd whirls and something always seems to be sparkling. It was interesting for a little while; now it's just kind of ostentatious. She definitely prefers the natural beauty of the regular forest.
The purpose of their trip is vague; though, to be fair, when Dipper had been jabbering continuously over breakfast Pacifica had tuned him out pretty quick. She thinks they're looking for rocks? But, like, particular rocks. Magical rocks, maybe. She could ask, but that would mean admitting she doesn't know.
Listening hadn't seemed important, not compared with the possibility of spending some time in the woods with Dipper. At first it had looked like that was how it was going to be, just the two of them; Mabel had been nowhere in sight. Pacifica had anticipated an afternoon with her boyfriend doing, you know… whatever. Going out with only Dipper for company is definitely a grey area as far as the summer rules go, but so long as the great-uncles don't say anything, Pacifica sure won't.
Then Mabel showed up at the last second, derailing Pacifica's nebulous plans. It's a couple hours later now and Dipper still doesn't seem to be aware of the potential make out session he narrowly avoided, the dork. As if finding gross rocks is better than kissing Pacifica. Nothing is better than kissing her, and he should know that.
Oh well. Rocks it is.
Permanently, because they're totally super lost.
"JEFF?" Mabel suddenly shouts, making Pacifica jump. "HEY, BUDDY, IT'S MABEL! I WAS YOUR QUEEN FOR LIKE TEN MINUTES? WE'RE LOST, JUST FYI. SEND ANYBODY! EXCEPT THE UNICORNS, NOT THEM."
"I don't think there's anyone around, Mabel," Dipper says wryly.
Mabel just shrugs. "Worth a shot."
Pacifica slaps the side of her neck, irritated by mosquitoes. It's not evening yet, but the bugs are already getting worse. She's not really worried about starving to death—either the compass will start working again or Ford will track them down if they don't come back tonight. Until then, the safest thing to do is stay put. They've all got their backpacks with enough food and water for at least a couple days. Dipper even has a walkie talkie for emergencies, though there's a good chance that it won't work any better than the compass. The strange interference that comes and goes in the valley seems to affect all kinds of things.
Resigned to the forthcoming boredom, Pacifica sighs heavily and flops down onto a large rectangular stone.
She immediately springs back to her feet when it vibrates beneath her. "Ah!"
Dipper spins towards her in surprise. "Wha—"
He disappears from view as stone walls erupt from the earth, sending geysers of dirt into the air. The ground shakes so hard that Pacifica tumbles to her knees and stays there, unable to stand. The cacophony rattles through her like a passing train.
The rumbling slows to a halt. Pacifica can hear the sound of someone coughing; it sounds like Mabel. As the dust settles, Pacifica gets back on her feet and surveys the new landscape. She's bracketed by two tall stone walls. The surface of the walls is covered in whorls and circles, strange shapes that flow along the pitted rock. The walls bend ahead and behind, curving off into different directions. She looks upwards and blanches when she sees how tall the walls are—they rear at least thirty feet above, and the carvings are too shallow to provide footholds.
A very dusty Mabel is brushing herself off nearby, but Dipper must be on the other side.
"Dipper!" Pacifica shouts. She listens closely and hears a distant reply; the walls must be thick. She can't understand what he's saying but is relieved to at least know he's still there. "I'll try to find you!" she yells, knowing he probably won't be able to comprehend.
"Well this is new," Mabel comments as she claps another cloud of dust off her skirt.
"Why did we have to go to the magical side of the forest? I can't even sit down without walls happening!" Pacifica complains. She presses her hands to the stone of the wall; it's surprisingly cold for such a warm summer day. "What is this supposed to be?"
Mabel looks up and down the curving corridor. "Looks kind of like a maze?"
Pacifica lets her head droop and sighs deeply. Mabel could be wrong but, deep down, Pacifica knows she's right. It would be too simple for this magical structure to be something they can just walk out of.
"Fine, whatever," Pacifica says, and she's not so much talking to Mabel as the universe in general. Time to use her brain so she doesn't have to eat trail mix for dinner in a dirty ancient maze. "Okay, we need to get on the other side of this wall. Um… we should, like, mark our trail somehow, so we don't keep going the same way."
Mabel plunges a hand into the pouch on her sweater and pulls out a fistful of markers. "Hot pink or watermelon pink?" she asks.
"Hot pink." Pacifica checks in both directions, but the maze looks identical down either path. "I don't know. This way, I guess."
"Onward, to glory!" Mabel says, brandishing her hot pink marker.
They tramp around the gradual curve, flattening ferns underfoot. The ground has been made uneven by the sudden sprouting of the maze; they step over scattered rocks and wobble their way across the furrows. Mabel draws hot pink smiley faces at regular intervals. If Dipper ends up on the same path, there won't be any question as to which way the girls went.
The curve ends at a three-way intersection, two additional paths splitting off to the left and right in a wide Y. Neither appears to lead back in Dipper's general direction.
Mabel trots up to the fork and inspects the left path. "Looks pretty samey," she concludes.
When she examines the right path, she leans a little further in and suddenly another section of wall bursts upwards to block it off. It catches Mabel by the foot and flips her backwards, sending her sprawling. Two more walls spring into being over the other exits; the one just behind Pacifica grazes her hair and barely misses her heels.
"Treachery!" Mabel gasps.
Pacifica briefly closes her eyes. "Because it wouldn't be a stupid maze without stupid traps."
Mabel pushes herself into a sitting position. "This maze needs to cool it. We only just started!"
The stone slab blocking the right path is immobile, preventing access on an apparently permanent basis. However, the other two slabs are slowly lowering back into place. Pacifica and Mabel will be stuck for a few minutes, but at least they'll be able to go left or backtrack if necessary.
Pacifica sits down on a soft patch of grass and leans against the cold stone of the wall. She fights against her welling impatience, telling herself this isn't the worst situation they've ever been in. They'll figure it out; maybe even in time for dinner.
Mabel sits next to her. The steady grinding of the stone vibrates through the wall at their backs. Pacifica takes a deep breath of the humid air and hopes Dipper is having an easier time of it.
"So what's the haps?" Mabel asks.
"You know literally everything that's happened to me," Pacifica says, but it's without bite. Gossiping is hard when you spend every day with your only gossip partner.
"Aw, really? I thought maybe you and Dipper were fighting about something."
Pacifica frowns at her. "What? Why?"
"'Cause he's been chewing twice as many pens, muttering to himself, staring at the pictures of you whenever I leave the scrapbook out," Mabel lists. "Sort of like when he has a journal problem, but this is obviously a girl problem. And you're the girl now, so…"
"For how long?"
Mabel looks upwards thoughtfully. "Let's see… you guys started dating right before school ended, so like two months? Two and a half?"
"No, Mabel, how long has he been acting like that?"
"Just a couple days. Also, let's be real: You were the girl way before he started dating you," Mabel says with an accompanying elbow nudge.
"Why settle for anything less?" Pacifica says. "But I'm sure he just thinks about me all the time. It'd be hard not to."
"Yeah, he's got blonde on the brain," Mabel says with a grin. "But seriously, if you guys aren't fighting then what'd he do?"
"Like, nothing. Everything's fine, except for this cruddy maze; which is still way more normal than it should be." Pacifica picks up a small rock to throw, only to think better of it; might set off another trap.
"I just thought, you know…" Mabel tenders with her typical lack of convincing subtlety, "…it might be about the popsicle monster?"
Pacifica stares at her. "What? Because it scared me? That's not weird, anyone would have been scared!"
"Totally, totally," Mabel says quickly. "It's just, there's that and then there's all the other stuff you don't want to talk about—which is fine! Unless you do want to talk about it. You know when it comes to listening, I'm an able Mabel!"
"Oh my god, what is this, an intervention? Did you guys do this garbage maze on purpose?!"
Mabel holds up her hands disarmingly. "No, that's just Dipper being bad at not getting lost!"
Pacifica calms slightly. "What do you even want? Am I supposed to break down, pour my heart out or something?"
"You could if you wanted," Mabel says with achingly sincere eyes.
Pacifica wouldn't know where to start. With her parents? With the inevitable end of the summer that will bring with it an awful unknown? With the way she feels about Dipper, a closeness that's only getting closer—growing deeper, turning into a need she can't name, can't fully satisfy, is terrified of losing forever? Everything is so wonderful now and the future is so dark. Even when it comes time to pack up, the twins can look forward to the next summer. Pacifica just dreads August. It tinges every panic-stricken nightmare, every moonlit sleepless hour.
It's no wonder the twins are bugging her. Not after that display during the big thunderstorm. She's let out too much, revealing pieces of the things she stuffs down every morning in the mirror, burying them beneath layers of lip gloss and each stroke of her brush.
The thought that she might share any of this is still difficult. She is torn between denial and release.
She opens her mouth with a scathing remark touching the back of her tongue. At the last moment, she lets it slip aside.
"I don't know what's going to happen to me," she says.
The two descending stones slot back into the earth with a deep boom.
Pacifica springs to her feet, freed from the moment. "Come on, let's keep going."
Mabel is slower to react. "But we don't have to—"
"Mabel, let's get out of this before we talk about my gross feelings, okay?"
"Yep, got it. Time to master this maze!"
The labyrinth stretches out before them, its size and shape invisible from within. Its mossy stones rear overhead, muffling the sounds of the forest. They move through an eerie near silence; the only steady noise is the rustling of the trees, and at times even that is deadened. Mabel continues to mark their passage at intervals.
Sometimes the ground slopes up and down in long, shallow ramps. Sometimes the turns are smooth curves and sometimes they are sharp angles. If the maze is designed to look like something, Pacifica can't imagine what. Mabel's endless stream of smiley faces is momentarily halted when the hot pink marker becomes too dirty to work anymore; she switches to neon orange.
They come to yet another dead end and stop for a moment to rest their feet. With the dense canopy overhead, they're already losing a little light. It's difficult to stay optimistic.
Optimism, however, is Mabel's forte. "Maybe Dipper is already following my smileys," she says hopefully.
"Maybe," Pacifica sighs. She knows that it's not possible to be lost forever. If they keep following one wall, eventually they'll find the exit.
Assuming there is an exit.
Mabel shakes her marker and steps up on a root to get closer to the back wall of the dead end. "I'll leave him a message," she says, and presses the felt tip to the stone.
There's a loud click, and a narrow section of the wall shoots downward into the earth. Mabel's arms flail wildly as she tries to keep her balance; she falls forward with a shout. The wall jumps back up behind her and just like that, she's gone.
"Mabel!" Pacifica exclaims, scrambling to her feet. She rushes over to the spot and futilely bangs her palms against the unyielding rock. "Don't you dare leave me alone in here!"
A faint shout drifts in from beyond. Then there's a clacking sound behind Pacifica—she turns to see one of Mabel's markers rolling to a stop on the ground.
Well, at least Mabel has a good arm. And good taste: The marker is 'Ocean Blue' and bright enough to show up on the blackened stone. Pacifica makes an experimental X on the wall, but it doesn't feel right. She draws a winking emoji—much better.
It takes her about twenty minutes to become lonely. The labyrinth is oppressive; it seems to press down on her from all sides. There's a sinister air about it that hadn't been as obvious with Mabel around. With nothing but the sound of her own breathing for company, Pacifica finds herself pausing at imagined noises, goosebumps prickling along the back of her neck. She is isolated; she is vulnerable.
(The voice in the back of her head tells her, savage and low, This is what the end of summer will be.)
She keeps the same wall on her same side and doggedly moves on, scrawling blue along the way for anyone who might see it.
The nature of the maze is changing. The corridors are narrower, the carvings on them denser and even more twisting than before, so odd and intricate that they seem to change shape even as she looks at them. The walls lean in slightly, becoming almost triangular; the open air above turns into a darkening slit. She begins to suspect that she's getting farther from the edge of the maze, spiraling into its center like a raft in a whirlpool. But she has no choice. She doesn't dare turn back and risk confusing herself. The only way out is through.
Suddenly, a noise ahead: The unmistakable sound of a rock rolling across the ground.
It's dark in the maze. It's not night yet; only late afternoon, according to her watch. But between the trees and the thin slice of sky now afforded her, she's straining to see. As stealthily as she's able, she presses herself to the wall and tucks her marker away. She reaches back and tugs her heavy-duty flashlight from its pocket on the side of her pack. She raises it, ready to fight if need be. Her heart hammers so hard in her chest that it must be audible; it jolts through her every breath.
More sounds. Gravel? Someone sliding, or… maybe settling? The sound isn't getting closer. She's going to have to look. Mouth dry, she inches towards the corner ahead; her grip on the flashlight is so tight her fingers begin to ache.
Three more steps.
Two.
One—
"Pacifica!"
"GOD!" she shrieks, spinning in place and throwing her flashlight as hard as she can.
It whirls through the air and smacks Dipper directly in his hastily raised arms. "Ow! Pacifica!" He drops his arms and shakes them, grimacing. "Geez, that really hurt…"
He can tell it to her cardiac arrest. "You jerk, oh my god you—" She slumps against the wall, struggling to breathe again, one hand pressed to her chest. "Where did you come from?!"
"Well, when a mom and dad love each other very much," he begins with a small smile. He drops the smile immediately when his attempt at a joke goes over like a lead balloon, her glare undimmed. "Uh, this wall went down, so I went through. I guess it was really quiet for some reason. Weird."
She pushes off the wall and marches towards him.
He pales and holds up his hands placatingly. "I didn't do it on purpose, I—" he stammers.
She throws her arms around him and hugs him fiercely, burying her face in his chest. He's sweaty and kind of gross, but she really doesn't care.
He gently returns the hug. "Hey, are you… are you okay? Where's Mabel?"
Pacifica lets out an explosive breath. "She's fine. We got separated. This maze is dumb."
"But check this out," he says excitedly. He pulls his compass out and taps it with an eager finger. "It started working again!" Just when she's beginning to be relieved, he adds, "Sort of. I mean, it's working, but in a different way."
She wilts a little and rolls her eyes, but doesn't leave his embrace. No matter how big of a dork he's being, she feels safe.
"It's pointing towards the center of the maze!" he tells her, eyes alight. "It's leading us right to—I don't know—treasure, maybe a magical lodestone—it could be anything!"
"And instead of using this information to go away from the middle and get help, you came this way," she says in a monotone, not even slightly surprised.
"Well. Yeah, but…" He brandishes the compass again, as if that will convince her. "The point is, this could be big. Besides, I was looking for you and Mabel!"
She pulls away and attempts to restore some of her dignity by rearranging her hair. "I think I heard something up ahead," she says as she retrieves her flashlight.
"Yeah? How far ahead? Like, right here, or—"
A loud, sighing grumble echoes from around the corner. It makes Pacifica think of a bear, or a buffalo, or something else huge.
Dipper immediately goes silent. He hurries over to the wall and edges towards the corner.
Pacifica is right next to him, tensing for whatever comes next.