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book three:

a map to nameless stars

so, this is how it is

So, this is high school.

Dipper observes the lunchroom as he picks at his sandwich, watching the other students talking and laughing and lining up for overcooked hotdogs and rubbery macaroni and cheese.

He isn't sure what to think yet. Wendy's ominous warnings about high school, as related by Mabel, have thus far proven unfounded, which makes sense. Wendy doesn't like school, whereas the twins do (to a point). They are never going to see things as direly as she does.

The classes haven't been significantly harder so far. Of course, Ford demands a level of intellectual rigor that even Dipper's AP courses don't approach, so there's not much challenge in school by comparison. Even PE no longer holds the dread it once had for him. He's much taller now, and even more importantly, he's stronger and has more endurance. None of this can overcome his natural inability at sports, and no one is going to pick him for volleyball, but the running and other general exercises are easy enough after three months hiking all over the valley.

On the other hand, Wendy wasn't completely off base. Despite everyone being theoretically more mature, the same air of social pressure and judgment prevails in the halls. There are still plenty of jerks to avoid, but it's not like Dipper didn't expect that. He never shared Mabel's blind optimism regarding high school. However, he has noticed that he's been attracting less negative attention than he's accustomed to, which he's pretty sure has a lot to do with that new height and musculature. Not that he's hulkingly ripped or anything, but he's fit enough that maybe some of the more pugilistic jerks out there figure he's not worth the trouble.

That's what he likes to think, at least. Maybe the bullies are just bored with him.

Despite her earlier misgivings, Mabel is thriving. Her usual circle of friends has been neatly imported from middle school and she's taking advantage of the many new extracurricular options, including archery (which makes sense after this summer, but is still a little troubling).

All and all, there's not that much to worry about. That's good, as it allows Dipper to focus his energy on worrying about Pacifica.

One minute, she was a constant presence in his life; the next, she was gone, her room emptied as if she'd never been there. She was whisked off back to SoCal, back to her Malibu home and private school. Yet even there she cannot find stability, entering another temporary state. Soon enough, Priscilla Northwest will sell that home, and Pacifica could end up… anywhere.

No matter where she goes, Dipper will do anything he can to visit or bring her to him. But the thought of her moving to the east coast, or even further, is daunting. The further she goes, the less likely it is they can see each other often.

The only good thing to come out of all this is their contact via phone and the internet. She's always just a text away, and even though that closeness is digital, it's so much better than nothing. Every day after school he can get on his computer and see her. She's been much better at staying in touch than last time.

It's an unsatisfying stasis they've reached. He sort of hopes it holds, and sort of hopes it doesn't. If something changed, it might be for the better, but he knows it would probably be for the worse.

He takes another bite of his sandwich, only listening with one ear as Dan describes the latest expansion for Tragic: The Garnering. His attention is mostly on his phone: True to her word, Wendy has been texting him about visiting, though her schedule is just as dominated by high school as his. Not long ago, she probably would have ditched and accepted the consequences. But Dipper and Mabel aren't the only ones who have done some growing up recently, and Wendy has been making a real effort to improve her grades this year. This makes an extended visit difficult; right now, they're shooting for a weekend.

"Dipper. Hey, Dipper!"

His focus snaps back to the table and his gathered friends. Dan is looking at him expectantly, and he has no idea why.

"What?" he says.

Dan rolls his eyes. "Dude, you aren't even remotely paying attention."

Dipper just shrugs. "Guilty as charged."

"You texting Pacifica?"

The group's initial reaction to Dipper's sudden relationship was uniform indifference, which is what he expected. MMOs, CCGs, and FPSs are much more interesting to these guys than SOs. That started to change near the end of last school year when Pacifica sat at the table a few times. Dipper's friends seemed taken aback by her presence—which Dipper gets, because she's breathtaking. None of them ever directly asked how a dork like him ended up with her, though it was certainly implied in their occasional stares. Maybe they see it as aspirational; Dan, in particular, seems to want to know Dipper's secret.

"No, someone else," Dipper replies. "What's up?"

"Are you gonna get Majestic Vehicle Larceny V when it comes out?"

He forgot all about that, despite it being the most anticipated game of the year. "Uh, yeah, probably."

This is a good enough answer for the conversation to resume without him. He can't believe he forgot about MVL. This new one is supposed to have an online component, which means he could play it with Wendy and Soos. Pacifica might like it too, though she'd have to pick up a console to play it, which might not be possible right now. And yet, he hadn't thought about the game at all.

This bothers him. He's all about investigating Weirdness with Great-Uncle Ford, obviously, but he doesn't want to just abandon his other hobbies. Is he becoming obsessed? Looking back, he's spent almost all his free time since the summer ended writing emails to Ford, examining the data, and planning excursions for next summer. It's only September, sure, it hasn't been that long, but maybe he's overdoing it. Maybe he's overcompensating.

He's still preoccupied with this thought on the bus ride home, and Mabel notices. She pokes him in the side, jolting him out of his rumination.

"Uh-oh, brooding alert!" she says. "What's wrong? Pacifica just texted me, she's okay."

"No, I know," he says. "Mabel, do you think I'm too obsessed with Weirdness?"

Mabel's answering snort of laughter is not encouraging. "Does a manotaur poop in the woods?"

He grimaces, accepting her response. "Okay, but, it's really important, right?"

"It is," Mabel acknowledges. "But you check on that data-thingy in the backyard like you're raising baby birds. Doesn't it just go on its own?"

"…Yeah." Dipper sighs and looks out the window. Suburbia moves past him; lawns are still green, and the trees haven't yet begun to tinge with the colors of autumn. "It's just… it's all I can do, you know?"

"I know," Mabel says.

The bus deposits them at the curb at the end of their street and they walk to the house. Mabel heads for the backyard for her usual post-school play session with Waddles, and Dipper follows her. He goes through the side yard (stepping over the spot where he knows the slagged remains of a brass bell are buried) and walks to the shed, walking around it to the narrow section of lawn between it and the fence. There, tied to a short pole, is the metallic cylinder given to him by Great-Uncle Ford, busily recording Weirdness emissions in the atmosphere to the nearby USB, sheltered in a duct-taped plastic bag. The memory stick can theoretically hold a little over a week's worth of records, but Dipper has been swapping it out every day.

He takes the stick out of its plastic protection and replaces it with a formatted stick from his pocket. Entering his home through the sliding doors of the porch, he walks past Pacifica's old room without letting himself glance at it, glad the doors are shut.

Mom is in the kitchen, and she hears him approach the stairs. "Hey," she says, stepping out into the living room. "How was school?"

"Alright," he says noncommittally.

Before he can slip away upstairs, Mom takes him by the chin and inspects his forehead. "No headaches or anything?"

Dipper's old injuries left marks of varying severity, whether it's the small, cylindrical scars on his arm from when Bill hijacked his body or the slash from the Boss-Lobster's claw. Regardless, all of them are easy enough to conceal or explain away. Now, thanks to his own stupidity in trying to trap the giant rat, he has an obvious scar just below his hairline. His parents hadn't been pleased to discover he'd ended up in the hospital without them knowing, and Stan and Ford had been on the receiving end of an irate call from Mom and Dad. In the grunkles' defense, they probably forgot about it. Dipper is the one who'd bashed his head in and even he almost forgot about it (the two things may be related…). There were just a few other things going on this summer.

The result is that Mom is reading up on concussions and making sure he's feeling fine. It's a little annoying, but he puts up with it. If she can be assured that he's fine, then the accident will hopefully not count against the return to the valley next summer. He'll just have to hide the scar on his hip for the rest of his life, because the last thing he wants is to try and explain that.

"I feel totally normal," he says, only realizing afterwards that might not be a totally normal thing to say.

Mom seems to accept the answer readily enough; she's probably used to her not-totally-normal son. "Good."

He goes up to his room and plugs the USB into his computer, uploading another data set to the cloud. He scans the data briefly, hoping to see anything notable, but it's just baseline, background Weirdness, a steady line with only slight variations. Useful in the long run, but unexciting in the moment. He stares at two hours' worth of the recording, slowly scrolling to the right, wishing he could see the readouts from Gravity Falls for comparison. Wishing, really, to gather those readouts himself.

His computer beeps at him; he's got an incoming Skrype call from Pacifica. He minimizes his Weirdness readouts and answers it, scooting his chair over to align with his webcam.

Pacifica appears on his screen. She's got her laptop in front of her, lying on her stomach on her bed; he can see just enough of her legs to tell that her ankles are crossed over her back, her chin propped up on her hands. She's wearing an outfit that appears calibrated to match her eyes; that and the edge of her pink backpack sitting next to her lets him know that she went to school today, which isn't always a given. She's been fairly good about attending so far, mostly so her mother doesn't take her laptop or phone away, but sometimes she just doesn't go. He knows it's hard for her to stay motivated, to go to a school without her friends and without any guarantee she'll even stay there for long.

She looks tired. And as happy as he is to see her in any capacity, it hurts to know she's still so far away. His arms ache to hold her.

"Hi," she says.

"Hey," he says, and then adds the obligatory, "Any news?"

"No."

He can't decide if he's relieved. He presses on, wanting to cheer her up but knowing there's nothing he can do about the root of her problems.

He knows better than to ask her how school was, so instead he regales her with the mundane tale of his own day, covering classes and even what little gossip he managed to pick up on (he's been trying to pay attention to that sort of thing for her sake). He ends by relating his conversation with Mabel.

"So, I don't know, I should probably cool it a little on the science stuff. The data today was the same as always, no big variations or anything," he says.

Pacifica sighs and leans her cheek into one of her palms, smooshing it up in a disaffected way. "I almost wish that stupid Boss-Lobster would come back."

"Woah," Dipper says, his eyes widening.

She lifts her head and fixes him with a mild glare. "Like you don't wish for weird stuff to happen. Maybe if the Boss-Lobster would come eat the whole house I could come stay with you again."

"I don't think even a Boss-Lobster could eat your whole house…"

"No, because it's useless!" She sighs again. Her gaze drops to her bedspread, which she begins to pick at with her glossy, blue nails. "Robert stopped by again today."

Robert is Priscilla Northwest's attorney, a man that Dipper has developed a vicarious respect for if only because he seems to treat Pacifica like an actual human being, with an understanding that she's caught up in a mess that she has no fault in. For that alone he has Dipper's gratitude.

"What'd he say?"

"I don't know. He went and talked to Mother for a while. He stopped to see me before he left and said it would be over soon, whatever that means."

"Soon," Dipper repeats.

"It's always soon," she grumbles.

He's aware the last thing she wants to hear is some optimistic comment on the situation, so he just changes the subject. They talk about nothing for another half hour before she hears her mother approaching and ends the call. Dipper just sits there for a minute, looking at his desktop, wondering how he can make any of this better for her. Out of the valley and right back to feeling helpless again.

He hates thinking about it, so he tries to distract himself. He spends the evening alternating between homework, texting Wendy and Soos, and emailing Great-Uncle Ford. It helps. He takes his shower and goes to bed feeling like he might have actually accomplished something, even if it's not the thing he wanted to accomplish most.

He wakes up at some indeterminate time in the middle of the night. The moon shines brightly through his curtains and the shadows in his room look almost solid. He lies there for a minute, wondering what woke him up; when he starts to roll over to go back to sleep, his bladder gives him an immediate answer. He scoots off his bed and stumbles blearily into the hall and towards the bathroom.

Emilia moves behind Mabel's door.

He can see her green light seeping out from the partially opened door, herald of the dead girl's approach. He's exhausted and so afraid, the stone hard beneath his aching feet, his palms stinging from abrasions. He can't breathe. He doesn't want to hear her scream, to see her suffer, but there's nothing he can do; he can't help her, he can't even make her leave. He closes his eyes and clenches his teeth and waits for her to be gone.

Through his eyelids he can tell the glow is getting closer; she's right in front of him. Hands grip his shoulders, and he turns to ice. She can't touch him; she's insubstantial. She's a ghost. This can't be happening. This can't be—

"Dipper!"

The hands shake him. He opens his eyes.

Mabel is crouched in front of him, her face illuminated by the eerie light of the glow stick bracelets on her wrists (Dad saved those for her from the Fourth). She looks scared, bright brown eyes wide; reflected specks of green float in her pupils. Dipper realizes he's sitting down, his back against the wall. Air conditioning flows from a vent on the floor next to him, and it feels incredibly cold against his sweat-covered skin.

He finds his voice. "Mabel?"

Mabel exhales in relief and drops her hands, leaning back on her heels. "Gosh, you scared me! Geez louise!" she whispers harshly.

It's not a good idea to keep talking in the hall. He shakily gets to his feet and follows her into her room, shutting the door.

"What happened?" he asks.

"Why are you asking me?" she exclaims. "I heard you hit the wall and got up and you were sitting there breathing all crazy!"

"Oh." He blinks. "Good thing Mom didn't hear me."

"Yeah, okay," Mabel says impatiently, "but what happened?"

He can't remember. "I, uh… I must have had a nightmare."

Mabel looks like she wants to put on her skepticals. "Since when do you sleepwalk? I'd know, I would have filmed it."

He can only shrug.

Mabel spends a long, uncomfortable moment sizing him up. "Well… Try not to walk down the stairs and break your butt, I guess," she eventually says.

He returns to his darkened room and changes out of his sweaty shirt. His heart is still pounding. It isn't until he starts to climb into bed that he realizes he needs to pee. He goes to the bathroom, and on his way back he pauses outside Mabel's door, staring at the faint green light pooled across the carpet.

His sheets are cool when he slides into them. His heart rate slows, but sleep seems impossible. His nightmare clings to him like cobwebs, and the ceiling of his bedroom seems to press down on him as the maze had. Was that really a nightmare? He can't recall what happened right before it, yet it feels different somehow.

He's going in circles. Back to Piedmont; back to the maze; back to the separation from Pacifica; back to a normality that strikes him as so flat and gray; back to a future that spins around him like a map without lines or labels, a shifting sea of nameless points like cold and distant stars. His life isn't a line, it's a spiral.

He thinks about what Pacifica said earlier about the Boss-Lobster, and his hip aches. It hurts, but it's solid. No matter how normal things get, he still carries the scars. He knows what's real.

It takes another hour but sleep finally finds him.