*DIPPER*
The ride home that night had been a silent one; neither of us wanting to approach the weirdness of it all. So I just put Mabel in the passenger's seat, took off my wet shirt, swapping it for the warmth of Mabel's sweater, and drove us back to the shack. As we drove along the windy and bumpy road the cicadas' song coupled with the gentle hum of the summer breeze maneuvering through the foliage put Mabel to sleep. Well it was that or all the emotional trauma Gideon had caused her.
That kid. That's all he was. How could I hold so much anger and resentment for a child that barely came up to my shoulder. At this point my anger had dissipated, or at least had nulled itself a little, but it truly reached it's peak when I was drowning in that lake. Gasping for breath and each stroke never bringing me close enough to save her, yet he had the luxury to sit beside her, and he used that, no he abused it and attempted to corrupt her mind like a.. like a....
"LIKE A MONSTER!" I growled slamming on the breaks, lurching the car forward in a jaunting stop.
Mabel shot awake gracing me with her emerald eyes, parting my cloud of personal anguish. We sat again listening to all the background noise; all the static, left alone in our own form of silence yet again. I was almost getting used to it, which sent a chill down my spine.
I could feel her concerned glance scanning me up and down.
"Sorry," I mumbled, anything to distract from the sudden stop, surveying my surroundings I realize where we are, "But um, we're here," I choke.
I watch her eyes break their involvement with me and look out the car's windows. The defensive and high alert posture she had initially upon waking, has melted away, her shoulders dropping with a shuttered breath. She was happy to be home.
We took our time walking into the house, my pants still dripping wet, and both of us covered in the mud that had surrounded the lake.
I assume Stan caught the tulle of Mabel's dress as she passed the living room on her way to the stairs.
"Hey you two where ya been?" He bellowed.
Shit we were caught. There was no way to hide it anymore I was about to come clean when Mabel interjected, "Nowhere Grunkle Stan!"
Her voice rang with excitement and joy. If I didn't know her any better I would assume it's real. But I knew her, and I knew how disingenuous her response was; she was hiding something.
I opted to let Mabel shower first, but she insisted that I smelled rank and I deserved the first shower, so I took what I could. I tried to make it quick but between the grime from the lake that caked my entire body, and my jumbled thoughts, my 10 minute shower turned into a 45 minute shower.
When I finally got out, towel wrapped around my waist, I was met face to face with an impatient Mabel towel in hand.
"Oh um I-" she stuttered. She used her hand to block me out of view, or to hide her blush, which I could both see and feel radiating off her smooth cheeks.
"You fall in?" She mumbled through her hand.
Instead of shooting back at an obviously awkward Mabel, I simply responded, "Yeah something like that."
I went to our room and quickly got changed. As I rummaged through my drawers looking for clean boxers, which there were few of because I hated doing laundry, I stumbled upon that book I found in the woods. I really took the opportunity to take it all in.
It was a worn dark leather with a few scratches along it. The binding was intact, the entire book was in decent condition; however there was something uncanny about the journal. Perhaps it was the bloody, six fingered hand print on the cover. In the center of which was a large "3".
I peered through our door into the hallway, witnessing the steam's escape from the bathroom through the crack under the door. My ears stung as Mabel belted out the words to her favorite pop song, which would change in approximately the next hour. But for now I had time, and just enough to further explore the mysteries concealed in the pages of the notebook.
I opened to the first page, hoping to meet the author, but instead I am met with a partially torn page where the author should have been; this page was also stained with someone or something's blood. Flipping through the pages, I discovered the book to only be about half full, the rest blank and empty, as though it was unfinished; someone was interrupted. And I was too.
I could hear thunderous commotion as Mabel bounded her way into our room, throwing herself onto the mountain of pillows she called a bed.
"All clean!" She boasted shining me a perfect toothy smile.
I released a small giggle to amuse her.
"Alright we've had a long day I think we should get some rest," she said, acting as the voice of reason, but I agreed it had been a long day. Just then I recognized how heavy my eyelids had become, whether it be a side effect of the night's events or reading.
"Yea," I acknowledged, "Good night Mabel."
"Night Dipper," she sang as she faded into a realm of dreams. But as tired as I was I couldn't sleep not with all the unknown creatures being lost in the pages of that book. Who was the mad man behind the documented myths? And which if those weren't myth at all? I had to know, not just for me but for her. So that night I didn't sleep, I let the dim light of the moon guide my eyes as a nodded off to the stories of nightmares.
*MABEL*
Did Dipper think I wouldn't realize he was up all night reading? We share a room how could I not notice with all the pen clicking. I assumed he used the tool to keep himself awake, because it did a really good job of keeping me up too. Unlike princess Dipper however, I don't need my beauty sleep to function as a human being. Plus I had Mabel juice to assist me need be. So basically I was up at 8 o'clock sharp, while sleeping beauty got his solid nine hours.
The day leading up to our hang out with Wendy was pretty uneventful. Grunkle Stan, Soos, and I went to the diner for a bargain lunch and then watched TV till it was time to go. It only then occurred to me I should probably wake Dipper up.
I tip toed into our dim room, the mid afternoon light glittering in specs across beams of light that spilled in from our singular triangular window. As the light refracted off the dust in the atmosphere, I made my way to Dipper's bed and took a seat beside him.
Delicately I move his curls out of his face revealing his birthmark. The little girl inside me longed to trace his birthmark with my lips and not disturb his slumber. But I restrained myself, and settled for what the other part of me was instructing I do.
"DIPPER WE'RE GONNA BE LATE! WE GOTTA GOOOO!"
He stiffened up, pushed past me and began to search for a decent shirt in his pile of dirty laundry. Only then had I realized he had slept in my sweatshirt, the one I gave him last night.
He quickly finds the least disgusting shirt and throws on the wrinkled mess. He scavenges for a pair of his cleanest cargo shorts and I also notice he has only been in his boxers this entire time.
At this sudden realization my face turns a new shade of pink, but not as intense as the red they turned when Dipper emerged from the shower last night, glistening from the fresh steam of his shower. But my regretful reminiscing on the incident allowed me to get lost in time, and when I had snapped back to reality Dipper was the one telling me to move my butt. Of course he was hoping on one leg while attempting to put his shoe on, toothbrush in mouth, a concoction of spit and toothpaste drizzling from the corners of his pouted mouth. Still now I was the one dreaming.
I get up gifting him a friendly shove as I do, which sends him tumbling into his dirty laundry pile.
"LAST ONE DOWNSTAIRS OWES THE WINNER A PIT-COLA!" I scream over my shoulder as I approach the stairs.
As I tumble down the stairs, catching myself on the front door, I turn to see Dipper trailing behind me.
"Not everything is a race ya know!" He calls after me, with one shoe on and one in his hand. He trudges down the stairs meeting me by the door.
"Well," he gestures to me, his arms hung out waiting judgement, "how do I look?" An awkward smile finding his lips.
I giggle, and bend down to tie the tangled strings if his untied shoe, "You look the same way you do everyday. Just relax and be yourself." I add a dash of the ol' Mable charm with a toothy smile, hoping it will calm his nerves. A twinge in my stomach wishes that he would get this excited and flustered over me, but I know my place in his life and that's at his side as his best friend, not his girlfriend.
I pull away from Dipper and do a full 180 to face the front door. As my eager hand reaches for the knob I am net by a few thunderous knocks at the door.
"Right on time!" I hum and fling open the thick wood door.
"Wendy!" Dipper shouts as though it's a surprise that she's here.
In the distance you can hear his echo as the remaining members of her group chant "Wendy!"
"Sup dudes, you ready for tonight, it's gonna be off the chain!" Her voice rings with confidence.
"Yeah let's go!" I chime passing through the doorway, ready to have a normal teenage evening for the first time since coming to the not so sleepy town of Gravity Falls.
"Now that's what I like to here!" She follows, with Dipper close on her heals.
We come to a small group of random individuals that Wendy introduces as the only sane people left in town.
"The girl with the pixie cut who's glued to her phone, that's Tambry." Her fingers wittle away at her phone screen, with such speed and force that I'm surprised she hasn't cracked the delicate plexiglass.
"The three stooges over there are Lee, Nate, and Thompson" she gestures to the crowd of boys who are making there own three person mosh-pit. By the random flick of her wrist I assume that the tall teen with the long blonde locks is Lee, the guy with the snake tattoo devouring his arm is Nate, and lastly Thompson, is the poor fool crying "Stop it guys!" As the other two push him.
"And last, and certainly least, this is Robbie" she motions to a boy brooding in the corner, his weak shoulders holding his weight as he leans against a rickety old van. He gives an unwelcoming wave and turns away from us.
"Come on party peeps let's get this show on the road!" Wendy's voice breaking the crowd, all the members shoving their way into the van.
"New comers take the back, dorks," a raspy growl escapes the passenger seat. As rude as it is Dipper takes my arm and pulls me into the back before I can comment back.
Despite that jerk Robbie, I have good feelings about the night ahead of us. Whether it's the synchronized fists hitting the roof of the tin bucket we're using as transportation, or the way the sunset was strew across the evening sky, my guy was telling me that this was going to be the first good night Dipper and I were going to have in Gravity Falls.
*DIPPER*
Wherever we were going, Thompson was taking his sweet time to get to. The adventure had started before the sun fell below the horizon, and now it was long gone, the looming moon taking its place.
The rust stained minny van finally came to a screeching, parked in the shadow of an abandoned building.
After we all climbed out of the car, if you can even call it that, Wendy informed us of our destination, "Here we are guys, the infamous Dusk N' Dawn."
The gang of teens huddled beside the flurry of long, gorgeous, subtlety red locks that consumed most of Wendy's back. They released a seamless hum of "ooo"s and "aaa"s, truly impressed with the decaying building before them. I found myself joining the group, including Mabel, who clung to the chain link fence that separated the group from what one could only think was their destiny.
"What's so special about this place?" I turned a skeptical eye to band if misfits beside me, missing the appeal.
"It's... HAUNTED!" Lee pressed, pausing for dramatic affect.
He was met with a sharp jab to the ribs from his counter part Nate, "Dude, shut up! There are no such things as ghosts."
While I agreed whole heatedly with Nate, my mind wandered, causing me to reminisce on the pages of the book I had the chance to glimpse at the night before. There was some mention of ghosts, the page marked by a formless spectator, but I didn't think much of it then. And with there being no proof of ghosts as fact, I didn't think much of it now.
"Are we going to stare at it all day or go in?" Robbie grunted from the end of the pack, the first to peel himself away from the fence.
"Hell yea!" Wendy boomed, "Let's get this started." With a swift pull, she started her climb up the fence, leaving the pine wood smell of her shampoo lingering behind.
Quickly the others followed suit, even Mabel scaled the at least 10 foot fence. Not wanting to fall behind I joined the fray, and wrapped one hand around the cold steel in pursuit.
It only took minutes for us to all reach the top, which at this point I worried the rusty fence would collapse under out combined weight.
"Now what?" Tamry remarked, the first words she's spoken since initial introductions.
Wendy knotted her brow in a sarcastic fashion. She already knew the answer. "We jump!" She bounded, a smile efforflessly forming on her lips. And with that, she once again disappeared, landing with a boom in a cloud of soft earth. The rest followed their fearless leader to oblivion one by one. I hesitated, my eyes naturally darted to Mabel who only offered a sly smile and shrug of her shoulders as she joined them on the ground.
WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ALL OF THEM?!
Didn't they know they could break an ankle from this height?
Or worse they're neck?!
From the top of the fence I ordered down at them all, still unsure if the girl I had slightly had a crush on was worth the bodily harm, completely forgetting I was not alone stop the weak statute of the fence.
Before I remembered Lee's presence beside me, he forcibly reminded me with his lanky hands along my back as he pushed me.
After I landed in the dirt, barely staying on my feet, he called on his way down, "Sorry dude," then as he landed, "can't live on the fence for life."
I found his sentiment outlandishly wise and metaphoric, but quickly realized he just started a fact, not a life choice.
They walked to the door, which of course was locked. After rattling the chains that held the demons of the Dusk til' Dawn at bay, for several minutes, the team began to look for quick fixes.
"There's a small vent up their," pointed Robbie as the rest followed his hand to stop the building, "but I don't think any of us will fit."
I realized Mabel or I could fit, and as if reading my mind Mabel gave me a shove forward. The groups collected glances concentrated on me as I mentally cursed Mabel. Who from the sounds erupting behind me, was failing to stifle her laugher.
With the gazes burning into my chest, surely forming a hole in my abdomen, I mustered the strength and offered, "I- I could take a shot at it?" Unfortunately it came out more as a question rather than from a willing volunteer.
"Perf-" Wendy started before Robbie began to run his mouth.
"Yea you and what army kid? You couldn't even jump a fence with out a push"
His words wrapped the dark hand of insecurity and doubt around my chest. To question me in front of the group of potential friends, Wendy, Mabel, it was a fatal blow for anyone. But to my surprise, despite the one of many demons he had awoken in me, the one that always told me I wasn't enough, made me question every move I make in life, the one always nagging at the pit of my stomach, he also ignited a fire of defiance in my chest, one that burned the hand that held me at bay.
"Oh lay off Robbie!" I heard Wendy yell, with a stiff blow to Robbie's shoulder. Withing minutes the rest of the group erupted into a petty quarrel, except for Mabel who uncharacteristically stood to the side in a quiet cloud twirling the silky strands of her brunette hair. But I didn't pay them much attention as I was already stop the dumpster at the side of the building and reaching for the gutter.
The acts brought me back in time to a different place. Scaling the side of the decaying building, grasping at and crevasse to utilize in the climb, made me think of the night I had to climb to Mabel's window, through the garage and up the lattice. It was the night Dick broke her heart and she was in pieces. His name was Tom, but I call him Dick, as I find it more deserving. After all he was the explosion that nearly destroyed Mabel, caused building to crumble, bridges to fall, and Mabel to completely collapse in on herself, and I was the clean up crew. I was the one who picked up the pieces.
With the memory coming to an end, not fast enough I might add, I was at the vent. With the lasting frustration of Dick on my mind I summoned the power to kick in the vent, and glide down it into the store. I searched for another entrance not locked off. With the miniscule size of the old shop, I found a neglected back door, unlocked it and called the others.
Astonished at the skill it took to break in, they stared at me, mouths agape.
Lee broke the silence, approaching the door and bumping my shoulder with his, "Look at this little felon right here! We're keeping you around."
"Yeah Dipper way to go!" Mabel was the second to run to my side and congratulate me with a crisp high five.
Nate, Tambry, and Thompson followed in cheers. Then Wendy approached and graced my cheek with her soft pink lips, before saying "Nice work Dipper."
The imprint of her lips would have lasted a lot longer if Robbie hadn't slammed his hand on the door.
"Hey Dipstick, this still doesn't make you cool." As he then sauntered through the door.
Mabel had waited for me on the other side of the doorway, while the others looked for a light switch or generator.
"What's his deal?" I murmured slowly releasing the door and stepping inside.
With a loving nudge she revealed, "Eh he's just intimidated because you're cooler then him."
Suddenly the stores dark, dingy, dismal hues were replaced with the white sheen of a tile floor and the unmistakable, yet forgettable hum of florescent lights.
"We are up and running people!" Nate called as he emerged from a back room.
I moved through the store to find the others, and stood before the clear plexy glass, and watched the blue and pink illuminating from the neon lights outside dance on the pavement below.
It was going to be a good night.