Dipper POV
After Stan and Soos dug a little on the wood pile covering the cellar doors, they called it quits. Between the temperature shrinking to an unusual low and Soos getting ten splinters in his hand, Stan had had enough. So, we started a fire and huddled around it.
In the meantime, Stan finished the story of our Grandfather Stephen, or, as Stan liked to call him, Stanley: "Where was I? Oh yeah, Bill. Okay, I lost the poker game, Bill possessed me... uh... and, then Bill walked my body down to the lab. Stanley and McGucket were fully prepared to jump into the portal with that fancy rope when Bill got down there. Stanley immediately noticed that something was off: Bill did nothing to hide his voice through my body. Bill stood a good foot away from the portal, fully ready to hop in it. Stanley tackled Bill, commanding him to remove himself from my body. That demon said, 'Only if you jump in.' Stanley hesitated for a minute, but he did it. He hopped right in that thing. That idiot..."
"As soon as he could, McGucket shut the portal down. It was too late, though. Stanley was gone. That dumb rope they had cut off as soon as the portal was shut down. It actually shorted out the portal itself with whatever wiring and crud it was made out of."
"Anyway, like Bill said he would, he left my body and pulled my soul back into it. What I didn't know at that time, however, was that my deal with him was still in play. He wasn't done causin' 'mischief.' Bill transferred himself into McGucket's mind afterwards. He really messed that guy up... The only visible damage he did at the time was chop off that extra finger McGucket had. We thought that was it, but as time went on, he just lost it. It turns out that Bill did something on the inside: crossed some wires that shouldn't have been crossed, you could say. When McGucket was in the midst of losing it, he hid the Journals. He told me it was the only way to protect me and everyone else. I figured he meant it would somehow protect me and others from Bill, but, seeing as it is now, no one's safe. Perhaps there was something more- I'm not sure." Whether that was the reason or not, Stan's right: no one's safe from Bill. I honestly thought Old Man McGucket was just crazy in general; I had no clue Bill had a hand in it. The very thought of Bill being able to do such a thing is unsettling. Yes, him sending Eliza into some other dimension is unsettling, but that doesn't necessarily give you that same eerie feeling.
Afterwards, I showed Stan the spell book. He looked at it with a warm smile. As soon as he said Grandpa would want me to have it, I knew Stan was reliving some kind of memory. It was nice to see him seem so relaxed and happy for once.
I've got to share the book with Mabel, though. It's sort of a bummer, but it's only fair, and, when you think about it, it's a great strategy. If we both know some attack spells as well as some defense ones, we'll be virtually unstoppable. However, we didn't get to look at it too closely; we all fell asleep sometime around eleven o'clock.
Something kept waking me up in the night. I couldn't figure out what was bothering me, so that only made it worse. After two hours what I could only describe as the creeping insomnia I'll have in the future, I went for a little walk. My tired pace only led me to what was left of the Shack. When I reached the wooden mess, I flopped on the ground in front of what was left of a mirror. I had dark circles under my eyes accompanying the usual bags I had. My hair was mess, vacant of my hat.
Speaking of which, Eliza still had my hat. From there I could only wonder how things were going with her and Grandpa. While in thought, I lost my focus on myself in the mirror. I was too busy wondering where they were to may any mind to myself. However, I could have sworn I saw something move in the mirror. I sat up as soon as I saw it, contorting my body to look behind myself, but I didn't see anything; everyone was laying still around the red coals of the fire. It was probably just a bug or something.
I readjusted myself into a sitting position in front of the fractured mirror. I pulled the spell book out from my vest and studied it, first examining the brown, leather cover. A small grin widened on my lips as read over Grandpa's name again within the front cover. His handwriting was something close to calligraphy unlike my dull print.
Reading his first name felt unearthly. "Stephen." Anyone could easily mistake that for the female pronunciation of the name. Or, anyone could ridicule and mock the name simply for its spelling. People can be cruel, juvenile creatures. That's one of the reasons I prefer to keep my nose in a book.
Then, flipping through the pages, I browsed through the spell book, not really paying mind to any of the words or the pictures. It wasn't until my eye snagged on the word "energy" that I stopped to actually read the book. Luckily, I had stumbled upon a spell that would replenish my energy in a snap. There was, however, a disclaimer- written by Grandpa, I'm sure -that said, "If preformed incorrectly, a miniature explosion will occur and your eyebrows will be singed off."
Good to know.
"Insomnia is a bore and makes sleeping seem a lore. Open your eyes, let sleep shy away. Awake and aware for days. C-8-H-10-N-4-O-2" was the spell. It was simple, pretty straight forward, and in English. Below the actual spell, there were instructions on what I needed to do in order to properly cast it. Placing the book on the ground, I stood up and dusted myself off. I looked into the mirror and sighed nervously. I put my hands out in front of me and began reciting the spell. At the mid-way point of the spell, my palms glowed green and two purple rings encased my wrists. At the end of the spell, I clapped my hands close to my face, causing a pulse of energy to throw back into the dirt. I nearly screamed in surprise, but I managed to keep it to a low grunt.
I rose from the dirt, peering back at the gang who had yet to move. Looking back at the mirror, I thankfully discovered that my eyebrows were still present and that I no longer looked like a raccoon. I did feel refreshed, so I think it worked.
For about an hour afterwards, I studied the spells in the book, learning several attacks and a couple defense moves. I didn't practice any of them in fear of waking everyone up and potentially blowing myself up or catching what was left of the Mystery Shack on fire. Eventually, I grew tired of reading the same spells over and over again. So, I placed the book back in my vest and laid down to observe the stars. Or, at least, that's what I thought I was going to do; the sky was still pitch black from Bill and Gideon's battle. Even with the sky being darker than normal, light still seemed to come from somewhere, brightening the environment. It wasn't much; it still looked like it was the middle of the night.
"I wonder if the rest of the world can see this dumb sky..." I whispered to myself as I concentrated on what was above. One of the many things we didn't know about this situation was if Gravity Falls was the only victim of this all. The way it seemed now, Bill wasn't doing anything. Perhaps he's causing havoc in another town to practice the perfect way to rid us from him. Who knows.
A small wave of dirt suddenly hit me in the face. I sat up, coughing and wiping the dirt from my eyes. As I rubbed the annoyance from my eyes, I looked around to see who had thrown the dirt. Once again, there was nothing there. There was no way that was a bug. "Is someone there? Mrs. Gleeful?" I don't see why she'd do that, but she's a sorceress; she could be invisible if she wanted to- I don't know. "Hello?"
A voice faintly echoed in my ears: "Dipper!" I whipped my head to the left and right. That sounded like Eliza, but she's with Grandpa in another dimension.
I took a deep breath and stood up, pulling the spell book from my vest. I flipped through it until I found the energy spell I had used. After reading the instructions and warnings again, I became baffled in more ways than one: the spell wasn't said to produce hallucinations or delusions.
Shoving the book back into the inner pocket, I came up with a conclusion I wasn't completely okay with. Maybe I was hearing things, but not through any mental illness. Truly, I believe I was just recalling Eliza's voice because I miss her...with feelings. All that teasing must have built something up, something stronger than that pitiful excuse for a crush I had before. I don't even want to call it that- that's not what it was. Yes, I'll admit it, Eliza's pretty. Yes, she's a bright person. The thing is, she's also my friend and I don't want to lose that. Television and books have pointed out on multiple occasions on how a friendship morphed into a relationship can turn sour. That's just not something I want.
"Dipwad?" There it was again. "Dipper!" And it wasn't going away. "Dipwad!"
I investigated my surroundings again: still no one in sight. So I was hearing things and dirt just magically threw itself on me? "Dirt just magically threw itself on me." Listen to me: I sound like a fool. It was probably just a strong gust of wind; not everything is some kind of freaky paranormal product.
"Dipper...?"
It was going to be a long night.
~
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!
Hey! We all saw the new GF? Yeah? Fantastic, right? Right.
That is all. ~SF >'-'<