Mabel squirmed as sunlight beamed through her eyelids. "I don' wanna get up," she mumbled, rolling onto her side. But there was something in the back of her mind, something she had to do, and it refused to let her return to the comfort of sleep. The thought slowly worked its way up through the fog of her mind...
Dipper. Today was the day she would go find her brother in his so-called "human life," and hopefully, hopefully, begin finding a way to get his memories back.
That thought was enough to get Mabel up and moving. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and unfurled her wings from their protective cocoon around her, preparing to face the day.
"Okay," she said, brushing some leaves off her sweater. "Dipper doesn't remember me right now, but that doesn't mean it's permanent. There's gotta be some kind of magic that can restore it!" If there was, Mabel certainly couldn't do it, but there had to be something that could.
And she wasn't going to give up until she found it.
"And then again, he only saw me for like ten seconds," Mabel reasoned with herself. "Maybe if he talks to me more, then his memories will come back!" It wasn't likely, she knew, but that didn't stop her from clinging to the desperate hope.
First, though, she had to go find him. Mabel glanced down at her sweater, bits of dirt still clinging to it, then frowned back at the wings poking through the slits in the back. "Well, I can't exactly waltz into town wearing this, now can I? Where did I put my bag?"
She turned and scanned the small clearing for a few seconds before her eyes landed on the pink handbag dangling from a tree branch overhead. It was just out of reach of her fingertips, but a quick flutter of her wings brought it within her grasp.
Back down on the ground, Mabel stuck an arm into the bag nearly up to her elbow, hand searching for the familiar texture of knitted fabric. Not finding it, she reached deeper, her arm disappearing up to her shoulder.
The seemingly-normal bag was one of Mabel's prized possessions; it had belonged to and was made by her and Dipper's mother. Although it appeared small on the outside, the purse could fit— well, so far Mabel hadn't found a limit. Dipper had explained how it worked to her once. There was something about a mini-dimension— Mabel hadn't understood it, nor did she particularly care to. However it worked, she was incredibly grateful that she had been wearing it when she went through the portal.
After a bit of digging— should probably clean this out— Mabel's hand closed around what she was searching for: a pink sweater knitted yesterday, made without wing slits to disguise her as a human. In order to get it made in a day, she had used a spell Dipper found a year before, which let her enchant her knitting needles to make the sweater themselves. Using the spell brought a smile to Mabel's face— even when he wasn't there, her brother was helping her.
All she had left to do was add a patch. She reached back into the bag, fingers searching. "Hmm... I need something that'll pass as human," Mabel murmured, somewhat reluctantly dropping the emblem for Singeing Sky back into the purse; Mabel knew humans wouldn't understand what the Avem racing team was. "Darn, and they did so well last season, too!"
After half a minute of searching, Mabel pulled a patch out of the depths of the bag. "A shooting star!" She grinned at it at first, but something about the shape seemed familiar; and, as Mabel realized why, her smile faded.
Shooting Star. That was what Lilith had called her in the dream. That thought alone was nearly enough to make Mabel throw the patch back into her bag, but after a moment she took a breath. "I'm not gonna let that stupid dream demon get to me! I can wear whatever I want on my sweaters, and a shooting star is a perfectly lovely design."
Her mind made up, Mabel used the same spell that created the sweater to enchant her needle, instructing it to sew the patch onto the front of the sweater.
Now all she needed to complete her disguise as a human was a pair of leg warmers— to hide her ankle feathers— and Mabel knew she had a clean pair in the bag somewhere. The trick would be to find them; Mabel was, once again, up to her shoulder before her fingers closed around the material. "I really should clean this out," she mused, grinning ruefully as she inspected the purple leg warmers before slipping them over her ankle feathers.
The needle had finished sewing the shooting star onto the sweater and dropped to the ground, its task finished. Mabel inspected the handiwork, then pulled the sweater on over her head and wings. It took a fair amount of fidgeting and adjustment to get her wings into a position that wouldn't cramp them— Mabel knew from experience that cramped wings were no fun.
"Ta-da!" Mabel spread her arms wide and looked around the clearing. "I'm a human now!"
The clearing, of course, didn't answer, and for a split second she wished one of the gnomes were there to tell her how she looked. Slowly she dropped her arms back to her sides, a wave of uncertainty washing over her. She had successfully disguised herself as a human and could safely visit the— Mabel furrowed her brow as she tried to remember what the place was called.
The Mystery Twins' Magic Emporium! That was it.
Twins. What were the odds that Dipper was staying at a place belonging to twins? Unless, Mabel realized with a twisting in her stomach, it was Lilith's sick idea of a joke. Mabel's hands clenched into fists as tears pricked at the back of her eyes. What she wouldn't give to have her twin with her right now.
"Well, Mabel, you aren't going to get him back if you sit here and cry about it, are you?" she said to herself. "You're going to march right up to that Emporium place and get your brother back!"
But the words spoken aloud didn't dispel the thought lurking in the back of Mabel's mind. He's not your brother anymore.
"But I can get him back!" Mabel took a deep breath. "I may not know how yet, but I will find a way. And now I'm going to go get him, and nothing is going to stop me!"
She slung the purse over her shoulder, and within a minute the clearing was behind her.
It would have been faster for Mabel to fly to the Emporium, but she didn't want to wrinkle her new sweater by shoving it in the purse while she wore one with wing slits— or at least, that was what she told herself. Truth to be told, despite her brave words, Mabel was in no hurry to get to the Emporium.
But as often happens when you want time to slow down, it speeds by in a blur, and sooner than she would have liked Mabel found herself peering through the trees at the Mystery Twins' Magic Emporium, the name proudly displayed in large letters on the triangular wooden roof.
The cabin-like building was a strange mixture of ramshackle and well-cared for: the T in "Twins'" had somehow slid down the slope of the roof and now balanced there, but the rest of the letters seemed to have a fresh coat of bright red paint on them. Signs advertising the "Wonders Within" were hung around the porch and staked into the grass, one of which was being chewed on by a goat. The entire building had a homey, comfortable feel to it.
That didn't dispel the tension in every inch of Mabel's body.
Surprisingly, no tourists streamed in or out of the business. Was it closed? That would be just Mabel's luck— but, no it was nearly midday on a Saturday. It had to be open.
"C'mon, Mabel, you can do it!" she muttered, forcing herself out of the woods and onto the grassy yard surrounding the Emporium. "Just one foot in front of the other."
All too soon she was on the front porch. With one final deep breath, she reached for the doorknob—
Blam! The door flew open, nearly nailing Mabel in the nose. "Welcome to the Mystery Twins Magic Emporium, where dreams come true— ugh, no, that's too cliche."
Mabel blinked up at the man who had nearly knocked her out with a door, and he surveyed her with a faint frown. "Are you the only one?"
"Um—" For a moment, Mabel thought this was the same man who she had seen in the forest with Dipper, but she realized that while the two certainly looked similar, they were two different people— they must have been the twins the Emporium was named after. Thick glasses sat on a rather large nose, and on his graying head the man wore a red fez with a symbol on it that Mabel didn't recognize.
The man adjusted his well-worn black suit and stepped to the side of the door, gesturing inward with the cane in his hand. "Well, welcome! I'm Stan Pines, co-owner of the Mystery Twins Magic Emporium— but you can call me Mr. Mystery!"
"I'm Mabel." Mabel tried to smile up at the man as she walked inside, but her worry twisted it into more of a grimace. "Is D— Mason Pines here?"
Stan lounged back against the check-out counter, which was unmanned. "Mason is my great-nephew. You know him?"
His great-nephew? But Dipper wasn't—
Realization washed over Mabel. Lilith must have tampered with Stan's memory as well, making him think he was related to Dipper. "He's my—" Mabel caught herself. "We met the other day in the woods, and he told me his uncles ran this place and that I should stop by."
Stan grunted. "Glad to see the kid's making friends— and we could certainly use the business. You from around here, kid?"
Mabel's eyes widened. Shoot! She hadn't even thought about coming up with a cover story— that was something Dipper would have remembered to do, but the idea hadn't even crossed her mind. Realizing that Stan was waiting for a response, Mabel blurted the first thing that came to mind. "I'm visiting my grandma!"
Stan arched an eyebrow. "You are, huh? And who might your grandma be?"
"She— she owns the diner." Mabel hoped the vague answer would be enough to convince Stan; she remembered seeing an older woman working in the log-shaped building during one of her flights overhead.
"Lazy Susan?" Stan fiddled with a bobblehead sitting on the counter— an extremely overpriced bobblehead, if the $15 price tag was to be believed. "I didn't know she had any kids, much less grandkids."
"She and my— uh, my mom don't really get along. So I haven't met her till now." Behind her back, Mabel crossed her fingers. That sounded believable, right?
Stan grunted again. "Family issues, huh. I'd know about that." Setting down the bobblehead, he looked at Mabel. "But she really needs to keep a better eye on you— the forest is a dangerous place, kid."
Mabel was glad for his concern, but she was pretty sure she could take care of herself in the forest; besides, that was really the only place for Mabel to stay. But as she had the thought, an idea crossed her mind— back at school, she and Dipper had learned a spell to hypnotize people. If Mabel used it on Stan, she could convince him to let her stay in the Emporium. She would have a bed to sleep in, and she'd be closer to Dipper...
After considering it, Mabel reluctantly dismissed the idea. If she hypnotized Stan, she would probably have to do it to a bunch of other people too in order to avoid suspicious questions, and Mabel wasn't entirely sure she could do all of them. Besides, she had never liked the idea of manipulating someone else.
Realizing Stan was waiting for an answer, Mabel gave him a noncommittal shrug. "So... where is Mason?"
"Probably wherever the rest of my slacking employees are," Stan grumbled, looking at the empty cashier desk. "Dang it, where are my workers?" he yelled.
"We're in here!" The young female voice came from behind a swinging door labelled Employees Only. Stan frowned at it.
"You wait here," he said to Mabel. "Look around or something. Ya' got any money?"
Mabel bit her lip. She probably had some Avem change floating around in her bag, but that wouldn't do much good here. "No."
Stan nodded as if she had just confirmed something. "Figures." He marched across the room and shoved the swinging door open with more force than was probably necessary. "What on earth are you knuckleheads doing?"
Another voice drifted out, sounding like it belonged to a man about Stan's age. "Mason and I are teaching Wendy and Soos how to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons!"
Mabel blinked. They had DD&D in this dimension, too? It was one of Dipper's favorite games back home; Mabel had tried it, but all that math and graph paper made her brain feel weird.
"It's like all my childhood fantasies come true!" another unfamiliar voice said. Mabel could hear Stan's groan.
"Yeah, well, I'm not paying you to lay around playing dumb games. Ford, why are you encouraging this?"
"Mason asked me about it, and it's more fun to play with lots of people," the first voice—Ford— said patiently. "Besides, if anyone comes in, we would hear and be out there immediately."
"Except that someone did come in while all of you were lazing around!" Stan said, his voice crescendoing to a roar. "So get back to work, all of you!"
A sheepish string of people filed out of the door, lead by the same man Mabel had seen in the forest with Dipper— the one the gnomes called the 'explorer.' Instead of a trenchcoat, he was wearing a red turtleneck. "Stan, we've hardly had any customers lately—"
"And that's what I'm worried about," Stan said. "How are we supposed to get customers if all of you can't even stay at work?"
The redheaded girl from the day before— Wendy, that was her name— sat down at the cashier desk, lounging back with her feet up on the counter. "Calm down, Stan. You'll scare away the customer." She met Mabel's eyes and grinned. "Trust me, Stan's bark is worse than his bite. He's really an old softie."
"I'll 'old softie' you," Stan muttered, only making Wendy grin harder.
Another employee, a large man who somehow reminded Mabel of an overgrown gopher, was the only one who seemed the slightest bit repentant. "I'm sorry, Mr. Pines."
Stan sighed. "Just get back to work, Soos."
And then the last person filed out of the other room. Dipper. "Grunkle Stan, you should try Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons! I bet you'd really like it. You get to fight things, and rolling the dice is kinda like gambling..."
"Not gonna work, kid," Stan said, but Mabel could see a faint smile on his face. He pointed to Mabel. "She says you know her?"
Dipper's eyes landed on her. "Oh yeah— you're Mabel, right?"
"Yep!" Mabel said, forcing enthusiasm she didn't feel. "You said to stop by this place sometime, and my—" Who had she told Stan she was staying with? "—aunt said I could come by." Mabel glanced at Stan, but he hadn't reacted. She must have said the right thing. "But I don't have any money."
"Mason, why don't you give her the tour?" Stan said in a weary tone. "She can spread the word in town or something."
Dipper looked at Stan, eyes wide as he pushed his glasses up his nose. "I can give her the tour?"
"Knock yourself out." Stan waved a hand at them. "I'm gonna have a talk with old Fordsy here about slacking on the job and being a good influence on the younger generation," he said, volume increasing as he spoke. Across the room, Ford looked up from where he was talking to Soos to roll his eyes.
Mabel watched Dipper grin at Ford, and she bit her lip. They were all so relaxed and friendly with each other... she could almost forget that it wasn't real. That none of it was real— all of this was an illusion cooked up by an evil dream demon.
But her brother was real, and one way or another she was going to get him back. It was with that thought in mind that Mabel followed Dipper through a red curtain and into the Hall of Mystery.