Chapter Text
“Your parents let you have champagne?”
Pacifica turned to the dark-haired boy with her brightest I-am-a-privileged-rich-girl smile, then held out her fluted glass, tilted in his direction like an alm. He stared at it a moment, then at her, then grinned and stole a quick sip. The grin stole off his face just as quickly. “That’s just ginger ale.”
She leaned in slightly, tilting her head. “They don’t need to know that. Who are you stealing a lady’s drink anyway?”
He blinked, eyes darting between hers and the soft drink like he was missing something, before straightening into the formal-introduction-pose that children of their upbringing all seemed to have. “Warlock Dowling. And you?”
Well, at least he hadn’t rattled off his family’s business history. Come to think of it, she didn’t remember ever hearing her parents use the name. Maybe this evening wouldn’t be horrible. “Pacifica Northwest.”
“Who names their kid Pacifica?”
“Who names theirs Warlock?”
Instead of looking offended, he just shrugged and leaned against the wall, looking out at the other guests. Pacifica sipped at her ginger ale. The party continued around them.
“I’m from England,” he said. “I mean, my parents are American, but that’s where we live.”
She nodded. She had wondered about the accent. “I’m from a small town in Oregon. You probably haven’t heard of it.”
“Tell me anyway. I’m bored.”
Admittedly, she was a little thrown by the blatancy of that, but, well. Who was she to complain about a fellow society kid getting fed up with fancy graces? “Gravity Falls. Really woodsy, lots of pine trees. It’s…got a local flavor that’s kinda hard to explain when you’ve lived there your whole life.”
She took another sip, wondering what else she could say that wouldn’t sound weird to someone who hadn’t experienced what a Gravity Falls resident considered 'standard.' “I mean, I haven’t been to many other small towns, but I imagine it has what every small town has. Mini golf, laser tag, that one breakfast place where the food isn’t great but all the servers know your name, a localized history museum with some probably-fake dinosaur skeletons, you know.”
“Yeah. Dinosaurs aren’t real.”
Pacifica stared at him, recalling the very-real and very-loud lizard that had torn apart more than a few flying eyeballs despite still technically being trapped in amber. “I mean, they put the skeletons together the wrong way sometimes, but that’s not the same as them not existing.”
“They don’t,” he maintained, thought he didn’t look like he expected to be believed. “My nanny said so.”
“And you believe something your nanny told you over thousands of textbooks and archaeological digs?”
“Yeah. So what if she said some weird stuff? She was great.”
Oops, he was getting upset. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just surprised, is all.”
He shrugged again. She took another sip. He stuck his hands in his pockets, looking toward a woman by the fondue table like he hoped she’s catch him at it.
Good grief, this was boring. She almost wished a dinosaur would come charging through the ballroom doors, and not even just to see Warlock’s reaction. She’d gotten too used to Gravity Falls 'standard.' “Did your nanny tell you other weird stuff?”
“I guess. I mean, she told me I’d rule the world one day. She’d talk about me striking down my enemies. And that would’ve made sense if I was getting bullied or something, but I wasn’t. It was just stuff she said. She mentioned blood and fire a lot, too, for someone looking after a kid.” He winced. “You know, I never thought about it at the time. She used to sing me lullabies and they were all about evil and death and me being at the top of everything.”
“How’s your conquest gone so far?” Pacifica was grinning. The dark stuff wasn’t really her cup of tea, but finally, something weird.
He shrugged again, but he had an easy smile now. “Eh, if it happens, it happens. Before I go about commanding the legions of hell, though, I’d like to get in contact with her again.”
Pacifica took another sip. “Well, if you miss her that much, she can’t have been a bad nanny, no matter what strange stuff she might’ve said.”
He nodded. “I don’t have any bad memories of her. Some strange ones, though, and not even just stuff she said to me. She really wasn’t fond of the gardener, and I could never figure out why. They never acted like they hated each other, but she was always saying ‘don’t you listen to him, listen to me,’ and then he’d go and say the same about her. And it’d always be over really dull things, too. And you know she dressed like Mary Poppins? I’m serious, she had the bird on her umbrella and everything! She never wore bright colors though. Imagine a gothic Mary Poppins. Like that.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t know back then that most nannys don’t dress like that anymore. Or anyone. Finding that out was even stranger when I remembered that she used to wear sunglasses all the time. I mean, grownups will complain about kids doing that, but there my nanny went and did it! Everywhere we went, and in the house and at night too! She had ever since I could remember, so I never asked about them, and she never came out and said either. I think maybe something was wrong with her eyes. I don’t think she was blind, but I got a look at them the few times she pulled them off and they were kinda yellow. Strange pupils, too. Long and narrow, like a cat. Or maybe a snake.”
Pacifica stalled in the middle of another sip.
“And I’ve tried asking mum and dad since then, but they weren’t around very much and honestly, I don’t think they even noticed anything strange, which, I mean, I didn’t either, but they were adults!”
“Yellow eyes?”
Warlock started, turning away from the empty space in front of him that he’d been speaking at. “Yeah,” he frowned.
“Slits for pupils?”
He nodded. “You know what causes that?”
She shook her head slowly, worrying at her lip. “You said she would talk a lot about…fire and blood and the end of the world?”
“Well, more me ruling the world, but yeah, the end came up sometimes.”
“What was her name?”
He pursed his lips, entirely too calm. “I always just called her Nanny. I think it was something like Ashtoreth, though. Hey, are you alright? You look pale.”
“I’m fine,” Pacifica lied, carefully tightening her grip around her fluted champagne glass full of ginger ale, so she didn’t do something alarming like drop it. “Maybe I shouldn’t have tried the champagne though.”
“It’s just ginger ale,” he retorted, but took her glass anyway when she held it out. “And people get red when they’re drunk, not pale.”
“Well, feel free to finish mine,” she huffed. “I’m obviously very drunk and since I’m too young for that I need to run to the restroom right now.”
He recoiled a little bit, and a small part of her felt bad for snapping, but it was mostly eclipsed by panic. “Alright. See you around, I guess.”
“Look me up after the party!” She called over her shoulder. Not exactly a polite farewell, but at the moment she hardly cared, and she didn’t actually want to lose contact. But she needed to get away from the other guests. Right now.
Once she had found the restroom and made sure nobody else was inside, she pulled her phone out of her clutch and dialed a familiar number.
“Dipper! Yeah, no, I’m still at the party, but…um, okay, I was talking to this guy and-…what, no, nothing like that, it’s just-…Dipper listen! This might be important. Actually, could you get Mabel too? …Hi, no, it’s been bad. Well, boring, but that’s not why I called. You’re not gonna like this, but…okay, just, I don’t know how else to say this, so I’m just gonna start it, and I’m so sorry for bringing it up, but…well.
“I need you to tell me if any of this sounds like Bill.”