Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The brunette woke and rubbed her eyes, sitting up in bed.

“Mornin’ already?”

Sighing, she reached over and grabbed her flip phone off of her night table. The graphics in the top right corner of the screen read 9:00 in small, neat numbers. She scratched her head, finding her short locks curled and scrunched together, creating thin, light knots of frizz. Huffing, she picked up a hairbrush, running the teeth through the strands, sleepily. Her blue, gold-flecked eyes still felt out-of-focus, and she blinked her heavy eyelids in a futile attempt to wake up a bit more. Turning, she slid out of the comforting embrace of her sheets and rubbed her eyes with her unoccupied hand.

“ARIA! DO YOU WANT BACON?”

Immediately, her eyes widened and she shouted a quick affirmative before lazily tossing her hairbrush onto her bed and whipping open her door. Jogging down the hallway and the stairs to the kitchen, hair flipping behind her, she nearly tripped over her own feet before unceremoniously falling into the polished wooden seat.

A tall, thin man placed a plate of bacon in front of her, dirty blonde locks fringed, and tall, pale face pulled into a gentle smile. He turned to the center of the kitchen to survey the mess he’d have to clean before looking toward his hungry daughter once more.

“Do you want anything else, sweetheart?”

“I’m good, pop!”

“You sure you’ve got enough?” he raised his brows, quizzically

“I’m fine, really!”

“Here,” Aria’s father said, dropping some scrambled eggs next to the thin strips of meat on the plate.

“Oh, uhm, thanks,” She grinned uncertainly at her father before looking back toward her plate and scooping up a thin strip. Crunching on her breakfast, absent-mindedly, she found herself gazing out the window toward the lush, dense greenery outside.

“The forest seems beautiful, today.”

“That it is. You thinking of heading out there?”

“Maybe. It ain’t the same without the twins, though.”

“You’ve really been thinking about your old friends lately, haven’t you?”

Aria didn’t answer, lost in thought about her young Californian pals. They had told her that they’d always gone to the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon over the summer, ever since they were thirteen. She couldn’t blame the kids; Gravity Falls was always a source of comfort for her, as well. Her father had learned that the small, wooded town was where she was born from the workers at an orphanage just outside the town; where he had adopted her. Apparently, she had mysteriously appeared on the doorstep one night with a small note written in chicken scratch pinned to the blanket that had swaddled her. All that the workers could decipher from the hastily-written letter was her birth date, the rest being far too much of a mess to read. The mystery of her origins combined with the allure of the tall, wild vegetation and intriguing creatures of the forest drew her toward the town, even when she was miles away.

The girl’s father had lived in the small town until Aria was fifteen, her father hoping to somehow find out more about the origins of the young child. He gave up after nothing and nobody had come forward to claim they were her birth mother and decided to move to California, away from the far greater expanse of forest and the freeze of winter. He had decided to move on Aria’s 14th birthday, and proceeded to make the move halfway through the summer of the next year. She had met the twins during her last year in the town, and hadn’t seen them since. She had kept contact with them through various social media sites, but it had been difficult to meet face-to-face due to the fact that they lived on opposite sides of the state.

The day they met was bright, warm, and peaceful. The sun crested through the gaps in the tree canopies and shone optimistically upon the dense underbrush and uneven ground. Making her way back from a friend’s house - he had come to her asking for assistance in building his roof, his last one falling apart mere weeks after it had been completed - she heard a shriek and curious, as well as excited to possibly view a previously unseen forest critter, decided to investigate. Creeping her way to where she believed the call originated from, Aria instinctively hid behind some nearby bushes. She anticipated the sight of a large bird or creature calling to its peers, but was surprised when her eyes instead lay upon two kids, two or three years younger than her - she estimated - conversing near a fallen, rotted tree stump.

“Mabel! Don’t do that!” The male glared up at the female, sitting up from his position on his back and brushing the blades of grass that clung to his navy vest off his torso.

The girl, Mabel had her elbows on the stump and head in her hands. Her mouth was stretched into a wide grin, showing off the blue elastics and metal on her teeth. The braces twinkled brightly in the golden light of the sun, small giggles emitting from her open maw. She unceremoniously threw a large piece of bark that appeared scarily similar to a screaming face over her shoulder. The grass behind her rustled quietly as the wood dropped onto it.

“Sorry, bro bro! That one was just too easy! I had to!”

“That wasn’t funny! We could have just attracted some sort of creature!” the boy shot back, adjusting his blue and white trucker cap and reaching to the right to grab something.

“Come on, don’t be such a worrywart, bro-bro!”

The boy had paused. Ignoring his sister’s remark, he turned his attention to his hand which had rested in the grass beside him. Suddenly, he began searching the grass around him, going on all fours to pat the ground frantically with open palms. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what, Dippin’ Dots?” Mabel hopped over the log and stood over her brother, head angled downward to face her crazed sibling.

“The Journal! I was just holding it before I fell!”

She scanned the field with diligent eyes before pointing toward Aria’s feet.

“FOUND IT!” She hollered, jogging toward her objective.

Aria held her breath and steadied herself against a tree trunk. There, in the grass, around five feet away from the bush she was in, was a book. Its gold-decorated cover glimmered softly as green slivers of vegetation danced around it in the breeze.

The burgundy cover was well-loved for certain. Pieces of the cardboard-like material poked through the ratted, torn fabric covering the book’s exoskeleton. Yellowed, coffee-stained pages stuck out from the uniform book haphazardly, adding to the ancient motif that the rest of the journal seemed to radiate. She had enough time to observe all of this as Mabel approached, the girl’s bright pink, glittery sneakers rustling through waving green blades with each quick step forward. Finally, after what seemed to her like an hour’s worth of nail-biting tension, the sweater-wearing female halted her forward momentum and bowed forward, chubby and tough fingers wrapping around the binding and pulling it upward toward her chest.

“Be careful!” The male chided his sister.

“Yeah, yeah, I know!” She swiveled and turned her back on the bush, beginning her short trek back to her brother.

Aria sighed, putting her right hand to her heart, momentarily forgetting that this was, in fact the hand she was using to keep herself steady. No longer secured against the rugged trunk of the tree, her body tilted forward. She gasped and moved her right leg forward to catch herself, instead managing to kick her left ankle mid-plummet. Gasping, she squeezed her eyes shut.

Crack!

Snap!

Rustle!

Whelp, if they didn’t notice her before, they definitely noticed her, now.

“Who’s there? Show yourself!” The boy hollered in her direction, his pre-pubescent voice causing his words to fracture and tone to raise.

“Yeah, what he said!”

She groaned, the sharp branches of the bush poking and prodding the flesh of her torso and arms. The wood was sharper and more painful than she expected, and she struggled in vain to escape their hold.

“I would, but I’m kinda’ stuck. Uh..,” She attempted to adjust herself into a more comfortable position before giving in and halting her movements, “Yeah-no, this isn’t gonna work...”

The siblings looked at each other before approaching the talking bush with miniscule steps, stopping only when they were directly in front of it. Mabel tilted her head as her lips split into a delighted smile.

“Oh! Hello friend!” She leaned over and gripped one of Aria’s arms, pulling her up and to her feet with little difficulty.

The spying girl brushed leaves off of her clothes and smiled apologetically at the other female and her brother.

“Thank you. S-Sorry for uh...Eavesdropping,” she apologized, shuffling her right foot and scratching the back of her neck.

“It’s okay! I’m Mabel and this is my Nerd Bro, Dipper! We were just searching for-!”

“Mabel! Don’t- I mean- we don’t know this girl! She could be a shapeshifter or- or a skinwalker for all we know!”

“Stop being so paranoid, Dipster! She’s just a human, like us! As I was saying, we’re lookin’ for cool creatures!”

“Oh, that’s-!”

“How do you know that, though?” Dipper cut Aria off, voice cracking in worry.

“If she wanted to attack or hurt us, she would have done so already.”

“Woah woah woah, wait! Hurt you? Why would I-?” She blinked and shook her head before starting again, “If you guys feel uncomfortable I could always just...uh..,” She gestured toward the trees with little finger guns.

“No, don’t go! You’re perfectly fine! Dipper’s just being a doofus.”

“Hey!”

Aria snickered at the twins’ antics before asking them why they were in the forest.

“What are you doing in the forest?” The boy shot back.

“Dipper, rude!”

“Hey, it’s fine. It is weird and I would probably ask the same thing to a stranger who’d just emerged from the literal underbrush,” she assured the sister, quickly and calmly, putting her hands up in a ‘wait a minute’ gesture. “I was just coming back from visiting a friend. I had to help him gather bark for a new roof. He’s pretty small,” she knelt and held her hand upside-down, as if patting the head of a small cat, “and you can imagine that getting bark off trees can be pretty difficult at such sizes, so I was tasked with getting it for ‘im. That’s why I’m here. Now, it’s yer turn,” she made a gesture for the twins to speak before putting her hands on her hips and raising an eyebrow, grinning.

Dipper blinked at the gestures, as if in recognition, before looking from the Journal and back to her.

“Uh, we were...Uh...F-Finding things to write about in our journal! Y-you know about the...Uh...Things in this forest, so,” he trailed off.

Aria stared at the boy for a moment before smiling, reassuringly.

“That’s pretty cool! I can understand your curiosity. Things in these woods are . . . Pretty interesting, to say the least,” She smirked, as if she just cracked the best joke in the world before continuing. “Yer journal must be pretty personal,” She said looking down at the ratty book, “seein’ as it’s so torn up and old,” she blinked and her eyes widened, “eh, no offense. Um, so, how long have you been writing in that thing, for?”

“None taken,” he looked down before returning his gaze to her face. “Uh, we’ve been writing in it for a while. How many years has it been now, Mabel?”

“Oh, uh...well, we got it when we were . . . just a few years old! Don’t you remember, Dips?” She giggled nervously as Dipper nodded.

By this point, Aria had long caught onto their game. It was glaringly obvious, but she didn’t want to intrude or seem disrespectful. All she wanted was to lower their defenses. She was of no danger to them, and wanted them to see that. So, she stopped her prying for answers.

“Ah, that’s sweet! I should start writing things down in a journal. It would definitely assist me in remembering my dreams and such!”

“You don’t seem so excited about that,” Mabel cocked her head to the side, the twins simultaneously raising a brow as they noticed the shift in the other’s mood.

Aria thought about it. All she ever remembered from her dreams was the impenetrable silence, only ever broken by the faint whisper of a breeze, far off voices, or the creak of old wooden planks. The atmosphere was hollow and dreary. It was a cold and eerily empty space, even though there always stood a very large wooden house in front of her. She knew that she was in a dream, and therefore had excellent control over herself and her surroundings, enabling her to play with her favorite television characters, and float around as she pleased. Lately however, she had felt an odd energy, as if a creature somewhere, somehow was watching her with an analytical gaze, peeling each layer of her mind apart with the careful, precise movements of their fingers. Her mind a book being turned page by page in order for some invisible specter to get a better read on her. It was almost surgical in its accuracy and focus. It was an eerie discomfort, as if she were not alone and something feral were awaiting its chance to pounce. She shivered.

“I don’t really know...It-It’s complicated,” she scratched the back of her neck, wearing an uncomfortable smirk.

“Do you wanna talk about it? I’m an amazing listener, and if you need someone to hug, Waddles is the best at cuddles!”

“Waddles?”

“Mabel’s pet pig,” the male explained as if he were going over how to brush one’s teeth.

“Oh...Huh...”

“Well?” Mabel gazed expectantly at the girl, grinning, supportively.

The purple tips of Aria’s hair glinted almost metallically as she turned her head side-to-side, eyes glancing over her shoulders, nervously. “Maybe...Not here...They’re, uh, pretty weird and I don’t want anyone to freak out over ‘em...Though, admittedly, that would be kinda’ hilarious”.

She remembered them leading her to where they were staying over the summer, Dipper evidently much less enthused than her sister. He gazed at her with a raised eyebrow, inspecting her like a particularly interesting speck of dust the entire way back, only looking away to step over logs or duck under branches. She was surprised and amused to find that they were living in the local mystery museum, well known for its overcharged tours and knick-knacks, and even more so when the first thing Mabel’s pig did, upon seeing her tackled her, licked her face, and promptly curled up on her legs. She was good with animals, but not that good. Deciding that Waddles was just a particularly friendly hog, she sat up and rubbed his pink head, affectionately giving him various pork-based nicknames before chatting more with the twins and opening up about her dreams.

Speaking of those dreams, after she moved away from Gravity Falls, she noticed that they stopped being so eerie. The presence was just . . . Gone; vanished; A raven into the night. This realization was incredibly unsettling. As far as she knew, nothing had changed between when she lived in the Falls, and when she did not.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the tail-end of a question.

“What’cha’ say?”

“I asked if you wanted to go back to Oregon! I could always ask Stan if it’s alright for you to stay with him and your friends,” her father ran water over pristine white dishes, scrubbing them furiously with a sponge.

“You’d allow me to-? I-I’d love to go! . . . Uh . . . If that’s okay, of course.”

“I’ll call up Stan. You go pack clothes and necessities.”

“Really? Thank you so much, dad! God, it’s been so long! I can’t wait to see the look on their faces!” She babbled, jogging up the stairs.

“And Aria,” her father shouted, making her freeze mid-step.

“Hmm?”

“Don’t you go looking for trouble like you used to! I know the woods of Gravity Falls are beautiful, and the animals there are friendly and interesting to interact with, but the wild forests of that town can be dangerous, especially if you don’t know what they’re capable of.”

Aria raised her brows and quietly nodded, before sprinting to her room and packing.

Chapter Text

Aria felt as if she were buzzing. It was uncomfortable to sit still for such a long car ride, so she compensated by looking out the window, her knees pushing against the plush, black false-leather of the car seat as she sat on them. She briefly contemplated sleeping, but she wanted to see the world-famous - or at least to her - Gravity Falls welcome sign as their car rolled by. When her father told her to sit normally, she turned to kicking her legs and watching them swing over the black carpeted car floor, occasionally allowing one of her feet to kick the passenger seat in front of her.

“Aria! How old are you, five? Stop kicking the seat!”

“But no one’s sitting there and I’m excited!” She whined, kicking the seat once more to emphasize her point.

“It doesn’t matter if someone is sitting there or not! It doesn’t even matter if you are excited, or not! It’s rude behavior that I will turn this car around, for!

Aria rolled her eyes and settled back in her seat, rocking side-to-side in excitement. There were merely two hours left to go and the suspense was building. Right now, you could cut it with a razor.

“Would they even remember me?” “they probably won’t remember me,” she thought, solemnly, the voice causing her fidgeting to slow to a stop. That can’t be possible . . . “the twins would never forget a great friend, even if they hadn’t seen them in years,” she reassured herself.

The hours passed, long and tiringly, Aria playing games like I Spy with her father to pass the time. Eventually, though she tried to fight off her exhaustion, her eyes fell and she dozed off, her sleep quiet and restful. When she arrived, she blearily opened her eyes and yawned, stretching before looking around. Unfortunately, she had missed the sign, but there was one other attraction she was interested in viewing. Her lips stretched into a wide, open-mouthed smile.

The car had stopped in front of an old, run-down, wooden shack, on which letters proudly displayed the words, “Mystery Shack” in an eye-catching red and black.

She was home.

Hopping out, she pulled out her suitcases, her father assisting her in hauling the heavy bags out of the trunk before a creaky slam followed by a deep, rough voice caught her attention.

“KID!” The “S” in the word “Shack” fell to the ground with the hollow sound of splintering wood as a barrel-chested man in a black formal suit and red fez held his arms wide open.

“STAN!” She hollered right back, not caring about the wooden “S”, and sprinting toward the elderly person, elated. She wrapped her arms around his torso and gave a squeeze with all her might, at which he chuckled.

“How ya’ doin’, kid? You sure got stronger!” Stan pressed his knuckles into the top of Aria’s head in a noogie, causing her hair to stick in odd angles out of the top of her head.

She laughed, “I’m great! How’re you? It’s been a while, ol’ man!” the girl jumped and pulled Stan’s fez further down his face.

“Well, I’m livin’!”

“Just barely!” She shouted, turning to finish pulling the bags out, only to see her father had finished without her. Stan punched her shoulder, lightly.

“Oh, dad! You didn’t have to! You coulda’ waited for me!”

“No, it’s alright, sweetie! You were meeting Stan again and I didn’t want to interrupt. Plus,” He flexed his arms,”I’m pretty capable, myself!”

The smack of Aria’s palm hitting her forehead caused birds to fly, squawking from the trees. Stan could have sworn the town square could hear it from here. The Shack’s residents heard it, at least. A female lumberjack, large; round man, Dipper, and Mabel all ran out, each carrying their respective choice of weapon.

“WHAT WAS THAT? I SWEAR, WHATEVER YOU ARE, YOU’RE GONNA REGRET EVER MESSING WITH THE PINES!” The ginger held an axe like a baseball bat, readying it for swinging. It really enhanced her whole “lumberjane” vibe.

“LIKE, STAY BACK, SLAPPY MONSTER DUDE!” A screwdriver was gripped tightly in the large, pear-shaped man’s hand.

“GET AWAY FROM THE SHACK, MONSTER! I KNOW HOW TO USE THIS THING AND I’M NOT AFRAID TO!” Dipper brandished some sort of gun with a pink crystal in it.

“GRAPPLING HOOK!” Mabel held . . . Well . . . A grappling hook. She pulled the trigger and the three-pronged hook flew through the air before falling uselessly on the grass, wire connecting to it following suit.

“Uh . . . Hey . . . Guys . . . ?” Aria raised a brow, staring at the armed people from the Mystery Shack.

Upon laying her eyes on the new girl, Mabel promptly dropped her grappling hook and sprinted toward her, arms out, wide and eyes sparkling.

“ARIA!” She squealed and squished her friend in a tight embrace before stepping back and gripping her shoulders, excitedly. “I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN FOREVER! WE HAVE SO MUCH TO CATCH UP ON! I CAN SHOW YOU MY STICKER COLLECTION! IT’S GROWN SO MUCH! AND . . . OH! OH, YOU’VE GOTTA SEE WADDLES! HE’S-”

“Woah, okay! Take a breather, Mabes! I literally just got here! Don’t worry. We’ll have tons of time to catch up, but for now, I’ve gotta meet yer bro and the friends ya’ told me so much about!” She grinned at her old friend’s enthusiasm, glad that nothing had changed.

“Aria? Hey!” Seeing his sister was done with her tirade, Dipper approached and gave the girl a hug. “What’s up!”

“Nuthin’ much! How ‘bout you, Dips? See any new monsters?”

“Nah, not yet, but thanks for asking! Mabel and I were actually planning on going out tomorrow to . . . Check on a relic, of sorts . . . Uh,” he turned to look at Mabel, sharing a silent, look-based conversation with her, before she shrugged. Turning back to Aria, he continued, “you can come, if you want. We just wanted to update ourselves on the stability of a certain cursed object.”

“Sweet! I’d love to g-!” Her eyes widened before she turned to her father, who was busy speaking to Stan. Turning back, she cupped her mouth to his ear, and whispered, “I’ll come, but keep it a secret, for now. My dad doesn’t want me exploring the woods, anymore . . . Says there may be something I ‘don’t entirely understand’ . . . ”

Dipper nodded, eyes wide. “Got it.”

“Hey! Dipper, you never told me ya’ got a girlfriend!” The lumberjack leaned nonchalantly on the handle of her axe, the head pressing into the wooden boards of the porch.

Immediately, blood rushed to Dipper’s normally pale face. His mouth opened and closed like a water-starved fish as minute wheezes escaped his lungs; marking the rebuttal he could not get out. Mabel giggled before turning to the woman.

“No, no, Wendy! This is Aria! Don’t you remember her? You met her a few years ago during our first summer, here! She moved away before Gravity Falls went all-!”

“Mabel!”

“Oh, whoops!”

Aria didn’t have time to be confused about Mabel’s mistake before the pear-shaped man approached.

“Oh! I remember you! You’re da weird, purple-haired kid who was explorin’ da forest, right?” The large man stepped up to Aria and eyed the dark violet tips of her hair with a grin. Putting his screwdriver away, he reached his right hand out to shake and tilted his dark green cap back a bit with his left. “I’m Soos! It’s great to meet ya’ again, dude!” He introduced, cheerily.

“That’s me, the weird, purple-haired kid who explores the forest!” She gripped his hand and gave a strong and friendly shake. “The name’s Aria, as the twins already explained!”

When she released the shake, his hand was instantly replaced by the ginger’s.

“Wendy. Glad ya’ came back,” she nodded, her voice quieter than before and one the teen immediately recognized as adventurous and unafraid.

“Same”

Suddenly, just after her father shut the trunk, the door of the Shack whipped open, slamming against the wooden wall with an echoing crack. A man who looked identical to Stan all except for his attire and hair-color stood in the doorway, glasses glistening frighteningly in the daylight. His eyes were obscured by the glint and the fracture of the sun’s rays, and he bore a very large, and very threatening triangular gun.

“WHERE IS IT? IS IT HERE TO TAKE OUR SPLEENS?”

Everyone’s attention was drawn to the man, their eyes wide and brows creased, worriedly.

“Sixer! What are you doin’ with that thing? Bring it back to your nerd lair before somethin’ or someone gets hurt!” Stan ran to his brother, grabbing the thick shaft of the gun and pushing it down and to the side.

“I heard a snap, then a commotion, Stanley! What was I supposed to believe?” The Stan clone said glancing at the group of perfectly normal, but shocked humans.

“I dunno, but not this! He’s gone, rememba’? He ain’t comin’ back, I can tell you that. And, if he does come back, we can ‘andle it! Don’ worry about it!”

Aria raised a brow and quietly turned to Dipper, “Who-...What happened?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Alright . . . So, you must be Stanford!” She yelled to the clone, grinning and approaching as he gave Stanley the gun. He promptly turned and disappeared into the Shack with it as she reached her hand out. “Name’s Aria! Met the twins a few years ago, but moved before you could meet me. Sorry ‘bout that!”

Ford raised a brow and took her hand as if it were going to explode or shatter. When he was sure nothing would happen, and had fully scanned her face, his caution flipped into warm kindness. Her hand was moved slowly, and deliberately. It was the shake of a therapist or a psychiatrist and seemed almost well-practiced in its formality. The two unclasped their hands.

“You are correct in that assumption. It is a pleasure to meet you, Aria. Don’t feel discouraged for not being able to meet me when I first returned. It was probably better that you were not there. That year was not very pleasant, after I returned. I assume you learned about me through the twins?” His voice was evenly paced and soft, yet it held an air of authority that few could replicate.

“Yes! We’ve been texting back and forth fer a few years, but only recently have I had the chance to meet ‘em again.”

“Well, I’m glad that you have come to . . . Spend the summer with us?” He looked at his twin, who had just re-emerged from the tourist trap, uncertainly.

“Yup!”

“Well . . . I will be in my lab, if you need me! I have a lot of equations to solve and tests to do. Dipper, Mabel, have you gotten the data I requested of you?”

“No, not yet, Grunkle Ford! We were thinking of doing it tomorrow, rescheduling to include our guest, you know?”

Ford hummed, “Alright, but it had better be tomorrow. I need that data!” He looked back at Aria, “I must get back to my lab, now. It was a pleasure to meet you, and if you have any questions involving math and/or science, do not hesitate to holler.” With that, he turned and entered the Shack once more.

“Ari!”

She turned and gazed at her father.

“You gonna leave me hanging?”

Aria approached her father and gave him a hug, smiling, contently. He squeezed back and spoke in a hushed tone.

“Have fun, sweetie, and remember what we talked about. No exploring through the forest.”

“Okay . . . Love ya’, dad.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

With that, they broke from the embrace and he entered his car, waving as he slowly drove off, gravel crunching beneath the tires.

A silence permeated the air, only the sound of wind rushing and leaves rustling against each-other cut through. Aria stared at the end of the road, gazing, eyes half-lidded at the last place she saw her father’s car. A small smile pulled at her lips. She blinked as she turned toward the Shack’s residents, smile widening.

“I’ll take your bags to yer room, kiddo,” Stanley ruffled her hair before bending down, gripping the bag handles, and making his way into the Shack for the last time.

“Well, I guess we’ll show you around the Shack. Gotta start somewhere, right?” Dipper grinned, gesturing for her to follow him and his sister, who nodded at her brother’s suggestion.

With that, they all entered the run-down, wooden house, silence reclaiming their neck of the woods once more as the door rotated shut behind them.

Chapter Text

The Shack was quiet and quaint, sporting a small museum made up of oddities that were, in reality, just a collection of mismatched animal parts, ‘artifacts’ such as glass eyeballs, and even a small boulder. The whole attraction part of the Shack culminated in a gift shop, through which the three had entered to begin their tour.

The shop appeared as expected based on the objects and theme of the “Mystery Tour” - as the Pines’ called it - selling trinkets and knick-knacks meant to cause fear (when really, all they emulated was the feeling of money wastefully flying out of pockets). Wendy sat behind the cashier desk, absent-mindedly tapping at her smartphone as she reclined on her stool. A glass jar of eyes sat beside her as an afterthought and a way to tie the desk into the theming, left forgotten by the cool-headed lumberjack. An inconspicuous vending machine buzzed and flickered quietly, in the corner.

From there, the twins took Aria through another doorway, this one leading to a small living room. Surprisingly, even though the room was not a part of the attraction, it too held ‘paranormal’ artifacts, including the skull of some very large animal - a dinosaur? - that was currently being used as a coffee table, a pink doily draped carefully across it’s scalp as two untouched cans of soda sat, static on top.

Next was the kitchen, which was lit by a single electric bulb. A wooden table sat in the center and the counters were adorned with drawers and cabinets, holding silverware and platters, bowls and plates. A large white refrigerator sat adjacent to one of the counters and a series of wooden cabinets - some open - looked down upon the rest of the room, anchored to the wall and ceiling. A ratted, rusted gas stove clattered lowly beside a doorway, and a convection oven - similarly - rattled ever-so-slightly next to the other side of the doorway.

The entryway seemed the only part of the house not stoked in mystical and mysterious objects; a set of stairs lead directly to the attic, an authentic stuffed dodo bird - Aria thought it must have cost a fortune before she remembered Stanley’s criminal record - stood silently, an orb-shaped bulb hung in a net attached to the ceiling, and a quaint wooden door sat unmoving within its designated space in the wall, a small golden welcome mat lying in front of it. Beside the stairs stood a red door, through which Stanley’s gruff voice could be heard, humming a small tune and quietly singing a song off-key.

Lastly, they led her up to the attic, where she and the twins would be staying. A red, rectangular window sat in the wall directly ahead of them, it’s pattern depicting the eye of providence and its color filtering all sunlight into an ominous red that painted the old wooden room in blood. Soos stood on a wooden stepladder, tongue poking out of the corner of his thin mouth as he delicately twisted a lightbulb into its socket. He acknowledged the three with a quick “sup”, not once looking away from his task. A velvet-red cushioned bench acted as the windowsill and an empty, white twin bed sat in the corner, flanked by Aria’s travel bags. Directly beside this was the door to the twins’ room which when opened, revealed their beds to be on either side of a wooden desk. The room seemed split in half, one side decorated head-to-toe in bright pinks and yellows - flashy posters hanging joyously from the slanted wall, and a sleeping Waddles - much larger than she remembered - curled up on the puffy pink sheets - while the other was cluttered with papers, notes, and books. Maps and cork boards hung silently on that side’s wall, giving what was no-doubt Dipper’s side of the room a tan-brown shade and a sense of cluttered sophistication.

After the tour, the three sat in the twins’ room and chatted idly about their lives; what they had missed about each-other, their dating status, etcetera. When all traditional bases had been covered, the twins glanced quickly at each-other before nodding.

“Aria, if you’re going to come with us, tomorrow, I need to explain to you what we’ll be doing,” he turned, pulled out a blue journal with a blue pine tree on the cover, and opened it, flipping the pages quickly and with precision.

“Huh, so you got rid of that old thing? That musta’ been hard . . . You seemed so attached to it.”

“Aria, we’re sorry for hiding things from you, but it was only because we were scared. We didn’t want you to be hurt or feel threatened by what we know. But now, Dipper and I trust you, and think it's time to let you in” Mabel placed a hand on Aria’s shoulder and frowned, ignoring her question.

“Woah- wait, is somethin’ goin’ on? Did somethin’ happen?”

“You could say that,” Dipper replied, cryptically before looking to his sibling once again. She returned the look, and he didn’t realize his breath was being held until he let it out in a sigh. Nodding, he flipped the journal around to face her, open to a page near the beginning of the book. “This,” he pointed to an illustration of The Eye of Providence adorned with a small black bow tie and top hat - stick-like arms hung at its sides, and legs fell loosely below it - with the eraser of a pencil, “Is Bill Cipher. He is one of the creatures Mabel and I have discovered here, and is by far, the most dangerous,” He paused for a minute to let this information sink in before continuing. “Right now, he has been rendered harmless. This is because he’s been banished and turned to stone. We need to go to his statue and make sure it’s still in-tact and hasn’t moved. If it’s cracked or has been disturbed, we need to warn Grunkle Ford as soon as we can. If it hasn’t been moved or damaged in any way, we shouldn't have anything to worry about.”

There was another moment of silence for the older teen to take in the twin’s words. Though it was meant to instill the fact of the danger that lay ahead of them - a moment of suspense - to her it seemed to be a pause for comedic effect. The most dangerous creature they’d come across? A dapper pyramid? That can’t be right, right? They were messing with her, surely. Aria knew the creatures of Gravity Falls were fantastical and occasionally empty-headed, but a stupid triangle was not on her list. The boy quickly caught onto her bewildered hesitation and his eyes narrowed.

“I’m being serious. This creature is very, very dangerous. He’s unpredictable, malicious, and- ARIA STOP LAUGHING!”

“I’m sorry! ‘M sorry!” She pounded her fist against the comforter of Mabel’s bed, coughing. And wiped tears from her eyes with the other hand. “I-I swear I’m tryin’ to listen, I really am! It’s just-,” She guffawed ("dapper illuminati man!") before before attempting to reel herself in; failing miserably. “I’m sorry!” she snorted.

“Please, Aria. We need you to listen to us. I know he may look like a dumb children’s drawing, but . . . ,” Mabel spoke, looking up at her, her pupils dilated and radiating concern.

Aria blinked and sniffed. So they were serious? Calming down, she answered, a hint of suspicion still present on her tongue, “Alright, alright I’ll stay away from the fancy equilateral...You can trust me,” she held a hand to her heart and one in the air, swearing on her soul, so it were.

“Thank you,” Dipper sighed, “O-oh! One last thing, whatever you do, do not touch the statue’s hand. Bill is notorious for making deals, and seals them through a handshake. We have a suspicion that his powers are still active, and we don’t want to cause anything.”

The girl nodded, “No touchy the nacho . . . got it,” She looked at him, seriously before her expression morphed to one of curiosity. “What other creatures have ya’ catalogued in there?”

“That’s not important,” he brushed another of her questions off, quickly before putting the journal away, delicately. “Do you need help unpacking?”

The three teenagers spent the rest of the day unpacking Aria’s bags, singing, dancing, and talking to pass the time. Eventually, the topic of conversation changed to that of the forest and the creatures they hoped to see that year. Aria wanted to see her old friend, Henry and a couple of Gryphons that she had met long ago, Mabel wanted to catch a fairy, and Dipper didn’t particularly know or care - “as long as it’s something new,” he had said.

By the time the three had completed the unpacking process, it was time for bed. They said their good nights and went to their separate beds. The door to the twin’s room shut softly behind them as Aria shimmied under her covers. As they closed their eyes, each of them thought about the adventures that the summer would bring. The twins would not have any dreams that night, Aria playing around in her monochromatic dream world through the night. What felt like mere moments after they laid down and their eyelids shut out the world around them, they awoke to the bright rays of sunlight cutting through the gloom. Quickly, they dressed and ate before making their way to the cursed statue.

Aria didn’t know what to think upon laying her eyes on it. The statue appeared just as the picture in Dipper’s journal, only mossy, covered in dust, dirt, and grime, made of stone, and stuck halfway into the ground at a slightly tilted angle. Its arm outstretched, as if inviting a friendly shake, in greeting. The sight was a hollow one. Similar to how her dreams felt before she moved from the Falls, it was both eerie and cold. However, this chill that ran through her spine and ended at her finger and toe tips held an heir of depression. Whether it was dangerous or not did not register, at the sight of him. She was far too preoccupied with her sympathy. This ‘Bill’ was still a creature, and must have felt incredibly lonesome and bored, forced to stay like that for all eternity.

The gloom of the scene was only enhanced by the lack of sound or wildlife. Strangely, all of the grass within the vicinity of the statue had wilted and faded, slumping into the pale, lifeless dirt like depressed earthworms. All of the blades that were alive, or were holding onto life tilted away from the relic, as if shunning its very existence. Trees too close to the pathetic stone relic had lost bark and leaves on the sides facing him, giving them an incomplete and unnatural appearance. Leaves that were still hanging onto branches did not rustle, though she swore the weather called to be windy that day. Even insects appeared absent, the buzzing of cicadas all but present, and the soft chirps of crickets falling silent in favor of the crunching and rustling of dead foliage beneath the teenagers’ shoes.

The crunching of the dead grass, leaves, and dirt as the twins approached to inspect him sounded and felt wrong. Though mundane and casual, they carried with them the feeling of encroaching on some sort of ancient, holy burial ground. Popping and snapping of twigs emulated the feel of stepping upon bones and the shuffling chuff of dead leaves and grass sounded akin to the dry dissolving of dusty skin or old clothing. They echoed much too loudly in the statue’s domain. Some instinct compelled her to stay away from the creature, yet strangely, there was also an uncontrollable need to approach. Torn between these two forces, she stood and watched at the edge of the small clearing, where life continued and yet stayed silent, awaiting one feeling’s overpowering of the other.

“No cracks or breaks, but this little cobweb is new.”

“He’s not coming out any time soon, is he, bro bro?”

“Not from the looks of it,” the two smiled at each-other, seemingly relieved at this. They appeared unbothered by the battling emotions that the clearing radiated, accustomed to the conflicted nagging.

Aria was silent for a bit, before one of the mental ropes tethering themselves to her instincts unraveled.

She crept toward the statue and sat on her knees, in front of him, staring directly into his large, empty eye. The catlike pupil stared back, unseeing yet piercing; dead to the world and happenings around it.

Taking notice of her behavior, the twins stepped back and looked at her, asking one-another a silent query before returning their gaze to their friend.

“Ari-?”

“Ya’ think he’s lonely...?” She asked, cutting the girl with braces off. The back of her head was all the siblings could see of her expression, and her subdued tone only added to their confusion.

The twins shared a glance once again before looking back at her, Dipper’s eyes narrowed and mouth set in a thin line. He squeezed his sister’s hand tightly, gaze flitting between the immobile eye of the statue and the back of Aria’s skull.

“I don’t think it feels anything.”

Aria looked back at them, eyes widened, noting the poisoned finality laced in the boy’s gaze and tone of voice. Mabel stood beside her brother, expression unreadable. Aria simply looked back at Bill, brows creased upward and eyes searching desperately for something that seemed very, very far away. The imprisoned creature gazed through her, unseeing.

“Why wouldja’ think that?”

A pause as Dipper thought over her question.

“How does something that’s only ever had the goal and lust for destruction feel? It’s not human. It will never be human.”

Aria swallowed, mouth suddenly dry as she struggled to voice her concerns.

“Dogs, pigs, and cats c’n feel...”

This time, the boy’s response was immediate.

“All of those creatures have souls, something that it obviously lacks.”

The group fell silent, Aria staring blankly at the stone eye. Thoughts sprinted and whirled through her mind; a rapid dance of mental agility punctuated with dives, dips, twirls, and gazelle hops. Something happened between the twins and this poor creature; something so drastic that it caused the normally sympathetic twins to turn their backs on him.

“Come on, Ari. We should get back. Grunkle Stan’s probably got some lunch ready for us, and we need to get this data to Grunkle Ford.”

Aria hesitated before rising to her feet; slowly . . . silently. Nodding like a sloth, she turned to the twins and followed them out of the clearing, stopping at the edge, once more to shoot one last gaze over her shoulder.

What had happened?

Chapter Text

The next day, as the twins were busy working at the Shack, Aria decided to do a bit of snooping.

Yes, it was wrong to intrude - “but”, she rationalized, “it’s for the greater good”. She had to know what was wrong. She had to help in any way she could. It was just an instinct; something in her nature wiring her to assist at any cost.

She approached Dipper’s bed and knelt down, tilting her head to get a better glance at what was hiding in the shadowed crevice beneath the metal frame. She was not surprised to find cardboard boxes filled to the brim with pages upon pages of notes, but was taken aback when many of them focused entirely on different creatures and events the twins had witnessed and met the very summer she had first met them. This was not relevant to her investigation, but as she dug through piles and piles of personal notes, she became more and more worried. They had trusted her enough to reveal who Bill was, so knowing what he had done was naturally the next logical piece of information to tell her. But why did they feel the need to keep it from her? Additionally, why were the notes on him buried so deeply? If they were so sure he was dealt with and done for, they would have had no qualms about sharing the events that had occurred . . .

Right?

Her brain became a highway, thoughts rumbling down a loud, fast road on speeding, thin motorcycles with and against traffic. Tornadoes chasing cheetahs, and meteorites shooting through space. Words flowed across her subconscious like rivers leading into an ocean of possibilities. The school of fish dipped and dodged, frantically attempting to avoid the screeching maw of a diving bullet-like bald-eagle, feathers flying in every direction but none toward the quill-maker. Quills of this nature would scrawl long, curved patterns and short, staccato notes into pages of parchment until the paper was swept unavoidably into the water, where it would drown, inescapably flailing and falling and screeching until it was once again, broken into a school of fish, and on, and on, and on. No explanation seemed plausible. They admitted they were afraid of her being afraid, but why then would they let her in on a being who - according to the boy - “has no soul”?

Finally, she came across multiple pages, each mentioning the name “Bill Cipher” in some way, shape, or form. According to the boy’s records, Cipher had made a deal with a kid named ‘Gideon’ in order to steal the code to the safe in which the deed to the Mystery Shack lay. The twins and Soos apparently defeated him by using their imaginations. Bill was apparently a ‘dream demon’, and could only exist in and between the mind and the physical, waking world. But if that were true, why and how had he ended up in the physical world, let alone turned to stone? There was no mention of paralysis in the notes she had read, and even if there were, the battle happened in a place with no bearing on physical reality. She reached in for another page, this one written in pencil. The lead had faded and smudged over time, to the extent that she could only make out the phrase “destroyed Mabel’s sock opera”, the rest being smudged to the point where each word took the forms of a bunch of furry, grey caterpillars. Yes, this was immoral, but was it wrong enough to be turned to stone, over? She liked to assume that the twins were not that petty. Sighing, she reached down, further; arm straining with the effort and angle at which she bent. The last few pages were even less legible than the second; singed at the sides, coffee-stained, and wrinkled with time. She squinted hard and attempted to read the mess in front of her.

“...’mageddon...turned to stone...go...hiding now...ny more’..?” the teen read in a hushed tone, running over the page again, and again to make sure she sufficiently understood. An armageddon? Was that it? Bill started an Armageddon of some sort? Dipper had said something was turned to stone...That must have been Bill, right? But, if that were the case, why would the notes continue after the point at which he was turned to stone? If he’d already been dealt with, there wouldn’t be any reason to hide, would there? Wouldn’t the armageddon have ended, at that point? Aria attempted to reason, mind a whirlpool of incoherency, as she carefully re-stacked the piles of notes and put them back where they belonged. Some of these events made no sense. How would Bill have even caused an armageddon in the first place? He’s stuck in the dream realm and can’t interact with anything physically, right? She sighed, finding her train of thought impeded by an impenetrable barrier. The wall stretched for miles, and she could find no way out of the thought bubble she had trapped herself in.

She shook her head, abandoning her confusion all together before standing and making her way over to her bags. Rummaging around in the pockets of one of them, she gently yet forcefully unwedged a book from its place stuck between her other belongings. She had been intending to read it on the car ride to Gravity Falls, but had not done so due to the fact that she simply did not feel like it at the time. It had significant use to her, now and she grinned, nostalgically; running her fingers over the cover. Internally praising herself for her foresight, she shot a quick text to the twins to notify them that she was going into the woods to explore before setting off, book in hand, to the silent clearing.

The clearing had gone unchanged since her and the twins’ original outing. He stayed cold and on his own, halfway buried in the dirt. Upon seeing him and feeling the anomalous forces again, she consciously began to refrain from bolting away, yet also controlled her movement forward; keeping from approaching too quickly. She had a vague idea of the dangers his release could bring, and though it confused her as to how he was capable of doing such things, she wanted to keep the chances of freeing him to a minimum. Her feet shuffled through the dead leaves and grass, and she watched her step, careful not to step on or get her feet caught on a fallen branch or stray pebble. She slowed to a halt in front of him and looked between him and her novel before returning her gaze to his lifeless, slit pupil.

“Heya,” She began, awkwardly. “Uh, ya’ look kinda’ lonely, so I figured I’d en’ertain ya’ for a bit, if ya’ don’ mind.”

As expected, the only reply she received from the entombed creature was silence. She stepped forward and gently sat next to him - “this seat taken?” - bringing the book out in front of her for him to see the cover.

“So, Dips mentioned that ya’ liked destruction, an’ I heard from down the grapevine you also enjoy usin’ your imagination, so I feel this is a fittin’ read. Am I right?”

She would have laughed were it not for the conflicting feelings tugging her everywhere at once. The concept of speaking to a seemingly inanimate object was so childish, but in the context of that object being formerly living, it was depressing in ways she could not describe and did not wish to dwell upon; Akin to speaking to a corpse, or maybe even a grave.

You see, humans, by nature, are sympathetic creatures, and due to their conscience and need to socialize, they find themselves connecting to people and things that may seem trivial or dangerous to others. Humans are, and have always been pack dwellers, after all. It is no wonder, then that Aria grew close to Bill in this way, and by extension, began the process that would cause the fates of the two creatures to change in many a significant and unexpected way. I am getting ahead of myself, of course.

Alice in Wonderland, the classic tale of a little girl falling into a land of insanity, was the book she chose. She particularly enjoyed the story due to its engaging concepts and explosive imagery. It was a rollercoaster for the mind, and she never knew where the book would take her; a small rebellion against the uniformity of the outside world. Each part of the story stuck with her and gave her a sense of joy that only disobeying common societal norms could give her. It was a controlled and regulated source of discord that she took great pleasure in partaking in. Yes, it’s true, she had read the book before, in fact, Aria had read it multiple times, but she seemed to obtain a new message during every read.

Unfortunately, the girl had only made it through a few chapters before the sun began setting. Rays of orange and shades of pink painted the clouds, gradually growing darker and deepening the blue of the atmosphere as the large star sank. Placing a bookmark in the page, the human slowly stood, turning and gazing, tiredly at Bill’s pupil. It may have just been her imagination, but she could have sworn that his eye had gained a spark of life; glimmering and winking in the dimming light.

“Well, I gotta’ head,” she pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. “So, uh...I’ll see ya’ tomorrow, maybe? If I can get away, o’ course.”

She paused to shift her weight, looking around the clearing awkwardly. She ground her teeth and bit her lip with a hum, thinking of a good send-off before looking back at him with a soft smile.

“See ya’ later, pal!”