Chapter Text
It wasn’t supposed end up this way. It wasn’t supposed to go this far. Dipper gritted his teeth (Could you grit your teeth when you didn’t have a body, even a ghost body?), trying to force back the panic that was slowly bubbling inside him. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but he just hadn’t known where to stop.
After that whole fiasco with the puppets, Dipper had just been examining the journal a little more than usual. Bill had said he was close to figuring it out. He thought that, maybe, if he just kept looking over everything, something would click and he’d figure everything out. One day, shut in the attic while Mabel was off doing something- he didn’t know what but he was pretty sure she had mentioned glitter- he had a thought. He was lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling with the journal open on his chest, and suddenly remembered a few things. He remembered the first time they met Bill, when he manipulated the dreamscape. He had been really powerful, then. And, when he had summoned those zombies- he had managed to call a lot of them, maybe more than someone else might have called.
He sat up, brow furrowed. Those two incidents seemed a lot like magic to him. He started to flip through the journal, looking for incantations. He marked each one with a little bookmark, cogs churning in his mind. Magic existed, in some way, given the whole summoning zombies thing he had done. And he had done magic. Could he do more? That might give him an edge, and help him figure this town out. He finally chose one incantation. He read the page, solving the few cryptograms and checking for blacklight-messages. He didn’t want to mess up like with the zombies. Finally, he set the book down. He held up a hand, and looked at it. The incantation was so short that he had already memorized it. He took a deep breath.
“Lux Captiatus Manu Fulge.” he intoned.
Then he squinted as a bright light flared from his palm, throwing shadows around the room. He grinned, heart starting to race, breathless in his excitement. It was so easy! He hadn’t made a breakthrough with the journal since the black light, but now he could study the spells. If anything, they could help on adventures. Then, he heard the door open and clenched his hand, extinguishing the light.He turned around to see Mabel.
“Hey, bro-bro!” she said, bouncing in. “Do you want to go hang out at the pool?”
Dipper’s brain took a moment to process her words. “Huh? Oh. No thanks. I’m just looking through the journal again.”
“Okay! Just get some sunlight at some point, before you turn into vampire.” She giggled, before leaving. Dipper watched her go, then closed the door and returned to his journal.