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The year that Elliot Nightray turned three, his older brothers Gilbert and Vincent were kicked out of the Nightray house for the summer.
Nobody wanted them there, explained their older brother Claude, especially now that there was a new baby in the house, and unlike the previous two summers, they’d actually managed to find someone who would take the unwanted two off of their hands: Alice Baskerville, whose family had used to been connected to the Nightray family decades ago, and who ran a tourist trap somewhere in Oregon, an entire country away. Miss Baskerville had agreed to host Gilbert and Vincent, they were told, in exchange for free labor for the entirety of the summer, and Claude had informed the brothers that they had better work hard and work well, in order to convince Miss Baskerville to keep them on year-round.
Gilbert didn’t want to be kept as a year-round worker in a tourist trap, though he didn’t particularly want to go back to the Nightray house, either. They were all horrid, with the exception of Elliot, who was a baby and who adored Gilbert and Vincent, but it was still home. Gilbert had lived there since he was six and Vincent five, and he still remembered how much worse their lives had been before their adoption. If this summer job was like that…
Vincent, however, had already made up his mind about their summer fate: he hated it. He did not want to leave the Nightray house, and he did not want to work in a tourist trap; he was eleven years old and wanted, Gilbert was sure, to spend the summer actually having fun, instead of being stuck working with his older brother.
But neither Gilbert’s nor Vincent’s opinions held any sway in the matter, and so, almost as soon as school let out, they were bundled away into a bus as Elliot sobbed, and then shoved onto a plane, and then stumbled onto another bus, which drove them all the way into the sleepy little town of Gravity Falls, Oregon.
The bus stopped in front of a dilapidated looking house, with the words MYSTERY SHACK nailed to the roof. A woman in her late twenties or early thirties was leaning against the door, her long, wild black hair loose down her back with the exception of a few thin braids flying wild. Next to her, a teenage boy with short blonde hair and brilliant green eyes was standing in the doorway itself, one hand shielding his eyes as he looked out towards the bus.
“Alice, I think they’re here!” the teenage boy called.
“Could also be some more tourists,” the woman replied as Gilbert and Vincent peeked through the window at them.
“I mean, it’s definitely that, too, but there’s also a couple unattended kids that I think are our summer workers,” the boy replied, heading out of the door as Gilbert and Vincent were reluctantly shoved off the bus, clutching their bags. “Hey, you kids are Gilbert and Vincent Nightray, right?”
Gilbert nodded, standing slightly in front of his brother.
“Pleasure to meet you,” said the teenager, holding out his hand to shake. “I’m Oz Vessalius, Alice’s handyman, and the lovely lady over there is Alice Baskerville, owner of this fine establishment. You guys’ll be staying in the attic…the Mystery Shack doesn’t exactly have guest rooms, but the attic’s nice and roomy and definitely not haunted, and you’ll have the place all to yourselves! Alice, do you mind showing the boys around while I bring their stuff upstairs?”
“Who’s in charge here, you or me?” Miss Baskerville complained, but she pushed herself off the wall of the Mystery Shack and headed over. “Right, which one of you is Gilbert and which is Vincent?”
Oz grimaced. “Gilbert’s the older one, with the black hair, and Vincent is the younger, blonder one, Alice,” he said. “Shouldn’t you remember? You’re the one who invited them, after all.”
Miss Baskerville huffed. “Yeah, well, it’s not like we were sent pictures, ” she said.
“Well, maybe I’m just better at research than you!” Oz sang out, grabbing Vincent’s and Gilbert’s bags and heading inside, leaving Alice and the boys staring at each other.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Baskerville,” said Vincent.
“ Alice, ” she corrected sharply. “Come on, follow me. Lots to do.” She marched across the grass, head held high, and Gilbert scrambled after her, Vincent following at his heels.
Alice gave the brothers an exhaustive tour of the Mystery Shack. Oz showed up again, after a few minutes, and whenever Alice seemed to flag he’d pick the tour up with enthusiasm, until the brothers were lying on the grass outside, exhausted, and Alice and Oz were debating what to show them next.
“Can we please take a break?” Gilbert moaned before flushing, embarrassed. They were employees. They shouldn’t be asking for breaks!
Oz hummed. “I mean, it is summer vacation,” he said. He and Alice exchanged glances.
“Go for it!” Alice said. “Just hang up these signs in the spooky part of the forest, and you can have the rest of the day off.”
Oz winced. “You could not pay me to do that.”
“You don’t get paid, Oz,” said Alice.
Oz sighed. “I know,” he said. “A guy can dream, though, right?”
Alice rolled her eyes, heading over around the side of the building and returning with her arms full of brightly painted signs. “Here you go!” she said cheerfully.
“Have fun in the forest, guys!” Oz added, and Gilbert dragged himself up to grab the signs. Vincent followed, and Alice and Oz cheerfully pointed them to the so-called “spooky part” of the forest.
It was in fact spooky. More importantly, though, and luckily for Gilbert, since it kept him from crying out of fear, it was also incredibly infested with mosquitos. Every few seconds, he and Vincent would have to swat them away, and by the time they’d gotten most of the signs hung, the word BEWARB was written across both boys’ bodies, several times over. Gilbert sighed, absently itching as he pulled out a hammer and nails to put the last sign on the tree. Carefully, he placed the nail and started hitting it with the hammer.
The tree made a strange, metallic clanking sound.
Gilbert and Vincent stared at each other. Carefully, carefully, Vincent reached out and knocked on it.
“It’s metal,” Vincent said.
“...But trees are made of wood,” Gilbert said stupidly.
“Mosquitos don’t usually write things on you, either, and yet…”
“Well, ‘bewarb’ and ‘pf’ aren’t words, only ‘jock’ is,” Gilbert pointed out.
“Mosquitos don’t usually leave letters, ” Vincent insisted. “D’you suppose there’s a way to open it up?”
Gilbert shrugged. “Maybe? Or maybe it’s just a decoration.”
“In the middle of the forest?” Still, Vincent hummed. “You may be right, though…I don’t see any…oh!”
A hinged door popped open; Gilbert leaned forward to see what was inside.
Behind the door, there lay a compartment, filled to the brim with cobwebs and one single, thick, leather-bound notebook.
“Gil,” whispered Vincent, “do you want to take that?”
“There could be spiders in there, Vince!” Gilbert hissed back.
“Right, sorry, you’re scared of spiders.” Vincent smiled at him and stuck his hand directly into the compartment and pulled out a notebook, sticky with cobwebs and carrying a few confused-looking spiders.
Gilbert shrieked as Vincent violently brushed off the cover of the notebook, spiders and spiderweb flying everywhere. There was a faint chaos as one of the spiders flew onto Gilbert’s shirt, and the notebook was trampled on the ground in the brothers’ attempts to get the spider off, until they were several feet away, notebook once again clutched firmly in Vincent’s hands as they sat under a tree made of actual wood and stared at it.
“We should probably open it,” Gilbert said.
“Yeah,” said Vincent.
They continued staring at the notebook, as though it would bite them.
“I can get Echo to open it,” Vincent said. “She and her sister moved here a few years ago.”
“Would Echo come alone, though?” Gilbert asked.
“Noise is fun!”
“Noise is the worst .” Gilbert scowled at the notebook. “I can open it.”
“Okay,” Vincent said.
They stared at the notebook some more, until Gilbert finally reached over and flipped it open to about halfway through.
The paper was yellow, and water-stained, and messy handwriting scrawled across it. At a glance, Gilbert could see discussions of monsters, of magic, of THERE IS NOBODY YOU CAN TRUST IN GRAVITY FALLS.
Gilbert and Vincent stared at each other.
“Well!” Vincent said cheerfully. “We are not telling Noise about this!”
After they returned to the Mystery Shack, Gilbert headed out to walk around town while Vincent settled down in the attic to actually read the strange notebook. It seemed to chronicle the adventures of a scientist, though—Vincent noted on their walk back to the Mystery Shack—it was the third volume of whatever it was the scientist was working on.
It seemed to start out with a revelation, though, describing how it had already been six years since the author had started studying Gravity Falls, how something had confirmed their suspicions, how he was definitely watching, whoever that he was.
But the author neither confirmed nor denied his identity, instead jumping straight into descriptions of the various creatures purported to live in and around Gravity Falls. Vincent sighed, flipping to the next page—zombies, how passé—when Gilbert rushed upstairs.
“Vince,” he said, “Vincent, a girl just asked me out!”
Vincent froze. A girl asked Gilbert out? That was impossible. For one, Gilbert was Vincent’s brother, which meant that he was supposed to—he was supposed to—
But, no, Gil would be better off if Vincent had never been born so surely he’d be better off with some girl than with—
But Vincent knew nothing about her, what if she was dangerous, what if she defiled his precious brother ?
He couldn’t allow that.
He couldn’t allow that.
He couldn’t allow that.
“What’s she like?” Vincent asked.
“She’s…really pretty? Vincent, I don’t know anything about girls, I don’t know what to do!” Gilbert buried his hands in his curls and tugged. “She’s—a girl, she asked me to walk around town with her this afternoon, she’s really really pretty— ”
“Does she have a name?” asked Vincent. It was short notice, but if he got a name, he could at least do some preliminary investigations.
“...Oh no,” whispered Gilbert. “Vincent! I forgot to ask!”
Most days, Vincent loved how dumb his brother could be. Today was not one of those days.
“Go on the date, then,” he said, “and get her name then.” Then he could follow them around and make sure the girl wasn’t a threat, and if she was, he could ruin her, and if she wasn’t…
After three hours of Gilbert’s date, Vincent had learned that the girl’s name was Dahlia and that she was almost certainly a zombie. He had also learned that Echo didn’t think zombies existed, Noise didn’t want to kill a zombie with him if that meant going anywhere near the Mystery Shack, and especially not if it meant protecting Gilbert, and that Echo thought Vincent being in distress was hilarious.
Vincent shoved Echo down for being a little bitch and said goodbye to Noise before heading back to the Mystery Shack, where Gilbert and Dahlia were talking happily as Alice’s voice drifted out the door, explaining some of her attractions, and Vincent moped his way inside to lie on the couch.
“Gilbert can’t really be dating a zombie,” he muttered, “right?”
“I don’t know,” said a voice nearby. “How many brains have you seen the girl eat?”
Vincent yelped, pushing himself up to see Oz screwing in a lightbulb a few feet away. “How long have you been in here?!” he demanded.
“Longer than you, I’m doing some regular maintenance work,” Oz replied easily. “Anyway, I do believe you about the zombie girl—you would not believe some of the things I’ve seen in this town—but if you don’t have proof, you can’t really do anything, you know? Otherwise, nobody’s going to believe you.”
“I saw her hand fall off,” Vincent offered.
“Well, there’s a start!” Oz said cheerfully. “Did you get any photo proof?”
Vincent sighed.
“That’s rough,” Oz said. “If you want, I can lend you my camer—”
“Oz!” Alice’s voiced echoed from outside. “The portable toilets are broken again!”
“There’s my cue to go,” Oz said. “Good luck with your zombie hunting!” He smiled warmly at Vincent before grabbing his stool and heading out, and Vincent dropped his head back onto the couch.
Great.
Still, though, he needed to save his brother from the zombie, so Vincent rolled to his feet and headed to where Gilbert and Dahlia had been and—
They were gone.
While Vincent had been sulking, the zombie had taken his brother away—Gilbert was in danger—Vincent didn’t know what to do—
Vincent looked around wildly, straining his eyes for any glimpse of Gilbert. Alice was standing on a platform near a large, oddly-shaped rock, attempting to explain to them how it was, in fact, a rock that looked like a face, not an actual face or a rock that looked like a rock or a face that looked like a rock or anyone’s mother, as Oz, on the other side of the Shack, was busily working on the PortaPotties. There wasn’t anyone else Vincent knew in sight, and so he sighed and headed over to Oz.
“Do you know where Gil went?” he asked.
“I think I saw him and Dahlia heading into the forest,” Oz replied, twirling a set of keys around his finger.
“Dahlia?” Vincent repeated. “But—she’s a zombie!”
“That girl?” Oz said. “No, I don’t think she’s a zombie…though I’ll give you the golf cart keys to follow them, if you’d like. There’s a shovel in the cart if you run into a zombie, and a bat for a piñata, though I’m not sure why you’d need that.”
Vincent nodded, and Oz tossed the keys to him. “Good luck!” Oz called as Vincent hurried over to the cart. “Don’t crash! And be careful if you run into the leaf-blower—small creatures the size of garden gnomes are known to get stuck in there!”
“...Thanks,” said Vincent. Strange warning, really, though Vincent could already think of a few things to do with any small creatures that ended up stuck inside the leaf blower. It wasn’t relevant at the moment, though, so he hurried over to the golf cart, stuck the keys in, and pressed down on the gas pedal.
The cart shot forward, startling Vincent, though he didn’t scream. Vincent wasn’t a crybaby like Gil, after all, and besides, he’d known it was going to move forward, so there was no need at all to even be shocked.
Even if Vincent was, admittedly, terrible at driving a golf cart.
By the time he got into the woods, though, he’d managed to mostly keep the golf cart straight, and was following it down the path that Oz had pointed him towards. There was, after all, no possible way that Gil would be able to handle the zombie on his own, and the odds of Gilbert willingly walking off the path were incredibly slim.
That was, of course, assuming that Gilbert had gone willingly.
Eventually, Vincent began to hear faint shouting over the noise of the golf cart’s engine, and so he turned it towards the sound and pressed on the gas, straining his ears for his brother’s voice. He yanked the steering wheel, turning wholly off of the path and bursting through trees into a clearing.
Gilbert was half-tied up in the center, surrounded by what appeared to be living garden gnomes. One of them was vomiting rainbows into the bushes; most were attempting to tie Gilbert to the ground and wrestle him into what appeared to be a wedding dress.
“What the heck, Gil?!” Vincent shouted.
“Vince!” Gilbert yelled. “You need to run—these gnomes are insane—and also Dahlia, Dahlia was ten gnomes in a sundress—you need to get somewhere safe!”
One of the gnomes pressed harder down on Gilbert’s arm. “The more you struggle, the more awkward this is going to be for everyone involved, you know!”
“Get off me!” Gilbert shrieked. One of the gnomes pinched his mouth shut, and muffled noises came from the general vicinity.
“...Well, my guess was incredibly off,” Vincent said, unable to keep from laughing a little. He put the golf cart in park, grabbed the shovel, and hurled the nearest gnome into a tree. “Stay away from my brother!”
“Hey, hey, calm down!” one of the gnomes called. “This is all just a big misunderstanding, really. Your brother isn’t in any danger, he’s just going to marry all ten thousand of us and become our queen for all eternity! So, really, everything’s a-okay! Right, honey?”
Gilbert wriggled miserably on the ground. If it wasn’t his brother in this situation, Vincent probably would have cried with laughter.
But it was Gilbert here, which made the entire situation far less funny and far more irritating, so Vincent smacked the gnome holding his brother’s mouth shut as hard as he could with the shovel, sending it flying into a few other gnomes and knocking them all down. “Give Gil back, right now,” he yelled, “or else!”
“You think you can trifle with us, boy ?” snapped the lead gnome. “Us gnomes are a powerful race! You have no idea what we’re capable of! You—”
Vincent scooped the gnome up with the shovel and tossed it into a tree before slamming the sharp edge of the shovel on Gilbert’s bonds and yanking him up.
“Go go go!”
The brothers bolted back into the golf cart, and Vincent threw it into reverse, backing it onto the path and yanking it around. He pressed the gas pedal nearly directly to the floor and the cart lurched forward, Gil turning green beside him, as they shot out of the forest.
“I really don’t think golf carts are meant to go this fast!” Gilbert yelped, clinging to the side for dear life.
“Well, this one does!” Vincent called back as he clenched the steering wheel tightly.
Gilbert glanced behind them, and then he screamed. “Vince!” he yelled. “They’re coming after us—they’re massive!”
Vincent twisted around, the cart swerving wildly. “Oh, shit!” he yelled.
“Vincent! Language!”
“We’re being chased by a giant monster made of gnomes that wants to force you to be their queen for all eternity, I think this is the perfect time to swear!”
Gil was silent for a moment. “You’re right!” he shouted. “Fuck!”
Vincent laughed.
Then gnomes started pouring into the golf cart.
“Oh, freaking heck!” Gilbert screamed, and then there were several bangs, a few squelching sounds, horrified screaming, and the scent of blood. “Focus on the road, Vince!” Gilbert shouted. “I’ve got the gnomes under control!”
There was another thacking sound, and then a thump as the back wheels of the golf cart ran over something that definitely hadn’t been there seconds prior. Vincent laughed—good old Gilbert always could be counted on to kill things when you needed him most!
There were a few more thwacking sounds—a tree flew overhead—Gilbert screamed again—Vincent swerved the golf cart to avoid the tree and crashed it, tumbling out with Gilbert in a tangle of limbs and bruises.
They scrambled backwards as a tidal wave of gnomes crashed towards them, ending up flat against the back of the Mystery Shack.
“We’re going to die,” Gilbert whispered.
“No, you’re just going to marry a thousand gnomes for all eternity!” Vincent whispered back.
“That’s worse !”
Vincent shrugged, unrepentantly; if the gnomes took Gilbert, Vincent would simply kill all of the gnomes and steal his brother back. It wouldn’t be too hard. They were small, around the same size of the creatures Oz had said kept getting stuck in the leaf blower.
…small creatures the size of garden gnomes are known to get stuck in there…
“Gil,” Vincent hissed, “grab the leaf blower!”
“The what?”
“Leaf blower! We might be able to blow them away, or grind them up inside, or something!”
“If we mess up the leaf blower, Alice will kill us!”
“If we don’t try something the gnomes will!” Vincent and Gilbert stared at each other. “...Or at least they’ll kill me, and you’ll just have to marry all however-many-thousand of them there are.”
“There’s a couple dozen less than before,” Gilbert said.
Vincent nodded—of course there were less, they’d definitely killed several on their way back to the Mystery Shack—but dozens didn’t really do much against ten thousand enemies. “Still,” he whispered back, “we should probably at least try the leaf blower! Do you have any other ideas?”
Gilbert paused, shaking his head, and reached out and grabbed the leaf blower just as the gnomes reached them.
“It’s the end of the line, boys!” the lead gnome shouted. “Gilbert, marry us before we do something crazy!”
Gilbert and Vincent looked at each other as the lead gnome pulled out a massive diamond ring. Gilbert’s shoulders slumped as his right hand fiddled with something in the grass behind him.
“Fine…” he said. “I’ll marry you.”
“Gilbert, for the love of fuck! ” said Vincent. He didn’t want to have to kill thousands of gnomes! That would take so much time! It was summer vacation!
“Watch your language, Vince!”
“You’re marrying ten thousand gnomes !”
“It—it’ll be okay, just trust me…” Gilbert swallowed. Vincent stared at him. Trust…of course he trusted Gil, he was his brother, he was…
But Gil was useless, Gil was kind and weak and cruel and of course he would marry thousands of gnomes if he thought that was the best way to keep his brother safe, because Gil protected Vincent way too much.
…If it was Vincent getting married off to thousands of gnomes, would Gilbert…
No. Vincent wasn’t going to think about that. Of course Gilbert would, and of course it would be the wrong decision. Vincent would not make that decision.
“No, are you insane—”
But Gilbert was moving away, just slightly, back against the wall of the Mystery Shack, as the head gnome pulled out a shiny diamond ring. Gilbert took it politely, turned around as though to put it on privately—and then whipped around, holding the leaf blower in both his hands.
…Vincent had not expected that.
It revved, sucking the lead gnome inside, and Gilbert held it there for a moment, before shouting, “I don’t want to marry anyone!” and shooting it directly out at the other gnomes, blasting them back.
“Don’t mess with my brother!” Vincent shouted as the gnomes were blasted backwards. There were a few moments of confusion before the gnomes all scittered back into the woods, and Gilbert and Vincent both collapsed onto the grass, panting.
“Good job,” Vincent gasped.
“Thanks,” Gilbert replied. They lay there for quite some time, panting in almost companionable silence, until footsteps came from around the shack, and the voice of Oz Vessalius echoed above them.
“Aww, you guys are all tuckered out, aren’t you?” he said.
Vincent considered flipping him off, but decided that maybe, just maybe, ticking off their summer guardian’s employee wasn’t the best idea ever, and remained still.
There was a moment of silence, then a rustling noise, and then Vincent moved his head to see Oz crouching near them.
“Hey,” Oz said, “you know, since you’re going to be staying with us for the foreseeable future, and it seems like you’ve had a pretty long first day and trip up here…how do you feel about picking out something for free from the gift shop?”
“The gift shop?” echoed Gilbert.
“What’s the catch?” added Vincent.
“The catch is,” Alice’s voice hollered from inside, “do it before I change my mind!”
Vincent and Gilbert exchanged glances, before pushing themselves up. Oz grinned, and ruffled both of their hairs as he followed them in.
Inside the gift shop, Gilbert and Vincent split up, wandering around. Vincent found himself staring at the hats, as Gilbert wandered around the shop. Hats were fine. Whatever. Less useless than most of the junk around the shop, and they weren’t atrocious to look at, either, so Vincent grabbed one with the symbol of a guillotine over a heart and plopped it onto his head, heading over to the counter and watching with Oz and Alice as Gil continued poking around, until finally he pulled his arm out from behind a vending machine (Oz winced in relief), holding a metallic contraption.
“A grappling hook! Cool!” he said excitedly.
“Are you sure you don’t want a nice key chain, or a doll or something?” Oz asked. “We’ve got some cool raven-patterned T-shirts, rabbit keychains…”
Gil shook his head with a bright grin, shooting the grappling hook upwards and shooting towards the rafters.
“...Okay,” Oz said after a moment. “That’s…yeah. Alright. Enjoy your…grappling hook. Alice, we are doing inventory in here tonight. I didn’t realize we stocked grappling hooks. ”
Alice rolled her eyes, but didn’t complain.
That night, as Gilbert and Vincent settled in to sleep in their attic room and privately wondered about the secrets Gravity Falls could hold, Alice and Oz met in the quiet and dark gift shop.
“I thought I got rid of all the weapons in here once we got summer kids,” Oz said quietly.
“We always need a little something, just in case!”
“They’re kids, Alice!” Oz ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “They aren’t like us. Okay? We need to keep them safe here.”
“Oz, you know what we need to do,” said Alice. “I don’t know why you were so insistent we invite them…”
“I don’t know either,” Oz said. “It just…felt right, somehow. I don’t know. It’s not like they can be more trouble than the time travelers, anyway.”
“Yeah, because you keep flirting with them!”
Oz shrugged unrepentantly.
“Just…” Alice sighed. “Oz…we aren’t giving up, are we?”
Oz shook his head. “Alice. Hey. Look, we won’t give up, we’re just…going to have a bit of fun with the kids this summer, alright? And who knows—maybe a couple pairs of fresh eyes will notice something we haven’t.”
“As if a couple six year olds could be smarter than you,” Alice scoffed.
“Gilbert is twelve and Vincent is eleven,” Oz reminded her. “Seriously, did you read anything the Nightray boy sent?”
Alice rolled her eyes. “Why would I do that?” she asked. “That’s what you’re here for.”
Oz snorted. “Right, right,” he said, heading over to the vending machine and tapping the code in. “Well, shall we begin the night’s work?”