Chapter Text
It was the first of August. Dipper Pines, dressed in his usual black shirt and pants and a light blue waistcoat, was preparing a guest list for an upcoming party at the manor. He had decided, like every year, that the party would take place in August for two purely practical reasons. The first one was that the month of August in Gravity Falls was usually cooler than July, almost as if it was Spring again and not Summer, and consequently his peers would be back in town for the party after spending the hotter July getting tanned at the beach. The second reason was that his birthday was at the end of the month, and so this pre-party would be used to trim down the final guest list for his actual birthday party.
His birthday was, after all, a very important date for the town. Gravity Falls was a rather small and unsophisticated town, practically lost in a valley surrounded by forests in all directions. Other than a tourist trap, this one technically not even in the town premises, and a few recreational buildings such as the old arcade, the town inhabitants did not have much variety when it came to leisure.
It was true that this had remained that way because many of the inhabitants did not give importance to such things. They were of a calm demeanor and consequently extravagant leisure did not bring them happiness. But it was also true that many others would do anything to attend to the Pines’ lavish birthday parties. Especially the young and full of energy and curiosity.
Dipper was halfway through the invitation envelopes, when he felt two eyes on his back.
“My dearest brother.”
Dipper sighed and turned around in his chair. Such a combination of words could only mean one thing. His sister needed something of him, something difficult, and she did not intend to give anything in return.
As expected, Mabel was standing in the doorway to his bedroom. She was fully dressed in her magician attire. A black shirt with a bolo pendant like his own, a light blue suit jacket, a black pencil skirt with dark stockings to match the shirt, and a black headband with a blue rose on it.
Dipper had not seen her wear anything different in years. He also knew the rose was real and not plastic, and their great uncle Ford had to install a row of rose bushes in the garden behind the manor so Mabel would have plenty of white roses to dye blue and then wear every day.
“I’m busy.” Dipper said after a moment. He figured it was worth a try.
“The importance of my discovery outweighs whatever egotistical project you’re working on.”
“Probably less egotistical than your own. Because, for your information, my dearest sister, what I’m working on is our birthday party.”
“Oh, I’m happy to hear that.” Mabel grinned and walked up to him, grabbing his hand. “That means I hold at least 50% of the vote on this matter, and I say you drop it for now, and come with me.”
:: ::
Dipper was dragged by the wrist across the corridor. They used to have their bedrooms next to each other, but over the years they developed a certain dislike for the other’s lifestyles. In Dipper’s case, he could not stand how in the middle of the night he would be awakened by Mabel talking to herself and laughing rather creepily. In Mabel’s, the reason was similar except the one making the noise would be one of Dipper’s girlfriends. The manor was spacious and not short of bedrooms, so they just increased the distance between their own.
The soon-to-be-15-year-old boy frowned when he entered Mabel’s bedroom. He had seen many bedrooms, most of them girls’, and his sister’s did not resemble any of them.
There were two shelves with books so old they could be smelled from the corridor, one desk with two magnifying lamps attached and full of stains of ink and chemical products he did not recognize, but he spotted the bottles under the desk. Another desk, it was littered with sheets of paper full of reminders and mathematical formulas, the same applied to the floor and part of the bed. There was a safe next to the bed, but he knew it was a decoy; the Journals were hidden between the mattress and the bedframe.
Finally, there was something he had not seen before covered behind a blanket she had pinned to the wall. Something, he was certain, his paranoid sister would not show him before making sure they were not being spied on by nonexistent eyes.
“One second.”
Mabel peeked out the window, looked left and right, and then she closed the window, lowered the blinds and closed the curtains before turning on the lights.
“Dipper, remember when we came to live here, over two years ago?”
Dipper did not reply. He decided that, if she was going to start from that far back, he would rather not wait on his feet. He shamelessly lay on Mabel’s bed, with his fingers interlaced over his chest like a vampire, and stared at her silently.
“Or more specifically,” she continued, pulling Journal #1 from the hiding spot under the mattress. “A few months later, at the start of the Spring break, when I found the Journal behind a fake panel in the library of the manor?” Her eyes sparkled. “Our lives changed drastically!”
“I’d say our lives already changed drastically when our billionaire great uncle adopted us.” Dipper waved his finger in a circle, referring to the manor around them.
“Nonsense, Dipper!”
Mabel suddenly closed the distance between them and held the amulet in Dipper’s bolo pendant. It glowed turquoise, and every piece of furniture in the room rose a few inches from the floor. Dipper glared and seized control of the amulet, lowering the furniture.
“Not even the wealthiest person on the planet could do what I just did, my dearest brother.”
“The wealthiest person on the planet would not ever need to do that, to begin with.” Dipper shrugged, and then glared at his sister and showed her his left arm, where hair would never grow again. “And, if I recall correctly, we agreed you would never use the amulet again. I am safekeeping it, from you, and the only reason I don’t shatter it is because I believe your theory about how it would make quite a spectacular explosion if that were to happen.”
“And because it helps you pick up girls. Its potential is truly wasted on you.”
“I don’t need it to pick up girls. The example about the wealthiest person also applies there, and I am the wealthiest bachelor in town. But if you brought me here just to degrade and insult me, I’m afraid there’s an egotistical project in my bedroom that requires my full attention.”
Mabel pressed a hand on his chest to stop him from getting up, and then she twisted her mouth and returned to the center of the room, where she could indulge into her habit of pacing in circles while monologuing.
“Ahem. As I was saying, I found that Journal and it opened a world of wonders and possibilities, things we never imagined before.”
“And many dangers.” Dipper added.
“Nothing good comes without effort. And we put in quite the effort, remember? The Journal has 280 pages and we blew through every little thing in it in just a few weeks. I was quite sad it was over, but I knew there had to be more. There had to be; we ran into some things that were not listed in the Journal.”
Mabel reached under the bed and pulled Journal #2 out.
“Then, much to my surprise, I saw this on the hands of a little girl on her way to elementary school. It needed to be mine, even if it was fake, I needed to have it. So I bartered with her successfully and—”
“That’s not how I remember it.” Dipper interrupted. “I remember you offering the little girl money for the dusty old book, and the girl, a clever girl, telling you that such a high amount of money for such a dusty old book, could only be fake money. I then intervened before you tried to yank it out of her hands, and offered her something that could not be fake.”
“She was not so clever if she exchanged something so valuable for two candy bars.”
“And a brick of juice.” Dipper corrected her. “I starved during recess that day because of you.”
“And I thanked you from the bottom of my heart, and with the money you value so dearly. Anyway, we spent every afternoon of what was left of the school year solving the mysteries of this other Journal.”
“You spent some mornings too, skipping school.”
“And finding even more amazing things. Such as the amulet on your pendant, which was originally mine.”
“And which we agreed remains safer in my hands.” Dipper moved to the foot of the bed and sat on the edge, bored. “Let me finish the rest for you, because this has taken long enough. We solved every mystery in the journals, and the adventure ended. I moved on, but in the last 2 years you still have not.”
“Not every mystery, my dearest brother.”
“Ah yes, I forgot. That location in the woods hidden by an illusion dome that makes it invisible to anybody standing outside it. We never found it, indeed, but if you ask me, it did not sound that interesting either. And I doubt it would be worth the effort of combing the entire forest to maybe accidentally walk into it.”
“The fact that it is so protected and difficult to find, must mean there is something worth hiding in there. But no, don’t make that face. I am not going to suggest we comb the forest again. And neither is it strictly why I brought you here. I’m talking about this page.”
Mabel flipped the pages until the blueprint of a triangular structure spread on both pages.
“This is the only instance in the Journals that is shared between them. If you arrange both books together like this, the blueprints match. Originally, I thought the last remaining corner of the triangular blueprint was simply assumed through symmetry and as such there was no need to dedicate two extra pages to it in a book where so much is crammed in already. Furthermore, as you see here, these cryptograms on #1 indicate the materials needed to build the structure, and these on #2, the voltage.”
“What is the structure?”
“A portal.”
“Your dimensional theory was correct?” Dipper rubbed his forehead.
“Yes. All three of them. And the explanation I gave you for why things happen here and nowhere else. And as such why here would be the best location to build such portal. Imagine it, Dipper. Limitless energy. And then it would be ME who becomes the wealthiest person in the world, and holds the power of the Journals too.”
“If you were to go through with this, I’d tell you to swallow your pride and do it through Ford’s tech company. Because some 14-year-old girl coming up with this sounds pretty shady and easy to silence. And both the oil barons and the green nutjobs would want you silenced.”
“Of course.”
“Hmm, but if there is a blueprint, why was it never built? Do you even know if, once built, it’ll work?”
“It was built. It clearly underwent many trials and errors, which tells us it’s safe to turn on even if not everything is correct. And eventually it worked, or else it would not have made it to the Journal pages. After that, it was dismantled. I assume the Author’s reclusiveness had something to do with it. Maybe he indeed buried the project due to fear of oil barons or green nutjobs, and because nobody needs that much energy for themselves anyway.”
“Then, where’s the mystery?”
“Where is the mystery, indeed?” Mabel repeated, smiling slyly at him.
Dipper frowned. She would not say or let him leave unless he guessed, and if he did not guess correctly, he would be mocked mercilessly. Dipper squeezed his eyes shut for a bit, thinking for a second that he did not have time for this, and then he glanced at the journals arranged on the table. It suddenly dawned on him.
“A portal connects two dots, right? So you need materials to build it, energy to power it, or kickstart it in this case since it would drain energy from the other side once connected, and coordinates to locate the second dot. Are the coordinates not on the pages? Not on any of them? Then the remaining corner of the blueprint is not meant to be assumed at all; there has to be a third Journal with that part in it.”
“Yes!” Mabel pounced on him, shaking his shoulders. “Yes, yes! Dipper, I love it when you show you are smart enough to catch on!”
Dipper twisted his mouth; the compliment had sounded too much like an insult, but Mabel was too excited to notice. She grabbed him by the straps of his waistcoat and shook him while she grinned from ear to ear.
“A third Journal! I had discarded the idea long ago, when the hiding places listed in Journal #2 only spoke of where to hide that one and #1, and the rest only had artifacts! But a third Journal changes everything! If it’s as big as the other two, that means 50% more mysteries to solve! Or even better, it could speak about a fourth Journal!”
“Let’s not get too excited yet.” Dipper got Mabel off of him and smoothed his clothes. “We don’t even know where to search for it. As you said, the hiding spots listed in #2 did not have it.”
“Ah, but that is where you come in, my dearest brother, because I have a pretty good suspicion of who may have it. It is this suspicion that led me to believe there had to be a third Journal. Watch this.”
Mabel yanked the blanket off the wall. The pins flew off, and the fabric revealed a web of red string connecting paper notes, pictures, and some small items. There was a picture of Gideon with hearts drawn around his face, which made Dipper grimace.
Mabel grabbed a small flashlight with a crystal attached to the front, and beamed an eraser on her desk. Much to Dipper’s surprise, the eraser grew exponentially. Mabel repeated the process after flipping the crystal, and the eraser became small again.
“This is not something somebody would randomly find in a forest.”
“Especially not,” Dipper grabbed the flashlight and looked at it closely. “A model this new. Where did you find it?”
“I stole it from her bag while she was busy.”
“Whose bag?”
“My beloved Gideon’s… awful cousin!”
“Ohh! I know what you need me for then, but I don’t know why you didn’t do it yourself.” Dipper smiled arrogantly. “You need me to use my sex appeal to convince that girl to lend me her Journal, so I can maybe photocopy it for you or something like that? Tsk, tsk, my dear sister. You don’t need me; you only need two candy bars and a brick of juice. Although, since this girl is related to Gideon, maybe you should up it to 4 candy bars just to be sure.”
“Wrong on almost everything.” Mabel tossed her hair. “I don’t need to use bribery because I have these Journals. I used this page in the curses section for Journal #2. The one where you will trip and fall any time you try to move forward, until you have hit the ground ten times.”
“I don’t know the girl, but I know that curse is much nastier than it sounds on paper. It can be easily bypassed by doing pushups though, but why do that to her, Mabel? I don’t see how that kind of curse helps you get the Journal.”
“I cursed her because I hate her.”
“Because she gets to spend time with your beloved Gideon?” Dipper asked in a mocking tone.
“No. Because she beat me at minigolf.”
“But you’re the best one in town.”
“Not anymore.”
Dipper raised an eyebrow, and then he started snickering. The concept of some fat girl related to Gideon beating Mabel at the sport she excelled at, amused him.
“Anyway!” Mabel cut his laughter short. “I cursed her, and nothing happened!”
“Are you sure you did it right?”
“Yes, the random passerby that I tried it on after the first attempt failed, was quite shocked to be unable to get back up without slipping. But then, this girl ran to him and, the moment she touched him, the curse was dispelled! He fell 4 times, not 10!” Mabel frowned. “She has to be a blank.”
“I remember your theory on it, but I didn’t think it was possible.”
“It is possible. A 0 is as possible as a 2, as a 4, and as a 100. And sadly, being a 0, she is immune to everything in my Journals.”
“So it is what I originally guessed, after all. Your magic won’t work, so it is up to my sex appeal.”
“I would rather you did not let your sex appeal out of your pants. Dipper, you’re disgustingly shallow, so I’ll say this clearly. I hate this girl. If you happen to bring her to the manor to have sex with her just four doors away from my bedroom, I will not forgive you.”
“You won’t have to worry about that. I’m pretty sure she’s not my type. But how am I disgustingly shallow?” Dipper asked, clearly offended.
“How are you not? Are you asking that seriously? Very well then, I will demonstrate it to you. Remember Rebecca?”
“Who?”
“The girl you dated last month? The one that insisted ponies were just another name for foals?”
“Ahhh! Yes, yes. She was not the brightest, but…” Dipper grinned lecherously and made cupping motions with his hands. “She had her perks.”
“Well then I’ll ask you two simple questions, and if you answer them correctly, I’ll take back what I said. What was her hair color, and what was her name? Because it was not Rebecca and you did not correct me.”
Dipper’s cheeks blushed.
“Easy. Her hair was black, and her name was actually Rebecca and you said that to make me second-guess myself.”
“Her hair,” Mabel facepalmed and shook her head. “Was auburn, but I would’ve accepted redhead or brunette too; I know boys can’t tell those apart. And her name was Claire. She even had one of those chokers with the name on it. A pity it wrapped around her neck, and not her breasts, so you had no chance of looking at it.”
“…Okay, I’ll accept that I am shallow, by your standards.”
“By my standards? You’re so shallow that one day they will remove the very word from the dictionary and replace it with your name!”
Dipper remained silent and glared at Mabel.
“I’m a romantic,” she continued. “So watching the way you start and end relationships as if you were eating sunflower seeds, disgusts me to my very core.”
“My relationships,” Dipper finally retorted. “Are like going to the movies. It’s a fun activity you do when something new and interesting comes out and, of course, it would be dumb and boring to watch the same movie multiple times.”
“I could watch a movie that truly fascinated me, all day long. But love is not something so meaningless, Dipper, and one day you will realize it and it will slap you in the face so hard that you will wish that you had realized it much sooner.”
“Know what disgusts me to my very core?” Dipper snapped. “That you would dare give me relationship advice when you have never even been on a date yourself. That you would try to lecture me on love, when your own love experience consists of obsessing over some 8-year-old fat kid.”
“My beloved Gideon is 12! We’re only a little over 2 years apart!”
“He looks 8 to me.” Dipper shrugged. “And don’t paint me as someone that ruthlessly dumps girls, leaving them with tears in their eyes. Many of my exes, I dare say most, knew it was a short and fun relationship meant to last a week, maybe a month at most, and we always mutually agree to break up after getting bored of it. You accuse me of being shallow? No more than everybody else! You say I don’t know what love is? No more than everybody else! So yes, I’m only shallow by YOUR standards. By everybody else’s, it’s NORMALCY.”
“You asked 10 fools and you think you’ve got a reliable metric.” Mabel sighed. “Anyway, we’re not getting anywhere, so let’s get back on topic. What I need you to do is not to get me the third Journal. There is a perfect opportunity before us. This girl is immune to spells, so you will propose an adventure to her and take her to the estimated location of the illusion dome. It should not work on her, so she should be able to spot the building right away. Make sure she is happy with the adventure, and some other day you can ask her about photocopying the Journal.”
“There is a catch, I presume. Even if invisible, a place so big is bound to have somebody accidentally run into it, and yet there have never been any reports.”
“It is possible that the Author is actually hiding in there. There were mentions in the Journals of working on a gun that erases memories, so that would explain why nobody remembers running into it if that is the case. However, I believe the Author is long dead. Although feel free to tell her the Author is there, if it helps you convince her to tag along. It’s a good guess.”
“Have you… ever considered the Author could be our great uncle Ford?” Dipper asked seriously. “Journal #1 was in his library.”
“I have, but the handwriting does not match. And neither do the dates. He bought this manor 15 years ago, and Journal #1 had a serious layer of dust on it. Maybe it was actually 10 years’ worth of dust; I’m not knowledgeable on the topic to say, but I would say it was there before great uncle Ford purchased the building. Remember the Author also left #2 in an elementary school but I doubt he was a teacher or a parent. No, I think the locations were all red herrings, and I seriously doubt someone like Ford whom we see come home once every other week, would have had the time for this. He may own a tech company but, unlike Batman, he still needs to commute to work every day and doesn’t have free time for a double life.”
Dipper gave Mabel a lopsided smile. He did not strictly dislike the freedom that came with the lack of parental supervision.
“You are correct, however, to assume it could be dangerous.” Mabel continued. “It is likely that there is some sort of creature defending it, but like many others I doubt it will pose any difficulties to the amulet. However, in the instance where the Author is there and dead, which is what I predict to be the most likely case, I need you to search for a triangular prism he should be carrying with him. It’s supposed to be a portable battery of sorts, so I want it.”
“And if he is alive?”
“Then it will be a pity because you will come back home with your memory of the last few hours erased and it will have been a waste of a day.” Mabel shrugged. “Have you been practicing with the amulet? I would like to know you will not be defenseless, if it is a monster guarding that place after all.”
“I have.”
“Let me test your progress. What number am I thinking of?”
“Ugh, Mabel… I hate this one.”
“This is the easiest one, c’mon.”
“12?”
“You always say that one!”
“Well, I can never hear the number in your mind but I imagine you will eventually think of that one.”
“I will not. I always think of the same number, because it is easier to read thoughts that are repeated in the mind. Let me check that the amulet works properly. I fear it may have withered under your misuse. Don’t worry, I will be calm and careful.”
Dipper hesitantly undid his bolo pendant and handed Mabel the amulet. She detached it from the pendant and attached it to the rose on her headband. It amazed Dipper that she did not even have to hold it in her hand to activate it.
“Okay, now think of a number. 36. 28. 77. Stop changing it! And what the heck do you mean that my pencil skirt and stockings make me look like a whore?”
“Please, stop reading my mind so deeply.” Dipper blushed terribly.
“Hmph!” Mabel turned to the side and checked her legs in a mirror. “I guess a magician’s outfit serves the same purpose as a whore’s. But there is one key difference, which is that I will not be taking it off.” Mabel grabbed a pen from her desk. “If your mindreading is so weak, I’m afraid to ask how your psychokinesis is. Can you do this at least?”
The pen rose in her hand and then turned into a small mound of dust.
“Nowhere near that.”
“You should really practice.” Mabel reshaped the pen, but this time it was not a black plastic pen anymore. It was made of gold. “Here, to impress the very shallow girlfriends you completely innocently choose for your shallow romances. And your amulet too. It truly is wasted on you.”
“I can lift a car with it.” Dipper explained as he put the bolo pendant with the amulet back on. “I may not be able to pulverize it, I may not be able to alter its molecular structure, but so far, just being able to move things in two directions at once has been more than any threat could handle. And as for the mind reading part, I can sometimes hear intent or strong emotions, and for the rest I trust my gut.”
“It will likely be plenty anyway.” Mabel shrugged.
“Is there anything else you should tell me about this adventure you’re sending me on?”
Mabel looked him in the eyes.
“No.”
Dipper made an effort to not raise an eyebrow. He hoped that he would not regret his decision to not push her about that “no”, because it had been such a blatant lie that even his weak affinity with the amulet caught it.
“Very well then. Before I leave, though, why am I doing this again?”
“You’re doing this because I’m your dearest sister and you love me very much.”
“That remains the same whether I do this or not, so I’ll ask again. What do I gain from doing this? Because it is me who is going to spend hours with Gideon’s cousin and gain nothing in return.” Dipper shuddered, dreading what the girl would look like being related to the kid with pig features.
“What do you want then?” Mabel asked after a while.
“You will attend this upcoming party, and you will let me introduce you to a friend or two of mine, who I think will be compatible with you. I’m not asking you to date either of them; don’t start telling me again about your beloved Gideon, who does not want anything to do with you by the way. I’m only asking that you socialize with them for the duration of the party. And, after the party is over, if you want to hang out with them more, then you will admit that I was right.”
“After the party is over, I will make sure to pour my entire drink over their heads. All of your friends are jerks and I want nothing to do with them.”
“Mabel, have you made a single friend in the two years we’ve been living here?”
“Don’t ask questions you know the answer to."
“Fine, let’s turn this into a trade then. The time I am going to waste today on your mystery hunt, for the time you will waste in a few days on the party. Agreed?”
“Yes. Now bring your phone and take pictures of the Journals so that she believes you, and take another picture of the page about the illusion dome in case you need it later.”