Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It started when their parents decided they needed to “build character” and shipped them across the country to a small town in the middle of Oregon called Gravity Falls.

It was a lot different from Jersey, that was for sure—Stanley wasn’t sure if he liked it or not, yet. It had a lot more pine trees than he was used to, and no ocean at all.

And then there was their Grunkle Mason, who they were staying with. He ran this tourist trap art gallery called the Gallery of Mystery in the middle of the woods, but he wasn’t an artist himself. He was quiet, and focused on his business, and absolutely boring. He put them to work dusting and stocking the gift shop shelves with souvenirs and sometimes even helping on the cash register.

The Gallery had two other employees, Dan and Fiddleford (what a name!), so it wasn’t like they were really needed, anyway.

It was starting to look like it would be the same mind-numbing routine all summer long, and then Sixer found it.

“Okay, I get that you’ve decided you’re going to have some great summer romance this year, but do you have to flirt with every girl who comes through the Gallery?” Sixer asked Stanley, restocking snowglobes as Stanley manned the register.

“Yes, definitely, absolutely?” the girl he had just passed a note to read aloud.

“I rigged it,” Stanley giggled. The girl rolled her eyes and tossed the note, so Stanley turned to Sixer. “You’re just jealous of my awesome game.”

Sixer raised one eyebrow at him (a skill Stanley still hadn’t mastered, that jerk). “I just think you’re taking this whole ‘girl-crazy’ thing a little too far over the ‘crazy’ side of the line.”

“Pfft, what? Come on,” Stanley waved him off. “Mock all you want, but I’ve got a good feeling about this summer! I wouldn’t be surprised if the girl of my dreams walked through that door right now!” He waved toward the door that dumped the main Gallery into the gift shop.

A second later, their Grunkle Mason came through.

“Ugh!” Stanley recoiled, then pouted. Sixer pointed and laughed.

“Alright, look alive, people!” Grunkle Mason announced to all four employees. “I need someone to go take pictures of trees that I can turn into postcards. Who wants to go wander blindly through the forest with nothing but a camera?”

“Not it!” Sixer and Stanley called quickly.

“Uh, also not it,” Dan called, from his spot fixing a rickety shelf.

“You weren’t even an option, Dan, your eye for lighting is horrible,” Grunkle Mason said. “Alright, Fiddleford, I need you to take this camera and get out there.”

“I would but I, er, can’t… reach it…” Fiddleford said, making an exaggerated grabbing-motion with one hand as he didn’t even bother looking up from the robotics magazine he was reading.

“I’d fire everyone here if I could afford it,” Grunkle Mason moaned. “Okay then,” he turned back to the twins. “Eeny, meeny… you,” he decided, pointing at Sixer.

“Aw, man,” Sixer pouted. “Grunkle Mason, every time I go into the woods, I feel like something is watching me!”

“Oh, not this again.”

“I’m serious, Grunkle Mason! Something is weird in this town. Look, today my mosquito bites even spelled out ‘BEWARE’!” Sixer insisted.

Grunkle Mason leaned in to look at the mosquito bites, which were plentiful.

“That spells ‘BEWARB’,” Grunkle Mason replied. Sixer rolled his eyes. Grunkle Mason sighed. “Look, kid, that whole ‘monsters of the forest’ thing is just local legend, drummed up by guys like me to sell weird art and tacky merchandise like this,” he said, gesturing at the gift shop around them. “So just go get me some more pictures of the landscape, okay?”

Grunkle Mason pushed the camera into Sixer’s hands, and he took it reluctantly.

Sixer grumbled as he made his way through the nearby forest, looking dubiously at a vine that might be poison ivy.

“Adults never listen to anything I say,” he complained to nobody. “At home it’s ‘sea monsters don’t exist’, and here it’s ‘forest monsters don’t exist’, ugh.”

He raised the camera and took a picture of the sun as it filtered through the pine needles. He scanned the forest for something else that might make a good photograph and kicked a rock petulantly.

It bounced across the ground, finally ping-ing off a tree and coming to a stop.

Wait, ping? Sixer kicked another rock at the same tree and got the same noise. He went up and knocked on it—it made a sound like hollow metal.

Now that he knew the tree was metal, he thought he could see the smallest indentions through the fake tree bark. He wiggled his fingers in and pulled, and then suddenly he had opened some kind of hatch with a strange machine inside. It looked vaguely like some kind of control center, like the ones in airplane cockpits or something. He flicked a few switches to see if they’d do anything and heard the scrape of metal-on-metal from behind himself.

Turning, he found that a hatch had opened on the forest floor. Peeking in, he found a lot of cobwebs… and underneath, a dark blue book bound with golden accents.

He picked it up and dusted it off. The front cover had a weird symbol on it, a golden pine tree with a silver star in the center of it. Sixer would have guessed it was a Christmas tree, except for where the star was placed. In the center of the star was written a simple black number 3.

He cracked open the book, and found his breath taken away. It was filled with sketches and writing, almost like what Grunkle Mason displayed at the Gallery, but not quite. At the Gallery, the paintings created intrigue by having magical creatures hidden in the background in some way. These sketches were more like portraits, with the weird and wonderful highlighted front and center, surrounded by notes that almost read as scientific.

“It has been about six years since we started cataloging the weird and wonderful secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon…” he read off the front page idly. “What is all this?”

He flipped through the pages, idly noticing everything that was also weird about the book itself. The paper on the front page that read “property of” had had the rest of it ripped out. The handwriting in the book started out as two distinct people, and then abruptly shifted to just one person writing. About halfway through the book, it took on a more narrative tone than scientific notation.

“Everything I was afraid of is coming true,” he read, brow furrowed with interest and concern. “He is watching me. I have to hide the Spellbooks before they can hurt anyone else. In Gravity Falls, there is no one I can trust.”

In large letters underneath the passage, it read TRUST NO ONE, underlined three times like the author was scared they would forget.

“Trust no one…” Sixer echoed, feeling a strange mix of highly invested and deeply unsettled.

“HELLO!” Stanley yelled, popping up from behind a fallen log.

“Gah!” Sixer shouted, slamming the book closed and then trying to calm his racing heart as he realized just who had snuck up on him.

“Ooh, whatcha reading?” Stanley asked. “Some nerd thing?”

Sixer looked around furtively, clutching the book to his chest. He felt even more watched in the woods than he normally did.

“Oh, uh, um…”

“Oh, uh,” Stanley mocked. “C’mon, tell me!”

Sixer scanned the area again and locked eyes with the pig that lived on property.

“Let’s go somewhere private,” he decided.

Back in the living room of the Gallery, Sixer paced back and forth as he marveled over the book.

“Mason said I was being ridiculous, but according to this book, Gravity Falls has this whole secret dark side!” Sixer explained, holding out the open book so Stanley could see its pages.

“Woah…” Stanley gasped appropriately.

“And get this! At a certain point, the book just… stops. Like whoever was writing it mysteriously disappeared!”

Just then, the doorbell rang.

“Who’s that?” Sixer asked, closing the book and stowing it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

“Oh, hold onto your socks!” Stanley bragged. He pointed both thumbs at himself. “This guy’s got a date!”

“What? In the half hour I was gone, you managed to get a girlfriend?” Sixer gaped, incredulous.

“What can I say? I’m just irresistable.”

The doorbell went off again, and Stanley ran off to answer it. Sixer quickly stole his spot in the room’s one armchair, cracking the Spellbook back open eagerly. Then Grunkle Mason wandered into the room, and he quickly hid the book in exchange for one of the magazine issues lying on the weird skull they used as a side table.

“What are you reading there, bud?” Grunkle Mason asked, cracking open a soda.

“Oh, uh…” Sixer actually looked at the cover of the magazine he grabbed. “Knitwear for Old People Magazine?”

“That’s a good issue,” Grunkle Mason said, peering over his shoulder.

“Oh, familyyyyy,” Stanley called, coming back down the hallway with someone new in tow. “Everybody meet my new girlfriend!”

The girl was tall and almost abnormally skinny, with skin so pale it could pass for printer paper. She had oil-slick hair and dark eyes, all covered by the purple hoodie she was wearing with the hood up (even though they were indoors).

“Hey,” the girl said.

“Hey,” Sixer said.

“How are you doing?” Grunkle Mason said.

“We met in the cemetery,” Stanley swooned. And, hey, thanks for exploring the cemetery without Sixer, bro. “She’s very deep.”

“So, uh, what’s your name?” Sixer asked, feeling profoundly awkward. A quick glance at Grunkle Mason showed that he was probably feeling the same, though. Ugh, why did Stanley have to be so girl-crazy?

“Um. Regular—Regular Girl,” the girl stuttered.

“She means Regina,” Stanley contributed in that same dreamy, swooning voice he had been using.

A drop of dark red something fell from Regina’s cheek.

“Are you bleeding, Regina?” Sixer asked.

“No, it’s, uh, jam. It’s jam.”

“Uh huh…”

Regina turned abruptly towards Stanley. “Hey, do you want to go hold hands, or something?” she asked.

“This is moving fast!” Stanley enthused. “Sure, I’d love to! Let’s go!”

The two swiftly left, though Regina left with one last parting wave and movements that were almost too graceful.

There was something off about Regina. Sixer decided to consult the Spellbook.

“With the ability to stay as young as they were when turned forever, they can be easily mistaken for any age, including that of children and teenagers,” Sixer read. “Beware the nefarious… Vampires!”

His shout of the last word echoed around the parlor room, and he scrambled to peer out of the stained glass window he was sitting next to. On the lawn outside, Regina went up to Stanley, who (naively as ever) didn’t show any fear, and put her hands right up to his neck, leaning in! Sixer was about to throw all caution to the wind and leap out the window to save his brother, but then the maybe-vampire disappeared and Sixer could see the flower necklace she had just attached around Stanley’s neck.

“Flowers?” Stanley giggled. “Aw, you shouldn’t have.”

Sixer sat back with a sigh of relief.

“Is my brother really dating a vampire, or am I going crazy?” he wondered, his relief leaving him feeling like his panic was a little silly, in hindsight.

“A big question, to be sure,” Dan said from behind him.

“Ah!” Sixer shouted, falling off of the window seat and springing defensively to his feet.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Dan said, opening a stepladder. “Couldn’t help but overhear you talking to yourself in this empty room.”

Perfect! Another witness!

“Hey, Dan, you’ve seen Stanley’s girlfriend. Doesn’t she seem like a vampire to you?”

Dan was a big guy, one of those men who was just a wall of muscle. He wore flannel all the time and constantly carried an ax for some reason. He worked as the handyman at the Gallery of Mystery, and right now he was changing a lightbulb. The important thing was that he was a Gravity Falls native and he was always hanging around.

“I don’t know, bro, how much blood have you seen the girl drink?”

Sixer sighed. “None…” he admitted.

“Hey, I totally believe you. My family lives out in the woods too, and I have seen some weird stuff. I’m pretty sure the mailman is a werewolf. But if you want to prove it to anybody, you’re gonna need some evidence.”

“You’re right,” Sixer conceded.

“I always am, bro,” Dan nodded.

“Dan! The main bathroom is clogged again!” Mason called from elsewhere in the house.

“Duty calls,” Dan said, in a tone of voice like he was going to war. He picked up his stepladder and left the room.

Evidence, huh? Sixer could get evidence.

Sixer had brought the video camera from home. He liked to search for sea monsters back in Glass Shard Beach, but he never really found any. Maybe here, in Gravity Falls, it would finally come in handy.

Was it a little stalkery? Maybe. But it wasn’t anything Stanley wouldn’t do if Sixer was on a date, even without suspecting any girlfriends of being vampires. That is, if Sixer ever managed to get a date with a girl, anyway. He followed them to the park, the diner, the cemetery… all around town, it felt like.

“Okay, that’s enough.” Even when trying to save his brother from a potential vampire, there was only so much icky-date-sappiness he could watch.

He confronted Stanley with his theory later, while he was preening in front of the standing mirror in their shared attic room.

“Stanley, we have to talk about Regina,” he announced.

“Isn’t she the greatest? Check out this giant smooch mark she gave me!” Stanley laughed, turning his head so Sixer could see the bright red circle on his cheek.

“Gah!”

“Nah, I’m joking. This was an accident with the leaf blower.” Stanley grinned. “That was fun.”

“No, Stanley, listen! I’m trying to tell you that Regina is not what she seems!” Sixer insisted, pulling out the Spellbook.

Stanley gasped delightedly, putting both hands to his cheeks. “You think she might be a zombie? That would be awesome!”

“What, no,” Sixer groaned. “Look!” He held out the book.

“Fairies?”

“Huh? Oh, no.” Sixer flipped to the correct page. “Look!” he insisted again.

“A vampire!” Stanley gasped. “Sixer, that’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking! It adds up: she’s super pale, she keeps her hood up all the time. You guys even met in the cemetery!”

“Okay, well I’m perfectly human and I was hanging out in the cemetery.”

“I’m just worried! The book said to trust no one!”

“Oh, so you’re gonna listen to some book over your own brother?” Stanley scoffed. “I have a date with Regina at five o’clock, and I’m going to go and be awesome, and she’s going to be gorgeous, and I don’t need you to ruin it with your crazy conspiracies!”

Stanley punctuated each point with a small shove, slowly pushing Sixer out of their attic room. After he was done talking, he huffed and slammed the door.

Sixer closed his eyes and dropped his head. That couldn’t have gone worse.

“What am I gonna do…?”

Nobody answered.

He moped his way downstairs and into the living room armchair.

A few minutes later, the doorbell rang.

“Coming!” Stanley shouted, barrelling down the stairs. He had rustled up a bowtie from somewhere, though he wore it over his normal striped t-shirt.

He flung open the door with enthusiasm. “Regina! How do I look?”

“Uh… handsome.”

“Thanks!”

And then they were off, to go on their date. Sixer sighed.

“Yeah, I guess Stanley’s right… I can be kind of paranoid,” he reflected. It had gotten him into some trouble back on Glass Shard Beach, too. Idly, he opened the handheld camera and started reviewing the footage. It scrolled through the dates, showing two completely normal people, walking, talking, laughing, fangs flashing in the light, doing a little dance—hang on.

Fangs flashing?

Sixer rewound, and sure enough, when Regina laughed, she had two overlong-canines that descended just like vampire fangs! This was his evidence!

And he had just let his brother go on a date with this girl! Stupid!

He launched outside, circling to the museum entrance. “Grunkle Mason, Grunkle Mason!”

Grunkle Mason was with a tour group. He tried jumping and waving, but he couldn’t get the guy’s attention.

Luckily, that moment was when Fiddleford drove up and parked the golf cart.

“Fiddleford, can I borrow the golf cart to go save my brother from a vampire?” he begged, out of breath.

Fiddleford held a straight face for two seconds before grinning wide and dropping the keys in his hand. “Try not to hit any pedestrians!” he warned.

Oh, dang. Fiddleford might actually be cool.

He hopped in and started the golf cart, backing out haphazardly. He didn’t make it far before Dan stopped him.

“Hey, bro, this is for the vampires,” Dan said, handing him a wooden spear wrapped with a string of garlic cloves. “And this is for if you run into a bear,” he continued, handing him a can of bear-spray.

“Uh, thanks?” Sixer replied.

“You never know, man. They are menaces. Good luck!”

Dan slapped the side of the golf cart, and Sixer put the pedal to the metal and gunned it towards where he saw his brother enter the woods.

“So, Stanley, now that we’ve gotten to know each other, there’s something I wanted to tell you,” Regina admitted, fiddling with the edge of her purple hood.

“You can tell me anything!” Stanley encouraged her. Secretly, he thought, Please be a zombie, please be a zombie.

“Okay, just… don’t freak out.”

Regina pulled her hood down, then started glowing, and then shrank!

…and shrank, and shrank, until she was about the size of Stanley’s hand.

“Uh,” he said, not sure what else to say.

“Is this weird? Is this too weird?” the fairy asked him, unfurling wings from behind her. Her purple hoodie and jeans had turned into a little dress made of purple flower petals, and, honestly, Stanley was a little worried about how he would kiss someone whose head was the size of his lips. Were they even dating if they couldn’t kiss?

Plus, this had not exactly been the reveal he was hoping for.

“Um.”

“Oh, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is actually Dewdrops-At-Sunset. Sorry.”

“Can I call you Dewey for short?” Stanley asked hesitantly.

“Under no circumstances,” Dewdrops-At-Sunset said. “Anyway, if you’re still good with all this, then do you want to go get married now?”

“What?” Stanley shrieked. He was all for love, but marriage was moving a little fast!

“Yeah, it’s more of a symbolic marriage than anything. My colony has needed a man around to do the less dainty chores, and if you agree, then you’re in! You would get to live with the fairies, of course, and we would shrink you down so you would fit through the doors, and of course you would have to give up your real name and abandon all you know,” the fairy explained, blasé.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna, uh, that’s not gonna work for me. Sorry, but, I’m a boy, and you’re a tiny fairy, and I just don’t think this is gonna work out.”

Dewdrops-At-Sunset hung her little head. “I understand. I’ll never forget you, Stanley.”

“Thanks.”

“Because we’re going to kidnap you.”

“What?”

Dewdrops-At-Sunset made a whistle that sounded like some kind of bird, and then suddenly fairies were flying out from all over the forest, swarming him. Stanley flailed, disoriented, but everywhere he touched the ground the grass rose up in vines and tangled around his limbs. In short order, the fairies had him all tied up.

“Someone help!” he cried out.

But he was deep in the forest. Who would be coming?

“I’m coming, Stanley!” Sixer promised as he maneuvered the golf cart through the trees. “I’ll save you from the vampire!”

“Someone help!” Stanley’s voice echoed through the forest! Sixer leaned forward, willing the cart to go just a little faster.

He came to a stop in a small glade at the top of a hill. It was full of moving dots of light in every color of the rainbow, along with a lot of high-pitched yelling. His brother was laying in the center of the glade, tied down by thin vines and batting away the fairies as they approached.

“Woah, what’s going on here?” he asked, getting out of the golf cart.

One of the fairies hissed at him.

“Sixer! Regina turned out to be a fairy in a human disguise, and they want to marry me to turn me into their manservant!” Stanley cried out.

“Really? Woah, I was way off.” He quickly flipped to the page in the Spellbook about fairies. “Fairies: the little ladies of the Gravity Falls forests. Weaknesses: fly swatters.”

Stanley clearly knew that he didn’t have a fly swatter. “Oh, come on!”

“Hey, I know this looks bad,” one purple fairy said, flying up to hover in front of Sixer’s face. “But we’re not hurting your brother. He’s just going to marry all one thousand of us and then do all the unladylike chores around the colony! Trust me, there are much worse fates than being a fairy husband.”

Sixer held up the bear-spray. “Give him back right now, or else!”

“You really want to pick a fight with fairies?”

Sixer sprayed her right in the face. She flew backwards through the air, screaming and clutching at her eyes. Sixer grabbed the spear and used the sharp end to cut through the ropes on Stanley; once Stanley was free, he took the spear and started using it to whack fairies away from them. They grasped each others’ hands and ran towards the golf cart.

“Oh, you’ve done it now!” the purple fairy shouted. “Fairies of the forest, SWARM!”

So, it turns out that driving a golf cart is kinda hard when being swarmed by fairies. Who knew?

Sixer tried to focus on steering, while Stanley used the spear to whack the fairies away as they approached. Sixer tried to get the ones that came up on his side of the cart with the bear spray, but Dan must have given him a partially used bottle, because it ran out distressingly fast.

A fairy latched onto his face, and Stanley smacked Sixer in the face several times before he managed to hit the fairy.

“Thanks,” Sixer said anyway. The fairies bit.

“Don’t mention it!”

They retreated for a second, then seemed to redouble their efforts. They got all over, maybe trying to carry them off? Stanley swung his spear as fast as he could, and Sixer shrugged out of his jacket so that he could hold it by the sleeves and use it as a flail. Luckily, the fairies were small enough that the cloth actually did some damage.

Finally, the Gallery of Mystery came into sight between the trees. Sixer didn’t have time to come to a slow stop, and his abrupt braking caused the cart to tilt and fall right over. He and Stanley scrambled upright.

At some point, Sixer had lost his jacket, so he grabbed the spear from where it had fallen and smacked the closest fairy with it like a baseball.

“Take that!” he shouted. Then the bulk of the swarm caught up with them.

“Where’s Grunkle Mason?” Stanley worried, craning his neck to look around the yard. But it looked like Mason wasn’t outside—no help was coming.

A purple fairy flew to the front of the swarm.

“I’ll give you one last chance, Stanley! Marry all of us and attach your name to ours to be our man-servant forever, or die!” she offered.

“Screw you!” Sixer yelled.

“I have to do it,” Stanley said.

“What? Are you crazy?”

“Trust me,” Stanley whispered, locking eyes with Sixer.

“Stan—”

“Sixer, just this once, trust me,” Stanley implored. He had a gleam in his eyes: a plan.

Of course he trusted Stanley. He nodded, then put his hands up and stepped back.

Whatever happened next, he would trust Stanley to handle it.

Stanley turned back towards the fairy swarm, and the purple fairy in particular.

“Alright, Dewdrops-At-Sunset. I’ll marry you.”

The fairy perked up, flying a happy little loop. “Really?” she exclaimed.

“Sure.”

Dewdrops-At-Sunset (and what a pretentious name, like, really) flew happily onto Stanley’s outstretched palm.

“Oh, perfect! Let’s get you back into the forest then, honey! We have a lot of preparations to do!” she took off from his palm and flew another little loop.

“What, don’t I get a kiss first?” Stanley asked, in a teasing tone.

“Oh!” the purple glow increased a little. Maybe the luminosity was linked to their emotions? Was this fairy-blushing? “Well, I certainly don’t mind!”

“PSYCH!” Stanley shouted, pulling out the leaf-blower from where it had laid, half-hidden behind leaf litter. He powered it up on reverse, and it vacuumed the little fairy up with no effort.

“HEY!” she shouted, her voice barely audible above the leaf blower.

“This is for tricking me!” Stanley shouted. He aimed the leaf blower at the center of the swarm, whose formation was growing tight with agitation. “And this—!” he flipped the switch to blow “is for messing with the Pines Twins!”

The fairy was launched from the leaf blower at high speed, punching a neat hole through the swarm and disappearing off into the forest. The swarm seemed to pulse, as fairies dispersed and pulled back together, following their leader. Little voices rose up, distressed.

“Who’s in charge? I need directions!” one shouted. Another just screamed aimlessly, flying in a corkscrew away from the Gallery. A third got her wings caught in plastic ring litter, which was grabbed as a snack by Waddles, the pig who lived on property. The fairy jolted free and sped into the forest.

The twins grinned at each other, then turned to go inside.

“Hey, Sixer?” Stanley said. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about Regina being weird.”

“Hey, it’s okay. You totally saved us back there!”

“I guess I’m just sad that my first girlfriend turned out to be an evil fairy,” Stanley moped, idly plucking a leaf off of his shirt.

“Hey, look on the bright side: maybe the next one will be a zombie!”

“Heh, maybe. High six?” Stanley offered. Sixer grinned at him.

“High six!”

The twins smacked hands and then giggled, rushing up the stairs and entering the gift shop.

Grunkle Mason was counting the day’s profits behind the counter. He took in their battered appearance and raised an eyebrow.

“Yikes, did you two get hit by a bus or something?” he asked. Stanley rolled his eyes, and both twins crossed the room to enter the house proper.

“Hey!” Grunkle Mason called out, stopping them in their tracks. “Wouldn’t you know it, I, uh, accidentally overstocked some inventory.” He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “So, y’know, one-time-only, go ahead and pick something out from the gift shop. It’s free.”

The twins traded a quick glance. Neither one of them were the kind of guy to turn down free stuff.

Sixer had lost his jacket at some point in the forest, so he went over to look at the Gallery’s offerings. For a place that was half-tourist-trap, half-art-museum, the gift shop actually had some quality stuff. He found a brown leather aviator jacket in his size, with an inside pocket and everything, perfect to keep the Spellbook in. It was a miracle he hadn’t lost that on their wild ride through the woods. The jacked had MYSTERY embroidered along the back in dark blue thread—he liked it!

“This is perfect!” he said out loud. Grunkle Mason smiled at him.

“And I will have… a grappling hook!” Stanley announced, standing up with said item in hand.

“How’d that box…?” Grunkle Mason muttered, trailing off. “Uh, are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a toy, or something?” he asked.

“Grappling hook!” Stanley repeated, launching the hook onto one of the rafters and pulling himself up to the ceiling.

“Fair enough,” Grunkle Mason shrugged.

In their attic bedroom, Sixer recorded the day’s events in the empty pages of the Spellbook.

This book warned me that there was nobody in Gravity Falls I could trust, he wrote. But when you battle a swarm of evil fairies with someone, you realize that they’ve probably always got your back.

Of course, Stanley always had his back. Even when testing out his new grappling hook on any target in eyesight.

“Hey, Stanley, can you get the light?” he asked.

Stanley aimed at the lantern they were using, then shot, extinguishing their light with a delightfully chaotic shatter of glass. Both boys burst into giggles.

Down in the gift shop, Mason punched a special code into the front of the vending machine. The secret door popped open, and with one last paranoid glance around, he slipped through.

Chapter Text

The next day, they started the day with a syrup race! They could never get away with that kind of silliness at home, but Grunkle Mason didn’t enforce manners at the table. He didn’t have many manners himself, anyway (and he also wasn’t in the room).

Stanley won their race, and Sixer turned back to the newspaper he had been reading.

“Woah, look at this!” he said, showing the paper to Stanley.

“Human-sized hamster balls?” Stanley gasped. “I’m human-sized!”

“No, no, this,” Sixer said, pointing at the opposite page.

It was a contest offering a thousand-dollar prize for photos of monsters!

“We didn’t get any photos of those fairies, did we?” Sixer asked.

“You had the camera last,” Stanley shrugged. That was true, but he had given the camera back to Grunkle Mason after getting his tree pictures and finding the Spellbook.

“I’m sure if we told Grunkle Mason we wanted to get monster photos, he’d help us! I mean, that’s basically what he sells!” Sixer speculated enthusiastically.

“Good morning, pipsqueaks!” Grunkle Mason said, entering the kitchen. “You two know what day it is?”

“Uh…” Sixer floundered.

“Mazel tov!” Stanley guessed, throwing his hands in the air.

“Happy anniversary!” Sixer said, following his brother’s example.

“Great guesses, but no. It’s a Family Bonding Day!” he announced, turning to dig around in the fridge for his own breakfast.

Sixer exchanged a wary look with Stanley.

“Grunkle Mason, is this going to be like our last family bonding day?” he asked tentatively.

“What? No, nothing like that,” Grunkle Mason said, waving a hand dismissively. “I still can’t believe they arrested us over a little graffiti,” he added in a grumbling undertone.

“The holding cells were so cold,” Stanley shuddered.

Grunkle Mason seemed to give up on finding breakfast and moved so that he could put one hand on each twins’ shoulder.

“Okay, so, maybe I haven’t been the best summer caretaker,” he conceded. “But I promise that today we’re going to have some real family fun. So who wants to put on some blindfolds and get into my car?”

“Me!” the twins cheered in unison, buoyed by the cadence of Mason’s voice. Then Sixer registered what he said. “Wait, what?”

Sure enough, they were blindfolded so the destination would be “a surprise” and bundled into the car. Grunkle Mason wasn’t the greatest driver, and being blindfolded didn’t exactly add a layer of comfort to being in the backseat.

“Uh, Grunkle Mason, are you wearing a blindfold?” Stanley asked, as Sixer tried to get his stomach under control.

“Ha! No, but with my eyesight I might as well be!” Grunkle Mason replied. That could be true. Grunkle Mason wore glasses thicker than Sixer’s and still squinted when he read things.

“What is that, a woodpecker?” Mason muttered. There was the distinct noise and tactile sensation of the car crashing through something, maybe a fence, maybe underbrush.

It was a long drive.

When they got to their destination, Grunkle Mason parked (haphazardly) and helped them out of the car.

“Okay, boys, take off your blindfolds!”

The twins reached up and pulled their blindfolds off, blinking against the sun. They were at Lake Gravity Falls, and above the single rickety dock was a banner that declared FISHING SEASON.

“It’s fishing season!” Grunkle Mason enthused.

“Fishing?” Sixer echoed, baffled. It didn’t exactly seem like the kind of thing Grunkle Mason would get excited about. Stanley must have agreed, because he squinted up at their Grunkle skeptically. After all, their last “family bonding day” had been putting up graffiti advertisements for the Gallery of Mystery.

“What’s the catch, old man?” Stanley asked.

Grunkle Mason just grinned wider, turning to face the lake. “You’re going to love it! The whole town is here today!”

As they moved closer to the lake, the twins saw that Mason was right. There was Lazy Thompson, who owned the local diner, holding a fishing pole in one hand and a frying pan in the other. On the dock, a man with long brown hair took a picture of someone who looked like a relative holding a fish, but they dropped the fish and it flopped its way to freedom. Further along, “Manly” Wendy, Dan’s mother, showed three younger, almost-identical girls how to catch a fish with their bare hands. The girls, and an asian woman in another boat, cheered her on as she repeatedly punched the fish.

The twins took in all the activity and turned their skeptical glasses back to Mason.

“That’s some quality family bonding!” Grunkle Mason exclaimed, watching the red-headed family.

“Grunkle Mason, why do you want to bond with us, all of a sudden?” Stanley asked, crossing his arms. It wasn’t like he’d made much of an effort to bond so far.

Grunkle Mason turned to them, arms spread placatingly.

“Come on, this is gonna be great!” he enthused. Then he winced, and glanced off to the side before refocusing on the twins. “I’ve never had fishing buddies before. The guys from the lodge won’t go with me. They say that I’m ‘weird’ and ‘boring’,” he admitted.

The twins exchanged a glance.

“I think he actually wants to fish with us,” Sixer said.

“Hey, I know what’ll cheer you downers up!” Grunkle Mason exclaimed, producing two matching hats with their names stitched across them. He was wearing a similar one. He stuck them on each twins’ head. “Pow! Pines family fishing hats. That’s hand-stitching, you know.”

The twins took them off to inspect them—their names were stitched on haphazardly, and they didn’t seem very secure. The “r” on “Sixer” was starting to peel off already.

“It’s just going to be you, me, and those goofy hats on a boat for ten hours!” Grunkle Mason cheered.

“Ten hours?” Sixer exclaimed.

“I brought the joke book!”

“Oh, no!” Sixer cried out reflexively, staring at the horrifying cover which read “1001 Yuk ‘Em Ups” with the tagline “Uncle Approved!” in a little caricature’s speech bubble underneath.

“There has to be a way out of this,” Stanley whispered to him.

And like serendipity, it came.

In the form of Fiddleford McGucket.

He came hurtling up the dock, pushing past people and knocking items to the ground, shouting all the while.

“I seen it! I seen it again!” he screamed, running towards the fishing store that rested by the lake’s shore. He seized a random man by the arms. “The Gravity Falls Gobblewonker! Come quick before it scrabdoodles away!” The man pushed him off, and Fiddleford started doing an anxious dance.

“Fiddleford?” the twins exclaimed in unison.

Grunkle Mason facepalmed. “Come on, kid…” he muttered.

A tall man whose hair fell over his eyes came out of the fishing store and started spraying Fiddleford with a spray bottle.

“Hey, hey!” he barked. “What have I told you about scaring the customers? This is your last warning, Fiddleford Hadron McGucket!”

“But dad!” Fiddleford whined. “I have proof this time, by gum!”

He led the various people who had stopped to watch this spectacle (plus the police in their boat, who probably came because of the disturbance) to the end of the dock, where he pointed at a wooden boat that had been split in half and was floating upside-down in the shallow water.

“Behold!” he shouted. “It was the Gobblewonker that done it! It had a long neck like a giraffe, and wrinkly skin like, uh, uh…”

His eyes landed on Grunkle Mason, who narrowed his own eyes right back. Fiddleford gulped nervously.

“Like tree bark, practically!” he spit out. “It chewed up my boat to smithereens and then swam away towards Scuttlebutt Island! You gotta believe me!”

One of the policemen leaned over the side of the boat. “Attention all units,” he said mockingly. “We’ve got a crazy kid.”

The other officer and most of the crowd laughed, except for the Pines’ and Mr. McGucket, who just shook his head in shame. Fiddleford just stood there and took it, crestfallen.

The crowd dispersed quickly after that, including Mr. McGucket who just went back to his store without a word.

“You okay, Fiddleford?” Grunkle Mason asked.

“I gotta… I gotta go,” Fiddleford said, pushing past their family and running off.

“Well, that happened,” Grunkle Mason sighed. Then he smiled, getting more upbeat again. “Now let’s untie this boat and get out onto the lake!”

Grunkle Mason stepped down into a rickety rowboat with the name GREATER BEAR painted on the side.

The twins ignored him. Stanley turned to Sixer, excited. “Sixer, did you hear what Fiddleford said?”

“That he had to go?”

“About the monster! Remember that photo contest you showed me at breakfast? If we snag a photo of the Gobblewonker that Fiddleford was talking about, I bet we could win! We could split the prize fifty-fifty!” Stanley said, excitedly.

“Woah! Imagine what you could do with five hundred dollars…” Sixer sighed dreamily.

Stanley could imagine. He could buy that cool human-sized hamster ball from the other newspaper ad. He could go all over town in it, and everybody would be so impressed that they would stop and stare.

“It would be the best thing ever!” Stanley agreed.

The twins turned to their Grunkle Mason, who was finished messing with the rope that tied the boat to the dock.

“Change of plans, Grunkle Mason!” Sixer decreed. “We’re taking that boat to Scuttlebutt Island, and we’re gonna find that Gobblewonker!”

“Monster hunt! Monster hunt! Monster hunt!” the twins chanted in unison, hyping themselves up.

With a loud honk, a metal fishing boat came up to the dock, with S.S. COOL MAN written on the side. Dan stood on the deck, wearing a life vest over his typical plaid.

“Did I hear something about a MONSTER HUNT?” he said.

“Dan!” Stanley cheered. He ran up to the boat, and he and Dan did a fistbump that ended with an explosion.

“Guys, you could totally use my boat for your monster hunt! It’s got a steering wheel, chairs… normal boat stuff. Plus a ton of jerky snacks!”

“Okay, okay, let’s think this through,” Grunkle Mason cut in. “You could go off on some lame… epic monster hunt, or you could spend the day learning how to tie knots and skewer worms with me, your Great Uncle Mason!”

The twins exchanged a glance, they looked from where Dan was absent-mindedly twirling his ax, back to their Grunkle who was hurriedly righting his knocked-over tackle box, and finally over towards Scuttlebutt Island in the distance.

“So, what do you say?” Grunkle Mason prompted.

It wasn’t really a hard choice.

They got on Dan’s boat.

“We made the right choice!” Stanley cheered.

“Ingrates!” Grunkle Mason hollered after them. He sat sulkily down on the front bench of the rowboat. “Oh, who needs them? I have a whole box of creepy fishing lures to keep me company.”

Mason looked at the lures. The lures, he swore, looked back at him.

“Ugh!” he groaned in disgust. He slammed the tackle box closed.

Sitting in a rowboat by himself, the lake felt very big and lonely.

This was so much better than the Stan O’ War back home! For one thing, it floated, instead of being a work-in-progress wreck that they had salvaged from a cave. Once they got it fixed up and seaworthy, Sixer and Stanley could hit the water like this every day!

Stanley planted a foot on the railing of the bow, savoring the wind in his hair. Then he turned to face the others.

“Hoist the anchor!” he shouted. Dan pulled up a length of chain with a cinderblock tied through a loop on the end.

“Raise the flag!” he continued. Sixer grinned, holding up a beach towel that read “fun” across a sun with sunglasses on so it caught the wind.

“We’re gonna find that Gobblewonker!” Sixer cheered.

“We’re gonna win that photo contest!” Stanley agreed, moving to stand by his brother.

“Do either of you have sunscreen? Sunburns are NOT manly!” Dan asked.

“We’re gonna… go get sunscreen!” Sixer cheered in the same cadence.

They made a quick jaunt back to the fishing store to pick up a few things.

Sixer held his hands behind his back and paced the length of the deck.

“Okay, if we want to win this contest, we have to do it right! Think! What’s the number one problem with most monster hunts?”

“The Sibling Brothers totally trying to steal our thunder!” Stanley contributed enthusiastically.

“No, no. They’re back in Jersey, anyway. The problem is camera trouble!” Sixer explained. “Say Bigfoot shows up. Dan, be Bigfoot?”

Dan obligingly got into the classic “walking BIgfoot” pose. He was hairy enough that he might fool someone, too.

“Thank you, Dan,” Sixer said. Then he put on a fake, obvious-acting voice. “There he is, Bigfoot! But, uh-oh, no camera!” He patted his life vest dramatically as if searching. “Oh, wait, here’s one. Oh no, no film!” He threw his hands in the air. “You see my point here?”

“You’ve got a solid point,” Dan nodded. Stanley nodded along, making his serious face.

“That’s why I’ve bought seventeen disposable cameras,” Sixer declared, bringing out the bag with the cameras in it. "Two on my ankle, three in my life vest, four for each of you, three extras in this bag, and one… in my inside jacket pocket!”

Stanley gasped appropriately at Sixer’s brilliant planning. The one in his jacket pocket was beneath the layer of his life vest, so that was his super-backup camera. Sixer had really thought ahead.

“There’s no way we’re gonna miss this!” Sixer said. “Okay, everybody, time to test our cameras out!”

Dan’s fingers were too big for the little camera, and he fumbled it, setting the flash off in his own eyes and chucking the camera into the lake by reflex.

“Okay, this is why we have extras. We still have sixteen cameras!”

A seagull swooped down towards them, and Stanley startled.

“Ah, bird!” he shouted, throwing his camera at it. It landed in the lake.

“Fifteen,” Sixer corrected himself, a little strained. “Okay, guys, I repeat: don’t lose your cameras!”

“Lose the cameras?” Dan asked.

“No!”

“Dude, I just threw two away.”

“Thirteen. Thirteen cameras,” Sixer said, frustrated. He slammed his hand down on the cooler in front of him and accidentally smashed the camera there. His eye twitched. “Twelve cameras.”

“So what’s the plan?” Stanley asked. “Throw more cameras overboard?”

“No! No,” Sixer shouted. “Okay. You be lookout, Dan can work the steering wheel, and I’ll be Captain.”

“Aw, why do you get to be Captain?” Stanley complained.

“Because you have better vision so you make a better lookout,” Sixer explained. Stanley brightened up at the reminder that he didn’t need glasses yet, unlike his older twin.

Stanley scrambled up to sit on top of the cabin roof, the highest point on the ship. Sixer scanned the boat.

“Okay, as Captain, I’ve decided that our first order of business is to lure out the monster with this,” he said, gesturing towards the barrel of stinky fish bait sitting on deck.

“Permission to taste some, Captain?” Dan asked.

Sixer and Stanley shared a look, and Stanley shrugged. He had tasted fish food once back in Jersey, so they already knew it was disgusting.

“Permission granted,” Sixer decided. It would be funny.

Dan picked up a piece of unidentifiable beige fish food and licked it. He gagged immediately, dropping the fish bait and trying to wipe the taste off his tongue with his hands dramatically.

Sixer and Stanley burst into laughter.

“Aw, man, I don’t know what I expected that to taste like,” Dan admitted, then joined in and laughed along with them.

It was shaping up to be a good day.

It was shaping up to be a horrible day. Mason cast an envious glance at where Stanley, Sixer, and Dan were laughing together on Dan’s boat.

“Traitors,” he grumbled. “I don’t need them. I’ll find my own fishing buddies!” Mason scanned the lake, eyes landing on a young couple a little ways in front of him.

He started the engine on the Greater Bear and pulled up beside their boat.

“Hey!” he called. “Wanna hear a joke?”

The couple stared at him blankly, but didn’t say no, so he took that as permission and continued.

“My ex wife still misses me… but her aim is getting better!”

The couple continued staring, but now it was more confused and disgusted. Maybe they didn’t get the punchline?

“Her aim is getting better!” Mason repeated.

The lady rolled her eyes.

“You see it’s… it’s funny because marriage is terrible,” Mason explained.

The two people on the boat gasped and scowled and rowed away.

“What?” Mason shouted after them. He was right! He had gotten drunk one time (for completely normal reasons, definitely), and wound up married to this beautiful woman, and she had used it to try and steal his car and everything in it. Those were some of the worst six hours in his life.

The S.S. Cool Man was approaching Scuttlebutt Island, and it had gotten foggy fast. Dan was busy scooping fish food into the water to leave a trail of bait. Sixer peered into the opaque air around them, trying to spot anything unusual.

“How’s it going?” Stanley asked. Then, in a fake, gruff voice, “It’s going awesome.”

Sixer turned to look and found that a pelican had landed on the front railing, and that Stan was holding the bottom of its beak to put on an improv ventriloquism routine.

Sixer sighed. “Stanley, leave that thing alone,” he requested tiredly. What was it with Stanley and befriending wildlife? They could not afford Shanklin: Part Two. When Pa had found out they were keeping an opossum as a pet, they had gotten into so much trouble.

“Aw, I don’t mind none!” Stanley made the pelican say. “Look, I’m drinking water!” Then, garbled: “Twinkle twinkle little—” Stanley cut off, choking and coughing. Sixer let him. Make stupid choices, get stupid consequences.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing lookout?” he asked, instead of commenting on anything that had just happened.

“Lookout!” Stanley echoed, throwing a ball at him. It hit Sixer in the arm, and he rubbed the sore spot.

So clearly Stanley was bored.

“Ha-ha. But seriously, I’m on it.”

Sixer was spared having to respond to that assertion by the boat coming to a sudden stop.

“See? We’re here!” Stanley exclaimed brightly, picking himself up off the deck. They climbed out of the boat onto the shoreline it had rammed into. “I’m a lookout genius. Five-hundred dollars, here we come!”

Sixer lit a lantern and moved to the front of the group. Finally, they could explore the island!

He led them a short way into the trees, and almost immediately they passed a wooden sign reading “Scuttlebutt Island”, with a shorter sign nearby that simply read “Beware!”

Dan held up a hand and covered the “Scuttle” in the sign.

“Hey, check it out!” he laughed. “Butt Island!”

“Dan, you rascal!” Stanley laughed.

Sixer gave them a deadpan look. This was a serious monster hunt!

“What aren’t you laughing?” Stanley asked. “Are you scared?”

“Yeah, right,” Sixer scoffed, crossing his arms. “I’m not—”

Stanley cut him off by blowing a raspberry and poking him in the face.

“Hey!” Sixer said, dropping the lantern to fend off his annoying brother. Stanley kept poking him in various places and blowing raspberries. “Quit! Lee!”

Suddenly, an eerie call echoed through the forest. Stanley stopped bothering him in favor of hiding behind Dan’s bulk.

“Did you guys hear that?” Dan asked.

“What was that? Was that your stomach?” Stanley asked, almost hopefully.

“No, my stomach only makes noises like a rockslide.”

Curious, Stanley pressed his ear against Dan’s stomach. Sure enough, it made a sound like the low rumble of rocks sliding around and crashing into each other.

Suddenly, an opossum darted out from between the trees, snatched the lantern from where Sixer had dropped it, and darted away.

“No! Our lantern!” Sixer cried. Without its light, the fog seemed to encroach even closer around them, shrouding them in darkness. “I can’t see anything!”

“I don’t know, guys… Maybe this isn’t worth it,” Dan said.

“Not worth it?” Sixer gasped. “Guys, imagine what would happen if we got that picture!”

Sixer could picture it. Himself, the conquering adventurer. There would be fame, interviews. No longer a six-fingered freak obsessed with conspiracies, but a respected scientist who had proved that weird, supernatural things really did exist in the world!

The interviewer would ask what his secret to success was. He would say, “Well, I run away from nothing! Except for my annoying Great Uncle Mason, who I ditched to pursue that lake monster!”

And the interviewer would say, “How right you were to do so! He looks like a real piece of work. I don’t often do this, but I feel the need to give you an award!”

This time, there would be proof, unlike their ill-fated escapade with the Jersey Devil.

In Sixer’s imagination, for some reason, Stanley came bursting through the wall in the human-sized hamster ball from the other newspaper ad that morning. Maybe he had eaten too much syrup at breakfast.

“I’m not giving up!” Sixer reiterated.

“Me neither!” Stanley agreed. Grinning, they ran along the path deeper into the forest.

“Alright, man, I’m coming!” Dan decided, chasing after them.

They made their way through the forest, slowly crossing the island. Sixer kept a sharp eye out for any hints of the monster, and Stanley and Dan entertained themselves by making up a rap song that rhymed Stanley’s name with as many words as they could think up.

Dan was a surprisingly good beatboxer. Stanley was less good at picking words that rhymed, which was ridiculous because his name ended in “ey” which had plenty of rhymes. But at least he was having fun.

A loud growling rang through the forest.

“Did you hear that?” Sixer asked, excitedly. The other two stopped their musical pursuit and listened.

The growling came again, loud in the quiet forest.

“This is it! This is it!” Sixer exclaimed.

Stanley punched him excitedly, hyping him up. Sixer punched back.

“Yes, yes, yes!” they chanted.

Dan found a sharp stick on the ground, and then followed them as they crept forwards.

The lakeshore came into view. The group ducked down behind a large log. In the fog, the barest silhouette of the monster could be seen.

“Everyone, get your cameras ready!” Sixer ordered. They all turned on their disposable cameras.

“Ready?” Stanley asked. “Go!”

Dan leapt the log in one bound, the flash on his camera going off almost continuously as he charged forwards, hollered a war cry, and took photos at the same time. The twins scrambled after him.

They all drew to a sharp stop as they got close enough to see clearly through the fog.

It wasn’t a monster. It was an old boat wreck, with the main part of the boat floating upside down. The whole mess was covered in beavers, who had made various additions or subtractions here and there, so it just happened to look like a monster from a distance through the fog.

“What?” Sixer exclaimed. “But what about the monster noise? I heard a monster noise!”

The noise echoed out again, much clearer now that they were closer to its origin.

They all looked left and saw another beaver trying to chew through a rusty chainsaw that turned on periodically.

Dan narrowed his eyes. “My enemy is evolving…”

Sixer felt a deep, deep sense of disappointment.

“Maybe Fiddleford didn’t know what he was talking about, after all…” he admitted. He didn’t want to insult the teen, because he seemed really cool when he was on-shift at the Gallery, but this…

… this made Sixer seriously doubt him.

“He did use the word ‘scrabdoodle’,” Stanley agreed, sighing. Goodbye, human-sized hamster ball.

“Well, yeah, but Fiddleford’s mom is from Tennessee, he always uses words like that when he gets excited,” Dan put it. “But I was really looking forward to fighting a monster…”

Meanwhile, back on the water…

“Look, when you’re threading the line—and most people don’t know this—you’re going to want to use a barrel knot. That’s a secret, okay? From one fishing buddy to another!” Mason told the kid.

“I don’t—uh—who are you?” the kid asked.

“Just call me your Grunkle Mason!” Mason said, playfully pushing the kid’s hat down over his eyes.

“Sir! Sir! Why are you talking to our son?” the kid’s annoying mom demanded. “If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the police!”

Mason laughed nervously. “Well, you see, the thing about that is—” he cut himself off by starting the motor and sailing away at speed.

On the island, Dan was engaged in a furious staring contest with a beaver who seemed a lot less furious than Dan did.

Stanley alternated between watching that, and casting worried looks at Sixer, who had climbed out onto a rock in the water and was morosely skipping stones.

“What are we going to tell Grunkle Mason?” Sixer grumbled. “We ditched him over nothing.”

The rock he was sitting on shook, but he caught his balance.

“Woah! Guys, did you feel that?” he asked. Then, suddenly, the rock he had been sitting on was gone from underneath him. “Hey, hey, woah!”

His life vest didn’t let him sink far, so he swam back to shore and clambered up. As soon as he caught his footing, he whirled around, looking for what had happened. And there it was: the moving silhouette of the Gobblewonker, right under the line of the water! Some of its back was still exposed, even!

“Ahh! There it goes!” Stanley cried, pointing.

“This is it!” Sixer shouted, raising his camera to grab a few photos of the creature as it swam in the lake. “Come on, this is our chance!”

But when he turned to make sure Stanley and Dan were taking pictures, they were both moving backwards instead, strange expressions on their faces.

“Hey, picture time! What’s wrong with you two?” Sixer asked.

“Uh, Sixer…?”

“Man…?”

“It’s not that hard, okay? You just point and shoot,” Sixer turned back around to get his own photos, and through the viewfinder all he saw was green. He looked up, and up…

And it was the Gobblewonker, standing maybe twenty feet away, staring down at him!

It roared, a horrible, ferocious sound. Sixer dropped his camera.

The others were already running, and he hurried to catch up. The Gobblewonker had a thin face, framed by large fins, and a long muzzle full of very sharp teeth! He didn’t want to get eaten!

The monster roared again, chasing them onto land. Sixer pulled Stanley out of the way of a tree it knocked over; a few seconds later, Stanley did the same for him. Finally their whole group drew even with each other.

“Get back to the boat! Hurry!” Dan hollered.

Sixer fished another camera out of his life vest, trying to run and take a photo at the same time. He got a picture, but then tripped and dropped the camera.

“The picture!” he cried, lunging for it. Dan, already carrying Stanley piggyback, picked Sixer up by the back of his life vest, and the camera was crushed under the Gobblewonker’s rampage.

“If it makes you feel better, I got lots of beaver photos, man!” Dan said.

“Why would that make me feel better?” Sixer yelled.

Finally, they reached the boat. Their body weight tilted it back from the angle where it had become wedged onshore, and Dan started up the motor. They were able to sail away with no problem, escaping death by Gobblewonker by the skin of their teeth.

It gave them a perfect angle to photograph the monster on the island.

“Yes!” Sixer cheered. He raised his camera for a picture, but… “Cracked lens? No! Dan, get a photo!”

Dan was busy throwing his share of cameras at the monster.

“What are you doing?” Sixer screeched.

“I still have one left, don’t worry. Think fast!” Dan tossed the camera to Sixer, but he missed and the cheap plastic shattered against the wall of the boat cabin.

The Gobblewonker dove into the lake, looming over them. Dan hustled into the cabin and poured on the speed just as the monster reached its long neck down to take a bite out of their boat. Dan did something fancy with the steering wheel that spun their boat around. Now facing forwards, he could really open it up.

The extra speed didn’t seem to help much—the Gobblewonker followed right after them!

Meanwhile, Mason was trying to untangle fishing string. A few yards away (dang this lake was crowded) another old geezer laughed with his grandkids. The wind shifted, carrying their conversation in just the right way, and Mason couldn’t help but eavesdrop.

“Can you pwease tell me more funny stories, Pop-pop?” the little boy asked, in an awful simpering voice.

“Anything for my fishin’ buddies!” their “Pop-pop” agreed cheerfully.

Then, like something out of a TV-movie, the kid’s eyes seemed to get even bigger and shinier.

“Pop-pop?” he said. “I just realized… that I love you.”

Mason couldn’t take it. Was today cursed?

“Aw, come on!” he shouted. “Boo!”

Was he a horrible old man? Absolutely. But he was totally justified!

“Hey, now!” the other old man shouted back. “What’s the big idea?”

“Maybe he has no-one who loves him, Pop-pop,” the little girl suggested, looking like she might burst into tears at any minute. Was it even legal for a kid’s eyes to be that big and shiny?

“Yeah, well… I…” he failed to defend himself, lamely.

Dan’s big stupid metal fishing boat raced past, sending a wave of water up over Mason’s dinky homemade rowboat and soaking him from head to toe.

He tore off his waterlogged dumb-looking kitschy fishing hat and threw it to the ground with a huff of pure frustration. Then he sat down and sighed. Surely there was something better than this that he could be doing on this stupid lake.

“Dan! Beavers!” Stanley warned.

They were going way too fast to turn. The S.S. Cool Man hit the old, beaver-ridden shipwreck head-on, smashing the wooden structure to pieces and covering the deck of the boat with beavers.

And they were aggressive! They started biting right away. Sixer had two on him, Stanley had one latched onto his arm. Dan was smacking away beavers with the flat side of his ever present hatchet, swiftly clearing space on deck again.

Distracted by the beavers, nobody had a hand on the steering wheel. Stanley grabbed it for a few seconds before falling into beaver-combat again.

Their boat (and therefore the Gobblewonker) rushed past other people’s boats, sending water everywhere and soaking people. They passed Dan’s family, soaking them, and faintly heard Manly Wendy shout “The fish! They seek revenge!”

The Gobblewonker got closer, swiping at them with its head. It tore off the structure of the boat’s cabin, but luckily left all their steering mechanisms intact.

They crashed through a pane of glass that a pair of men had been moving from and to parts unknown.

Dan finally managed to knock the last beaver off the boat. Stanley was back at the wheel, and only panicking the correct amount.

They had navigated into a short ravine, hemmed in by cliffs and sailing straight toward a waterfall that signaled a dead end.

“Where do I go?” Stanley cried.

Sixer pulled out the Spellbook, flipping through it quickly. Something about this scenery seemed almost familiar…

This page!

“Head towards the waterfall! There should be a cave behind it!”

“Should be?” Stanley yelled back, panicking perhaps a bit more than before.

It was too late to stop, either way. They sped, screaming, through the curtain of the falls, and abruptly found themselves launched from the boat as it crashed into the edge of the little pond inside the cave.

But they all survived!

And then the Gobblewonker followed them straight through the water!

They all screamed again!

The Gobblewonker got stuck in the entrance to the cave.

It vocalized grumpily, wiggling and trying to swim, but it didn’t budge an inch.

“It’s stuck!” Stanley announced gleefully.

“Ha-ha! Yeah!” Sixer shouted, high on victory and relief. Then he realized the implications. “Wait… it’s stuck!”

Ankle, life vest, surely he had a camera left somewhere!

Stanley reached over, popped open his left vest, and deftly produced his last camera, which had been hidden in his inside jacket pocket.

“Boop!” he said.

Sixer laughed, elated, and took the camera. He got multiple shots of the monster, up close and unmistakable!

“Did you get a good one?” Stanley asked.

“They’re all good ones!” Sixer exclaimed, throwing his arms around his brother. This had been a perfect adventure, and they were totally going to win that photo contest!

…is what he thought, until a stalactite knocked loose by the Gobblewonker’s thrashing hit it on the head, eliciting a strange CLANK sound and several sparks.

The head fell slowly into the water, eyes flickering from glowing yellow to black until they fell black the final time.

“What the…” Sixer trailed off. He jumped down from the shoreline and climbed on the still fin of the large creature.

“What’s wrong?” Stanley questioned.

Sixer hesitated, then knocked on the side of the Gobblewonker’s body.

It made a metallic echoing noise. Half frustrated, half curious, he climbed up the monster’s body.

“Careful, man!” Dan shouted at him.

“I’ve got this! Hold on!” Sixer shouted. He reached the top of the Gobblewonker’s back and found a hatch, closed with a stereotypical circular handle like they have on submarines. “Guys, come check this out!”

Dan and Stanley made their way to Sixer’s side quickly.

Sixer and Stanley exchanged a glance, and Sixer moved aside so that Stanley (the stronger of the two) could open the door.

It popped open with a soft hissss releasing a cloud of warm steam. When the steam cleared…

… it was Fiddleford, sitting in front of an array of screens, levers, and pedals!

Sixer, Stanley, and Dan gasped. Fiddleford heard them and finally whirled around to face them, also gasping.

“Aw, banjo polish,” he sighed.

“What—huh—Why?” Stanley burst out, bringing his hands to his head with confusion.

“You made this?” Sixer asked, astonished at the size and maneuverability at what he now knew was a very, very large robot. “How? Why?”

“Well, I, uh… I just wanted attention,” Fiddleford admitted, hanging his head.

“Bro,” Dan deadpanned. Fiddleford winced.

“I’m still working on the sightlines. I didn’t realize it was your boat, Dan. Sorry.”

Dan just sighed for a long time. “Yeah, whatever. It’s okay, man.”

“Uh, no?” Stanley disagreed. “Dude, why?”

“Well, first I rustled up a biomechanical brainwave generator, and then I learned to drive stick shift with my feet! My hands are busy up here, see, with—”

“No, that’s how!” Sixer interjected. “Why, Fiddleford?”

Fiddleford deflated. That was really the only word for it. He drew in on himself, his shoulders dropping, his eyes only looking at the floor.

“My dad gets so busy with the shop that he don’t have time for me no more, especially now that it’s fishin’ season. Except that even before now, it feels like we ain’t actually talked for a month. So I thought I’d catch his fancy with a fifteen-ton aquatic robot!” Fiddleford forced a laugh. “I just want to spend some quality time with my family!”

Sixer and Stanley winced. That sounded familiar… from this morning. They both pulled out the fishing hats they had stashed away, with their names poorly hand-sewn onto the front. Dan saw what they were holding and laughed.

“Looks like the real lake monster is you two!” he said. The twins shot him matching unimpressed looks. “Just saying! That just popped into my head.”

“Did you ever just tell your dad how you felt?” Stanley asked Fiddleford, ignoring Dan.

“Nope, I just got straight to work on the robot! My dad wouldn’t listen anyway! I’ve never made anything this big before, so I thought it was extra impressive!” Fiddleford said proudly. Then he sagged a little. “Too bad dad didn’t see it, though. Oh, well. To work on the next bot!”

“So much for the photo contest…” Sixer moped.

“Yeah. You still have one roll of film left,” Stanley pointed out.

Sixer looked up at Stanley, around the cave they were in, to Dan, to Fiddleford, and back to Stanley.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “What do you want to do with it?”

Dan reached into the robot hatch and pulled out Fiddleford, then turned to grin at the twins.

“I can think of a few ideas,” Stanley said, a smile taking over his face.

Mason sighed to himself. The shadows were starting to stretch, and the sun had taken on that particular golden hue that meant it wasn’t sunset yet but would be soon. What a day.

Just him and this boat and the ghosts of his past.

Suddenly, Dan’s boat came roaring to a stop behind him. It was in rough shape. It was actively sinking, actually.

“Hey! Over here!” Stanley shouted. He raised a disposable camera and took a photo of Grunkle Mason, blinding him with the flash.

“What the—kids?” Grunkle Mason sputtered. “I thought you ran off to play ‘Spin the Bottle’ with Dan!”

Actually, they seemed to have picked up Fiddleford along the way. Huh? At least he was closer to the twins’ age.

“Well, we spent all day trying to track down a legendary dinosaur,” Sixer admitted.

“But then we realized, the only dinosaur we wanna hang out with is right here!” Stanley cheered, gesturing at Grunkle Mason.

Grunkle Mason scoffed. “Save your sympathy! I had a great time on my own!” (Lie) “Making friends,” (Lie) “talking to my reflection,” (Sad but true) “I even had a run-in with the lake police! Guess I gotta wear this ankle bracelet now.” He gestured at the ankle monitor that pair of idiots had stuck him with. Disturbing the peace was such a stupid thing to be illegal.

“So I guess there’s no room in that boat for four more?” Sixer asked hopefully.

Mason broke. He couldn’t say no to that face. Then the twins put on the hats he had made them, like he needed that finisher.

“... You knuckleheads ever seen me thread a hook with my eyes closed?”

“I bet five dollars you can’t do it!” Sixer said, jumping in the boat.

“I bet another five that you can’t do it with your eyes closed, and with me singing at the top of my lungs!” Stanley added, following his brother.

“You’re on!” Grunkle Mason agreed.

Dan climbed into the boat, and for the first time Mason noticed that his flannel was ripped to shreds and barely holding on.

“Woah! What happened to your shirt?”

“You don’t want to know,” Dan said, staring off into the distance like a soldier remembering a horrific battle.

So he had been fighting the wildlife again.

“Sure there’s room for me?” Fiddleford asked. Dan reached over and plucked him out of the remains of the S.S. Cool Man and set him down on the Greater Bear.

“There’s always room for you, Fidds,” Mason said, giving him a soft smile.

One of these days he would have a long talk with Tate McGucket. No point in ruining the happy atmosphere now, though.

Stanley was holding up the camera again.

“Okay, everybody get together. Say, ‘fishing’!”

“Fishing!” Sixer, Fiddleford and Grunkle Mason said in unison.

Dan stepped behind them, only his bulk showing in the viewfinder.

“Man, am I in the frame?” he asked. He wasn’t, but Stanley took the picture anyway.

It was fun. The first picture was Dan’s bulk, plus Grunkle Mason holding Sixer on one side and Fiddleford on the other. They kept taking pictures, including one of Grunkle Mason trying to thread his hook with his eyes closed (with Stanley hanging off his back and singing loudly), one of Grunkle Mason telling a joke from his horrible book to mixed reactions (Sixer and Fiddleford managed to roll their eyes in perfect sync), one of Stanley pointing proudly at Sixer managing to actually catch a fish, and several of them stealing fish from other boaters and then running from the lake police (just to see if they could).

It was a good way to end the day.

Chapter Text

Sixer and Stanley sat on the floor in front of the living room armchair, sharing a bowl of popcorn and watching TV. Idly, Stanley folded origami.

The screen displayed an image of a man crushed by a phone booth and a British constable standing next to it. A duck in a classic detective cap walked into frame.

“I’m afraid your services won’t be required here, sir,” the constable said. “My men have examined the evidence, and this is obviously an accident.”

The duck quacked dramatically. The subtitles read: Accident, constable? Or is it… Murder?!

“What?” the constable exclaimed.

A stripe of green followed by a duck print covered the screen, white letters spelling out DUCK-TECTIVE. A narrator read: “Duck-tective will return after these messages.”

“That duck is a genius,” Stanley said, clapping both hands to his cheeks dramatically.

Sixer huffed. “Eh. It’s easier to find clues when you’re that close to the ground.”

“Are you saying you could out-wit Duck-tective?”

“Stanley, I have very keen powers of observation. For instance, just by smelling your breath, I can tell that you’ve been eating…” Sixer sniffed the air a few times, then squinted at his brother. “An entire tube of toothpaste?”

“It was so minty…” Stanley sighed.

Dan appeared in the doorway, saving Sixer from having to ask why Stanley would do something like that.

“Hey, men! Guess what I found?” he asked.

“Buried treasure!” Stanley shouted, throwing his hands up enthusiastically.

“Buried—Hey, I was gonna say that!” Sixer said, playfully shoving his brother.

Dan led them down the hall, to a place where the wallpaper was peeling.

“I was cleaning up, and I found this secret door behind the wallpaper. It’s super creepy!” he announced, throwing the door open.

The room was dark and dusty, filled with wax statues!

“It’s a secret wax museum!” Sixer exclaimed, turning on his flashlight and moving into the room.

Sure enough, the room was filled with various and myriad wax figures.

“They’re so lifelike…” Stanley murmured, looking up close at one.

“Except this one,” Sixer said, his flashlight landing on worn cloth and wrinkly, weirdly-colored skin.

“Hello!” the statue said.

Everyone in the room jumped and screamed. The statue was alive!

“It’s me, your Grunkle Mason!” Grunkle Mason said, smiling.

The screaming redoubled—now they were gonna get in trouble for snooping!

Grunkle Mason rolled his eyes and waited for them to calm down, then flicked on the light switch and moved to the center of the room.

“Behold! The Gravity Falls Wax Museum,” he announced. “It was one of our more popular exhibits… before I forgot all about it.”

He started moving through the room gesturing to figures as he spoke. “We’ve got them all! Genghis Khan, Sherlock Holmes, some kind of… goblin man.”

It was Larry King, famous author, radio, and TV host.

“Is anyone else kinda getting the creeps here?” Stanley asked, scanning over the various and myriad wax figures.

“And now for my personal favorite: Wax Abraham Lincoln!” Grunkle Mason announced. He gestured at a pile of mostly-melted wax, and then seemed to realize it was mostly-melted. “Oh! Oh, no! Who left the blinds open? I’m looking at you, Wax John Wilkes Booth!” Then he sighed, kneeling to trail one finger through the wax. “How do you fix a wax figure?”

“Cheer up, Grunkle Mason!” Stanley said. “Where’s that smile?” He poked him in several places in the face.

“Ow,” Grunkle Mason deadpanned. Stanley giggled.

“Don’t worry, Grunkle Mason. I can make a new wax figure from all this old wax!” he decided.

“Do you really think you can make one of these things?” Grunkle Mason asked, half hopeful and half skeptical.

“Grunkle Mason, I am a master of arts and crafts! I bet I can figure it out!” Stanley proclaimed.

“A master, huh?” Grunkle Stan echoed, expression soft. “If you can manage it, then go for it, kiddo.” He ruffled Stanley’s hair and stood up.

A few hours later, Stanley had managed to melt the wax into one big block that he set up in the parlor room to work on. Sixer walked through with a soda, curious to see how it was going.

“Sixer! What do you think of my wax figure idea?” Stanley called. He held up his drawing pad, which had a truly hideous drawing of some kind of winged animal on it. “It’s part opossum, part seagull!”

The picture looked like a headless opossum with a seagull torso growing where the neck should be. Sixer squinted at it, then looked at his brother’s excited face.

“I don’t know… wouldn’t it be better to do something from real life?” he suggested lightly.

“Oh!” Stanley turned around his drawing pad and quickly scribbled out a new picture, then turned it to show Sixer. “Like a waffle with big, buff arms!”

Sixer frowned. “Okay… or, like, something else…” Sixer got an idea. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a statue of his own? “Or like, you know, someone in your family!”

Just then, Grunkle Mason wandered into the room, half-dressed for his job running the Gallery of Mystery.

“Kids! Have either of you seen my pants?” he asked. He planted one foot on a stray toolbox and stood in a perfectly-positioned sunbeam, scanning the room for his misplaced trousers.

Stanley looked like an angel had come down and given him a gift. He turned back to the block of wax.

“Oh, muse, you work in mysterious ways!” he cheered.

Sixer got the feeling that he wasn’t going to be the model for a statue anytime soon.

Grunkle Mason leaned over and whispered to Sixer.

“Hey, kid, why is your brother talking to the ceiling?”

Sixer just rolled his eyes.

Stanley got to work carving, carving, and carving. The hammer and the chisel became his closest friends. Once the body was done, he painted it, and the end result was glorious.

Stanley showed the finished product to Sixer and Dan first. They took it in with impressed faces.

Grunkle Mason wandered back into the room, wearing pants now, but with his eyes trained on the floor.

“Hey, I found my pants but I can’t find my—WOAH!” He looked up to look at the kids but caught sight of the wax figure, stumbling and falling down out of shock.

“What do you think?” Stanley asked eagerly.

“I think… that the wax museum is back in business!” Grunkle Mason cheered, a huge smile taking over his face.

On the day of the Grand Re-Opening, Dan directed traffic, Sixer and Fiddleford manned the admission table, and Stanley and Grunkle Mason set up the stage to show off all the wax figures, plus the new one which they kept covered with a white sheet for prime unveiling drama.

“I can’t believe how many people showed up!” Sixer said.

“Maybe your uncle slipped ‘em some green,” Fiddleford suggested, laughing.

“He bribed me,” Sixer agreed.

“He bribed me!” Fiddleford revealed. Probably more of a paycheck than a bribe, but still. It was funny.

Onstage, Grunkle Mason cleared his throat into the microphone, triggering a short burst of feedback that made everybody wince. Dan climbed up and positioned himself behind the keyboard set up there.

“You all know me, folks!” Grunkle Mason started. “Town darling, Mister Mystery! Please, ladies, control yourselves.”

The ladies continued to sit there, completely unimpressed.

“As you know, I always bring the people of this fair town good taste in art, and wonders of the natural world captured in photographs, the likes of which have never before been seen! But enough about me,” he said. “Behold… me!”

Stanley pulled the sheet off of the wax figure, revealing a slightly lumpy but overall impressive likeness of their Grunkle in his work outfit. It wasn’t anything super special, really—just an old man in a suit, with a thin red bowtie, topped off with an incongruous knitted red beanie that had “GALLERY of MYSTERY” embroidered across the front. They sold a similar beanie (but in blue) in the gift shop.

Dan pressed a button on his keyboard that made it produce a fanfare noise.

From the crowd, there were a few scattered claps, but no enthusiasm.

“And now for a word from our own Micheal-Stan-gelo!” Grunkle Mason said, passing the mic to Stanley.

“It’s just Stanley,” Stanley said. He took the mic. “Thank you everybody for coming! I made this sculpture with my own two hands! It’s covered with my blood, sweat, tears, and other fluids.”

Stanley grinned as the crowd made loud and varied noises of disgust. Sixer rolled his eyes because he knew the “other fluid” was saliva from Stanley licking his paintbrushes.

“I will now take questions!” Stanley announced. “Yeah, you there!”

He pointed out an older woman who was sitting in the back row, and had a nervous look about her eyes. When pointed at, though, she stood up.

“Old Miss Northwest, local kook,” she said, in a dignified voice that didn’t match her words or looks. “Are the wax figures alive, and will I survive the wax man uprising?”

Stanley hummed, thinking about it. “Yes!” he declared brightly. Old Miss Northwest nodded seriously and then sat back down.

“Next question!” Stanley shouted, pointing to someone in the front row.

“Matt King, Gravity Falls Gossiper,” he started, holding out his mic. “Do you really think this constitutes a wonder of the world?”

Grunkle Mason leaned forward to speak into the mic Stanley was holding.

“Your microphone is a turkey baster, Matt,” he sighed.

“It certainly is,” Matt sighed, sitting back down.

“Next question,” Grunkle Mason said, pointing at a tall, pretty lady.

“Shandra Jimenez, a real reporter,” she said, standing up. “Your flyers promised free pizza with admission to this event. Is this true?”

The crowd grumbled, the general vibe being that they had all come from the free pizza.

Grunkle Mason laughed nervously. “That was a typo. Goodnight, everyone!”

He threw down a smoke bomb, grabbed the box with the admission fees inside, and disappeared into the house.

The crowd, angry, stormed out. Several people destroyed things as they went, knocking over chairs haphazardly. Manly Wendy was so mad that she punched one of the pillars holding up the GRAND REOPENING banner and broke it almost all the way in half.

Stanley came to lean on the admissions table next to Sixer, just happy to have shown off his art.

“I think that went well,” he said.

Later, once they had gone inside and cleaned up, Grunkle Mason counted the money.

“Hot pumpkin pie!” he exclaimed. “Look at all this cash! And I owe it all to one person: this guy!”

He gestured with a flourish at Wax Mason, who was leaned up against the living room armchair. Stanley punched him lightly in the side.

“Yeah, you too,” Grunkle Mason said, a little quieter, scooping up Stanley to give him a big noogie. “You little gremlin!”

“Hey!”

Mason released Stanley, who laughed. “Alright, you kids go wash up and head to bed. We’ve got another workday tomorrow.”

Stanley rolled his eyes and headed upstairs. Sixer hesitated in the doorway. “Grunkle Mason, why did you promise free pizza you didn’t actually have?”

“It’s a trick to get people in the door that an… old friend came up with,” Grunkle Mason said. Then he sighed. “Truth is, people don’t care too much about art. That’s why most of our money comes from tourists, and even then, some months are hard.”

Grunkle Mason looked up, locking eyes with Sixer.

“Don’t worry about it too much, okay, bud? Go on, get to bed.”

Sixer left the room, heading upstairs. Mason flung an arm around his wax-self and sighed.

“Ah, kids.”

Later that night, he was up late watching reruns of Duck-Tective. It cut to commercial, and Mason stood and stretched.

“I’ve got to use the bathroom,” he said to the empty room and wax reflection of himself. “Do you need anything?”

Wax Mason just smiled.

“I love this guy!” Mason laughed. “Don’t you go anywhere!”

He left the room to handle his business.

When he returned, he shouted loud enough that the kids came running back downstairs.

“Wax Mason… he’s been… murdered!” Grunkle Mason cried.

The police arrived within the next ten minutes. There was no crime in this town.

Two cops and the Pines family stood around the body of Wax Mason in the living room. Every Pines was in their pajamas. For Grunkle Mason, that meant a pair of gray boxers and a white undershirt. For Sixer, that meant his daily shorts and t-shirt, minus the jacket he always wore, so he could “save time” getting dressed in the morning. For Stanley, it was a too-big shirt that his father had gotten for free at some Order of the Holy Mackerel meeting, and it had a plain golden symbol that vaguely resembled a fish printed on a white background.

“I got up to use the restroom, right?” Grunkle Mason explained to the cops. “And when I came back, bam! He was headless!”

“My expert sculpting… ruined! Ruined!” Stanley cried, collapsed by the conspicuously missing head of Wax Mason.

Sixer rubbed Stanley’s back comfortingly. “Who would do such a thing?” he asked.

The deputy, a tall, pale man with long blond hair, looked to the sheriff, a man with medium-brown skin and much shorter brown hair.

“What’s your opinion, Sheriff Nate?” he asked.

“Look, we’d love to help you folks, but let’s face the facts… this case is unsolvable,” the sheriff said.

“What?” every Pines in the room exclaimed.

“You take that back, Sheriff Nate!” Grunkle Mason yelled.

“You’re kidding, right?” Sixer asked. “There must be evidence, motives… I could help you, if you want!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Stanley cheered. “He’s really good! He figured out who was eating our compost!”

“All signs pointed to the pig,” Sixer nodded seriously.

“Yeah, let the kid help! He’s got a brain in his head!” Grunkle Mason agreed.

“Ooh, look what we have here! City boy thinks he’s gonna solve the case with his fancy computer phone!” Sheriff Nate laughed.

“City boy, city boooy!” Deputy Lee taunted.

They both laughed a little longer, and the Pines family glared at them. Not that they noticed.

When the cops finished laughing, they turned back to the family.

“You are adorable!” Sheriff Nate told Sixer.

“Adorable?” Sixer parroted back, affronted. The cops laughed again.

“Look, PJ’s, how about you leave the investigating to the grown-ups, okay?” Sheriff Nate cooed, condescendingly.

The police radio came to life with a crackle, letting everyone in the room know that someone at the station was going to fit a cantaloupe in their mouth.

The police left, still laughing. Jerks.

“That’s it!” Sixer exclaimed. “Stanley, you and I are going to find the jerk who did this, and get back that head! Then we’ll see who’s adorable.”

Sixer unintentionally punctuated his declaration with a little sneeze. Stanley giggled.

“Aw, you sneeze like a kitten!”

Sixer glared at Stanley.

“Okay, okay, kids. You can do all that tomorrow,” Grunkle Mason cut in. “It’s too late to look for clues or interrogate suspects tonight. Go on up to bed.”

“Okay, Grunkle Mason,” both kids agreed. They went on upstairs and slept with the promise of a mystery to solve tomorrow.

Bright and early the next day, the two brothers poured over the crime scene. They had improvised some police tape using toilet paper and markers, and Sixer had set up a corkboard with photos of everyone who had come to the Wax Museum Grand Reopening event labeled “SUSPECTS”. Stanley had snatched Grunkle Mason’s camera and was taking pictures of the murder scene from various angles.

“There were a lot of unhappy customers at the unveiling,” Sixer said, examining his suspect board. “The murderer could be any of them.”

“Yeah! Even us!” Stanley chimed in. He was much less upset about his work being destroyed now that they had an interesting murder to solve.

“In this town, anything is possible,” Sixer agreed. He pulled out the Spellbook, flipping through and reading off various monsters as he went. “Ghosts, zombies, it could be months before we find our next clue!”

“Hey, look, a clue!” Stanley said, pointing. There were footprints in the shag carpet.

“Footprints in the shag carpet!” Sixer gasped. One normal footprint, and one footprint with a hole in the shoe sole.

“That’s weird, they’ve got a hole in them,” Stanley noted.

“And they’re leading to…” The kids followed the trail to where it ended: at an ax dropped behind Grunkle Mason’s armchair!

The kids couldn’t find Dan, so they went to the next best thing: Fiddleford.

“So, Fidds, what do you think?” Sixer asked.

“Welp, this is definitely an ax!” Fiddleford said.

“Wait a minute. The lumberjack!” Stanley gasped.

“Of course!” the twins exclaimed in unison, remembering how Wendy had punched that wooden pole on her way out and broke it from how angry she was.

“She was furious when she didn’t get that free pizza,” Sixer recalled.

“Furious enough for murder,” Stanley agreed.

“Oh, y'all mean Manly Wendy?” Fiddleford said. “She hangs at that crazy intense biker bar downtown.”

“Then that’s where we’re going,” Stanley declared.

“This is cool. You guys are, like, the Mystery Twins,” Fiddleford laughed.

Sixer frowned. “Don’t call us that.”

On their way out, they passed Grunkle Mason, who was trying to haul a wooden coffin out of the back of his car.

“Hey, give me a hand with this coffin, will you? I’m going to do a memorial service for Wax Mason,” Grunkle Mason called. He managed to wrestle the coffin free of the car. “Something small, but classy, you know?”

“Sorry, Grunkle Mason, but we just got a big break in the case!” Sixer explained. “We’re heading into town to interrogate the murderer.”

“We have an ax!” Stanley said, pulling said ax out of Sixer’s backpack and showing it off, complete with sound effects. “REE, REE, REE!”

Grunkle Mason grinned at them. “That’s right, kids! If the law won’t help or respect you, then take matters into your own hands!” he said enthusiastically. “Avenge me, boys! Avenge me!”

Stanley gave Grunkle Mason a serious nod, and then they headed into town.

The kids stopped in an alleyway just outside of the bar they wanted. It was the only bar in town, a rough place called Skull Fracture.

“This is the place,” Sixer said. “Got the fake IDs?”

Stanley passed Sixer his fake ID. It was actually pretty good, except that it was all done in crayon.

“Here goes nothing,” Sixer said.

They approached the bouncer. He was a big man with tattoos that labeled various body parts. Was he afraid he would forget where his chin was?

“We’re here to interrogate Manly Wendy the lumberjack for the murder of Wax Mason,” Stanley said, bold as ever, as they held out their IDs.

The bouncer scrutinized them for a moment, then shrugged.

“Works for me,” he said, and opened the door.

Inside the bar, there were men fighting, men drinking, and men shouting. As they made their way into the room, they had to step over the legs of a man who was lying on the floor.

“He’s resting,” Stanley said, smiling forwards determinedly.

That man was definitely not resting. Sixer hoped he was merely unconscious.

“Let’s just try to blend in, okay?” Sixer said.

“You got it, Poindexter,” Stanley agreed. He hopped on a barstool and made finger guns at the person next to him. “Hey there, fellow restaurant patron!”

He would be fine.

Sixer spotted Manly Wendy playing an arm-wrestling arcade game. He went over.

“Manly Wendy, just the person I wanted to see! Where were you last night?” he asked.

“Punchin’ the clock!” Manly Wendy grunted, still straining against the mechanical arm of the machine. The score box blinked a red 9999.

“You were at work?” Sixer clarified.

“No, I was punching that clock!” Manly Wendy corrected him, pointing out the window to a clock which had its base heavily dented. It was stopped at ten o’clock.

“Ten o’clock…” Sixer read. “The time of the murder… So, I guess you’ve never seen this before?” he asked, producing the ax from his backpack.

“Listen, idiot!”

“Hey, I’m very—”

“I wouldn’t pick my teeth with that ax! It’s left-handed, and I’m not! I’m right-handed!” Manly Wendy shouted. She gave another loud shout, and ripped the mechanical arm right off the machine. Then she started beating up the machine with its own arm as another patron, a shorter asian woman who didn’t really fit in with the rest of the Skull Fracture crowd, chanted “Get ‘em, get ‘em!”

“Left handed…” Sixer mused, looking down at the ax.

At the bar, Stanley had befriended the biker he sat next to, and they were bent over a paper fortune teller, counting.

Stanley gasped. “Your wife is going to be beautiful!”

“Yes!” the biker cheered, doing a quick fist pump.

Sixer ran up to them. “Stanley, there’s been a major break in the case!”

Stanley hopped down from the bar, and the two boys ran off. The biker extended a desperate hand after Stanley.

“But will she love me?” he called.

Stanley gave no answer, but, come on. Of course she would.

“It’s a left-handed ax,” Sixer explained. He showed Stanley the list of subjects he had just mocked up. “These are all our suspects. Manly Wendy is right-handed.” He marked out the correct box on his suspect list. “We just have to find which of our suspects is left-handed, and then we’ll have our killer!”

“Oh, yeah, we are on fire today!” Stanley exclaimed. The twins shared a fistbump, and then hit the town.

Old Miss Northwest lived in a mansion outside of town, but spent most of her time in town. They found her loitering outside of the museum, and when they waved at her, she waved back with her right hand. Not it.

The guy in the “Free Pizza” shirt signed for a fake package with his right hand. Not it.

Stanley threw a baseball at the angry lady who had showed up to the unveiling. She caught it (and subsequently crushed it) with her right hand. Not it, and also the twins were scared of her now.

The next guy answered his door with both arms in casts from fingertip to shoulder. Yikes. Not it.

They went through so many suspects it was starting to feel as if the whole town was right-handed, but then they got down to their last suspect.

Sixer suddenly remembered that he had held out his turkey baster microphone with his left hand at the unveiling.

“Stanley, look! There’s only one person left on this list!”

“It all adds up!” Stanley gasped.

“You kids better be right about this, or you’ll never hear the end of it!” Sheriff Nate warned them.

It was after dark, and they were crouched outside of the Gravity Falls Gossiper building, which doubled as living quarters.

“The evidence is irrefutable!” Sixer asserted.

“It’s so irrefutable!” Stanley agreed.

“We haven’t ever done a raid before!” Deputy Lee said enthusiastically. “I’m gonna get to use my nightstick!”

“You ready? You ready, kids?” Sheriff Nate asked.

“Let’s goooooo!” Deputy Lee cheered.

“On three!” Stanley shouted. “One, two…”

They smashed through the door, bursting into the room.

“Nobody move! This is a raid!” Sheriff Nate shouted.

Matt King fell out of his chair. He propped himself up on his elbows and stared at the group.

“What is this, some kind of raid?” he exclaimed.

Lee knocked a lamp off a table with his nightstick.

“Matt King, you are under arrest for the murder of the wax body of Grunkle Mason!” Sixer announced.

“You have the right to remain impressed with our awesome detective work!” Stanley added.

“Gobbling goose feathers! I don’t understand!” Matt King cried.

“Well, allow me to explain. You were hoping that Grunkle Mason’s new attraction would be the story to save your failing newspaper. When the show was a flop, you decided to go out and make your own headline,” Sixer explained. Stanley helpfully held up the latest edition of Gravity Falls Gossiper, which had the story about Wax Mason being murdered as the front page headline, complete with a picture of the headless body.

“But you were sloppy!” Stanley interjected.

“Yeah! And all the clues pointed to a shabby-shoed reporter who got caught left-handed.”

Matt King stood up.

“Boy, your knees must be sore,” he laughed. “From jumping to conclusions! I had nothing to do with that murder!”

“Yes, I knew it! …Wait, what?” Sixer gaped.

“Nothing? You said nothing?” Stanley asked.

“Then where were you the night of the break-in?” Sheriff Nate questioned.

Matt King retrieved a security tape and played it on his TV. It was him, at the time of the break in, making out with a cardboard cutout of Shandra Jimenez.

“Ew…” everyone in the room who wasn’t Matt King said.

“Timestamp confirms it,” Sheriff Nate said. “Matt, you’re off the hook.”

“Hooray!” Matt cheered.

“But… it has to be him! Check the ax for fingerprints!” Sixer insisted.

The cops pulled some stuff out of their belts and dusted the ax for fingerprints.

“No prints at all,” Deputy Lee reported.

“No prints?”

“Hey, I’ve got a headline for you,” Sheriff Nate joked, nudging Matt with his elbow. “City kid wastes everyone’s time!”

All the adults in the room laughed. Sixer and Stanley exchanged glances. Somehow, they’d really mangled this one.

“Boy, I’d be feeling pretty embarrassed if I was you two!” Matt laughed. The security tape of him making out with a cardboard woman played behind him, making his statement pretty ironic. It didn’t make him wrong, though.

The twins went back to the Gallery.

Either very late that night or very early the next morning, depending on how you looked at it, was when Grunkle Mason decided to have the funeral for Wax Mason.

They had the funeral at this ridiculous time because Mason insisted that it had to be within the first 24 hours as a sign of respect, and also everyone had to be there. Early morning was just when they finally got the room set up.

“Kids, Dan, lifeless wax figures… Thank you all for coming,” Grunkle Mason said, standing behind a podium next to the casket with Wax Mason’s body in it.

Dan blew his nose, teary-eyed.

“Some people might say it’s wrong for a man to love a wax replica of himself,” Grunkle Mason started.

“They’re wrong!” Dan shouted, leaping to his feet.

Grunkle Mason put both hands up in a placating gesture. “Easy, Dan.”

He turned to face Wax Mason.

“Wax Mason, I hope you’re taking beautiful pictures in Wax Heaven,” he sniffled. “I’m sorry, I think I got some dust in my eye.”

Grunkle Mason ran out of the room, crying.

“Oh, man…” Dan got up and followed him, also crying.

Sixer slumped in his chair. His Grunkle was crying and he still hadn’t found the murderer.

“Those cops were right about me,” he moaned.

Stanley held the ax in his lap. He shifted to keep one hand on it and put one comforting hand on Sixer’s back.

“Sixer, we’ve come so far. We can’t give up now!” he said.

Sixer slid out of his chair, walking up to the coffin of the murder victim. “I considered everything. The weapon, the motive, the clues…”

Then he saw something he hadn’t seen before.

“Wax Mason’s shoe has a hole in it.”

“Yeah, all the wax figures have that. It’s where their pole thingies connect to the stand dealies,” Stanley said, coming up to stand next to Sixer and look at Wax Mason.

Sixer gasped. “Wait a minute, what has a hole in it’s shoe and no fingerprints? Stanley, the murderers are—”

“Standing right behind you?”

The twins whirled around, astonished to see the various wax figures come to life! The one who had just spoken was Wax Sherlock Holmes, but the others were standing up and moving on their own, too!

“Wax Sherlock Holmes!” Sixer exclaimed. “Wax Shakespeare! Wax Coolio?”

“Wassup Holmes?” Coolio nodded at Wax Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps Sherlock was the leader?

Wax Lizzie Borden walked up and took her ax back from Stanley, leaving the twins unarmed.

“Oh my gosh!” Stanley shouted. “Oh my gosh!”

“Congratulations, my two amateur sleuths,” Wax Sherlock Holmes said. “You’ve unburied the truth! And now, we’re going to bury you.”

“What?” both twins exclaimed.

“Bravo, Sixer Pines. You’ve discovered our little secret.” Wax Sherlock Holmes revealed that he had had the head of Wax Mason! “Applaud, everyone, applaud sarcastically.”

The various and myriad wax figures applauded.

“No, no, that sounds too sincere. Slow clap.”

The various and myriad wax figures applauded slower.

“There we go, nice and condescending,” Wax Sherlock Holmes praised them.

“But how is this possible? You’re made out of wax!” Sixer asked.

“Are you… magic?” Stanley asked, enraptured.

Wax Sherlock Holmes laughed. “Magic? He wants to know if we’re magic!” he joked to the other wax figures. Then he turned back to the kids, slamming his fist down on the coffin behind them and trapping the twins between it and his body. He loomed over them menacingly. “We’re cursed!” he shouted.

“Cursed!” echoed the other various and myriad wax figures.

“Cursed to come to life whenever the moon is waxing,” Wax Sherlock Holmes elaborated, turning away from the kids dramatically. “Your uncle bought us many years ago… at a garage sale.”

“A haunted garage sale, son!” Wax Coolio said.

The seller wiped his forehead nervously.

“I must warn you, these statues come at a terrible price…”

Mason reached out and looked at the price tag.

“Twenty dollars?” he exclaimed. “That’s practically highway robbery!”

“What?” the seller asked, a tad baffled.

“Any chance you’ll take ten instead?”

“Like I said, these come at a terrible price…”

Mason sighed heavily. “Fine, twenty it is,” he groaned, forking over the cash. The seller looked between Mason and the statues, then shrugged and took the money.

“And so, the Gallery of Mystery Wax Collection was born. By day, we would be the playthings of man,” Wax Sherlock Holmes continued to explain.

“But when your uncle went to sleep, we would rule the night!” Wax Coolio added.

“It was a charmed life for us cursed beings…” Wax Sherlock Holmes mused. “That is, until your uncle closed up shop. We’ve been waiting ten years to take our revenge on Mason for locking us away! But we got the wrong guy.”

“So you were trying to murder Grunkle Mason for real?” Stanley exclaimed.

“You were right, Stanley—wax people are creepy!” Sixer said.

“Enough!” Wax Sherlock Holmes barked. He turned to face the children again. “Now that you know our secret, you must… die.”

He stepped forward, his eyes rolling back in his head so that they were blank and white. The other wax figures did the same. It definitely, immediately made them ten times as creepy as before.

They advanced. The twins backed up nervously until they hit the small buffet station that Grunkle Mason had set up for the memorial service, at which point they started throwing things. Food, utensils, plates, whatever!

Sixer splashed the coffee from the pot over the front of Wax Genghis Khan, and the figure screamed as his face half-melted.

“Woah! Did you see that? We can defeat them with hot melty things!” Stanley realized. Quickly, the two boys grabbed the two electric candles left on the buffet table.

The wax figures cringed back.

“If anyone moves, we’ll melt you into candles!” Sixer threatened.

“Colorful candles!” Stanley added.

Wax Sherlock Holmes scoffed. “You really think you can defeat us?”

Sixer faltered. “I’m—I’m not really sure,” he said, making a so-so motion with his free hand.

“Worth a shot!” Stanley yelled.

“So be it…” Wax Sherlock Holmes declared. Pointing at the boys, he shouted, “Attack!”

The two sides charged at each other. It was wax carnage as the various and myriad wax figures went up against two twin boys armed with electric candles. Stanley sliced Wax Shakespeare’s arm off, and then when it moved independently to choke him, slammed it in a door. Sixer accidentally baited Wax Genghis Khan to jump into the fireplace. Stanley decapitated Wax Larry King.

“Sixer, watch out!” he shouted.

Sixer whirled around. Wax Sherlock Holmes had leveled his hostile gaze right at the small boy.

“Alright. Let’s get this taken care of,” Wax Sherlock Holmes said, voice cutting through the din of fighting. He stowed the head of Wax Mason on the point of a taxidermied rhino head that was hanging on the wall, then plucked a decorative sword off of its mount.

He swung the sword at Sixer, knocking the candle out of his hand.

Stanley thought fast. He grabbed the fireplace poker and held the tip in the fire. Rapidly, it grew to glow red.

“Sixer, catch!” Stanley shouted, throwing him the poker.

By some miracle, Sixer caught it, just in time to block Wax Sherlock Holmes swinging the sword down at his face. The two continued to duel, Wax Sherlock Holmes using his height and experience to his advantage and pressing Sixer backwards, first into the hall, then up the stairs to the attic.

Sixer’s back was to the wall. Wax Sherlock Holmes knew he had him cornered.

“Once your family is out of the way, we’ll rule the night once again!” he bragged. He brought the sword down on Sixer with a dramatic overhead swoop, but Sixer used his smaller size to his advantage and rolled between Wax Sherlock Holmes’ legs!

“Don’t count on it!” he taunted. He was standing by the decorative triangle depicting the Eye of Providence now; quickly, he unlocked it, then ducked outside onto the roof.

“Come back here, you brat!” Wax Sherlock Holmes yelled, climbing out the window after him.

Quickly, Sixer scrambled up to climb on the lower sign on the roof, the one which read “of MYSTERY” in 3D letters, though the letters in “MYSTERY” were much bigger than the letters in “of”. The high ground didn’t help for long, though. Almost as soon as Sixer scrambled up onto the sign, Wax Sherlock Holmes followed him, and they exchanged a few more blows. A downward swing of the sword knocked off the “f” in “of”, leaving the sign to read “o MYSTERY”. That was probably fixable.

“You really think you can outwit me, boy?” Wax Sherlock Holmes bellowed. “I’m Sherlock bleeding Holmes!”

Sixer took the moment of distraction to drop the poker (not hot anymore, too heavy, quickly turning into a liability) and leap up to grab the higher sign, climbing over it to the back half of the roof.

Wax Sherlock Holmes kept yelling. “Have you seen my magnifying glass? It’s enormous!”

Sixer slid down the steep roof rapidly, but managed to catch himself on one of the little protrusions that went out over the attic windows. Quickly, he took shelter behind a chimney and tried to catch his breath.

He couldn’t hear Wax Sherlock Holmes anymore. Where had he gone? Sixer ducked his head out to scan for him. He didn’t see him. As he turned to check the other side, a sudden impact met his ribs! He was knocked onto his back—Wax Sherlock Holmes had snuck up on him!

“Any last words?” Wax Sherlock Holmes asked, raising the sword.

“Um… did you remember to put on sunscreen?” Sixer asked.

“Remember to—what?”

Just then, the sun finally crested the horizon, turning the dim red sky blazing gold.

Wax Sherlock Holmes gasped as his hands began to melt. “No,” he said.

“Letting me lead you outside probably wasn’t your sharpest decision,” Sixer bragged, climbing to his feet again.

Wax Sherlock Holmes continued melting, deforming and beginning to slide down the slope of the roof.

“Outsmarted by a child in short pants!” Wax Sherlock Holmes wailed. He called various British curses towards the sky as he rapidly grew to resemble a puddle more than a person.

“Case closed!” Sixer proclaimed happily. Then he sneezed.

The half-melted head of Wax Sherlock Holmes laughed.

“Ha, you sneeze like a kitten! Those policemen were right,” he said. “You’re adorable. Adorable!”

The last word trailed off into nothingness as he slid off the roof and went splat on the ground below.

“Ew,” Sixer said. How are you even supposed to respond when the last words of the enchanted wax figure who was trying to murder you are about how adorable you are? Much simpler to comment on how the way he went splat is gross.

Back in the parlor, Stanley was disposing of the various and myriad wax body parts using the fireplace.

The decapitated head of Wax Shakespeare swore vengeance.

“Though our group be cleft in twain, man of wax shall rise again!”

“Know any limericks?” Stanley asked, picking up the head.

“Uh… There once was a duke from Kentucky,” he started.

“Nope!” Stanley decided, throwing him in the fireplace.

Just then, Sixer came into the room, having found his way down from the roof.

“Sixer! You’re okay! You solved the mystery after all!”

Sixer righted a chair and used it to climb up and free the head of Wax Mason from where it was still stuck on the wall taxidermy rhino’s horn.

“I couldn’t have done it without my sidekick!” he declared, climbing down from the chair.

“Yeah!” Stanley cheered, holding up his hand for a high-six.

“High six!” both twins cheered, slapping their hands together.

“Hot Belgian waffles!” Grunkle Mason shouted, entering the room. “What happened to my parlor?”

Almost on cue, the curtain rod over the window (now broken) fell down.

“Your wax figures turned out to be evil, so we fought them to the death,” Sixer explained.

“I decapitated Larry King,” Stanley added.

There was a pause as Grunkle Mason absorbed that.

“Ha,” he finally laughed. “You kids and your imaginations!”

“On the bright side, look what we found!” Sixer said, tossing the wax head of Grunkle Mason to the real Grunkle Mason.

“My head!” he cried in delight. “I missed this guy!”

He dropped his gaze to regard them warmly. Sixer and Stanley beamed back up at him.

“You’ve done good, kids,” Grunkle Mason said. “Now line up for celebratory hugs!”

“What? Ew!” Stanley giggled, trying to escape.

Grunkle Mason snagged him by the back of his collar.

“Nope! No escaping Hug Town!” he declared, pulling them both in close to his chest, which smelled strongly of starch and whatever detergent he used to keep his suit nice despite wearing it every day.

As he released them, the police pulled up outside the window.

“Solved the case yet, kid?” the sheriff taunted. “I’m so confident you’re going to say no that I’m gonna take a long, slow sip from my coffee.”

“Actually, the answer is yes!” Sixer said, proud of himself.

The sheriff did a spit-take, spewing coffee all over his deputy. The deputy, shocked by the hot coffee, spit his coffee on the sheriff, scalding him. This went on for a few cycles.

“It burns! It burns!” they shouted. They drove away, screaming.

The Pines family started laughing.

“They got scalded!” Grunkle Mason guffawed.

In the distance, the distinct noise of a crash rang out. None of the Pineses were too concerned.

“So, did you get rid of all the wax figures?” Sixer asked Stanley.

“I’m ninety-nine percent sure that I did!” he proclaimed.

“That’s good enough for me!” Sixer decided.

Watching from the shadowed sanctuary of a nearby vent, the escaped head of Wax Larry King laughed to himself. He had survived!

Next to him, a rat chittered.

“So, you’re a rat,” he said, driven by a deep instinct to mimic the person he was wrought in the image of. “Tell me about that.”

The rat reached forward with its little buck teeth and bit off Wax Larry King’s wax ear. It ran off with it, chittering triumphantly.

“Hey, get back here!” Wax Larry King shouted, hopping slowly after it.

Later, in the living room, Stanley debated between two patterns in his book of origami instructions.

“Hey Stanley,” he called. “What do you think is better? Bull, or llama?”

“The llama,” Wax Larry King contributed, from the vent above the fish tank. “Llamas are nature’s greatest warriors.”

He then hopped away.

“Thanks Sixer!” Stanley cheered, already pulling out a new piece of paper to fold.

Sixer looked up from where he had been reading in the armchair. Had someone called his name?

Chapter Text

“For tonight’s final piece, I present a commentary on the mystical construct known as capitalism!” Mason said, producing a brightly patterned back from within his suit jacket. “This is the Sack of Mystery! When you put your money in, it mysteriously disappears!”

“Ooh, aah,” said the gullible tourists. “That makes sense!”

They put their money in the sack. Suckers.

Inside, Dan and the Twins watched TIGER FIST.

“The tiger was badly injured in the explosion, but we repaired him—with a fist,” the TV narrator said.

They all cheered. Explosions, tigers, gratuitous violence, what’s not to love?

“Tiger Fist will return after these messages,” the narrator said, and then it cut to commercial.

“Hey, look! It’s that commercial I was telling you guys about,” Dan said.

On the screen, a pair of hands released several doves into the air, and then it cut to a picture of snow-capped mountains against a clear blue sky.

“Are you completely miserable?” a child’s voice asked.

The commercial cut to a man in bed, sobbing. “Yes!” he answered.

“Then you need to meet… Gideon,” the child said.

“Gideon?” Sixer echoed.

“What makes him so special?” Stanley asked.

“He’s a psychic,” answered the child narrator.

“Huh?” Stanley asked, tilting his head to one side.

The narrator continued on. “So don’t waste your time with other so-called men of mystery,” he said, as the commercial displayed a rather unflattering photo of Grunkle Mason leaving an outhouse. A large red stamp came down to throw the label “FRAUD” across the whole image.

The picture changed again, this time to a five-point star with an eye in the center, each section of the star a different color.

“Learn about tomorrow tonight at Gideon’s Tent of Telepathy!” the child enthused, as the screen zoomed out to show that the star rested on top of a powder-blue tent surrounded by a parking lot full of cars.

The screen changed to rapidly-scrolling text and the kid started reading disclaimers, so everyone in the room started ignoring it.

“Wow!” Stanley exclaimed. “I’m getting all curious-y inside!”

“Well, don’t get too ‘curious-y’,” Grunkle Mason said, entering the room and quickly dropping his suit coat onto the coat rack. “Ever since that monster Gideon rolled into town, I’ve had nothing but trouble.”

“Well, is he really psychic?” Stanley asked, jumping down from the armchair. “Because mom isn’t, but this town is full of weird stuff!”

“I think we should go and find out,” Sixer agreed, thinking back to the crazy things they had already discovered in Gravity Falls.

“Never! You are forbidden from patronizing the competition,” Grunkle Mason said, removing his bowtie and stuffing it in the pocket of his suit jacket. “This is the law of tourist traps. No one that lives under my roof is allowed under that Gideon’s roof!” He then shook his fist in the air to punctuate his declaration and emphasize his hate for Gideon.

“Do tents have roofs?” Sixer asked, half-rhetorically.

“I think we just found our loophole…” Stanley giggled.

The child narrator from the TV piped up again then.

“So come down soon, folks!” he called. “Gideon is expecting you…”

So obviously they went to the Tent of Telepathy that night.

On the way in, a kid whose voice matched the narrator of the commercial held out a blue sack branded with their colorful star logo.

“Step right up, folks!” he called. “Put your money in Gideon’s Psychic Sack.”

Finding their seats, they managed to snag three on the aisle, sitting down with Dan farthest from the aisle, then Stanley, then Sixer. All three looked around the room with curious eyes.

“Woah, this is like a bizarro version of the Gallery of Mystery,” Stanley said. “They even have their own Dan.”

Next to the stage, a man swept the floor. He was buff and had red curly hair. His name tag read “Deuce”. Dan glared at him.

The lights dimmed.

“It’s starting, it’s starting!” Sixer cheered.

Stanley crossed his arms skeptically. Their mom was a fake psychic, and this guy probably would be too. Grunkle Mason had called this man a monster. Gravity Falls was super weird—maybe this guy was a real psychic, but he was evil!

“Let’s see what this monster looks like,” Stanley muttered.

A great, looming silhouette appeared on the curtains. Then the curtains opened, revealing a short, fat, man, with white hair teased up into a pompadour bigger than his head. He wore a powder blue suit, a bolo tie with a green gem, and an american flag pin on his lapel.

“Hello, America!” he said, in a southern accent. “My name is Big Gideon!”

He clapped twice, and doves came flying out of his hair, disappearing into the rafters of the stage.

“That’s Mason’s mortal enemy?” Sixer exclaimed.

“But he’s so harmless-looking!” Stanley agreed. “Though, his hair doesn’t match his wrinkles at all. He must have aged really well!”

“Ladies and gentleman, it is such a gift to have you here tonight!” Gideon proclaimed. “Such a gift. I have a vision! I predict soon, you will all say ‘aww’!”

The boy who had been collecting money at the entrance stepped onto the stage.

“Now, I’d like to introduce y’all to my son, Li’l Bud!” Gideon announced, making a sweeping gesture towards the boy. The kid struck a cute pose.

“Aww!” the crowd cooed.

“It came true,” Sixer said, eyes going big.

“What? That was a total set-up,” Stanley complained.

“He’s going to be our pianist for tonight. Hit it, Li’l Bud!” Gideon said.

Li’l Bud sat down at the onstage piano and started playing an upbeat tune.

“Oh, I can see what others can’t see!” Big Gideon sang, doing a matching dance. “It ain’t some sideshow trick, it’s innate ability! Where others are blind, I am futurely inclined. And you too could see, if you was Big ol’ me!”

The crowd was starting to clap along with the beat. Gideon gestured towards them with one hand, adjusting his tie with the other.

“Come on everybody, rise up! I want y’all to keep it going!”

Suddenly, everyone in the room was standing, whether they had meant to or not.

“Hey, how did he—?” Stanley exclaimed.

“Keep it going!” Gideon shouted. Then he transitioned back to singing, this time making the lyrics about people in the crowd.

“You wish your son would call you more,” he sang, pointing at an old woman.

“I’m leaving everything to my cats!” she declared in a huff.

“I sense that you’ve been here before,” he sang, pointing at Sheriff Nate, who was covered in Big Gideon merch.

“Oh, what gave it away?” Sheriff Nate wondered.

“Pfft, come on,” Stanley laughed.

“I’ll read your thoughts if they are cle-ar!” Gideon sang, pointing at their group. “Something tells me you’re named Sixer!”

Sixer’s mouth dropped open. “How’d he do that?”

Okay, he must have heard us talking before the show, or something, Stanley reasoned. He couldn’t remember if they had actually said Sixer’s name, but they must have. That was way too specific, and Sixer wasn’t wearing anything that made his nickname obvious. He even had his hands in his jacket pockets, the way he usually hid them in public.

Gideon danced back up to the stage.

“So welcome all ye, to the Tent of Telepathy!” he sang. “And thanks for visiting… Big ol’ me!”

The music wound to a close, and Gideon panted for breath, hastily gulping down water from a bottle stashed onstage.

“Thank you!” he shouted. “You people are the real miracles!”

Leaving the tent, they all chattered excitedly about the show.

“Man, that guy is an even bigger fraud than Grunkle Mason!” Stanley exclaimed, squinting against the sunlight as they left the tent.

“Oh, come on, Stanley! He managed to guess my name!” Sixer retorted. “Plus, his dance was really good!”

“He must have heard it before the show! That’s how all the boardwalk fortune-tellers do it,” Stanley insisted. “Mom has that whole gossip chain back home that she’s plugged into!”

Sixer frowned skeptically. “Well… maybe. But this is Gravity Falls.”

Then, Stanley had an idea. “With all these people in town who already believe in psychics, I bet I could make some fast cash doing fortunes on main street! You in, Sixer?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, little man?” Dan asked, frowning.

“Well, why not?” Stanley asked. Dan frowned more, but didn’t give him a reason.

“I think I would rather spend more time studying the Spellbook,” Sixer said. “But I hope you have fun, Stanley!”

“Ha! You know I will!”

The guy at Skull Fracture last week had been captivated by his simple paper fortune teller, and people in this town were totally taken in by Big Gideon’s cold-reads, so Stanley set up a booth on a corner on main street with a sign that read “GET YOUR FORTUNE TOLD, $5”, and quickly had a line forming.

Stanley knew how to “read palms”, but he also had his trusty paper fortune teller, so he offered his customers a choice, because people love simple choices. If you could do something two ways, then suckers were more likely to believe you! Not that Stanley actually offered to do it both ways for anyone. It was more about the implication that he could do it both ways. Mom and dad both ran separate businesses, but they both agreed that confidence is key when trying to sell something.

Stanley set up around noon and had a steady line until four.

That was when Big Gideon showed up.

“Well, boy, I admit I don’t like competition, but you’re making quite the pretty penny here!” he exclaimed, gesturing at Stanley’s little set up. “I just had to come see what the fuss was about.”

“Well, it’s five dollars for your future told! I can use a paper fortune teller or I can read your palm, client’s choice!” Stanley told him, refusing to be intimidated.

“Well, I think I’d like my palm read,” Gideon decided, handing over a fiver.

“Perfect!” Stanley agreed. He took Gideon’s palm when the man held it out, studying it intently, but also making sure to be sneaky and take note of Big Gideon’s face and posture, just like his mom taught him back in Jersey.

Gideon stared back placidly, a small smile dancing at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re not nearly old enough to have white hair,” Stanley blurted out.

Luckily, that made Gideon laugh.

“Why, you’re right!” he revealed. “I must admit that it’s just a little oddity I was born with.”

Stanley nodded, then got down to business.

“Let’s see… your heart line says that you’re selfish when it comes to love. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it might just mean that you keep the people you love close. Your head line says that you’re creative and focused. Your life line, here, says that you have plenty of energy… and it looks like you’re going to have a sudden change in lifestyle sometime in the future. Now, this last line is the fate line, or the line of destiny. It says… you’re a self-made man. Oh, but see here? It joins with your life line right around where it’s indicated you’ll have a change in lifestyle. That means that you’ll have to surrender your interests to those of others for some time around when your lifestyle changes.”

“Interesting,” Big Gideon said, smiling down at Stanley and clearly not taking him seriously.

“Thank you for your business!” Stanley said, smiling back, because good customer service made for repeat customers, according to his parents.

“Stanley, I have an offer for you,” Gideon said. “If you meet me tomorrow at the Tent of Telepathy, say around ten in the morning, then I’d be willing to teach you more about this business of reading minds and telling fortunes.”

“Really?” Stanley exclaimed. Gideon may be a huge con, but he’s also a pro at being a huge con! If I learn from him, I could make tons of money! Stanley thought.

“Ha, yes, really. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Gideon promised, leaving with a wink.

Stanley was beside himself. He read fortunes for his last few customers and then went home with a spring in his step.

“Sixer! What’s up in here?” he asked, barging into the living room.

“Stanley!” Sixer greeted him. “How did telling fortunes go?”

“You’ll never guess what happened!”

“Uh, the fairies came back for revenge?”

“No! Gideon came as a customer, and he thought I did a good job, and offered to teach me more fortune-telling tricks! I’m gonna meet him tomorrow!”

Sixer didn’t seem as happy as Stanley was to hear the news.

“Grunkle Mason made it pretty clear we’re supposed to stay away from that guy, Stanley. We already pushed it by going to his show yesterday,” Sixer said, frowning.

“Ugh, Sixer! Don’t you get it? This is finally something I’m good at that isn’t just punching! If I get good enough at this, then maybe I could even help Ma when we go home!”

“I’m just saying!” Sixer rolled his eyes. “You were the one who said he was a fraud.”

“Yeah, but he makes money.”

“Okay! Just… be careful?” Sixer asked, nervously.

Stanley climbed up into the seat next to him, giving him a noogie along the way.

“I always am! You’re the one who needs to be careful, you big nerd,” Stanley said.

“Hey!” Sixer protested, laughing.

“So what did you do all day?” Stanley asked. He had the Spellbook open in his lap, so it was an easy guess.

Sixer lit up. “I’ve been trying to figure out how many people were involved with making the Spellbooks!”

“Tell me what you’ve got!” Stanley encouraged him.

The twins went up to the attic so that Sixer could explain his theories better. He wrote out a bunch of notes and pinned them up to a corkboard above his bed.

“So!” Sixer started. “The Spellbook is labeled with the number three, which I think means it’s the third one. For some reason, maybe included in one of the earlier Spellbooks, the authors only refer to each other using codenames!”

“Codenames?” Stanley asked. That was cool!

“Well, kinda? They use symbols sometimes, and initials sometimes, and there’s at least one codename that I’ve identified.”

“Show me!”

“Okay, okay!” Sixer laughed. He picked up the spellbook and flipped to a page near the front labeled “Scampfires” at the top. The page switched ink colors almost every other paragraph.

Sixer pointed at the drawing of a Scampfire on the page. “Look, this is what I’m talking about! See how the ink changes colors? At the end of each entry, both authors sign it. And every picture is done in pink ink, not blue! The drawings are signed, too, with the same star symbol that the author who uses pink ink uses to sign their entries.”

Stanley leaned in to take a closer look. Sure enough, the picture was signed in the corner with a little doodle of a simple five point star with a tail split into three sections.

“So this author is the shooting star?”

“She’s usually more of an artist than an author, at least for these earlier entries,” Sixer answered.

“It’s a girl?”

“Yeah! The other author uses she and her to talk about her, anyway.”

“Okay, so what about the blue ink guy?”

Sixer lit up. “He actually confused me for a while!”

“What, why?”

“Because Star gives him a codename that totally doesn’t match his symbol! Look, he signs all his entries with a little pine tree. But look here!” Sixer pointed at a specific line on the page. “Star calls him Dipper!”

“So, Star and Dipper? Does Dipper call Star anything different?” Stanley asked.

“No, whenever Dipper writes about her, he just draws her symbol in place of her name. But, look!” Sixer closed the Spellbook and gestured dramatically at the cover.

Stanley gasped. “Oh! The cover is both of their symbols!”

“Yes!”

Stanley tilted his head. “It’s missing the trail on Star’s symbol, though.”

“Well, Star is the artist. Maybe she thought the trail would look bad on the cover. As it is, it’s symmetrical.”

“So two people made this thing?”

“Maybe three!” Sixer said. He opened the Spellbook again and flipped to a page a little further in than the one on Scampfires. This one was labeled “Art Partner”. Sixer pointed excitedly. “Look, here, they talk about the arrival of a third person! As far as I can tell, she never wrote in the Spellbook, and they just use her initial ‘P’ to refer to her. But, still! A third person!”

“Woah! So who do you think they were?”

Sixer faltered, smile falling. “I don’t know. I mean, we found this book buried in the woods. And, near the middle, here…”

Sixer opened the Spellbook to a two-page spread that had been scribbled over violently. In bold red ink, it read “MY MUSE WAS A MONSTER”.

“Yikes,” Stanley said, leaning away from it. “What the heck?”

“The two authors were building something, some kind of machine,” Sixer explained. “But there was some kind of accident when they tested it.” He flipped back two pages to a page filled with pink ink. “Something happened with P, I think. And after that, Dipper doesn’t write in the Spellbook at all.”

“Did something happen to him?” Stanley asked.

“I don’t think so. Star still talks about him, but I think she had been keeping a secret or something that Dipper didn’t know, and he never got the book back. The last page that Star wrote says she thinks it’s time to bury the book,” Sixer said. “But they went on such crazy adventures! They discovered so much about Gravity Falls! If Star and Dipper are out there somewhere, wouldn’t we know? You’d think people would talk about them!”

“Well, maybe Grunkle Mason knows! Have you asked him?”

“Ugh, Grunkle Mason thinks all this supernatural stuff is made up. If I ask him, he’ll probably just think I’m talking about a TV show or something.”

“Dang,” Stanley said.

“If I find out anything else about them, will you come with me to investigate?” Sixer asked.

“Hey, of course I will!” Stanley promised, punching Sixer’s shoulder lightly. “You know I love adventure!”

Sixer laughed. “Thanks, Stanley.”

The next morning at ten AM, Stanley met Gideon outside the Tent of Telepathy.

“Perfect, you’re right on time!” Gideon said.

“So what are we doing today?” Stanley asked eagerly.

“Well, I wanted to take you somewhere very special today, Stanley,” Gideon answered. He placed one hand on Stanley’s shoulder as they walked to Gideon’s truck.

“Somewhere special?” Stanley asked, as they climbed into the truck.

“Buckle up! You’ll see when we get there.”

It was a short drive, just outside of town and then down a winding dirt road that ran along one of Gravity Falls’ many cliffs. The road ended at a large building that sat in a bend of the cliff, so that it would be impossible to approach from the back without some serious climbing equipment.

“What is this place?” Stanley asked.

“This is my family’s factory, where we produce the merchandise for my shows! Also various car parts. My wife runs the car lot in town,” Gideon explained. “But that’s not what I really want to show you.”

“Woah! Then what do you really want to show me?”

Gideon led him inside, and then up a few flights of stairs until they emerged on the roof of the factory.

“Uh… I don’t do so good with heights…” Stanley warned.

“That’s fine, we’re gonna be sitting down and I’ll be here the whole time, okay?”

“Okay,” Stanley agreed. Slowly, he edged out onto the roof. Gideon followed, then sat down, patting the space next to him. Stanley sat down hurriedly. He did feel safer now that he wasn’t on his feet.

“This is what I wanted to show you, Stanley,” Big Gideon said, gesturing broadly.

“The roof of a factory?”

Gideon laughed. “No, Stanley. Look down.”

From where they were sitting, they could see the whole valley of Gravity Falls laid out beneath their feet, except for some of the more far-flung destinations, like the Gallery of Mystery, or that mansion on the other side of town.

“Woah!” Stanley exclaimed. “You can see everything from here!”

“Even better with these,” Gideon said, producing a pair of binoculars and holding them out to Stanley.

“Binoculars!”

“Take them,” Big Gideon said, shaking them a little. Stanley grabbed them eagerly.

“I can really use these?” Stanley asked, excited. He’d never used real binoculars before!

Big Gideon laughed. “Yes, Stanley. Heck, you can even keep that pair! I prefer to use my opera glasses,” he said, pulling out what looked like a set of miniature, fancy binoculars on a stick.

“Cool!” Stanley lifted the binoculars to his eyes and peered through them at the town, which looked so much closer. “This view is nuts!”

Gideon sighed contentedly and leaned back on his hands. “Stanley, when I’m up here looking down on all those li’l ol’ people, I feel like I’m king of all I survey. What do you suppose that makes you?”

“Uh, the jester, maybe?”

Gideon smiled at him. “You’re a sweet boy, Stanley. I think you have a great talent. I brought you up here to teach you my best trick.”

“Your best trick?”

“Reading palms and predicting fortunes like you did yesterday is all well and good, but once people think they know the future, they’re not too likely to come back. To get repeat customers, you gotta have a gimmick like mine. I tell folks I read their minds, and they believe me! They enjoy the novelty of it. But it’s no use telling folks you read minds if you can’t back up your claims with accuracy,” Gideon explained.

“But… but nobody can read minds for real,” Stanley pointed out.

Gideon just smiled. “This is the first step, Stanley. From here, I can watch as all those li’l ol’ people down there go about their day. I write down what I see, and I keep track of people’s patterns. If I notice someone break pattern, then that’s something I can use when they come in to see me.”

“Isn’t that, like, spying?” Stanley asked.

Gideon’s smile suddenly seemed cold, and sharp.

“That’s business,” he said. “Do you have a problem with it?”

“Nope!” Stanley cheerfully reported. “I knew all this was fake anyway, and spying is cool! People do it in the movies all the time!”

Gideon laughed, looking a little startled. “Why, you’re more forgiving of it than my Li’l Bud! Go ahead, then, watch for a while and tell me what you notice.”

They spent about an hour watching people from the factory roof, writing things down in Big Gideon’s pocketbook. Afterwards, Gideon drove him back to the Gallery of Mystery.

“I think I have a few more tricks to teach you,” Gideon said, pulling to a stop in the Gallery’s parking lot.

“Yeah?” Stanley asked, already excited at the thought.

“Absolutely! What say I pick you up around the same time tomorrow, and show you another trick?”

“That sounds great!” Stanley agreed. Gideon chuckled and ruffled his hair.

“Stanley, if I’m king, then you’re not the jester.”

“I’m not?”

“No,” Gideon said, a warm smile on his face. “I reckon you might be the heir.”

“The air?”

“Heir, h-e-i-r. The word means successor, or prince,” Gideon explained. “I’m getting older, Stanley, and you might be the perfect little psychic-in-the-making to replace me. Now, run along, and I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Stanley got out of the truck, and waved goodbye until he couldn’t see Gideon through the trees anymore. Then he rushed inside. He had to tell Sixer!

“Sixer! Sixer!” Stanley yelled, thundering into their attic room.

“What, what?” Sixer asked, looking up from the Spellbook.

“Big Gideon took me up to his family’s factory and showed me his best fortune-telling trick and he said he maybe wants me to be, like, his successor or something!”

“What?” Sixer exclaimed.

“Isn’t it great?” Stanley asked, beaming.

“I mean, yeah, but how are you going to be the successor for a business in Oregon after we go back to New Jersey? And, I mean, you were the one who said you didn’t trust this guy. You’ve only known him for like, three days!” Sixer said. He looked at Stanley’s fallen expression and sighed. “Just… be careful, okay, Stanley?”

“Pfft, of course I’ll be careful!” Stanley said, waving a dismissive hand through the air and summoning up a smile again. “I’m just gonna milk this guy for all the knowledge I can get! I don’t actually want to stay here and take over his business one day or whatever.”

Even if, maybe, he did. Sixer made some good points, though, and plan one had always been to maybe help Ma back in Jersey, anyway, so he would just go back to that plan.

He would just have to let Gideon know.

Big Gideon showed up the next day a few hours before dinnertime. They spent some time on main street, and Gideon bought Stanley a suit, which made him feel very fancy.

Around dinnertime, Gideon took him up to a fancy restaurant called The Club. They were swiftly seated, and Stanley took the room in with wide eyes.

“This is why you bought me a suit, huh?” Stanley asked.

“This and other reasons. A good suit makes you look professional, which makes people trust you,” Gideon answered.

“Good to know!” Stanley said.

“Stanley, this is my second-best trick,” Gideon started, voice low. “We might be able to watch the good folks of Gravity Falls go about their daily business from the comfort of my factory roof, but restaurants are where you go for details. People go out to eat with their friends and family, and they talk about all kinds of things! You just have to train your ears to listen.”

“Cool!”

Gideon smiled at him. “The restaurant ain’t very busy yet, but business will pick up as the night goes on. This place is good for getting details about the upper crust of Gravity Falls. Folks like me, or the Northwests, or city officials. A place like Greasy’s Diner will be better for getting to know what everybody else is up to.”

Stanley nodded seriously, committing that to memory. Then he smiled brightly up at Gideon.

“Well, thanks for bringing me to the fancy place then!” he said. “You didn’t have to.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Gideon waved him off. “A bright boy like you should get to practice in the best environment. I can’t have anyone saying that my heir doesn’t get the best training, after all!”

Through the course of the dinner, Gideon taught him how to watch people without looking like he was watching, and they made a game of eavesdropping on different tables and then telling the other what they heard.

Slowly, the restaurant got busier, and then slowly it got emptier again. Stanley felt like he had learned more than he ever expected to know about the inner lives of Gravity Falls’ rich and famous. Too much, maybe. He could swear that his brain was leaking out of his ears.

He still needed to tell Gideon that he probably couldn’t be his heir.

“Uh, Gideon? I have something I need to tell you,” Stanley admitted.

“Oh? What is it, Stanley?”

“Me and my brother aren’t staying in Gravity Falls forever,” Stanley explained. “We have to go home at the end of the summer. I really appreciate all you’ve taught me, but… I don’t think I can be your heir.”

He looked down, kicking his feet under the table. He couldn’t bear to see the disappointment on Big Gideon’s face, after the man had been so kind to him.

“Oh, Stanley… Don’t worry about that, li’l pal!” Gideon said.

“Huh?” Stanley looked up, meeting Gideon’s eyes. Gideon was smiling softly at him.

“You’re still a kid, Stanley Pines! I’m going to be running the Tent of Telepathy for a while yet. You’re, what, twelve? That means there’s six years before you turn eighteen and can move here full-time. You can always just come work with me in the summers!”

Stanley gasped. “Really? Thank you!”

“Oh, it’s no trouble,” Gideon demurred. “Now, I’m busy tomorrow, but this Thursday there’s a ballroom dance. Big parties like that are always full of useful information. Will you be able to come?”

“Sure! Grunkle Mason doesn’t really care what we do as long as we don’t turn up injured. But, uh, I’ll probably have to borrow a suit again,” Stanley agreed.

“Oh, you just keep that one, li’l pal,” Gideon said. “I should be getting you home now, but I’m already looking forward to Thursday!”

Stanley grinned. “I’m looking forward to it too!”

When Gideon Gleeful got home, he found Mason Pines waiting on his doorstep.

“Why, Mason Pines, I wasn’t expecting you!”

“Gleeful,” Mason sneered, flatly. “This town truly has no news. I saw in the paper that you’ve been showing my nephew around town.”

“Well, someone had to, and Heaven knows a bright boy like that shouldn’t spend all his time fraternizing with the local criminal element,” Gideon said smoothly, lifting one smug eyebrow at Mason.

Mason reached up and tugged his beanie slightly lower on his forehead—a nervous tic.

“I don’t know what your problem is with me, but don’t drag my boys into it, Gideon,” he growled.

“My problem with you is plain and simple: you’re competition, old man,” Gideon replied. “It’s a vicious, horrible, dog-eat-dog world out there, Mason Pines. But then, I’m sure a man who’s been arrested as many times as you have already knows that.”

“My criminal record is none of your business,” Mason snapped.

“Don’t worry,” Gideon said, rolling his eyes. “Stanley’s just helping me out a little. He shows a lot of promise, you know!”

“Stay away from him.”

Gideon’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped up so he was almost toe-to-toe with Mason.

“Stanley can make his own choices,” he said, voice low. Then before Mason could respond, he slipped past him and into the house.

The ballroom was brightly lit, and filled with people wearing various levels of bling on their clothes.

“Wow!” Stanley exclaimed, looking around with wide eyes.

“You like this?” Gideon asked.

Stanley nodded. “Is that a buffet?” he asked, pointing.

“Sure is, li’l pal! Go ahead and grab something. I’m going to start talking to people.”

“Okay, have fun!” Stanley agreed, already running off.

An hour later, Gideon had drunk two glasses of champagne and Stanley had discovered what “fondue” was. Gideon pulled him into the bathroom to clean the cheese off his suit before it got the chance to permanently stain.

“Stanley, we make a good team, don’t we?” Gideon asked, scrubbing at the cheese on Stanley’s shoulder with a wet paper towel.

“I think we do!” Stanley agreed.

“Well, in the interest of remaining a good team, I want you to help me with something special. Can you do that, li’l pal?”

Stanley perked up at the words something special. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it!” he promised.

“Wonderful,” Gideon said. “Then, I need you to steal the deed to the Gallery of Mystery for me.”

Stanley’s smile fell.

“Wait, what?”

“This is business, Stanley. Your great uncle Mason Pines has stood in my way for too long, now. You and your brother would be welcome to stay on the property, of course, but I need that building in my hands.”

“What? Why?” Stanley asked, shocked. “The Gallery kind of sucks, you know. It’s a run-down house displaying weird art! Why do you need the deed?”

“It’s absolutely prime real estate, Stanley. I don’t expect a child like you to understand how valuable that is,” Gideon sniffed. “Now, you said you would help me. Can you get the deed?”

“I’m not going to help you, what, steal my Grunkle Mason’s house? No!”

Big Gideon stood up and threw away the cheese-stained paper towel, turning his back to Stanley in the process. He sighed, heavily. Regretfully. Stanley shrunk away, taking a single small step backwards.

“That’s too bad,” Gideon finally said. “Guess we have to do this the hard way, after all.”

He reached up with one hand and grasped the green gem on his bolo tie.

The phone rang. It was after-hours, so Sixer answered it instead of Grunkle Mason.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Hello there,” Big Gideon replied. “You must be Sixer. Can I speak to Mason, please?”

“Uh,” Sixer said. He put one hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and looked over his shoulder towards the living room, where Grunkle Mason was watching TV. He remembered how angry Mason had been when he had seen Stanley and Gideon in the newspaper together. He uncovered the phone’s mouthpiece. “Sorry, he’s busy, actually.”

“Well, can you tell him that I want to speak with him?” Gideon requested. “I have something he’ll want to see. He can meet me at 412 Gopher Road.”

“What’s at 412 Gopher Road?”

“Something I know he finds very valuable,” Gideon said. Then he hung up.

Hang on, wasn’t Stanley supposed to be with Gideon tonight? He said there was some kind of dance… but Sixer knew Stanley hadn’t come home yet.

Gideon had something Mason found valuable, and he wanted to talk tonight? Sixer had seen enough movies to recognize a threat when he heard one!

He looked over his shoulder towards the living room again, weighing his options. Mason was already pretty mad that Stanley kept meeting with Gideon, even though he seemed more mad at Gideon than at Stanley, and hadn’t tried to punish or stop Stanley yet. But if Stanley was in trouble… Back home, Pa always told them that if they got into trouble, they were responsible for getting themselves out.

They had already defeated gnomes, robotic lake monsters, and evil living wax figures.

Sixer could take on a fake psychic.

He nodded, determined, and ran to get his bike.

Stanley woke up in Gideon’s warehouse, with his hands tied behind his back. His headache slammed into place along the back of his skull, and he groaned, curling up a little tighter where he laid on the floor.

“Oh, li’l pal! You’re awake!” Gideon noticed, gleefully.

“I am not your li’l pal,” Stanley grumbled. “Did you knock me out? Just because I won’t help you steal my grunkle’s property?”

“Well, I’ve only been after it for years! That old Mason Pines is a lot more slippery than he lets on. And then you came along. Perfect leverage!”

Stanley felt unwanted tears rise in his eyes. “So everything you said, it was all just so you could use me against Grunkle Mason?” he asked, his voice breaking a little in the middle. “What is wrong with you?”

“Oh, no, Stanley! Stanley, Stanley, Stanley. Originally I planned to do this with your brother! He was just so easy to dazzle during my show, I thought he would make an easy target. But then, you popped up on Main Street offering fortunes! So similar to how I started out, why, for a moment I thought I saw myself sitting behind the table in your place!” he admitted. “I really did see you as an ideal heir to the Tent of Telepathy. Bud just inherited so many li’l moral hang-ups from his mother. It’s really too bad that you’ve turned against me, now.”

“You just admitted to planning to kidnap my brother!”

“Yes, well, good leverage is so hard to find over a man with no shame, like your horrible grunkle!” Gideon complained. “Honestly, he’s impossible to blackmail.”

Stanley wriggled a little before he managed to sit up. The rope around his wrists was rough and uncomfortable.

“This sure is a lot of trouble over one tourist-trap art gallery,” he grumbled. He started looking around the room, trying to see if any of the boxes of merchandise laying around might have something useful in them.

The large doors at the other end of the warehouse were flung open. Sixer stood there, silhouetted by moonlight.

“Where’s my brother, Gideon?” he demanded.

“Sixer!” Stanley cheered.

“What?” Gideon exclaimed. “I told you to get your grunkle!”

“I’m not going to let you hurt my brother, Big Gideon,” Sixer declared. He looked past Gideon to Stanley. “Are you okay?” he asked, in a softer tone of voice.

“I’m okay! He’s just got my hands tied,” Stanley reported.

Sixer nodded, fierce.

“This is ridiculous!” Gideon shouted. He grabbed his bolo tie in one hand. “I have not gone through all this trouble just to be stopped by a pair of idiot twelve-year-olds!”

“He wants to steal the Gallery of Mystery!” Stanley yelled at Sixer. He struggled to stand up without using his hands.

“What? Why?” Sixer wondered.

“Okay,” Gideon said, in a cold voice. “Here is what’s going to happen.”

“I’m going to take my brother and go home,” Sixer said.

“No,” Gideon countered. He twisted his tie a little, and a pair of shears rose up from one of the myriad boxes, a faint green aura rippling around it. “You, Sixer Pines, are going to go back to the Gallery of Mystery and find the deed to the property. Then you’re going to bring it to me. If you do that, then I won’t hurt your brother, okay?”

The shears floated menacingly closer towards Stanley, blades open, warehouse lights glinting off the sharp edges.

Another twist to the gem, and Stanley himself rose into the air, despite struggling and kicking his feet. When he came to a stop, he was ten feet off the ground, and the shears were floating a mere six inches away from his chest.

“Stanley!” Sixer shouted.

“Go on, then,” Gideon ordered.

Sixer visibly panicked, biting his lip and clenching his hands into fists, which he shoved into his jacket pockets.

“What if I can’t find the deed?” he blurted out.

Gideon sighed. “Mason keeps it in a safe, in his office.”

“How am I supposed to get into a safe?”

Gideon considered this, tilting his head slightly.

“Well, I hate to do any damage to the place, but needs must, I suppose,” he decided. He turned towards a crate pushed against the wall of the warehouse, popping it open with the power of his amulet. “If you can’t weasel the code out of your grunkle, then use this,” he said, grabbing something out of the crate and turning to present it to Sixer.

It was a stick of dynamite.

Sixer was visibly apprehensive, but he crept forward towards Gideon, anyway. He stopped just before he was close enough to grab the dynamite.

“First, can you pull the shears away from Stanley?” he requested. “I’ll do it, I just… don’t want to risk anything.”

Gideon smiled, his cold eyes clearing a small space for pity. “Sure, kiddo,” he said. “I’m a man of my word, I don’t want to hurt your brother, either.”

The shears floated away from Stanley, still pointed at him, but now about five feet away instead of six inches. Stanley heaved a sigh of relief.

Sixer reached nervously for the dynamite, and Gideon pushed it towards him encouragingly.

As soon as Sixer’s hand wrapped around the stick, he sprung forward, grabbing the amulet with his other hand and then bolting away from Gideon.

“Hey!” Gideon roared.

Stanley and the shears dropped out of the air, but Sixer flung a hand out, dropping the dynamite, and managed to channel the power of the amulet enough to catch Stanley a scant foot from the ground.

“That was amazing, Sixer!” Stanley cheered.

“Give me back my amulet!” Gideon shouted.

“Oh, not so powerful without it, huh?” Stanley taunted.

Gideon snarled and charged at Sixer, who dropped the amulet just as Gideon pushed them both through the window.

Stanley froze. That was a drop off a cliff!

Quickly, he grabbed the amulet from the floor, trying to channel its power the way Sixer had just done. Leaning out the window, he managed to catch Sixer and Gideon just before they hit the ground.

Swallowing down his fear of heights (oh crap it was so far down), he used the amulet to lower himself slowly out of the window and to the forest floor.

“It’s over, Gideon,” he said. “I’m not going to be your heir, and I will never, ever, help you steal from and hurt my family!”

He threw the amulet against a nearby rock, where it shattered into pieces.

“No! My powers!” Gideon screamed. He took several deep breaths, his hands clenched into fists, and then chuckled lowly. “Oh, this isn’t over. This isn’t the last you’ve seen of big ol’ me.”

Then he turned, and walked off into the forest.

“Well, that’s something to worry about later!” Stanley decided.

“Oh my goodness, Stanley!” Sixer shouted, rushing him and pulling him into a tight hug. “That was awesome! We totally beat Gideon!”

“I should have listened to you about Gideon in the first place,” Stanley said.

“Well, it all worked out fine,” Sixer declared, pulling away from the hug in favor of taking Stanley’s hand. “Come on, let’s go home.”

“What the heck happened to you two?” Mason asked, as the twins entered the living room.

“Gideon,” they admitted tiredly.

Mason sighed. “Gideon,” he said, like the name was a curse.

“He swore vengeance on us,” Sixer said, fretting.

“Pfft. What is he gonna do to us now, guess what number we’re thinking of?” Stanley laughed.

Mason laughed along. “Yeah, that crackpot psychic is a real piece of work! You know the trick to trick a number-guesser?”

Both boys looked at him with shiny wide eyes.

“What’s the trick, Grunkle Mason?” Sixer asked.

“Think of a negative number!” Mason revealed. “Nobody expects you to be thinking of a negative number, ha!”

“Yeah!” Stanley cheered.

“You two gonna stay away from him from now on?” Grunkle Mason asked. The twins exchanged a look and nodded resolutely.

“Yeah, I’m definitely done with Gideon,” Stanley answered.

“Heh,” Grunkle Mason said, reaching out to ruffle Stanley’s hair. “You’re a good kid.”

The boys grinned up at him.

In the Gleeful home, Gideon plotted away from the safety of his home office.

“What are you going to do without your amulet?” Gideon muttered to himself, in a sing-song, mocking tone of voice. He sneered, and switched back to his regular voice. “Oh, you’ll see, boys… you’ll see…”

He pulled a thick volume off his bookshelf and deposited it on the desk. It had a navy blue cover, with a golden pine tree and a silver star. Written in the center of the star, in thick black ink, was the number 2.