Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ok, so like, where do I even begin?

My name is Wendy Corduroy. I’m twelve years old, taller than all the boys in my middle school, and born from a long line of flannel wearing lumberjacks that could likely be traced all the way to the first ape to break a stick off a tree. My home town is Gravity Falls Oregon, the most out of the way town you could possibly find. Or I guess I should say not find considering we’re not even on most maps. I had always thought of my hometown to be just like any other pit stop on a highway to a bigger and much better town or city, boring and unnoteworthy.

Honestly if it didn’t mean leaving the comforts of modern civilization and my good buddy Soos behind, I probably would have been fine with Lumberjack Camp since Gravity Falls was such a sleepy little hamlet of little note.

When I started this Summer I honestly didn’t think it was gonna be any different from my last twelve, I’d get one week of actual Summer and then I’d be shipped off to Lumberjack Camp. And you may be wondering to yourself, ‘Wendy, if you’re twelve, how can you spend all of your Summers at Lumberjack Camp?’ To which I have no sane or proper logical response. All I know is that my dad has the pictures of me and my brothers, all in diapers, wielding an ax. Do with that as you will.

But for once I was allowed to stay due to using the power of pity to melt my dad’s lumber heart into allowing me to stay if I got a job.

Of course, no sane person - even by Gravity Falls standards - was going to hire a twelve year old.

Enter… I’ve been asked by my friend that you hold your applause and wait an undisclosed amount of time to let tension build…

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TENSION BUILT!

The Mystery Shack.

The Mystery Shack was built long ago before my dad was able to walk, established by a great man - as I have been told by my buddy Soos, more on him later - by the name of Stanford Pines. A man who had turned his house into a tourist trap to, and I am quoting here, “ Show the magnificent wonders of the world to man, rich and poor, wise and slow, great and SMALL!” - Jesús “Soos” Alzamirano Ramírez - to be discussed. He, Stanford not Soos, made a good living apparently, operating for, like, a bajillion years, managing to survive all of his relatives to the point that he was the only one left standing to take in two children after their parents died in a freak umbrella accident. But as far as I was concerned, the man was a ghost. No one had seen him in the last four years. Local wisdom held that the man had fallen seriously ill and had to be taken care of by his niece and nephew, the aforementioned twins.

And speaking of surviving relatives, the twins had come to operate the Mystery Shack following their uncle's declining health.

How two teens were allowed to take care of a dying man on their own, let alone run a sham of a business, was beyond me. But considering they had no other relatives…

Anywho, on that ominous note, let’s start with the eldest twin - or ‘ THE ALPHA TWIN’ as she herself would have it - Mabel Pines. Better known as Magical Madame Mystery, Mabel the Magnificent ! She was the face of the Mystery Shack, wearing a rhinestone studded suit, the unholy love child of a disco ball and zoot suit that had unfortunately caused multiple car crashes and one or two seizures. Mabel took the tourists that came to the Mystery Shack on a variety of tours meant to separate the suckers from their money as efficiently as possible. Her loose morals contrasted sharply by her bubbly personality and friendly disposition, or possibly just hid them under a veneer of glitter and pizazz, but made her one of the best bosses to have as you were just as likely to be put to work as you were subjected to a random dance party during slow traffic. She also had a pet pig which was pretty rad, waddling after Mabel and acting adorable in general. But perhaps the best thing about Mabel in my opinion was the fact she treated me like one of the teens, and always seemed to have a spare moment to come and chat with me behind the register when tours were coming to a conclusion.

But the other twin…

Let’s just say that where Mabel was the heart and soul of the Mystery Shack, Dipper was the cold cold cold cold cold… COLD logical mind that kept the tourist trap functioning; grumpy, grouchy, and likely to shank anyone that is not a valued customer, including employees, with the nearest rusty object - which was plentiful in the Shack. And where Mabel presented the group project, Dipper made it. He was in charge of paying the bills and making the so-called “monsters” and various other weird things that kept the Shack in business. Where Mabel wore bright handmade outfits, Dipper dressed like the crazy cat lady that lived in every town across the country, but marginally better. Wearing a hand knitted cardigan over a ratty tank top, a pair of sweats, mismatched socks, slippers older than the state of Oregon, and a scarf around his neck despite it being the hottest Summer of the year. Where Mabel was always telling us to take it easy, Dipper was always riding our asses to get back to work, the unhappy yin to Mabel’s yang of funness.

Despite their clashing personalities, the twins were rather chill when in each other's presence, Mabel was less erratic off the clock and Dipper was less likely to shank anyone and everyone for looking at him.

Which then just left my good buddy Soos, he’s the dude with the quote up above. Where I was an outcast in school for being ridiculously tall and rangy, Soos was on the opposite side of the loser spectrum, being rather squat and chubby and far too innocent to survive the angry hormonal piranhas masquerading as eighth graders. He lived with his grandmother, who without we likely never would have gotten these jobs to begin with, down the street from me and my family, and for some reason worshipped the Mystery Shack and all of those inside. He was the handyman of the shack, changing bulbs and stocking the shelves, occasionally helping Dipper with some taxidermy creation if he was lucky. Unfortunately, that meant that me and him didn’t get to quite hang out as much as I would have wanted, but at least we got to have some fun whenever the opportunity presented itself.

And by ‘opportunity’ I meant ‘ break something and call for help ’, which, with how dilapidated everything in the Shack was, wasn't hard.

It was another slow day, with most people coming in asking for directions rather than cheap thrills, though the twins managed to empty their pockets of money and fill them with useless knick knacks all the same.

Slow enough I didn’t really have to worry about customers, letting me flip through Lumber weekly   (Hey! Just because I didn’t want to go to Lumberjack Camp didn’t mean I wasn’t a proud lumberjackian myself! Just a lazy one.) to burn through time, and money as Dipper would say.

But speak of the devil and he shall appear - in all his cardigan clad glory - as they say.

To be fair, I was so engrossed in doing a whole lot of nothing that I hadn’t actually seen him come in, or heard him for that matter. Those granny slippers did a freakishly good job at hiding his footfalls even when he was stomping about. But the next thing I knew was that the magazine was ripped out of my hands. And a pair of annoyed brown eyes stared down at me from an impressive height.

I tried to come up with an excuse, praying that Mabel would come in to save me before Dipper sentenced me to cleaning the outhouses. Or worse, he'd make me give his demonic cat a nail trim. And let’s just say I would not be sad if that feline maniac suffered a brutal wood chipper accident and lost its limbs.

“Wendy,” he said, for once not nagging me right off the bat for slacking on the job. “Take these signs and go hang em in the deep woods in case some hikers get lost.” He ordered in a clipped tone, dropping a stack of assorted signs onto the front counter by the register with a loud wooden clang. “And take Soos with you, kid’s been staring at the Rock-that-looks-like-a-face-rock for the past hour. I’m a little worried for him.”

Dipper pointed over to the window where Soos had been cleaning for a little longer than strictly necessary, staring vacantly off at the distant display. On the bright side, that spot of floor had never been cleaner!

But as much as I didn’t want to do work, I also knew that if I didn’t Dipper would just send Soos out to do it instead. And with how much my buddy worshipped the collective ground the Pines twins walked on, it wouldn’t be hard. I may have stopped believing my brother's stories about witches in the woods stealing children's hands, but that didn’t mean there weren’t actual predators and other assorted dangers waiting to prey on an unsuspecting ball of innocence and hope.

Plus bear traps, lots of bear traps.

So with a long suffering sigh, I groused out a belligerent ‘fine’, before snagging what I could of the signs and heading towards Soos who came out of his rock-face trance at the sound of his second favourite idol. “You can count on us, Mr. Pines! We won’t disappoint you” He saluted before picking up the armload of signs in my arm, earning himself a smile and a head pat from the usually dour teen.

Mostly sign free, I grabbed my backpack and what was left of the supplies on the front counter, mostly a hammer and some nails. And then we headed out into the woods.

I could feel the cold and beady eyes of Dipper watching our backs from the window as we met the border between the woods and the Shack Property line. Rebellious teenage rage boiling up, I set about a spiteful move that I could justify as leading a trail for lost idiots to follow, Goldy-locks style. “Hey, Soos, this looks like a good spot to start!” I said, nabbing a sign from my surprisingly strong friend and hammering away.

“Alright dude!” Soos responded, wholeheartedly trusting me and my lumber knowledge, only narrowly missing the heavy part of the hammer as it flew off, leaving me with just a stick in my hands.

“Cheap bunch o’junk.” I grumbled, fishing around in my backpack for my trusty axe.

The words of my father echoing within my heart, and brain, and likely somewhere deep within the woods as that man had a catch phrase. And that catch phrase was-

“CORDUROY FAMILY AXE!!!”

Coincidentally, a flock of birds on the opposite side of town where my family’s log cabin was shot into the air out of fright, momentarily followed by a toppling tree that had been felled in one swift swoop.

And we went on like that for like an hour, hanging up random signs in a jagged path deep into the woods around town. And by random, I meant that the signs themselves were random, because while all of them had “MYSTERY SHACK THATTA WAY!!!”, it was rather clear who designed each sign.

Dipper’s were a fifty-fifty split between functional boards with letters on them, and frankenstein monstrosities that were the stitched together remains of whatever Dipper could find that had legible letters on them. Boat pieces, car bumpers, dilapidated billboards, cheap t-shirts, etc.

Mabel’s on the otherhand… well, let’s just hope the people found them at night with a low intensity flashlight, because Soos and I had to squint really tight just to look at them with how sparkly and glittery they were. I’m not even sure they had actual letters on them. For all anyone would ever know, these signs were just solid bricks of glitter that had congealed into a vague sign shape with an oddly wooden texture to them.

Pattern wise, there was none.

We just went tree to tree deeper into the woods.

The most I had to do was point out to Soos which trees to avoid cause they were too old or young, occasionally steer him away from bear traps and poison ivy… and then pull him out of the poison ivy.

I was fishing for a sign I wouldn’t have to blindly hammer in with the back of my axe when Soos pulled my attention. “Dude, check it. My mosquito bites say Beware!”

“Aw, dude, that’s sick.” I said, working off of muscle memory as I held up the nail to the tree and prepared to hammer away. “LiterallllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEE!” I tapered off there like a sheet of metal being waved back and forth to make that warbly noise.

Coincidentally, the metal tree also made a noise like that…

METAL TREE!

“I don’t think that’s a regular tree dude.” Soos pointed out the obvious, squinting up at it and now trying to discern if the squirrel that just had a heart attack from the strike was also fake.

No.

“No duh dude, but why is there a metal tree in the woods?” I questioned, leaning in and giving closer inspection to the well disguised tree.

If Soos hadn’t of distracted me, I probably would have realized it without striking it but… it was still a very convincing tree. “Is this a-” I fit my fingers into a well hidden seam that blended in with the barken… barky? Barky texture of the tree, pulling it aside to reveal what looked like the old ham radio we had at home that was my dad’s only other hobby aside from everything lumber related: wood carving, carpentry, log rolling, and reforesty projects… so he could then chop them down later if you couldn’t guess.

Flicking one of the knobs… nothing happened.

Deep within a hidden bunker, a lightbulb flashed on and then off.

On.

And off.

On

And off.

On.

…

…

…

Off.

This pattern would repeat a few more times, causing a certain frozen shapeshift to sigh in annoyance as this had been the nth time someone had found that switch and done this.

“Hmm, guess it's broken.” Soos commented, “A real dilemma, maybe with some time I could- Beaver in a trucker hat!” My good buddy ran off into the deep woods.

“Soos wait! Your soft and supple flesh is exactly what the woodland predators crave!”

Dropping the rest of the stupid signs but holding onto the axe, my dad will kill me if I ever lose it, I booked it after my surprisingly fast and nimble friend.

Despite growing up in these woods it was still possible for me to lose my bearings, but luckily or un-luckily, Soos ran into the old dilapidated church that my dad had always told me and my brother to stay away from. Surprisingly not for the reasons you would think: tetanus, dilapidated, host to who knows what rabid animal with rabies.

No.

My dad just didn’t like the woodwork and would forever be offended if his own family took joy in something that had been so shoddily crafted in its heighday.

The most we were ever allowed to do was come by and laugh about how badly it had been constructed before spitting on the hallowed ground as a final insult.

We’d probably go to hell for that, but, as Lumberjackians that just meant after we died we’d go to the great forest, an endless valley of tall trees prime for the cutting! But if you were bad, you got bitten by mosquitos.

“Soos!” I hollered, not quite trusting that my dad wouldn’t burst through a tree and ground me for walking under a trapezoidal door frame. “IT DOESN’T HAVE NINETY DEGREE ANGLES KIDS!!! GURHHH… HURRHHH… GAAHHHH, THAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT PART!!!” I heard my dad yelling in my head… or somewhere from within the woods.

My dad only had loud and louder so it was always hard to tell.

“Soos, I better not find you trying to eat a wooden plank again!” I called out, slowly inching through the not-a-door after spitting on the threshold and knocking on proper wood for good luck.

“Soos?!”

“BARHGAHGJAFLLLL!”

Years of watching horror movies had honed my instincts for this exact moment of survival.

“KICK IN THE NUTS!”

“Ah, dude, my little Soos…es?”

“Oh, dude, oh man, oh dude, I am so sorry. You okay?” I leaned down and put a hand on my best friend’s shoulder, wincing in sympathy.

“Yeah, yeah, I think my short height meant my organs took most of that. Nice shot by the way.” Soos groaned out in pain. “You didn’t happen to see that beaver by the way did you? I wanted to catch it and see if we could, you know, put it on display in the mystery shack.”

“Dude, even for the Shack’s low standards, I don’t think that would pass inspection.”

“SILENCE NON-BELIEVER!”

“Huh,” I sighed, “Let’s just get out of here dude. We hung up the signs and lost the rest so let’s just get back and say we put 'em up. Actually… I don’t know why we didn’t just ditch them in the woods the first chance we got.”

“Oh no!” Soos shot up, pain forgotten as his primal need to please the Pines twins overrid all other reason. “The signs we gotta-” The floor creaked, the tell tale sign that the badly nailed together floor was about to crack open beneath us.

“Huh, guess my dad was right, this place is poorly constructttteeeeeeeeeeeeeedddddddd!” I hollered as we fell, down down down into the earth. Far deeper than any basement had a right to be.

“Ughhhh.” Soos and I groaned in tandem, not quite willing to get back up after that long harrowing fall that we somehow survived. “Woah, dude,” Soos was the first to recover. “Not now dude, let me die in peace.” I responded.

“But it’s so… Jurassic-y down here. Hey, this little guy smells like battery acid!”

Battery acid!

“Soos no!”

“I think this little guy wants to say hi!”

“SOOS!” I said, gripping my buddy tightly by the shoulders as I shook him back and forth to try and put even a squeeze in a bit of self preservation into him. “If it smells like battery acid, and looks like its about to say hi, get away from it.”

But logic was not always Soos’ strong point. “But why?” Exhibit A.

So with cases like this, it was best to be blunt. “Because it’s probably battery acid Soos.”

Stroking what could count as his chin, Soos nodded along like he understood. “Touche.”

“Good enough for me I suppose. Now let's try and get out of here. How far did we fall?” I looked up to find out, feeling something sink in my stomach as it looked like we somehow fell five stories at least to the cavern floor.

“I’m gonna guess a lot.” Soos commented with a lot less dread and a lot more optimism than me.

I wanted to scream for help, but you’d be surprised how little noise escaped a cave. You could go one turn in a tunnel and shout out and no one one cave over would hear your cries for help. Maybe we could take some of these weird vines and make a rope? But then how would we get up there? Throw it maybe, or…

“Woah! Dude, check it out!” Soos called out from around a corner before vanishing.

“Yo dude, you find a way out or, woah!”

The sight before me was nothing like I had ever seen before.

“Dude, it's like that movie, Cretaceous Playground 1-3. Wasn’t quite a fan of the sequel Cretaceous Planet though. Thought the last one was a bit of a stretch with the giant man eating-”

“Dude, forget about the movie, this is real life!” I ran up and did the natural thing. Poke the amber frozen dinosaurs. “Though maybe we should get back to looking for a way out…” I said with a nervous laugh, wiping the melting amber on my shirt.

“I think I see some light from over there.” Soos pointed, “That, or it's a frozen prehistoric angelfish.”

Seeing no other alternative, and hoping the anglerfish was safely contained in an amber aquarium, we made our way over to the shining light that steadily grew in intensity until we arrived.

Stumbling through the last passage we found… a shaft of light still too high for us to get close enough to escape.

“Ah man,” Soos groaned, “And a weirdly curved bulging wall?” Soos observed with the same intensity one would a work of art.

But my attention was on something else.

A book.

Or well, what was left of a book.

It was an old worn leather cover, a six fingered hand with the number three on one cover was bleeding pages left and right. Picking up some of the loose leaflets of paper that covered the cave floor, I began to read. “I’m surprised these things are still legib- WOAH, dude check these out!”

Wall forgotten, Soos hurried his way over to share a peak at the weird thing I found. “What is it?”

I shoved the pages I had picked up into his arms, “Apparently it's a bunch of horror movie stuff! Stuff from this town! Giant bats, gremlins, goblins… Gremloblins!” I listed a few. “Woaaahhhohhh, dude I found one on the dinosaurs. Check it!”

Frozen in times long since past, I’ve come to discover that the dinosaurs buried underneath Gravity Falls are somehow still alive. Further research is needed before I can conclude anything else. My current hypothesis for how these creatures were frozen is based off of genetic research surrounding the Gravity Falls native Red Wood, whose sap is one of the fastest flowing among all trees in the world. Analysis of the dino-sap reveals that the sap belonged to a prehistoric relative of today’s modern variant. Likely due to a hotter climate, the sap from these trees could create a veritable flood that would catch careless dinosaurs off guard before solidifying into amber. Good thing today's climate can get nowhere near what was possible back then. Unless of course some planetary heating phenomena were to occur…

Ignoring the rest of the page, I raised a brow and aske Soos who had an odd approximate knowledge of miscellaneous factoids. “How hot could it get in Jurassic times?”

Shrugging his shoulders, Soos responded in a casual tone, “Bout as hot as today.”

“Neat.”

CCCCCCCCCCCCCcccccccccrRRRRRRRRRRRrrCCCCCCCCCCcccckkkkkKKKKKkk

“Did you hear that dude?” Soos asked nervously.

I swallowed the lump in my throat before turning to look behind us at what I previously thought to be just a wall of weirdly shaped rock. If only my family had a history in geology I might have noticed before it was too late.

Right behind us, the bulging wall of sap slowly began to inch closer to us, occasionally letting off a bubble of trapped air that burst with a slow wet pop.

“Run?” I asked despite knowing the answer before noticing Soos was no longer next to me.

“Way ahead of you, come on dude!” I heard him shout, pointing down one tunnel which may or may not show us the way out.

That or trap us in amber for the next few thousand to a million years.

“On it, let’s go!” I made to follow before turning back around and shovelling all of the pages on they round into my backpack before chasing after Soos, the wall of melting amber moving ever so faster as time went on.

After a while of running up and then down and then up again before levelling out, Soos asked out of breath, “You think we’re safe?” Not slowing down as the rumble behind us kept following us.

A large quake and the sound of wet squelching as the amber turned back into sap gave a clear as glass answer, “No.”

“Bad answer, dead end dude!” Soos panicked as the trail ended on another weirdly shaped rock wall, a shaft of light high above revealing that there might be hope if we were to spontaneously turn into squirrels. Maybe there was something in the journals that might… Wait!

“Dude, that’s not rock, that’s a tree!” I said running up to the oddly shaped wall that I now recognized as a tree. A really big and really old fossilised tree!

“It must be one of those ancient redwoods the journal talked about!” I whispered in wonder. An idea formed in my head.

Pulling out my axe, I approached the tree.

“Dude,” Soos started, huddling closer to me as the sound of approaching sap got louder. “I know you and your family have a weird hatred for trees, but now is not the time to cut one down! Unless of course you’re going to build us a boat to survive the biblical sap flood in which case-”

“No dude!” I said, grabbing my friend and ripping off his belt before fastening his and mine together and strapping us back to back. “Back at lumberjack camp, we always had to do these tree climbing competitions, and I was, like, crazy good at it I guess. So I think I can-”

“Less talky, more lumberjack-y!” Soos panicked, waving his arms up and down like a frightened penguin.

“LUMBERGENES!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

“I think you mean jeans.” Soos corrected me.

“That too, DON’T FAIL ME NOW!” and with that, I struck my family axe into the tree.

Hup. Two. Hup. Two. Hup. Two. I counted in my head as I huffed our way to freedom, axe cleaving through the wood as if it was fresh and not like a billion years old. My concentration starting to waver as my cheeks started to get poked. “Not now Soos, trying to save our lives!”

“Yeah, don’t mean to disrupt that, but maybe the boat idea would have been a better one!”

“What do you, oh no.” I felt that sinking feeling again as I watched the floor of viscous liquid amber (or was it sap?) get closer faster than we could get away.

“WHAT DO WE DO DUDE!? WE’RE GONNA DIE DUDE!! WHAT DO WE DO!?”

“STOP PANICKING SOOS, NO TIME FOR TALK LIKE THAT!!!”

“I’M NOT PANICKING! YOU’RE PANICKING!”

Come on Wendy, think! Think!

USE THE AXE WENDY! USE THE AXE!

I am using the axe dad!

USE THE EMERGENCY AXE THEN!!! COME ON WENDY, YOU’RE A-

“FLIPPING CORDUROY!!! Hut hut hut hut!” I screamed after pulling out the spare axe my dad insisted my brothers and I carry at all times alongside our personal axes and kicking it into maximum overdrive.

With one last final ‘hut’ we cleared the lip of the hole and were safe. “We,” I huffed, “Made,” Huffed again, “It!” I fell into the grass after unstrapping Soos from my back.

“Ugh, not to disparage your efforts dude, but I think we might have hightailed it for nothing.”

“WHAT?!” I suddenly had enough energy to rush to the edge of the hole and saw that the sap had stopped rising at about the same time I had taken out my emergency axe.

Feeling my eye twitch, it didn’t help when Soos pointed out that it literally stopped about five feet from where the one axe mark trail turned into two. “Let’s just get back to the shack.” I groused under my breath, somehow speaking despite my teeth grinding against each other.

Surprisingly it was rather easy to find our way back to the shack. The hole we literally crawled out of being about fifteen feet away from the church…

Stumbling back through the door, we each let out a sigh of relief as we touched down on splintery yet familiar wood.

Wood that would not drown us in sap I might add.

“Yeesh, you two wrestle with a beehive or something?” Dipper asked with an annoyed expression. The hope that we would die somewhere in the woods so he wouldn't have to pay us turning his usual frown into an irritated grimace.

At least Mabel was there beside him, the two counting money as they closed up for the day. “Come on Dip,” She punched her brother hard in the shoulder. “They’ve been gone all day and that’s how you greet our valued interns?”

Looking from the twins to me, Soos asked in a confused tone, “Did we do a good job and get promoted from store helper? I thought we were getting paid in satisfaction?”

“Yeah, gone lollygagging.” Dipper punched back as hard as he got before slamming the now empty gift shop register cash drawer shut.

“Come on bro-bro!” Mabel punched a little less forcefully, but still hard enough to hurt, “Don’t you remember our first Summer at the shack?” Dipper made an old man growl that eerily matched my dad’s in response.

The two stared each other in the eyes, one grumpy and tired, not willing to give in to his sister’s antics; the other resolutely happy and dead set on whatever idea was in Mabel’s head.

“Fine!” Dipper groused, getting up to leave, but not before punching Mabel in the shoulder in retaliation once more. “But only as long as it's under fifteen dollars!” He pointed at the ceiling without looking back as he vanished around the corner. A faint, ‘I’m gonna watch t.v.’ could be heard from the depths of the house.

“Feel free to grab some merch, on the house for a hard day's work guys!” Mabel said, smacking ‘!!!GOOD JOB!!!’ stickers onto Soos’ and I’s noses before throwing her arms out for use to nab some cheap knick knack from the store.

“FIFTEEN DOLLARS!” Dipper yelled from within the bowels of the Mystery Shack.

“Feel free to grab some fifteen dollars worth of merch, on the house for your guys’ hard day’s work!” Mabel amended, changing their reward from one item to multiple if they played their cards right in petty vengeance against her brother.

“All right!” Soos punched the air in excitement before running off into the shop and giving his decision all of his focus. I doubted nothing short of the Shack catching on fire would break Soos from his trance, and only then cause the Shack itself was in the process of burning down and taking all of its treasures with it in the blaze.

Turning to Mabel, “You sure?” I asked her, knowing she’d probably catch hell from Dipper for giving out free stuff again.

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Mabel shrugged good naturedly, bending down on one bedazzled knee to place a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Sides,” She said with a shrug, “some idiot already paid for it earlier, he even forgot his swag! HAH SUCKER!” Mabel stood up in triumph, showing off the forgotten bags of knick knacks the poor customer forgot. “Also, maybe you and Soos can take a shower considering you… what did you do?” Mabel inquired, pointing at, well, all of me.

“Oh, I said, it was crazy! Soos and I-”

“WENDY,IFOUNDTHEMOSTAMAZINGTHINGYOUR’ENOTGOINGTOBELIEVE!COMEWITHMEQUICKBEFORESOMEONEELSEBUYSIT!” Only years of hanging with Soos allowed me to understand.

One fifteen dollar shopping spree, in which I had gotten a lumberjack hat with an ice cube decal and Soos had nabbed about a million gold nuggets *cough pebbles*, and two showers in which Dipper began to charge us for the hot water after fifteen minutes later, Soos and I were hanging in the Mystery Shack’s kitchen going over the journal pages we had found. Together, we tried to stitch it together like some kind of 3D puzzle of weirdness while we waited for either one of my brother’s or Abeulita to come and pick us up.

“So what should we call ourselves? The Mystery Dudes? Mystery Bros? Mystery incor-”

Slamming a hand over Soos’ mouth, I told him he shouldn’t say that last one cause we might get struck for copyright infringement. The name already taken by some East Coast Ghost Harasser wannabes that were very litigious.

“Let’s focus on that later.” I tried to steer the conversation away from topics that might just land us in court, “I still can’t believe this town has some kind of secret dark side to it!”

“Hehe, yeah, we should, like, totally catch one of these dudes and give em to the Pines’! Then they’d adopt me…”

“What?”

“What?”

…

…

…

Not quite sure if I heard that last part correctly or if it was just the day’s events catching up to me, I focused my mind on putting the book back together, passively absorbing all of the weird and wild things this town apparently had to offer. “I still can’t believe I’ve never seen one of these guys before?” I wondered aloud. “And I’ve been here for twelve years! Have you, dude?”

“Nah man,” Soos shook his head, somehow having managed to glue his hands together and no longer focused on our group project. “Though it does confirm my suspicions.”

“That the mailman’s a werewolf?”

“That the mailman’s a werewolf.”

We both laughed after that, having said both sentences at the same time.

“Hey dude, look at this!” Soos awkwardly tried to pick up one of the pages with his hands still glued together, giving up halfway and awkwardly sliding it across the table.

Looking at the page, TRUST NO ONE it read in blood red ink… at least I hope it was ink.

“Well I trust you.” I said looking up at Soos.

“I trust me too.” Soos nodded resolutely in affirmation, “and also you too dude.”

I smiled at the afterthought, glueing in the last page. ‘Thanks dude. You wanna come over later and…” I trailed my sentence off as I spotted someone I definitely did not trust staring at us from the hallway entrance.

A being of pure evil and chaos.

Small, yet devious.

A being who bowed to no one’s whim but his own.

“Cat?” Soos asked with a blank expression of dread, easily guessing what it was despite it being behind him after a week of us hanging in the Shack.

“Cat.” I affirmed.

“Run?”

“Run.”

Together we took off, running neck and neck and not daring to look back behind us as we knew full well that the little demon in black was on our heels if not a foot behind.

“Yo Wendy! You ready to go home? Wendy?”

Kevin! Thank Lumber Justice God it was my older brother Kevin. Whipping around a corner, I had to fling myself back to snag Soos who almost ran past the door in the hall. “THANKS KEVIN! CAT’S ON OUR TAIL! LET’S GOOOOoooooOOOOO!!!”

 All Kevin heard was ‘cat’ and he turned pale, having at some point crossed paths with the demonic emissary of chaos in the past enough times to forever be scarred. “Cool beans brah” He said in a calm tone with a thumbs up, walking out the door and leaving me and Soos to chase after if we wanted to escape with our legs intact.

Across the parking lot we ran before all of us hopped into my bro’s beaten up pick-up truck, slamming the door behind us to shut out both the dark night, and the monster that hid in it.

“I think we’re safe now dudes.” Soos tempted fate.

And tempt fate it did, as a small, innocent sounding, tiny little ‘meow?’ sounded out in the dark of the car.

It was like Pandora’s box and the Gates of Hell themselves opened inside the cabin of my brother’s truck. All of us screaming and thrashing about, making the truck look like that scene out of Cretaceous Playground where the lawyer who stole the mammoth embryos got attacked by Mega-Cobrasaurus.

“IT’S ON MY FACE! IT’S ON MY FACE DUDE!”

“LUMBERJUSTICE GOD, IT’S IN MY PANTS MAN!”

“GET IT OFF ME, GET IT OFF ME!”

“Gotcha!” Soos grabbed Dipper’s cat, rightfully referred to as Lil’Bastard, who was clutching my backpack and trying to claw it to shreds with all its might. One of its beady little yellow cat eyes staring at me. Not threateningly, more of that weird cook-eyed look that those cat’s that walked into walls got. You know? The kind of look that told you inside the cat’s head the wheel was turning but the hamster wasn’t on it. “Come. ON!” Soos yelled as he tugged on the demonic cat who in turn tugged on my backpack, egged on by me and Kevin who repeatedly yelled ‘Soos! Soos! Soos!’

“And stay out!” My best buddy and saviour yelled after throwing the cat out the open truck cab window.

The day now saved, we drove home.

All three of us in need of a good night’s sleep after such a harrowing day, despite one of us having not escaped an amber-nami.

Chapter Text

If I were to rank the dangers of the Mystery Shack on a list, it would probably look something like this:

1. The twins in the morning before receiving enough caffeine to stop an elephant's heart.

2. The twins get into a fist fight over something stupid, including who can take the most punches to the face (don’t ask).

3. The Shack and its general state of disrepair, though Soos was trying his best.

4. Dipper’s cat, Lil’Bastard, suspect number one for why someone is bleeding on Shack premises.

5. Tourists from Jersey.

Number 5 was a whole beast on its own you don’t want to encounter; but for transparency's sake just imagine the worst Karen you possibly could, demanding to know why x wasn’t y while being so loud you couldn’t get a word in. Also their nails were long enough that if they just grazed you the skin would turn red.

One actually hissed at me once.

Numbers 3-4 were just things you had to accept in order to work in the Mystery Shack, alongside the potential possibility of walking home covered in enough glitter to be mistaken for a human shaped disco ball.

Number 2 on the list was something that could be avoided but Lumber Justice God help you if you got between the two. I once saw Mabel punch a wolf unconscious when it tried to adopt Soos. And on three separate occasions I witnessed Dipper get so mad at an unexpected expense or hidden bill that he punched a hole in the wall like it was wet tissue paper.

But Number 1 was something an angry mercurial deity would use to punish a civilization for eating a banana the wrong way - no instructions on what the right way was. Mabel’s joyous bubbly personality was more like bubbling acid as she glared a hole into your forehead for daring to look at her so early in the morning, to say nothing of Dipper who thought of homicide when well caffeinated.

By now, you’re probably wondering, “ Wendy, why are you telling me all of this?” Well the reason dear friend, is because this morning I was sitting between the twins as they were trying to caffeinate themselves to a degree where it would be considered a freelance new, not legally approved, method of embalming.

Soos and I had arrived early on a Tuesday because my good buddy wanted to get around to finishing something he had found yesterday that he hadn’t been able to do before our ride came.

Something Soos owed me big time for because caffeine or not the twins liked Soos. Just this morning Dipper had patted the handyman in training on the head before doing the same to me… except he palmed my head and lifted me bodily off the ground like I was a basketball, debating whether or not I counted as trash or recyclables. Mabel was no better but at least she just grumbled her distaste at me witnessing her out of her Madame Mystery costume instead of turning me into fertilizer.

Least they fed us, at least I hoped. The alternative was Dipper was just fattening me up before he threw me in an oven and Mabel advertised my final moments as the girl who didn’t get away from the Witch in the Mystery Candy Shack.

I watched as Dipper drank his coffee while glaring at his twin and favorite person in the world like she was responsible for all the evils in said world. And he’d likely do it by snapping her neck if the way he was squeezing that grip strengthener in one hand was any indication. The thing was either about to explode from the pressure or be flattened into a two dimensional shape.

Meanwhile Mabel looked dissatisfied at the half empty maple syrup like it had purposefully been born the biggest disappointment in the universe, soon dumping her cup of coffee in it and shaking it up, seemingly satisfied with her new diabetic concoction.

Nervously, I pushed the bacon on my plate back and forth. The pancake Mabel made me might have started off as a smiley face, but by the end it looked like a tortured soul had possessed it.

If I didn’t say anything, didn’t make a noise, and made myself nonthreatening, they wouldn’t rip my throat out.

I could do this.

I had survived years of Lumberjack Camp accidents.

My brother’s sweaty gym clothes which were somehow worse than my dad’s sweaty socks after a week of hard work.

And, most recently, an amber-nami. Amber Tsunami? Tsu… Zoo… You get it.

I could handle the twins potentially attacking each other like wild big cats fighting over a carcass, hopefully not mine!

Luckily, I didn't have to!

“WendyWendyWendyComequickIfoundthisreallycoolthingIthoughtitwasaweirdreversedentinthewallbutitsactuallynotitsasecretroomanditssocoolandfullofcoolstuffandMYSTERYSSSHHHHHHAAAAAACCCKKKKK!” My short green friend said, yanking me along before I could finish my breakfast.

Not that I still had my appetite after watching Dipper unhinge his jaw and eat his unholy breakfast burrito (take seven scrambled eggs, eight strips of bacon, and wrap it in an extra large pancake with a sprinkling of two servings of Brotein Brand (IT'S THE BRO-IEST) protein powder) while Mabel forwent all notions of her being human as she drank her complete breakfast platter, now drowned in homebrew coffee-syrup, like the world’s chunkiest diabetic coma inducing smoothie.

“Soos, Soos, buddy, calm down dude!” I finally managed to say after finding my voice, and the stair rail which I grabbed onto to stop my friend from carrying me off into unknown territory. You never knew with the Mystery Shack.

Soos took a deep breath, then another, and a third; the troubles of being overweight and having short legs.

“Okay.” He began, voice low and wheezy as he was still trying to get his breath back, “So I was working on that weird reverse dent in the wall I found yesterday, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And then I peeled back the wallpaper, cause I thought, you know, maybe it was like a plaque that got papered over? Found a turtle like that once here the other day. Which was weird, I think it was like, living off of the mold that was growing between the wall boards. Thing had alike its own whole mushroom farm back there which was totally cool dude and-”

“Soos, FOCUS!” I grounded my best friend by grabbing his shoulders and putting a stop to his tangent.

“Right. So I peel it back and its not a reverse dent! Which, now that I think of it, isn’t that just a bulge? But if the wall was dented on one side it would still count as a dent I guess, but it bulged out which means-”

“Soos!”

“Right!” Soos shook his head, back on track now. “It was a door knob! Come check it out dude. It’s like, wicked crazy bonkers!” And with that, Soos ran down the hall, arms flailing about as he shouted, “Come on Wendy! Wendy! Wendy!” Making his own echo as he went.

Not wanting to return to the life or death situation that was the breakfast table with a dangerously decaffeinated pair of twins, I followed Soos at a much more relaxed pace. An itch forming in the back of my brain, my hands reflexively going to my hair to stroke a strand or two.

The weight of the journal in my backpack a comfort.

And for some reason I felt like taking it out and rifling through it.

But before I could contemplate on why I felt that particular need, I came across Soos and his magic doorknob.

“Okay okay okay!” Soos put up his arms and batted the air like he was trying to calm a crowd. My lips quirking up in the ghost of a smile as I realized he was trying his best impression of Mabel in her show persona. “Ladies and… Lady! Soos recovered, “Here in this Shack of Mystery, are wonders of the world. Better even, than the Seven Wonders of the World. Some would say the ninth through two hundred and thirty six wonders, if not some of those replacing the original wonders. And it is my pleasure today to show you the latest wonder, the two hundred and thirty seventh - and potentially more. But first…”

I rolled my eyes at Soos’ theatrics, wondering if perhaps it wasn’t too late to run back to the table and grab some of my unfinished breakfast. The worry that Dipper would wisen up soon and charge me for the breakfast, and also for not eating said breakfast, taking root.

Unfortunately, Soos had taken my long standing advice to shorten it, not quite yet to twenty words max but far less than the normal eulogy he’d perform. “Behold!” He said, striking a dramatic pose as he grabbed the doorknob a little too forcefully. “The Door of Mystery!” And pulled… the door knob off.

The door knob that had been there, still surrounded by ripped up wallpaper as Soos had yet to scrape it all off, just the bit around the door knob.

“Well that was anticlimactic.” I said while Soos looked down sadly at the dud doorknob in his hands.

“Don’t worry bud.” I broached delicately, “Maybe you’ll find another secret door and this time, it will be a door!”

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s just-”

“What’s this about secret doors?” Soos and I jumped out of our skins, looking up like we had been caught to find Mabel leaning over us. Her usual bright cheery attitude had returned now that she’d consumed enough coffee to replace the blood in her veins. “Did you find Dipper’s secret stash where he hides his- OWE!”

Mabel stopped when Dipper appeared behind her and bopped her good to the back of the head. “Stop that.” He commanded like a pet owner did when their pet pig started eating their pants, something that happened quite often given Mabel’s pet pig.

“Yeah, well, you never know with this place.” Mabel recovered quickly, returning a punch to Dipper who merely glared back at her in retaliation.

“Are there really secret doors in the Mystery Shack? Mystery Doors!” Soos whisper shouted with stars in his eyes.

“Mystery doors, Mystery rooms, Mystery Merch!” Mabel held up one of the gift shop mystery boxes for emphasis.

“Really?” Soos asked.

“Really.” Mabel nodded proudly.

“Really really?” Soos asked again.

“Really really.” Mabel proudly nodded again.

“Rea-”

“YES!” Dipper put an end to what very well could have looped until the end of time.

“I’m just learning so many things this Summer!” I rolled my eyes at Soos’ enthusiasm.

Something I instantly regretted when I saw Dipper do the same thing, fondly I might add, but still all the same as me. Something that made me want to barf for thinking we shared even an iota of similarity.

Dipper was the last thing I wanted to be like.

“Alright, well, while I figure out where this thing came from.” Dipper took the doorknob from Soos and held it up like it was a particularly appetizing apple. “You two get ready for the day. We got tourists incoming people!” He raised his voice as he left, shaking the doorknob back and forth above his shoulder to emphasis that time was money. Not that he was paying us.

Luckily, Mabel was there to ensure Dipper didn’t completely suck the fun out of our Summer. “You guys wanna know a secret?” She leaned in, grabbing us both by the shoulder as if Dipper wouldn’t hear, in all likelihood he already knew.

But wasn’t it the thought that counted?

Soos and I nodded, and Mabel puckered her lips like a fish. She looked side to side over her shoulder, biting her bottom lip as she debated whether or not it was safe to spill the beans to us. “Alright, what I’m about to tell you is strictly confidential. Not even Dipper can know, Capiche?” She asked, the way she looked in our eyes was both unnerving and exciting.

I personally highly doubted this was truly above Dipper’s attention, but played along mostly for Soos’ sake, who looked really conflicted.

On one hand, a super high tier classified secret that Mabel was about to share with only us; on the other, something he had to hide from one of his idols.

I’d break it to him gently later.

“In the Shack, we have a-” Mabel stopped, catching sight of something out of the corner of her eye. “YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO STALK! GET OUT OF HERE YOU- YOU- YOU CAT!” Mabel hollered dramatically, pointing an accusatory  finger down the hall for our eyes to follow and see a startled Lil’Bastard who did the frantic cat run away, the kind where his paws did that cartoon logic build up as he tried to find traction before taking down the hallway.

There was the sound of something crashing, but luckily, Dipper didn’t show up to charge us for it!

Yet.

“In the Shack, we have a secret basement where we store all the old attractions, it’s got a ton of cool stuff!” She said quietly with a dumb smile. “Wanna check it out?” She said, looking over her shoulder once more to make sure the coast was clear.

“HECK YEAH!” Soos and I said at the same time, smacking our hands together in a high five before we followed behind Mabel playing Spy Agent, holding up our hands to make finger guns as we checked around corners to make sure the coast was clear.

And while I will deny it till the day I die, it was a lot of fun. Darting past door frames, shooting imaginary bullets at Waddles and Lil’Bastard; the latter running off again, likely to find Dipper, while the former just oinked at us while casually sitting in the chair in front of the TV.

We were just about to clear it towards the objective, at least I thought. I didn’t know. I just knew we made it past the kitchen, where we found Dipper.

The teen just looked at us nonplussed, dressed as he always was in a cardigan, sweats, and a scarf despite it being the hottest Summer of the year. He had yet to put anything on his feet, but in all likelihood it would be a mismatched pair of bunny slippers or just plain ol socks. The man wasn’t picky so long as it was warm and covered his skin.

Dipper looked at us, taking a long slow sip of his coffee as we all remained in a deadlock, waiting to see who would move first.

Mabel took the initiative, slowly raising her finger gun to Dipper, and with a long dramatic sob said, “I’m sorry bro-bro,” she smiled ruefully. “But it’s for the mission.” Then she fired. “Pachow pachow pachow!”

Soos and I followed suit, firing a hail of imaginary bullets at Dipper, who looked at us all like we were annoying figments of his imagination. “You’re all dead to me.” He said with neither heat nor disdain, though likely only because Mabel and Soos were with me. I doubted Dipper would care about hurting my feelings unless it actually affected productivity.

And even then it would be the cleanest HR compliant apology.

Then he walked away, only stopping to pick up Lil’Bastard who had come seeking cover from the imaginary bullets. The stupid black cat doing the lonk cat thing as Dipper held him in one big hand.

“We open in two hours folks! Less if customers come early!” Was all he had to say further on the subject.

“Okay.” Mabel got our attention, blowing imaginary smoke off her gun before holstering it, doing this weird cool hand thing to make it look like she spun it around like an actual revolver. The real mystery of today being how the bones in her hand could be fine after that. “Now that we’ve secured the Shack, I can finally show you the storage room! Follow-” She strummed the air like a heavy metal guitar, “ME!”

And then she took off like a madman.

Soos hurt his hand trying to mimic the holstering technique, but mastered the air guitar, taking off after Mabel.

I didn’t even try, but I did follow.

“Lady and Gentleman!” Mabel began, standing in front of an ordinary door I had seen before. Mimicking the way Soos had mimicked her, minus the length of his speech. “It is our honor to show you things never before seen, but today is all about things seen before! Behold!” She threw the door open. “ALL OF OUR OLD JUNK!”

Inside of the door was a stairwell that led into a dark and dusty smelling subterranean storage area. “You might need these.” Mabel handed us a pair of flashlights. “Well, don’t take too long down there! Like Dipper said, we start work in two hours, or less!”

“Wait.” I said, holding Soos back as he tried to run into the basement, my Lumbergenes sensing lots of rickety floorboards and tetanus nails, “You’re really just gonna let us go down and explore old Shack junk?”

Mabel shrugged. “Sure, why not. Like Dipper and I said, got two hours.”

“Or less.” Soos interjected.

“Don’t worry about Dipper, he’s just messing with ya. And besides, I got enough pizzazz to distract these suckers for days before they notice we’re down two unpaid interns!” And with that proud declaration, Mabel wandered off. Likely to her dressing room, which doubled as her and Dipper’s office, to get ready for the day.

“So… you wanna go poke at the twins' weird old dusty junk?” I nudged Soos in the arm, unable to stop the goofy smile spreading on my face.

“Heck yeah I wanna poke at the twins' weird old dusty junk! Maybe we’ll find even weirder older dustier junk from Mr. Pines, Mr. Mystery!” Soos’ face looked down right blissful, as if he was ascending to higher levels of consciousness or found the holy grail.

And with the now complete and utter lack of adult supervision, as much as two teens who lived largely on their own could be counted as “adult supervision”, Soos and I descended into the depths of the shack.

At first, it wasn’t exciting, being mostly just a bunch of old fliers and paperwork that the twins hadn’t been able to dispose of yet. And unless Dipper bought an industrial shredder, most of it would likely end up going into the bottomless pit so the twins didn’t have to pay trash fees.

Alternatively, Dipper and Mabel might just close the shop down for a craft day and turn all of the old papers into a grand paper-mache project to revamp the attractions.

But before I got bored of looking at newspapers declaring Mabel public enemy number one for a series of glitter carpet bombs on town hall her freshman year, we hit the jackpot.

Old chimera’s: jackalopes; half bear, half coyote, half fish; an actual stuffed Chimera!

Bigfoot off shoots like the Sascrotch, The Big Foot, and - my favorite - Big Foot’s Old Boot (my dad’s lucky boot that he would be glad to know now where it was, and I would be glad to be five dollars richer!).

There were old discontinued Mystery Shack knick-knacks, which I had to pull Soos away from as he started shoving everything he could into his pockets. “But they’re limited edition Wendy!” He protested.

“Soos, I’m gonna level with you, they’re not. Dipper just puts that sticker on everything so people buy merch quicker.”

“Silence!” Soos shouted against my disbelief, and also threw a packet of Mystery Shack Brand Escape Glitter at me.

“My eyes!”

“Sorry-” Cough, “Wendy!” I heard Soos’ retreating coughs as he scurried deeper and deeper into the old Shack junk, evidently having been hit with friendly fire from the Mystery Shack Brand Escape Glitter.

Three guesses as to why that was discontinued.

“Soos! Eh-heh, Uh-hah! Soos, get back here! Ah, my lungs, it’s in my lungs!” Bit of advice, when you get glitter dust bombs into your eyes and lungs, don’t roll around in it on the ground. Especially the Mystery Shack Brand Escape Glitter, because that stuff was so fine and dust like that any motion would kick it up into a cloud that would then reenter your eyes and lungs.

Through the tears and dust and glitter, I saw something blurry approaching me, hopping up and down as it got closer. I started to worry, thinking Soos had gotten hurt and was forced to hop back to me for help. 

But as the figure got closer, I started to notice some things, actually a lot of things, off about the figure.

While at first it could have been mistaken for Soos, being rather squat and clumsy in its approach, that was quickly disputed when I stopped struggling and blinked out the majority of the glitter dust from my eyes. For one thing, it was way too short to be Soos, which was saying something considering Soos was built like a gopher - or potentially a beaver - and roughly as tall; this thing was way shorter.

Secondly, it was ugly, like really ugly.

Like goblin man levels of ugly.

Or more specifically, it was a goblin man, at least a goblin man’s head.

I was paralyzed, stunned, mostly from the glitter still in my system. My dominant right hand itched to punch the weird face of this affront to nature as it hopped ever closer on its weird stump neck.

“What in the world are- HEY!” I screamed as the goblin man head lunged at me, biting into my backpack and shaking it loose. “What the- How are you so strong!?” I only managed to grab my backpack by the loop, the head somehow dragging me backwards with its weird hopping.

I guess when your only option of locomotion is hopping you get really good at it.

If this thing's neck was a leg it would be ripped, and probably strong enough to put up a brief struggle against my dad in an arm wrestling competition.

The thing growled at me, like rabid raccoon growled at me, the kind of growling that made you think breathing the same air would give you rabies. “Dude, I am not giving you my- why am I negotiating with a disembodied head? SOOS!” I yelled, “SOOS, I NEED BACKUP AGAINST THIS DUMB STUPID HEAD!”

The Dumb Stupid Head went, “Nyegh!” Through a pair of barely toothed gums before the strap I was holding onto snapped. Out fell a granola bar and the journal.

The head then hopped away, still going “Nyegh!” but now in a victorious goblin tone.

As it hopped, I noticed through bleary tear streaked eyes, not to mention glitter clogged, one very familiar ax still in my backpack.

“Oh man, oh man oh man oh man!” I repeated with the panicked tone only a budding teenager could manage when threatened with parental disappointment over losing something that had been in their family since caveman times. “SOOS!”

I switched between yelling for backup and telling the damn head to get back here, smashing into shelves and knocking things over as the dark and the glitter made it next to impossible to see more than two steps ahead of me. No doubt I left a trail of glitter and knick knacks behind me as I went.

If it weren’t for the steady, still victorious, stream of “Nyegh’s!” and thudding hops I would have been lost.

Unfortunately, much like how Soos had gotten me into this mess, Soos was the one to make things worse, as he crashed into me going “WENDY!”

Or, at least I think it was Soos.

There was unfortunately a fifty fifty chance that I ran into a Mystery Shack Brand Bean Bag - likely filled with or covered in glitter.

“WENDY!” Soos screamed in my face, revealing that the weight on top of me was indeed my best friend, now twenty pounds heavier as his arms were laden with knock off merch pasted in Mystery Shack colors.

Don’t ask what Mystery Shack colors were, as anything from the time of Mr. Pines, or Mr. Mystery as Soos liked to parrot, had long since eroded from age; and anything from the era of the twins was covered in enough glitter to count as a violation of the Geneva Convention.

“Look at all this neat Mystery Shack stuff I found! I got a bobblehead of Mr. Mystery! This Mystery Brand T-shirt with fake cockroaches (They were in fact not fake)! This dried stuffed raccoon with wings, I think it's an angel-coon! And-”

“Soos!” I interrupted, putting my hands up and shoving Soos off of me, blinking past tears to try and see if the head was still ahead of me. Cocking my head to the side in the hopes of hearing the trail of “ Nyegh’s !” still. “Look, Soos, I know this is like your dream come true of creepy shack stuff, but some weird goblin head just ran off with my backpack and the family ax and-”

“OHMYGODYOUJUSTREMINDEDMEOFTHECOOLESTTHINGIALSOFOUNDLETSGOOOO!”

At least this time Soos took me with him when he ran off, reminding me that my best bud was remarkably strong for his diminutive size.

Unfortunately he took me the WRONG WAY!

“Soos, no, the head took my axe that way! I think…”

“NO TIME WENDY, I REALLY NEED YOUR HELP WITH THIS! I CAN’T BELIEVE THE TWINS JUST LEFT IT HERE TO COLLECT DUST AND GLITTER!”

“No, No time for that.” I yelled, somehow finding my footing and leveraging my time as a lumberjack to stop Soos and pull the opposite direction, hoping that there might be a trail of footprints (stumpprints?) in dust and or glitter. “Soos, this wax head took my axe and-” I found myself flying as Soos let go.

“OKAYDUDEI’LLLETYOUGODOTHAT!MEETMEBACKATTHESTAIRSINHALFANHOUR!”

“SOOS!” I yelled, now really mad at my friend for going all over the place. What was up with him? I mean, I’d seen him go bonkers over shack stuff before but this was on a whole other level.

A part of me was actually tempted to follow after him before the angry part of me that knew I’d get grounded until the end of time kicked back in. “Yeah, well, whatever man! But if you expect me to help haul junk back up the stairs you got another thing coming!”

Dusting myself off, I got back to trying to find the head. It wasn’t too hard to trace my way back to where I lost the head, not to mention the family axe my dad was gonna hang my hide over. But what I had forgotten about was the journal! A thought occurred to me as I picked it up to wipe as much glitter off of it as was humanly possible, thumbing through the pages until I found one that looked vaguely familiar.

It was hard to tell what exactly I was reading, I was mostly going off of pictures, but there was enough light coming in from some window that reflected off of the ample glitter to just barely make out what I was looking at.

“ Wax figures are extremely evil and liable to hold a grudge. Coming to life only when the moon is waxing, these malevolent wax statues will immediately go on to cause havoc. They are the indisputable rulers of the night, potentially possessing all of the powers and knowledge of their non-wax selves. Luckily, their magic only extends to their ability to come to life under the waxing moon. Also luckily, they are highly susceptible to heat damage, with even the early morning rays of the sun being enough to completely melt wax Sherlock Holmes to a sludgy death. We’ll see who sneezes like a kitten!”

“Heat source?” I said to myself, checking my pockets for anything, anything at all.

Nothing.

“Okay, that’s fine.” I tried to psyche myself up. “He’s just a head. Just a decapitated head that rules the night. On the bright side, it doesn’t have a grudge; you do.” And with the desire - not to mention need - to punt that head so deep into a pile of glitter it would never surface again, I tracked it down.

Utilizing all of my Lumberjack senses, I managed to track it down to an odd opening in the aisles upon aisles of shelves, coming to a halt and watching as the goblin head hopped around.

At first I couldn’t tell what it was doing, then I started to notice more of the surroundings. “What the?” I said while running my palm over a low chord of taught rope, noticing how it strung up along the shelves and across the ceiling. It was too dim to really make out exactly what the ropes were attached to, but I’d seen enough cartoons to know it was probably anvils or pianos or other such deadly paraphernalia.

Paraphernalia such as-

“My axe!’ I whispered in hushed exclamation.

Gingerly, I began to crawl over the ropes, trying hard not to make a noise and praying to Lumberjack Justice that I didn’t hit a loose floorboard. I was not in the mood for a cliché horror moment right now while who knows what - alongside the family axe - was hanging above my head ready to come snapping down at any moment.

Just…

About…

There…

One more…

And…

“Gotcha!” I yelled.

“What, huh?” The head yelled in shocked exclamation. “When did you-”

“Not in the mood dude!” I hollered back, reaching up with one hand and grabbing the family axe from where it hung on a chord and easily pulling it loose. Thank Lumber Justice the head hadn’t properly tied the rope just yet.

Though I did wonder how a head could tie a knot.

“You don’t under- Whah?!”

“Flipping Corduroy! Right Hook!” Well, more of a right fore, as I swung the Corduroy family axe - now back in the right hands - at the head with all my vindictive Lumberjack might.

And away the screaming wax head went, deep into the recesses of the Shack.

“Now how to get back to the… oh, I’m right there!” I spoke to myself when trying to find the exit, turned out the head was booby trapping the door. Did he maybe have a grudge against the twins??? Would explain why he was just a head.

But I quickly dashed that thought when I remembered that the twins; A - didn’t put much stock in the supernatural, and B - if they knew a talking wax head capable of setting up booby traps was hanging out in their basement they would have marketed the Lumberjack hell out of that.

This time I did step on the creaky board as I started my way up the stairs, determined to find an old flashlight that would both help me find my backpack and melt that stupid face’s… face! Only stopping midway up when I remembered Soos was still down here somewhere having a nerd freakout over Shack stuff that deserved to be down here.

Then I remembered Soos was part of why I almost lost the family axe and decided he could wait just a bit until I worked out most of my anger on the stupid head and not flip out on Soos while holding a tool known to be used in certain less than legal activities.

Of course, much like the Lumberjack Devil and certain poltergeists, think about him and he shall appear.

With a bang.

“Wendy!” Soos huffed, “You’re not going to believe what I found, it’s so cool, it’s gonna blow the twins and your mind! Heh, heh, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said sarcastically, “Maybe because you, like, threw glitter and dust in my face, ran me over, and then tried to yank me away while my family axe was being stolen by a stupid headless wax statue of a goblin!” I waved the family axe above my head for emphasis, still very angry.

“Wax goblin head… nevermind that! It’s unbelievable, indescribable, so super duper cool what I’ve found! Help me get it up the stairs.” Soos said, not even waiting for me to respond as he started pulling whatever it was he found up the stairs.

“Did everything I just say run in one ear and out the other?” I smacked my forehead, wondering why I was friends with this goober before leaving him to pull whatever it was up the stairs by himself.

I’m sure if Soos was capable of dragging whatever that thing was from wherever he found it in the basement he could make it up the stairs.

Of course I was wrong, as the massive crash of stuff happened immediately after I turned my back on Soos.

“I’m okay.” Soos informed me.

And before he even began to ask me, I turned around to help him get the thing up the stairs before he killed himself. If nothing else I didn’t want Dipper putting me in debt because he had to shell out for Soos’ medical bills and or funeral services.

Okay, too dark.

I might be mad at Soos, but I wasn’t that mad. I’d be fine in a day or two… probably.

With a grunt, we managed to lift the thing, whatever it was, up the first step before taking a break and repositioning to take it up the rest.

“Do you hear that?”

“No.”

“Sounds like it’s coming from over there dude.”

“Soos, I really don’t care right now. Can we just get this dumb-”

“When did that wall of junk get there?”

“In one ear and out the-” I started to go while looking over my shoulder to see just what had distracted Soos from his oh so important mission, “other.” Lamely finishing the snarky remark when I saw the quite literal wall of junk blocking one of the side paths.

“Great, you must have knocked over the shelves of old junk when you dropped this thing. Man, Dipper’s gonna make us clean all this up dude, probably the whole basement.” I was not looking forward to that.

But, on second thought, it would give me ample time to make that talking wax head a dead wax head… two wax heads?

Two one-half wax heads.

Honestly, the more I thought about it the less appealing revenge sounded if it meant doubling my problems.

Maybe I’ll just turn him into a jack-o-lantern.

Melt the little bastard.

“Okay, we can do that later, and then I can show you all the cool stuff I found. But first-” Soos didn’t even wait for me to help him, somehow shoving whatever it was he’d found up the stairs. He somehow managed to clear the distance in only a few seconds, making it to the hallway beyond the threshold of this discontinued merch hellscape. I honestly couldn’t tell, it was so dark and the thing was covered in rope and a tarp. I wondered how Soos even knew what was under there. Thing didn’t look disturbed aside from my best friend dragging it out from who knows where in the basement.

“Yo, hey, what was all that banging? I got customers running away screaming about the apocalypse or something and- Woah, hey, what ya got there Soos?” It was Mabel, coming down the hall with a look of concern quickly turned excited curiosity when she saw whatever it was Soos had gotten up. “A piece of lost Shack history from before time immemorial? Hey Dipper, Soos found something cool and mysterious in the Shack!”

“Another?” Came the somewhat muffled reply, “Please tell me it’s not another mummified possum, we already have a bumper crop of those from last year.” Dipper’s voice was getting louder, clearer, and closer. With Lil’Bastard running around the corner to herald his owner’s approach. “Wait, where’d he find it . Didn’t you say he was in the basement with all the old discontinued junk we couldn’t even pay people to take because it constituted a ‘ serious biohazard’ ” He said sarcastically rounding the corner, air quotes and all.

Least he seemed awake and caffeinated, that just meant he’d submit me to long agonizing torment cleaning the basement when he saw the mess we just made, as opposed to strangling me in his uncaffeinated state.

“It better not be-”  Whatever he was going to say was cut off as his eyes quickly roved over the tarp covered object Soos had dredged up from the long ago past. And he must have recognized it too, “Oh no.” It was kinda odd to see concern on Dipper’s face, usually it was apathy or absolute loathing I was used to seeing. “Maybe we should put that back.”

“What?” Mabel started in on her brother, obviously not recognizing what it was that was under the tarp. It looked kind of human now that I wasn’t constantly rubbing glitter out of my eye. Also proper lighting, could never underestimate the power of proper lighting. “Is it some shrine to one of your old crushes? Soos, quick pull it off, I got the camera!”

“Mabel no, Soos!” Dipper started, shocking me who had never seen anything close to fear cross the unflappable Dipper Pines face. And I had seen him fight off a pack of angry Karen’s with matching beehive hairdos.

“I present to you all…”

“Soos, no!” Dipper tried, putting in a running start to make it to Soos before he uncovered whatever it was he found. And I was dying to know now what it was if it warranted all this drama. But Mabel was faster, motivated by the need to see her brother’s shame brought to the light of day. “Ah, Mabel, get off, that’s-”

“Mr. Mystery!” Soos pulled the cover off. Revealing a creepy still life replica of the man, the myth, the geriatric legend.

The room was silent.

And not in a good way.

 “In wax form!” Soos tried, enthusiasm quickly dying as his brain finally seemed to process other’s emotions beyond his earlier excitement.

“Wait, did you say wax?” I asked, a pit of dread forming in my stomach as I now searched for signs of life in Wax Mr. Mystery.

But when the silence only deepened, I stopped my observations of the Wax Pines to see the reaction of the real Pines.

And it was… not good.