Shindig with Demons

The exhaustion from the night before was starting to get to him. He was tired and started dozing off. The uncles were busy with something that morning so Dipper and Mabel were forced to fend for themselves at breakfast. Dipper knew sort of knew what was happening with the uncles. But Mabel just brushed it off as priest work. Mabel was a great cook. Despite the glitter in the pancakes, it was edible, maybe. He had a twitch in knee. His foot was tapping restlessly no matter how hard he tried to stop. His mind was on a panic mode, after what he saw last night. Mabel noticed, but whenever Dipper was in a finicky mood, he was snappy and aggressive. He had to calm down, but he was terrible in a new situation. The best way to deal with it would be to do what he's best at.

After breakfast he ran back up to the attic and sat down. He started writing for a good while, making sure not to miss any details. Even if Mabel read it, she would think it was either a nightmare or just some way to deal with the new transition in a new scene. He decided to add pictures in the best way his drawing skills would let him. After looking over his work, he sighed. He didn't want to see his uncles as bad people. This seemed like a whole lot of macaroni, but if they were fighting the demon, wouldn't that mean that they were on the good side? Dipper didn't know, but all he knew was that this town was a gold mine of secrets. He had a whole summer of nothing so this might as well be his new "hobby".  He kept the journal he had written in close by. Keeping notes would be useful for future encounters. He didn't want to see something like that again, but at the same time he did. 

He spent an hour on his drawing of the demon. His sleep deprived brain made it hard because remembering what the thing looked like was being blurred by the desire to sleep. He knew staying up that late would get him later. He headed back down the ladder, heading to the kitchen to where Mabel was still cleaning up the kitchen.

"Ah, sorry for leaving you to clean up yourself. I forgot that I needed to do something." Dipper felt a bit guilty. He hated keeping things from her, but he didn't need her to be in this. At least not yet. He didn't want to put her into any unnecessary danger.

"Its ok, you seem to be a bit distracted. But don't worry, this is way better than summer camp. At least we can actually go to town and don't need to make 7 macaroni picture frames." She forced a smile at the finale thought. The memory of Mabel being covered in macaroni and throwing glue at another girl came to mind. She wasn't allowed to use glue anymore after that.

"I'm thinking of going to town today, just to look around and take a breather." Dipper hoped that she didn't want to come with him because she hated any library ever, calling them the most boring thing ever. And since that's where he wanted to head, bringing her along would not be the most efficient choice he could make.

"Wendy was going to show me around the forest today. Maybe later I can retrace my steps with you and show you what she shows me." She seemed a bit more happy than she was before. She loved exploring the woods, but never got the chance at the camp.

"Then ill see you later!" He ran out before they could talk anymore. He was still overly tired and didn't want to deal with words anymore. 

He headed down the hill, noting each plant that passed. Studying was the love of Dippers life and plants were his favorite. Each one with a purpose or danger. He could tell a poison one from an herb even if they looked exactly alike. He wanted to study mushrooms, but he was told not to unless he found someone who was willing to help. Because lets face it, all mushrooms look alike and taste testing each one might not be the best choice.

The road up the hill was much more rocky than he remembered, but seeing that he was in a truck the last time he made his way up it. Going down was much easier than going up so the walk up later would be, very difficult. He was not the most fit person there was.

The walk there was fairly peaceful. It really did calm his nerves, and the air was much more fresh than in the city. The ground leveled out flat and he found himself walking on the sidewalk in town. The roads had barely any cars, but there was a lot of people walking on the sidewalks, but this made sense since the town was small and using a car to get around seemed like a waste of gas and money. 

He searched each sign of the passing stores. Usually libraries, or bookstores, were in the center of town. He decided to search up the history of this town, and his uncles. It might also be smart to look for what that, thing, was about. Even if he didn't find any books about demons, at least there might be a lore or something. 

He found a bookstore that peaked his interest. The sign was old and broken, but the look on the inside made him excited. The floor was pretty messy, but not with dirt. The store was jam packed filled with just books. There didn't seem to be a store manager or anything, but he wasn't planning on buying anything so he might as well just look around. The books seemed old. The covers were dusty and the pages were torn a bit. The store smelled like books. It made Dipper all giddy and happy. He barely got time to spend surrounded by books, especially when they were at church camp.

He found a corner of the store that had piles upon piles of books. Each of the books seemed to be older than the rest, and some of the words seemed to be in a whole different language. He didn't even read the cover before he grabbed one and opened it. The story seemed to be about an old which who turned people into mushrooms if they ever got close to her cottage. This didn't really peak Dippers interest, but something did catch his eye. Notes, covering the sides of the pages.

If seemed to be about the story, but in a more detailed way. He found himself more interested in the notes than the story. Each note was scribbled in a way that was kind of hard to read, but he could still make out the letters. It gave possible locations and even was describing how to, kill the witch? This made Dipper get lost into the book, the notes, the everything. The notes could've been old, but he still wanted to follow them. Every inch of his being was telling him that that was an awful idea. But the day was young, and if it were close by, he could guess who would know where. Especially after today.

He got up and took the book with him. He wasn't going to keep it, he was just going to do some unknown borrowing. He walked out of the store and headed back to the church. He looked at his watch that stuck to his wrist ticking. He frowned. Dipper had been in that store for more than 4 hours doing nothing but studying. That was more concerning than most people would think. For Dipper, he could read for 10 hours straight, but his parents and teachers told him that, that would be an awful idea.

He looked up from his watch and cringed a bit. The hill looked more like a cliff than anything. Maybe he should have asked Mabel to come pick him up with Wendy's help. But it was too late, the hill was looming over him and his feet didn't seem to stop. Dipper mentally told himself that after this, he would exorcise. Well, that was the plan anyways.

The walk wasn't as bad as he thought it would be, with the help of the gravel. He retraced his train of thought and renames each plant that he had already said. The walk was twice as long thanks to the amount of stamina Dipper had. At least two breaks had to be taken and one slow walk. This hill was more like a cliff than anything. There may have been a gravel road, but only trucks could probably make it up. Any small car would just tumble backwards.

The shack was quiet except for the ticking of the clock. This was a great time to do some more reading along with note taking. He hoped had hoped that he would get some peace and quiet, without Mabel pestering him to go out in the woods with her. He loved to woods, he really did. But this book seemed to be more interesting than anything. 

After about an hour or so, he heard the front door open. Rapid foot steps came barreling toward the ladder and it seemed the whole house shook as Mabel forced her way up. She was out of breath with a lot of sticks in her hair. She looked like she fell down a hill a couple of times, through bushes and sticks.

"Ohmygoddipperyouwouldnotbelievewhathappenedwewereinthewoodsandtherewasa-" Words? Was she speaking words?

"Mabel chill, I cant make out a thing your saying. Breathe please." Dipper sat up and beckoned Mabel to sit beside him.

"When me and Wendy went out in the woods, we saw wild horses! It was amazing. They were all, wild and stuff. Wendy told me not to go near them because they were wild and stuff and that I could get hurt blah blah blah... But i sorta just ran at them to say hello but they panicked and started going on a rampage and so I grabbed a hold of one and..." She seemed to have had a more exciting day than Dipper at least. She kept going but Dipper's mind kept going back to the book. He wanted to ask her, but this wasn't the time. He decided to ask her tomorrow.

"And then the horse flew me off and-" Dipper put his hand up to stop her. "You think we should have your sparkle spaghetti tonight?" Her face flew back to joy and she didn't even answer. She ran back down to the kitchen, leaving Dipper alone. He sighed and got up to join her, looking at the book one last time.

"Do you need any help? With dinner I mean." He stepped into the kitchen and was already greeted with the sight of sparkles. Of course that was expected, it wasn't called sparkle spaghetti for no reason.

"I think i've got this bro-bro. Just go and get Grunkle Ford from his study. Stan said he'll be back later." And with that, she went back to dumping some glitter into a pot of water. The sight made Dipper's stomach twist a bit. Glitter wasn't that healthy to eat to begin with. That much may just kill him.

He went down the hall to where Fords study was and knocked four times. He heard a couple of shuffles and paper crunches before the door opened to a very tired looking Ford. 

"What do you need kid. I've been up all night, so unless you've got some coffee for me, I need to finish this up."

"Its dinner time, and Mabel is making some sparkle spaghetti tonight. Even if the food wont wake you up, i'm pretty sure the chemicals in the sparkles will." Ford gave a laugh at that and yawned a bit.

"Ill head over there in a bit. I've got some more stuff to do before I can take a break." With that he gave a nod and went back into his study, leaving Dipper to go back to his own activities. Which was the book of course.

He headed back up to the loft where the book lay. He sat on the bed and began flipping through the book, re-reading what he had just read.

"Dipper! Dinners done. I even added extra sparkles for you!" His stomach turned and twisted. He might not even be able to go out exploring, if he dies from over consuming glitter.