What could go wrong?
Ford and Stan gave each other a look. Dipper didn't quite know what type of look it was, but he knew that it had to be bad. He fidgeted a bit before giving an awkward laugh to break the silence that hung in the air.
"Well, I'm just gonna go and find Mabel. She might be wondering where I am." He forced his knees to ease up and fought the urge to just bolt for it. It would only add to the pile of alarm there was. To his dismay, Ford stopped him. His hand was heavy on his shoulder. A normally comforting gesture just added to the pool of regret spooling in his stomach.
"We actually want to talk to you about where we might have found that hat. Your not in trouble or anything. We're just concerned is all." Fords eyes seemed warm, but that sharp stone edge behind it made Dipper swallow a sharp shard of anxiety. He was never good with talks. Especially under a fairly stressful situation such as this. He just wished that Mabel was here. It always made his stress dissipate.
"Uh, sure. Should we go back to the church, or something." He couldn't help but avert his eyes. Just as he was about to implode with all the pressure, a little radio on the waist of Stan buzzed to life. after a bucket load of fuzz vanished a calming, but no so calm voice came over.
"Uh, Stan! The uh, the great spirit is kinda freaking out!" It was the voice of none other than Wendy. He could hear some booming over the small walkie-talkie. He even heard some of the booming off into the distance. When he turned his gaze to the direction, he noticed the woods about two miles away had some scattered birds flying off. His interest was automatically peaked. His mind was immediately stuffed with questions that were sure to never be answered. Especially in his current position.
He saw both Stan and Ford sorta panic a bit and Stan rushed off to the side, holding the radio close to his face and spitting out a boat load of information that Dipper couldn't quite make out. Ford walked up to Dipper and looked down at him.
"Listen very carefully to me. Right now is not the best time to talk about what you were doing yesterday, but we will talk about it. We are more or so worried about the amount of blood there was but for now I need you to go back to the church. And Please dear god I beg of the lord do not follow us." He seemed serious about his concerns. But Dipper knew that staying put was just not his thing.
"Fine." He wanted to say anything else, anything at all, but the words he thought of just didn't puzzle together. He was definitely going to follow them, that was for sure. But he wanted to have a bit more space in between him and whatever it was that they were doing. His cut was still fresh and the layer of dried blood didn't need to be cracked open again to cause more concern than there already was.
"We'll be back for dinner." Ford grabbed Stan by the arm, who was still barking orders into the radio. They both ran off to the direction of the lake, and Dipper couldn't help but walk to the edge of the trees. They both jumped into what seemed like a golf cart and drove off toward where the rumbling came from. He watched as they disappeared from sight, and as soon as they did Dipper ran to where his sister was. Mabel was sitting on a bench with Pacifica. They were chatting and giggling. They seemed to be such a happy pair and Dipper reconsidered disturbing them. But it was too late, Mabel saw him and waved him over.
"Bro-bro! Where have you been! We've been waiting for ages! Wheres Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford?" She peered around behind him, searching for the duo.
"They had some uh, stuff to do. I've actually gotta go too though. You don't mind do you?" He felt bad leaving them, but they seemed to be having fun without him so it wouldn't be that bad.
"Sure, ill save you a burger since that's where me and Pacifica are going to go next. See you later!" She and Pacifica left the area and headed to the direction of town. He was a little happy that he didn't need to go with them. Being around nothing but girls was a bit tiring, Wendy or no.
Dipper turned back to the forest and sighed a bit. His legs were turning a sore from all the running he's been doing in the last couple of days, and it was far from over. He decided to jog this time since he wanted to be a bit farther from the group. He didn't need anymore scars.
It wasn't really hard to find the other three with all the noise and commotion that was happening, but he could barely see anything with all the trees in the way. If he wanted to check out what was going on, he would need to get closer. Dipper sat on the forest floor for moment, looking over his options. His Grunkles already knew that he knew what was technically going on so if they saw him anywhere near what was going on, it wouldn't be too terrible. But he was told to stay out of this so he would get in trouble. Dipper was already in some deep mud so deepening the hole he was in would make everything a whole lot worse.
The booming that was going on seemed to get closer and a tad bit louder. When Dipper got up, he looked over to see what was going on and it looked as if the group had moved to what seemed to be a clearing. This was Dippers chance to really see what was going on. Instead of heading over there he chose a pretty tall looking tree and pulled himself up into the branches. When he reached a reasonable height, he still could not see anything. Climbing higher was an option. A terrible option, but a choice at that.
He jumped back down and thought for a moment. This was a chance of a life time. Not taking it would mean a world of regret later. Dipper headed over to where the roars were coming from and slowed down a bit when he came to the fairly large clearing, which he now realized was a pond. Towering over the pond seemed to be a bear, or what seemed like a bear. But instead of your natural bear, it was about five times larger and had antlers. Vines were wrapped around almost every part of its body and other greenery seemed to be there too. It would be breath taking majestic if it were not for it being so enraged.
Stan, Ford, and Wendy were all around it. They seemed to be trying to calm it down by the way Wendy was shushing it and waving her arms in an attempt to make it see reason. But it seemed to do nothing but make it roar more. Ford was also saying stuff to it along with Stan. But Stan seemed to be more aggressive with the way he was yelling and pointing, at Ford anyways. Either way, the giant beast was not calming anytime soon.
The bear gave off another bellowing howl and charged at his Grunkles. Ford and Stan jumped out of the way before a giant paw smashed down to where they were. The poor creature seemed exhausted, its breath was heavy and its movements sluggish. Wendy kept her tone soothing and reached out to it. To Dippers horror the brute of a bear turned to the direction of Wendy and raised its claws, which was mind you most likely to be the size of a small car. Dipper didn't think at that moment and ran forward, reaching out to Wendy and jumped forward, Dipper hissing a bit as his side stung in protest. They both hit the ground with a thud, but soon after a much larger thud sounded behind him and when he looked, four claws that were much larger than him were burrowed deep into the ground.
Dipper could help but gulp when he felt three very surprised eyes fall onto this back. He looked down at Wendy, who he was still on top of and got up quickly, brushing off his pants and helping her up.
"Dipper, what are you doing here." She seemed puzzled, but still grateful that he had saved her.
"Well, Grunkle Ford told me to stay put, so as the rebellious teen I played my role and didn't listen." Dipper gave a small awkward laugh before a loud roar erupted from behind him. The bear was anything but pleased at the new guest.
"Well Stan is going to play the part of being the responsible adult and ground your ass when this is over!" Stan screamed from across the pond.
"Stanley language." Ford still seemed mad, but more concerned at the threat before them.
"Medeina please listen! We didn't mean to awaken you at such a bad time, but we need your help!" Ford yelled up to the angered, Deity?
"เ ๔๏ ภ๏t ฬคภt t๏ ђєคг א๏ย єץςยรє, ђย๓คภ" A fairly feminine but distorted voice came from Medeina.
"We need your help, please." Wendy was the one pleading this time. Wendy stood tall and seemed to have no fear what so ever. Medeina did seem to calm down a bit. She was no longer thrashing and trying to kill them.
"ฬђคt ๔๏ ץ๏ย ภєє๔ ђєlק ฬเtђ tђคt เร ร๏ เ๓ק๏гtคภt t๏ คฬคкєภ ๓є?" She bent her head down close to Wendy, and at this Wendy stepped back a bit.
"We need help in finding the rest of Lena" Wendy's voice was staying even and calm, but her movements were backing up a bit.
Dipper looked over at Wendy a bit shocked. Wasn't Lena already dead? She was stabbed, and almost took Dipper down with her. He kept his mouth shut though, afraid of creating unwanted attention to himself.
Medeina paused for a moment, looking down at Wendy.
"lєภค ђคร ๒ยt tђгєє ๓๏гє." Dipper looked over to Wendy, waiting for a reply, but the one who spoke next was Ford.
"We need to know where they are. We just want to help her." They all seemed to be a bit desperate, and Dipper had no idea why. In all honesty he had no idea what was going on in general. What Dipper did know was that this chat was coming to a close. And once it did, all eyes would go back to him.
"l๏שє ๏ภ tђє ςlเﾓﾓ tђคt кเรรєร tђє รยภ, รค๔ภєรร เภ tђє гเשєг ฬђเςђ ﾓl๏ฬร ๒คςкฬคг๔ร, คภ๔ ค ﾓเภคl ๏ภє ๏ภςє tђє гєรt ﾓค๔єร." Medeina stood tall and turned back to where the destructive path was and started off. Each step she took replaced each broken piece of life with another. Ford was deep in thought and Stan stood there, distracted by his own thoughts. Wendy just sighed in relief and sat down in the grass.
"Man, that was fun. Well guys gotta go, uh, do stuff." Dipper turned and started to power walk away, slowly feeling the atmosphere turn into a more tense one.
"Hold it right there kid." Dipper didn't want to stop, but his legs stopped on their own and he couldn't help but turn to a very angry Stan.
"Yeah, i'm pretty sure that the stuff can wait." Ford walked over to Dipper and looked down at him.
"You know, he did save my life you know." Wendy quickly ran over to the surprisingly calm Ford and not so calm Dipper.
"Plus, who would not go and see whats going on in this situation?" She was hopefully helping Dipper, but with him being caught previously, this was everything but good.
"I thought I told you to not come here, and what did you do? The complete opposite of things." Ford ignored Wendy and seemed to be struggling at keeping his voice at a reasonable level.
"I just thought that-"
"What if you had been hurt? Or worse? If you had been killed, I don't know what I could tell your parents!" Fords voice raised a bit. All Dipper could do was look down. He knew that his Grunkles were just worried about him. Dippers even worried about himself.
"Wendy, take him back to the church. We will talk with him later, but for now I need to do some research. Stan, please fix the truck." And with that, Ford walked off toward town. Stan looked a bit ticked off from being ordered around, but Ford seemed to be in a scary mood and he didn't want to make things any worse.
"Wendy, come and help once you drop him off." Stan turned around, facing what looked like a truck, or actually it was the truck. From what Dipper could tell, the truck was not in good shape or any shape at all for that matter.
"Lets go, we'll be taking the golf cart. Unless you want to walk." Wendy smiled a bit and Dipper was glad that she didn't seem mad at him.
"I think id rather drive." He relaxed a bit and followed Wendy to the golf cart. It was scratched up and dented, but no where near as bad as the truck.
The drive back was quiet with no radio to fill the silence. The cart followed a small trail that seemed to be centuries old, plants and weeds whipped at the front of the vehicle. Puffs of pollen from the flowers scattered in the air. Dipper was glad that it was all over, for now. He didn't know how much longer he could hold out in such a tense setting. What did Medeina mean anyway? Lena was dead, or so Dipper had thought and now he's being told that there's three more? He wanted to ask questions to Wendy, who was looking straight ahead, trying to avoid the worst of the trail. But Dipper didn't want to break the silence. He was enjoying the buzz of the motor and the fleeing chirps of birds. But it was Wendy who broke it.
"So, how long did you know about, you know." She kept her eyes in front of her, but she didn't seem focused.
"The first night maybe." Dipper's attention went to his hands at the moment. He suddenly noticed all the little creases and veins, playing with the zipper of his vest.
"Hey, look at the bright side. Its not the first time a person had found out about this whole mess." This time Wendy looked over to Dipper. Everything was a bit awkward.
"Really." Dipper felt as if he should say something more to keep the conversation flowing, but all the words he knew before seemed to turn into mushy blobs and anything else got stuck in his throat.
"Yeah, I mean when I first met the two old guys I thought they were just weird old priests that lived on the hill. But I got too curious and stuck my nose into business I shouldn't have." She paused for a moment. "Not say that you shouldn't have, since you know, they're your family and all. You should know whats going on if your going to be staying with them for three months. I'm just saying that when they caught me spying, instead of throwing me into hell they gave me a job. So they might, you know, give you a job." She was trying pretty hard to make Dipper feel better. He knew that, but she also wasn't related to them.
"Thanks Wendy, but I don't think they would want their nephew in such a dangerous, career." Dipper gave off a small scoff. He didn't want to sound rude, but with everything that had happened, Dipper doubted that he would be offered a job after breaking the rules twice.
"You never know." The cart hit solid ground and soon the trees turned into buildings. Dipper didn't know if the cart could make it up the hill, but sure enough the small golf cart pulled itself up the sheer slant and pulled into the cracked parking lot of the church.
"Just make sure to get some rest. Ford really knows how to lecture, trust me." Wendy waved him off before driving off back down the slope, disappearing from sight. Dipper turned to the old building and walked through the door. When the church was empty and without people, it was quite creepy. The structure creaked eerily and Dipper felt as if he was being watched from a distance. He even turned around every once in a while just to make sure he wasn't being followed. But sure enough, there would be nothing.
He made his way up the ladder and into the attic. At this point, he was too tired to do anything. He thought for a moment, pondering if he should change his bandages. But it was too late, his face hit the cot, which gave a creaking resistance to the sudden weight. Dipper was greeted by the inky blackness of sleep quickly, and for once, he slept soundly.