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You hear her before you could see her.
It was an innate ability to sense presence around the shack. Granted, it was born from … less than favorable circumstances thirty years before, but it was an ability you were thankful for. Even as you know the course of the plot remains unchanged, you are vigilant; as well as the amount of world-jumping books and time travel stories and isekai fanfictions you’ve read back in your day.
(Oh, the enlightened world in which we live.)
Setting down Stan’s scuffed coat and the sewing kit beside you on the outdoor couch, you turn your head slightly to the right. Your eyes catch the sparkling light of a sweater stitched with way too many sequins and knitted by hands far more creative and skilled than your own. In the sun’s ray from between the branches of the trees, it was blinding up close.
The younger set of twins only arrived recently, but you already love them. Just as you loved them in your past life.
“Out with it, Mabel,” you say with softness in your eyes and tenderness in your tone. She awkwardly shuffles, showing herself. Your smile grows larger as she walks out, walking to you. She is so small, so sweet. Never one to let anyone else dull her shine, may it be literally or metaphorically. She somewhat reminded you of bakeries filled with warm, sugary pastries. Childlike and kind and unapologetically Mabel .
She smiles, brighter than the sun and clearer than the sky. “Hi, Grauntie.”
You swear you are about to squish her face and stretch her cheeks out. Cuteness aggression always gets your heart in a vice grip and you’re not sure whether to let it be or to shoo it away. She is far too cute. She might be the death of you.
Only then you realize that her hair is messy and tangled with wisps of grime and leaves and small debris intertwined within. Your eyes trail down to her sweater; purple and sparkly and decorated with a cat in front. In her hand is a grappling hook. You blink.
Oh.
You blink, slower this time.
(A chase around the forest. The first taste of the supernatural. Her brother must have found it while you were reading on the porch and did not notice until now. You weren’t there when Mabel introduced her boyfriend . The very familiar design of the sweater she is currently wearing. The grappling hook that would soon save more lives than being just a relic, a souvenir she picked from Stan’s shop.)
Oh.
“Mabel, lovely girl,” the aforementioned girl rocks back and forth. She brandishes the gift she selected from her Grunkle’s gift shop. Her grin is as wide as the horizon. Your heart stutters between pride, acknowledgement, and worry. It is natural to worry about your great niece. It is natural to worry about your family.
Shaking your head, you reach up to pick off a stray leaf that she didn’t remove. She stays very still. “Don’t go breaking stuff in the house now that you have a grappling hook.”
“No promises!”
You know damn well she’s going to break several windows and send you into a coma.
Still, you continue to remove every bit of leaves and grime in her hair, your fingers soft and practiced and careful not to tug too hard. You pinch the part of each strand closer to her scalp to halt the tugging while your other hand picks out junk. Your mother used to do this and now you do the same to this little girl who wasn’t even your blood and flesh.
(You wonder if you’d do the same with a tiny girl or a small boy who shares your eyes and your husband’s intellect. You wonder. Until you wonder if it will ever happen.)
“Sweet girl, how did you get-” your brows furrow at two leaves stuck between her curls at the back. You flick it away before dusting her sweater. “How did you get so many leaves and stuff in your hair?”
You already know the answer. You expect her to lie, to be dishonest; maybe even avoid answering the question entirely. About the gnomes, about her almost-marriage and coronation as queen, about the whole debacle on the other side of the house. But to not question her why she looks slightly disheveled and covered in leaves might be suspicious.
Also, you are an adult. Adults question children about their shenanigans on a daily basis. More so when you are an educator for a long time.
“Did you perhaps-” Mabel tenses up. You resist a smile. “Play in the leaf pile? I just raked those earlier, honey. Stan might be cross with me if the side of the gift shop is messy and cluttered again,” you tuck stray hairs behind her ear. “You know him, grump and all. Makes the tourist trap business ratings go down.”
She untenses and nods, grinning. “I’ll clean it up.”
Laughing, you shake your head before picking up what’s left of your work, looking out for more loose stitches. And then, you ask about her supposed very normal boyfriend .
As expected, Mabel deflates. Strangely, there was a relieved glint in her brown eyes. “We, uh, broke up.”
Ah. After years of lying alongside the greatest con-man in history ever (you are very biased) you would know a liar who just started doing this recently to someone who has been through and seen some … questionable events. That’s a lie when you see one.
“Well,” Mabel starts, brandishing her grappling hook and almost dropping onto your foot. Your brows raise as she quips out a quick apology. She straightens up, jumping in place. “I should go and freshen up!”
“You need to, you look like you went through Limbo.”
Mabel tilts her head. “Limbo? Isn’t that a game?”
You laugh. Alighieri, you have unusual ways of naming places in hell. “Nothing, just a little euphemism for hell.”
“That I am,” the younger girl pulls another leaf from underneath her sweater. She waves and runs off, leaving you with your thoughts.
The setting sun finally dips down, resting and hiding. The moon rises, and you feel lighter than before.
As much as the canon timeline goes, it went as it is. You know so, since your adorable niece had gone through an ordeal and gave her brother a fright of his life. Not to say it was the last.
You call back to the events of the canon plot that transpired earlier.
You were there when she introduced Norman to her brother and Stan. You were in the kitchen, preparing snacks when she had entered. It took you and several other lifetimes to not laugh out loud or cringe at the very embarrassing plot of the gnomes to try and emulate normal human behavior.
(You raise a brow when Norman makes eye contact with you. When he immediately looks away, uncomfortable with your piercing gaze, you stifle a chuckle and go back to washing some dishes.)
Other than introducing the lover to the family scene, you entered first before Stan did. It was a split second but you saw it. A hardbound book with a flash of gold in the middle of the front cover. A six-fingered hand with the number three on it.
It was a glimpse but it was all it takes for invasive memories to run through your mind like it did decades ago. The same memories that confined you to unimaginable terrors of loss and years wasted on grief unresolved. It was just a really quick flash of gold underneath thin hands and it took everything in you not to scream.
Shaking yourself out of it, you simply went along. Greeting Norman warmly but with brows furrowed. You and Dipper share the same tone of skepticism; except his stemmed from genuine concern, while yours is a mix of his emotions and the knowledge of who her ‘boyfriend’ really is.
You internally shudder. There was also Gideon. Your sweet girl can do much better.
(You might have a few words with Gideon if he dares try Mabel.)
Scratch that; Mabel deserves the best. No man alive could ever deserve her.
Some hours had passed after Norman’s introduction, Stan gently took a hold of your arm when you passed him by the hallway. His grip was never tight, never harsh - only getting your attention. When you enter his office and lock it, you turn to look at him, waiting for him to talk. Waiting if he saw the journal or if not.
“Did you see what the kid was holding?” Oh, he did see.
You smile, empty. “A dingy book?”
Stan smiles back. “A dingy book,” his eyes looked down on the floor. You instantly knew what he was referring to. “Like the one-?”
( Much like the one we have left of him. Of his pride, his memory. He was holding one of the keys to your brother’s freedom and return. He was holding the keys to my reunion with my husband. )
“Yes,” you pry his arm away from your bicep. As the conversation went on, his fingers clutched onto your sleeve tighter. It didn’t hurt, but he is a strong man, even as the years went by. Stan mumbles an apology. “Looks like it.”
“Should we ask Dipper for it?”
You have thought about it. Just asking your great nephew to hand it over temporarily for a little peek. But there were holes in that logic. First, the canon timeline. As much as your curiosity would allow you, messing with the events might trigger a full-scale change that not even you could stop. You don’t want to think about it.
(You don’t want to think about what happened back in the basement when you ignored your instincts and went to see your husband. You don’t want to think about the maniacal laughter that bounces off the walls, one that does not belong to him. You don’t want to think of the way he gripped at you, staring down at you with those menacing eyes and taunted you.
Yellow. His eyes were a warm, gentle brown, not yellow.)
Then, there is another. You did not have children of your own, nor did Stan. Family has always been the centre of your life, no questions asked. You love the twins and treat them kindly yet sternly, just as your mother once had with you. You know well enough the basics of building connections and emotional bonds that would come to be the reason why you loved this show in the first place; belonging.
Even without you in the picture, you know well enough not to disturb that sense of belonging. Not when you’re in the dawn of the canon plotline.
So, you speak.
“And risk him not trusting us? We should probably let him come to us willingly,” you shrug. Stan stays silent. You continue. “Trust me on this; we need to gain their trust and we must support them.”
You lay a hand on his arm, grounding and gentle. “We can’t control them or how they feel.”
He trusts you. You trust him; always and forever. Not that he would actually need to be reminded of not pressuring the kid to let him come out on his own about the journal to him. He’d do it regardless. That’s the kind of person your brother-in-law is. You know that Stan knows the basics of building connections and emotional bonds that would come to be the reason why you loved this show in the first place; their love for one another.
Stan laughs, deep and rumbling. You stifle the urge to hit him. He speaks before you could strangle him. “And would that be possible?”
Your hand grazes to your side, twitching. You smile, thinking back to the episodes of their genuine familial ties. Come hell and high water, you know in your soul that these would persist until the very end.
“Of course.”