Tulpa /\ Ford Pines/OC/Stan Pines

Chapter 1: Solstice

"The solstice (combining the Latin words sol for "Sun" and sistere for "To Stand Still") is the point where the Sun appears to reach either its highest or lowest point in the sky for the year and thus, ancient astronomers came to know the day as one where the Sun appeared to stand still."

***

"Hey kid, how's the drive going? I remember my first long-haul roadtrip outta Cali. Not fun; fuckin' tiring, right?"

The voice of Topher, Estelle's much older brother, filtered through her car's speakers with a bit of a crackle as she moved to roll up the windows to hear him better; this last stretch of the drive up north to Oregon was being done in the wee-hours of the morning, and she had been forced to blast herself with the frigid pre-dawn air in an effort to keep awake. Beside her, having hunkered down in his padded car-seat, Taro perked up at the change in sound and temperature: He harrumphed under his breath. The woman cracked a sleepy smile and stroked his ears affectionately.

"Damn right, man. The longest I drove was up to Solvang; fifteen hours is a hell of a lot worse than five. Little man's taking the trip in stride, though, the free-loader. He's been napping away while I do all the work."

Her brother laughed, then paused, and she assumed that he was taking a drag on a pen over his breakfast before work. His next words were garbled, and she frowned.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"Just saying that you love your dog too much, sis, but more power to ya. Were you able to get any better directions to the B-n-B I found for you?"

Estelle rolled her eyes and yawned, rummaging around blindly in her purse next to Taro while trying to keep both eyes on the road. After some clinking of pens and rustling of paper, she sat straight and flicked open a printed map guide, glancing at the red-pen route she had drawn in-between each curve along the winding road: "Not really. All I could find was an old map scan of the guesstimated area the town is at. If you couldn't easily find Gravity Falls, travel bug, little ol' sheltered me wasn't going to have much of a chance!"

"Hey, you've been to Oregon before, right? Sort of. At least Portland for a day or two, and you and that one friend went to Hawaii on your own a couple years ago. You've got this in the bag."

"Ha. I only went to Portland because I was chasing a clueless guy next door over in Vancouver; huuuge mistake, I'm telling you, and Millie and I were only on Oahu for five days- Fuck!"

A sudden pothole in the road cut her whining off, causing Taro to jolt against his seatbelt as she slapped the map over him in an attempt to bar the pooch from bouncing too much. Crackling even more than before, Topher's concerned voice barely registered; the woman cranked the volume on the call and adjusted her crooked glasses, catching sight of some oddly placed question mark billboards and carvings along the treeline.

"S-sorry, huge bump. Are you sure this is a good place to stay? You know a lot of businesses inflate their ratings with fake reviews."

"It'll be fine! I had a buddy of mine vet the reviews, they're all from different people, or at least different IP addresses. Be-... The sup-... al bullshit a-and... themed room seemed like some... you'd want. M... man, aliens, vampi... Bigfoot?"

Estelle cursed again and checked her cell phone: Its bars were bouncing up and down, and she was losing the call with her brother just as she was approaching the area on the map where this 'Gravity Falls' was supposed to be. She really needed his guidance for the final push, so she shoved back the cover for her moonroof and cracked open the glass in a futile attempt to amplify the signal through the dense forest around her: "Chris, hey! I'm losing you at a really bad time, I'm gonna hang up and call-"