The new girl in Gravity Falls; by Joona Irene

Doubts

By Joona Irene

~~still Dipper POV~~
      
         "Mabel," I said quietly. "Bill came again."
        "What?" she exclaimed. "But that's two nights in a row?" I nodded.
        "Yeah. And he made me another deal. Which I refused." I added quickly.
        "What was the deal this time?" Mabel asked.
        "He would give me what was supposedly a missing page of a journal that has a connection to Lilac." I said, rubbing my head.
        "And in return...?"
        "I dunno. He didn't say."
        "You said no, right?" Mabel asked.
        "I already said I refused. But it just makes me so mad!" I said, frustrated. "What game is he playing? Why is Lilac so important anyways?"
        "Maybe she's strong?" Mabel ventured. I gasped, inspiration just struck.
        "Mabel, that's it!" I cried. "Whatever Lilac is must be powerful. A creature so strong and brave or something that Bill has to either get her for himself or keep us away! But then, why offer me the page...? Uh!" I flopped back onto my bed. "So confusing!"
It was still very early in the morning. I'd waited, puzzling, for Mabel to wake up so we could talk. It was Sunday morning so there wasn't any hurry in getting up, and we were free to collaborate for as long as we wanted.
        "Did you see what was on the page?" Mabel asked. "Any little, itsy-bitsy thing?"
        "Just blurry words. And a pencil drawn picture. But nothing was clear. It was just some kind of profile. If I could just get my hands on it...but why would that be a good thing for Bill? He wouldn't give me that thing unless it benefited him, even if he's getting something in return..." I looked over at Mabel, who seemed lost. "Right?" I asked. She shrugged.
        "I think our focus should be to find Lilac." she suggested. "If we could just find her, then we can help her! And then she can answer every question you could possibly ask." she jumped out of bed, her feet landing with a solid thump. "C'mon Dipper, let's go!"
        "Alright." I agreed. I got out of bed too. "Let's find Lilac."

~~Lilac POV~~
      
         I think I stopped running in the middle of Saturday. The sun was bright, shedding strong rays through the forest canopy of pine needles. The ground was soft, earthy, littered with pine cones and small rocks. I didn't pant-didn't need to. No lungs, 'member?
        Anyways I sat down and enjoyed the warmth a particularly strong sunbeam was shedding. After I was still for a moment, the animals started coming back. First the birdsong, then the squirrels, and after a while, a raccoon. And I simply sat, enjoying the silence.
        This is nice, I thought to myself. Most of my life is like this. Alone...quiet...nobody to watch out for...which reminds me. I contemplated showing my true form. I was in the middle of a forest. Nobody would see. Right?
        Still caution made me restrain myself. A lone lumberjack could be walking around, and what if he saw? Or what if that weird floating triangle aura came along? I knew I couldn't risk it. I wished I could, though. I hadn't been myself in so long, I kind of missed the shiny black...
        Never mind.
I enjoyed the stillness too. Humans were always moving; blinking, breathing, twitching, talking, swallowing. All of those and more I had to feign. It was nice to not pretend to breath, or make my hair sway in the wind like it's supposed too. Sometimes I really didn't want to twitch my eyes just slightly when I was angry or upset. Why couldn't people always keep a straight face? Honestly, if I ever saw a human not move, I'd think they were the dead walking.
        After a few more moments of silence I managed to get back up. I shoved a couple hundred pinecones through my mouth to get some more energy for running, because I'd burned off the jelly beans.
        So I stood and began running back they way I'd come.

~~Dipper POV~~
       
        "Dipper, how long are we going to look for her?" Mabel asked, her feet dragging. For once I was the one tugging on her arm, leading her around town. We were asking anybody, even old man McGucket. He just kind of laughed and talked about how only fairies had long white hair. Then he danced around a bit. I shivered a little at the memory. Even though he had a tortured past, and worked with the author and was a secret mechanical genius, he was still weird.
        "We will look for her as long as it takes." I said. "No more dreams about Bill Cipher! The sooner we find her the sooner we can end this crazy puzzle we're in."
        "But I want to sit down!" She mumbled. I pulled a little harder.
        "Let's check the tree one more time." I suggested. "Maybe we can catch a squirrel?"
        "Only if we get to name him Gerald." Mabel insisted. I sighed.
        "Why that name? A squirrel called Gerald is horrible! ANY name would better. Fluffy, Cheekums...Steve." 
        "Gerald, Dipper, because that's the only name you hate." she stuck her tongue out. I rolled my eyes.
Well, we didn't find any male squirrels. And all the female squirrels were too difficult for even Mabel to catch. But Lilac wasn't in the tree. I sat on a rock, disappointed, tired, beyond tired if I thought too much about it. And here was Mabel, chasing squirrels.
        "COME TO ME GERALD!" she commanded.
        "Run Gerald!" I whispered.
        "I heard that!" Mabel screeched. She kept chasing 'Gerald' until he scurried up a tree with no branches low enough for her to follow. She then persisted by kicking the trunk.
        "Mabel."
        "Gerald!"
        "Mabel he's gone."
        "Come back little Gerald!"
        "Mabel."
        "Aww, he's gone." She sat next to me and pouted.
        "He was a squirrel, Mabel." I said in a low tone. "A cute, fuzzy forest animal."
        "Kinda like Lilac?" Mabel looked at me. I looked at Mabel.
        "How is she fuzzy?" I asked, my brow furrowed. She shrugged.
        "Her hair?"
        "Yeah, sure Mabel."
        "Dipper..."
        "Yes?"
        "You didn't argue that she was cute." I froze.
        "That doesn't mean -"
        "You like her, don't you?" Mabel teased, poking me in the side.
        "N-N"
        "It's alright Dipper. She's good." She reached her arms into the air. "But that means we'll have to find her sooner!"
        "Shut up." I moaned. But I smiled.
        "Do you hear that?" Mabel asked.
        "Hear-"
        "Shhh!" Mabel stood up, and I followed. Pretty soon I heard what she was listening to. Snapping twigs. And something moving really, really fast through the forest. I would have guessed a car, but I didn't hear a motor sound.
        "It's getting closer." I muttered. "And it's gaining quickly." I looked at Mabel, eyes wide. "Think we should run?" She nodded.
        We took off, towards the shack. We didn't get far before whatever it was slammed into us. It happened to suddenly all I could think was
        What the heck?
        And then there was dirt and pine needles and hair everywhere. White hair. We were all lying on the ground, Mabel under me and me under...
        Lilac.
        "Oh...oops." she said, shakily. She gathered her hair, shaking it free of us and the foliage. "Sorry." she helped me up.
        "Was that you running?" I asked, adjusting my hat. Mabel got up and dusted herself off, rubbing her elbows. My back was sore too.
        "Yeah..." Lilac said sheepishly. "Sorry."
        "You run really, really quick!" Mabel said. "Why were you going so fast?"
        "Fear?" Lilac said, shrugging.
        "Whatever, it doesn't matter." I interrupted. Lilac was here, it was time for answers.
        "Oh, OH!" Mabel realized. "Right...Bill."
        "Bill?" Lilac asked.
        "Yeah, Bill." I said, folding my arms. "Bill Cipher. Do you know who he is? Has he talked to you?"
        "That's a cool name." Lilac said, thinking. "But no, I haven't met anybody named Bill Cipher. Can I ask why you're asking?"
        "Not quite." I said, relieved. So Bill didn't do anything to her yet. That's good. "There's something else we need to discuss."
        "Okay." Lilac sat down on the ground, legs crossed. "Let's talk!"
        Mabel plopped right down, and I awkwardly crossed my legs.
        "Lilac...are you...I mean to say that, well, are you human?" I felt jitters inside me. What if she said no? What if she really was a girl and Bill was just being, well, Bill?
Lilac was silent for a moment, her eyes were slightly confused, worried, a small frown on her face.
        "Why would you ask such a thing?" she asked softly. Her eyes were bright.
        "Because we need to know!" Mabel said. "Are you a vampire? Or some kind of dryad? Do you secretly have powers or can you-"
        "Mabel," I hushed her. "Let her answer."
Lilac looked over my shoulder. Concern was written over her face. It seemed to me that she really was hiding something.
        "Of course I'm a girl." she said.
        "NO, human." I pressed. "I...we, need to know if you're a human being. With ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, a beating heart. Human 100%."
Lilac still wasn't' looking at me, but something up and behind me. I turned around briefly, nothing there but the forest.
        "Lilac please," Mabel begged. "We just want to help you."

~~Lilac POV~~
       
        I had been right, they were clever. I should have left when I had the change, and now I was here being questioned.
        To be truthful, I wanted to tell them. I wanted to show myself right then, right there, but that Triangle thing had appeared and I couldn't bring myself to physically show myself. I was afraid of it, afraid of what it might do. I couldn't take the change that it was just a ghost.
        And there was another thing holding me back. My entire existence, every time I made friends, and then told them the truth, they'd end up dead. Somehow, some way, they never lived their lives the way people are supposed too. They were always murdered, either by an enemy or by...myself. I never really forgot them.
        "Lilac please," Mabel was begging. "We just want to help you."
        "Help me?" I breathed, angry. "Help me?"
        "Yes, help you." Dipper said, pulling out the journal he carried with him. "This book holds the secrets to things that aren't human. I know about these things, we can help you! See these?" He pointed to some little men with hats. "These are gnomes, and they hide out in the woods. But we didn't go and destroy their home; we let them be."
        "Well," Mabel added, "As long as they don't ask me to marry them again. THAT was awkward."
        I didn't know what to say. I knew there was no way these kids would even remotely like me. I doubted they could keep a secret either. But I liked them. They were nice, clever even.
        "You don't think I'm human, do you?" I relented.
        "We just need to know." Dipper said, staring at me.
        "You say that, but you don't know what you're asking." I said, slightly upset. "You think you can keep secrets? You want to know truth? Fine." I stood. "Dipper, that piece of glass you found in my game, where is it?" Dipper stood too, and then Mabel. He pulled it out from the back of the journal and offered it to me.
        "I didn't tell anybody." he said softly. "And I never will."
        "Yeah, right." I said. "You want to know if I'm human? Well then, watch this." I put my hand out over the piece of me in Dipper's hand, and willed it to come back to me. Instantly it turned it's natural, shiny black color, and flew up into my hand. Then it melded with the color of the rest of me, disappearing.
        Dipper was stunned. Mabel's mouth was open.
        "Do that again!" she cried, smiling.
        "Mabel, Dipper, you don't want to know what I am." I said firmly. "Those creatures in your book, they may be good. But I'm bad. I've done things that would turn this friendship into hatred."
        "You don't know that!" Dipper exclaimed.
        "Yeah, we're super forgiving!" Mabel said, giving me a hug. "I remember one time Soos ate a bag of my gummy worms, and I was totally cool about it. He was like 'oh, sorry dog', and I was like, 'it's alright I have four more bags!'"
        "Is that the best example you could think of?" Dipper asked, embarrassed.
        "Well..." Mabel said, thinking. I sighed heavily.
        "You two...you're good." I said. "But you really shouldn't be asking me this. I just wanted to be kind to you. I never-"
        "Lilac, what are you TALKING about?" Mabel put her hands on her hips. "We're best buds! You still have to meet so many people; Candy, Grenda, maybe Pacifica...maybe. Oh, and Tambry and Wendy's other friends...Thompson's hilarious.  Lilac, you're wonderful. Whatever secret you are, it doesn't matter because you're my friend."
        "I don't want to be friends." I said curtly. "It won't work."
        "What do you mean?"
        "It just won't. It never does." I tightened my face. "I'm leaving Gravity falls. Goodbye guys. It was fun."
        I scaled the nearest tree, going right up to the top. Then I jumped to the next one and then another, so that they couldn't follow me. Unfortunately, that triangle aura did. I leaped through the trees until to got too tired to continue. So instead I stayed, hurting, wanting, wishing, and still.
        "I wish I could have friends." I whispered gently. "Real friends, not just people who keep my secrets. And now I can't even have that."
I contemplated killing the twins. They knew I was different now, and despite their guarantee, I couldn't trust them. But I knew I didn't want to hurt them. I'd killed in the past, but only out of sheer necessity. And they didn't need to die. They'd be fine...
        It was times like this I wished I was capable of crying.