The AfterLife [ON HOLD]

11

DIPPER

"I can't believe you," I said to Mabel as we were walking through the forest.

"What can't you believe?" she replied, walking ahead of me.

My nose was in between the pages of journal 3 when I told her, "You can be so believable at one point, only for someone to realize it was all a complete joke."

"Oh come on, Dipper, you know you love me for that."

It was about an hour since we left the shack. Well, me more by force – Mabel insisted we come outside to look for something that could tie in to why the journals were still intact after their clear destruction.

She claimed we'd still have time to pack, another line she used to what she calls 'convince' me, when really, she talked me into coming out against my will.

I guess that's the same thing.

But  in a way, it wasn't really.

Which makes my point valid.

I wasn't just looking into all the pages when Ford gave me the journal after a lot of persistence and told us to be extremely careful this time, I was feeling around it. It felt the same as it did before it got torched – all dents were in the right places, the golden hand still stuck on. It was almost, in a way, brand new.

Mabel stopped in her tracks, making me bump into her, and she turned to me. "Dipper, we need to stop."

I blinked. "Stop what?"

"Going in the same path." She laughed again. "I thought we needed to warm ourselves up a little before going on the real walk."

"So what you're saying is," I started, tapping my chin, "we've been going round in circles for the past hour."

"Yep, that about says it."

I let out a frustrated sigh, face palming myself. "Mabel, we could've been done packing by now. Are you going to take this quest seriously, or not?"

"I will, I will." She waved it off, tapping her foot. "Let's think about our strategy, though. How we're going to go about this."

Finally, a good suggestion, I thought, before closing the book and looking at her. "Okay."

"Why are the journals showing up now? It doesn't make any sense. And they were destroyed? You never told me."

"I told you they were burned near the huge clock when Weirdmageddon started. Bill got a hold of them."

"So the journal's ashes aren't there, anymore."

"That could be possible. You know when we defeated Bill, everything turned back to normal. Which could mean. . ."

"I don't know," she stated, walking on. "But it can't mean Bill survived in any way. After all, he's the only thing that was permanently destroyed, Stan told us himself. So until we get some sort of proof that he's alive, I'll continue to believe that the journals were revived by some other cause."

"But there could be some proof," I suggested, following her. "I mean, think of the scroll. It was in a treasure chest on some random undiscovered island. . . I think. . . and think about it. Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan told us they discovered it during their voyage, which was after Bill was wiped out of existence, which was after Weirdmageddon."

She turned back to me. "So you think that. . ."

"I'm not positive," I said, "it's just a theory."

"Well, I think Bill was destroyed," she said firmly. "After all, no weird stuff's been going on so far. If we're lucky, which from now on we'll forever be, I'm pretty sure all we'll encounter during our time here is a bunch of gnomes and the occasional multi-bear. I'd say we're home-free, and if he were to return, we'd just beat him again!"

Her hand fisted in the air and she kept a straight face, trying to look serious all while posing like the town's next hero.

I rolled my eyes, the smallest of smiles plastered on my face. "Come on, get up. We have a mystery to solve."

"Oh yeah!" she exclaimed, fist-pumping the air. "The mystery twins are back in business!"

"Yup. Mystery twins," I said.

Another long silence occurred before I realized how creepy I still found the forest, especially after the new information I came to know about. "Come on. Seriously, let's go," I said, way ahead of her. "We don't have a lot of time, and I'd prefer it if we weren't surrounded by a bunch of birch trees."