Darkness Falls

Chapter 5: Wicked Plan

Vanessa enters the double door of the mysterious home in the woods. "you have been gone for a week." greg yells furiously. "where the hell were you!?" he then turns towards the inner room and yells loudly. "mom dad! she's finally back!"

the parents enter the room and vanessa waits while her father scolds her for being gone for so long. "where were you?" he asks finally with a very stern angry look on his face. 

vanessa glances up through her flip of hair and smirks a bit. "i was trapped in a magical door portal. i had gone out for a late night walk after having a nightmare and i met that boy i was telling you about before. I was going to use the opportunity to inquire about the zodiac mentioned in the journal he has but we got swept up in a mothman attack. we were lucky to find away back as quickly as we did."

"so you have still learned nothing about the zodiac?" he father says disappointed.

again vanessa kind of smirks and replies. "i never said i had no information." she walks to the next room and begins drawing symbols on a whiteboard. "he dropped the book while trying to climb out of a tree. i picked it up and read the pages about the zodiac." once she has finished drawing the symbols from the book she turns to her dad and points at the drawing. "the book specifically mentions three people by name from outside the pines family that are somehow connected to this zodiac. right now it appears every involved person is in the town somewhere except for the pines family who seem to be someplace else. i was told they should be visiting the town soon though."

"that's all good to know." her dad nods with his hand on his chin. "the night of the red moon isn't for sometime still so we will just have to wait."

"if only your mother hadn't hidden that amulet she found which held the power of the red moon." trisha says with a sigh.

samuel pauses for a moment and then he walks over to a small book and places his hand on it. "yes, the reason we had come back to the states in the first place." he glares at the wall a deep angry scowl. "we were so close to finding what my mother had left. now everything is different we will have to begin over again and start from scratch."

"surely there must be an easier way." greg mumbles. "last time we tried we didn't find it. we have less time then we did before."

"don't you think we know that." samuel grumbles. "there is no easier way. we need the amulet or the red moon." he glances at vanessa. "either way until we get one of those two things you will have to gain the trust of the people involved so we can figure out where each of them is when the time comes."

"why do i have to do it?!" vanessa growls. "i already wasted my time getting the boy to trust me!? why must i continue to do this? you'll just end up killing him like my other friends."

"you will do as your told to best help your family! and right now helping means you will go befriend these people until you have gathered them all into one place!" he angrily replies to her. "you will have the power to make any weak mortal fool be your friend after that! understood?"

Vanessa shrinks back a step her fathers anger could be scary at times and this was one of those times. "y-yes sir."

"good." he replies in a huff. "now we will get back to searching for the amulet while you go back out there and find the people that go with each of these symbols." the three leaves the room leaving vanessa alone with the white board. she glances at the drawings and frowns. her gaze rests on the heart with stitches. "robbie is involved with this group of people. shame i really do like the fool. that means he knows about the others perhaps i can get him to tell me." she leaves the house and heads towards the mystery shack. robbie is there talking to wendy so she looks around the shop while she waits for them to stop talking.

robbie notices her come in and explains to wendy that she is Vanessa and then waves her over. "oh hey i didn't think you would be back today." robbie says waving her over to them. "come over here and meet wendy."

Vanessa walks over to them and brushes the hair off her face only to have it fall right back into place. "hello." she says.

wendy half waves. "sup"

robbie smirks and points at wendy. "vanessa this is wendy. wendy this is vanessa."

"nice to meet you." vanessa replies.

"same" wendy nods.

Vanessa turns to robby and asks. "can i borrow you for a moment. it's about the book."

wendy raises an eyebrow.

"hu? oh yeah!" robbie nods. "be back soon wendy." he says walking with Vanessa to the other room. "what do you want to know?" he questions.

"the zodiac." she replies bluntly. "the book mentioned a few people that represent it... you know them don't you?"

"hu?" robbie questions. "of course i do, but it doesn't matter that zodiac didn't do anything because ford and stan couldn't stop arguing. why do you ask?"

"i'm just curious. would you tell me about the zodiac?" she questions.

robbie puzzles for a moment. "well besides me and wendy there is mabel and dipper. and of course there is stan and ford. there is also gideon, soos, and pacifica." he thinks for a moment. "most of those people hang out here on a regular bases, but two of them are a little bit harder to pin down. one, pacifica, she is the richest girl in town. she lives in northwest manor with her folks. Gideon is kind of a weird one himself. he spends a lot of his time in town reading people's futures from their hand palms and terra cards."

"he's a witch?" Vanessa says curiously. 

"more like a psychic. but yeah kind of." robbie shrugs. "did you want to meet him?"

"sounds like fun." she nods. "take me there."

"sure thing just let me say good bye to wendy first." he replies. then he turns and goes into the other room again and waves goodbye to wendy as they head outside.