Gravity Rises (S3)

MV: Part Six

Dipper, Gideon, and the nymph flew through the trees. Dipper felt himself speeding through nothingness; he saw flashes of blue light as the forest rushed by. He had liked this sensation when he'd traveled through the trees with June — but now, in the high tension of their escape, he just wished for it to be over.

He soon stumbled out of another tree. He and Gideon, who had been pulled through at the same time, crashed into each other and landed in a heap.

"I'm sorry!" said the nymph. Was that June? "We usually only take one person at a time — you two haven't swapped any body parts, have you?"

Gideon scrambled away from Dipper and quickly checked that he had all his limbs. Dipper grabbed the grappling hook, which had fallen nearby, and put it safely in his pack. Then he simply sat there, dazed, remembering the feeling of the wind above his head as the bullet had sped past him.

A hand nudged Dipper's arm. "Are you okay?" said the nymph, sounding worried.

Dipper blinked and shook his head. "I'm fine. Thank you, Ju. . ." He stopped, looking for the first time at the nymph who had saved them. "Oh, hi," he said, "what's your name?"

The nymph — who definitely wasn't June, though she was similarly tall and willowy — blinked. "Oh. I'm, um. . ." She thought for a moment, fiddling with a strand of her blonde hair. "Call me Cedar."

"Thank you, Cedar," Gideon said. He winced and put a hand to his head, which had had its fair share of collisions with trees as the boys had run through the forest. "Anything you can do for a headache?"

"You two look pretty scratched up," Cedar said. "I can help with that."

"How would you do that?" Gideon asked.

"I'll take you into my tree and heal your injuries," Cedar said. "With minor injuries like you have, it'll only be a few minutes each."

"Sounds great," Dipper said. So Cedar took him into her tree, healed him with her magic, and brought him back out a few minutes later. The scratches and bruises healed easily, and being inside the tree felt calm and peaceful.

"Your turn," she said to Gideon.

He shook his head. "I'm fine. My headache is already fading."

Dipper frowned, but Gideon didn't look at him. "Are you sure?" Cedar asked.

"I'm sure."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself. Are you two going up to the Northwest Manor?"

Dipper and Gideon shared a look. "How'd you know?" Dipper asked.

"I can see some of your thoughts when you're inside my tree," Cedar told him. "You were thinking about going up to the Northwest Manor. To get something." She looked at Gideon, her eyes lingering on his white hair. "Are you a Northwest?"

"Yes," Gideon said. "My amulet is at the Manor, and we're going to get it."

Cedar pursed her lips. "I can't get to the Manor from here," she said. "The rifts disrupted the tree network. I can only take you to trees in this same section of the forest."

"Is that why June didn't come?" asked Dipper.

Cedar nodded. "She's in a different area. I can't even see her tree." She shuddered a bit. "We can usually see the entire forest. It's so strange to be cut off from most of it."

Gideon and Dipper shared a look. "Any other ideas, then, on how we can get to the Manor?" said Gideon. "Surely there's a way to fly over the rifts."

Cedar thought for a moment. "Yes," she said, as if to herself. "I think I can access her tree."

"Whose tree?" said Dipper.