Gravity Rises (S3)

MV: Part Seven

Content warning: This chapter, Part Seven, through Part Fourteen contain references to child abuse and torture. Part Thirteen containssemi-graphic descriptions of the aforementioned topics.

Gideon felt a nervous nausea in his stomach that had nothing to do with the height.

He sat on the peryton's back — on Rowan's back. (It was a good name for the buck, Gideon had to admit. Dipper was pretty creative.) Rowan and the other peryton, Marigold, flew above the forest, headed for the Northwest Manor. Gideon had, of course, flown before with his amulet, and he wasn't one to get nauseous from heights. No, the nausea was from a different reason entirely.

"Dipper," he called over the wind, though he knew it was inconvenient to talk to him while they were flying. "Dipper, do you remember the plan?"

Dipper nudged Marigold to come down closer to Gideon and Rowan. "You don't want me to talk to anyone," he said, rolling his eyes just a bit. "I know."

Gideon nodded. When they'd first made their plan, Gideon had asked Dipper not to say anything to anyone at the Northwest Manor unless Gideon told him to. He'd requested the same thing last week, when the boys had gone out to talk to the servants together, and Dipper had failed then. Gideon could only hope that he would hold his tongue this time.

Because Gideon probably had to face his father. And he didn't want Dipper making a bad situation worse.

"It'll be okay," Dipper said. "Your mother will be there. We can talk to her."

Yes, that was the best case scenario: that Gideon would find Geneva first, that she'd know where the amulet was, and that she'd get it for him. But, knowing his luck, he doubted it would be so easy. Gideon worried that he was running right back into his father's custody, and he wouldn't be able to save Mabel from there. He wouldn't be able to save himself from there.

He wanted to talk more to Dipper — remind him of all the details of their plan — but it was hard to hold a conversation while flying. So Gideon focused on the scenery instead, patting Rowan's neck absentmindedly as he watched the forest below.

He also kept an eye on the sphere above. Mabel's moon was still far above them, but this was the closest Gideon had been to it so far. The cracks along the surface were bright and imposing, and it seemed as if the moon were about to fall from the sky and crash right on top of the perytons. Would Gideon ever get up there? How much time did Mabel have left?

The stars in the sky weren't helping, either. They were beautiful, but they were just a reminder that this sky wasn't Gideon's own. Partway through their flight, the stars disappeared, and another set of stars — big pink stars — replaced them.

They were in yet another dimension. They were even farther from home.

The perytons didn't falter when the stars disappeared, nor when the new ones appeared. They kept flying beneath Mabel's moon, using its soft blue light as a guide. Gideon thought he could see, in the shadowy distance, the Northwest Manor atop its hill.

The nausea in his stomach increased.

They approached the Manor far too quickly. Gideon pushed back his nervousness and spoke quietly to Rowan. "We're going to land on the roof," he said. Flying in on perytons would be much safer and more effective than any of their original plans (most of which had involved the grappling hook). Gideon continued, "Can you fly up and then go straight down onto the Manor? I don't want anyone to see us approaching. We need to land right by my parents' balcony, which is the highest one on the building, so Dipper and I can jump down and get in. It's on the opposite side from us."