Forest of Riddles (Reverse Falls, S1)

FF: Part Four

Dipper wrinkled his nose as he and Mabel walked up the steps of the library. The library was fun and all, but it sort of lost its charm once stepping into one led you to being stuck in a mirror with the most energetic person he'd ever met.

And Wendy.

Well, being stuck with Wendy hadn't been so bad, Dipper reflected. It had been Gideon that he had found annoying - after all, he had gone to the library, which caused Mabel to follow, which caused the whole mirror thing.

So it was Gideon who caused everything. Obviously.

He pushed open the library door, the bell jingling to announce their presence. The librarian half-heartedly glanced up - and then quickly plastered a smile on her face. "Good morning. Anything I can help you with?"

"No," Dipper said smoothly. And that was all he said, because then he and Mabel headed straight to the history section to look for books.

It was nearly twelve-forty-five just as Dipper and Mabel found a table and put the books they had found on it. It wasn't a lot of books - there were five combined and Dipper had selected three of them - but it was good enough to start with.

"So we're going to just look through books?" Mabel said.

Dipper reached for a book and opened it. "What did you think libraries were for?"

Mabel grabbed a book, too, and muttered something under her breath.

Dipper ignored his sister and started reading.

But twelve-forty-five faded away into one-forty-five and as that turned into two-thirty, they hadn't found anything remotely helpful. Relax, Dipper thought. You have plenty of time. You don't need to crack the case on the first try.

But how he did want to crack the case on the first try.

A breeze swept through the library. Dipper shivered, glancing behind him - the library door was closed.

Huh. A window must've been open then - and there was a window open, right in between the fantasy and non-fiction sections.

He slammed his current book shut and slid it towards the center of the table. "Find anything?"

"Nope." Mabel closed the book and set it on top of the book Dipper had just closed.

Trying not to lose hope, Dipper set his sights on the next book - an old history textbook, which he hoped wouldn't be as much of a failure as the last two books. With a mental sigh, he opened the textbook and flipped to the section describing the founding of Gravity Falls.

After trying to focus on one paragraph and failing immensely, Dipper closed the book with a frustrated groan. Then he took a deep breath and forced himself to pay attention this time.

He opened to the page he had tried to read earlier and had glazed over. Huh, he realized - the paragraph he had read earlier had an arrow pointing to it in the margins, and the page corner was folded. Some idiot must've tried to defile a library book with a pen and somehow didn't get charged for a fine.

Was the arrow pointing to the paragraph? It was about the founding of the town.

"I think I found something," he said.

Mabel brightened. "Read it!"

Dipper cleared his throat. " 'In 1838, a pioneer family found a large section of forest land and decided to set up a town with their caravan,' " he began. " 'This pioneer family was known as the Gleefuls, and they named the town Gravity Falls. Sefton and his wife Sonia became mayors of the town for five years; unfortunately, they resigned from being mayor and elected Xavier Davis to be mayor instead and lived the rest of their happy lives together.' "