I twirl the pencil in my hand, a habit I developed in middle school. I lay on my stomach on my sleeping bag, propped up on my elbows with my feet in the air. I study the list in front of me, the meager attempts at formulating a plan continuing to mock me.
"Where do I even begin?" I ask myself aloud, twirling the pencil faster. My fingers stumble, causing my pencil to go flying out of my hand. It rolls across the floor and underneath the curtain.
I sigh, getting up on my hands and knees to go retrieve it. I reach under the curtain, not wanting anyone to gaze upon the unholy sight that I am when I first get up in the morning. I look like a wreck, especially considering yesterday's events. The only person who should have to see me like this is myself.
"Did you drop this?"
The curtain is pulled aside, revealing Mabel as she holds my pencil out towards me. I smile awkwardly, taking it from her.
"Thanks."
"No problem. Whatcha working on?"
"Just trying to formulate a plan. I'm not sure where to start. If only I knew more about her and this curse."
"Well, maybe we should go look for clues," she suggests. "There's probably lots of rooms that hold secrets in that old place."
I nod along. "Yeah, she was always really stingy about the library. I never even bothered with her room, I knew that place was definitely off limits."
"Well, I hope you're ready for some rule breaking, 'cause that's where we're gonna go! I'm sure Dipper would be ecstatic about conducting an investigation."
I know for a fact that Lenzee would be mad if I went through her room, but what choice do we have? If she's upset when we find her, we'll just point out the fact that we totally saved her butt, so you're welcome.
Mabel leaves me to get dressed, so I throw on the same clothes I wore yesterday, considering I hadn't thought to pack extras. My maroon skirt almost reaches my knees, and I make sure to tuck in my golden yellow t-shirt. After running a brush through my hair, I decide to leave it down. I tie my sneakers, grab Spunk, tuck him in the mesh pocket, swing my bag onto my back, and head downstairs.
"Ready to go?" I ask as I enter the kitchen.
"Yup!" Mabel gets up from the table, skipping towards the door. Dipper glances up from his book long enough to realize we're about to head out. I begin following them, but I feel a hand on my shoulder.
"May I speak with you for a moment?" Ford asks.
I nod, turning to tell the others that I'll catch up with them in a few minutes.
"Mabel informed me of your plans to search Lenzee's house for clues and hints. I knew Lenzee, but I didn't know her as well as I would have liked to. I don't know if she was hiding any secrets, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was. I just want you to be prepared to find some things you might not like."
I study Ford's eyes, trying to see if they reveal a hidden meaning or a coded lie. There's definitely something causing him to keep his guard up, but whether or not that has to do with Lenzee is beyond me.
"Thank you," I tell him. "I'm sure I can handle whatever it is."
He nods, dismissing me. I catch up to Dipper and Mabel as we head towards Lenzee's house.
"What was that about?" Mabel asks as I approach.
"Just wanted to let me know that Lenzee was probably hiding stuff that he didn't know about. He was making sure I was prepared to find things that I might not like."
"Ooh, mysterious!" Mabel cooes, scampering ahead.
"What do you think we'll find?" Dipper inquires.
"To tell you the truth, I have no idea," I admit. "She's a very reclusive person. It's almost like she tries to avoid any emotional attachment or social interaction. We hardly ever spoke, she was always in her room from lunch until dinner, refused to let me do any sort of chores, never called me by my name, and always seemed to be glaring at me. She's a strange and grumpy old woman, but she's still family."
We walk up the front steps, where Mabel sits, waiting. I open the door to let us inside. It's exactly as I left it. One would never guess that an invisible phantom burst through here and carried my great aunt away captive.
"Alright everyone, out of every room in this house, there are exactly three that have the potential to hold answers. The library, Lenzee's room, and the hidden room."
"There's a hidden room?" Mabel asks excitedly.
"Yes, but I'd like you to search Lenzee's room. I don't feel comfortable going through her stuff, and Dipper's a guy, so... yeah, I don't know what kind of stuff she keeps in there, so I figured you were the safest option. Trust me, you'll have just as much discovery opportunity as the rest of us. At least, if there's anything there to discover."
She seems disappointed at first, but she smiles and nods to accept the task.
"Dipper, I want you to search the hidden room," I tell him. "I've already been through there, so if there's anything I've missed, you'll find it. As for myself, I'm going to investigate the library. There's gotta be something in there that she's so desperate to keep me away from."
I lead them down the long hallway, directing Mabel to Lenzee's room before heading over to my room.
"This doesn't look very hidden," Dipper jokes as we approach the door.
I smirk. "It's not. This isn't the hidden room."
I push open the door, leading him through my bedroom towards the giant canvas on the wall. I carefully slide the canvas away, revealing the hidden space behind it.
"This is the hidden room."
He gazes around, open mouthed at the strange sight. He starts inspecting the walls, as if looking for secret compartments. He investigates the maps and the bookshelf, skimming titles and captions. He makes his way over to the small wooden chest, opening it up to find a few pieces of chalk inside.
"Well, this is weird," he mutters. "Why use a whole box just for a few pieces of chalk?"
A twitch of guilt resonates through my gut. "Yeah, um, weird."
He closes the lid, making me sigh with relief. He inspects the portrait of the woman.
"Who's this?"
"I'd tell you if I knew."
Dipper removes the portrait, but finds no hidden compartment. He turns the portrait over and squints at something on the back.
"1967," he whispers aloud. Replacing the portrait, he scans the bookcase again, settling on a large volume and pulling it off the shelf with a grunt.
"Well, I'm going to go investigate the library," I tell him, leaving him to pursue whatever lead he has already caught on to.
The library is much bigger than I anticipated. I'm not sure how it's possible for one human being to have this many books, but my great aunt continues to surprise me. I'm not sure where to begin, so I wander around for awhile, hoping that something will catch my eye.
I eventually stumble upon a writing desk, littered with papers and notes. This must be what she uses as an office. All the books she could need are in one big room, and it's guaranteed to be quiet. The reading lamp atop the desk is off, thankfully, but the phone is off the hook. I carefully set it back down on its mount, ending a long dead phone call. I peer at some of her notes, trying to decipher them. Unfortunately, it appears to be written in another language, as well as in cursive. Darn it.
I start sifting through papers, looking for something that I understand. It's in this process that my hand bumps into something solid, most likely a book. Brushing the notes aside, I find a curious dark red tome with a six fingered hand on the cover. In the middle of the hand print, a number three has been painted on. I flip open the cover, trying to figure out who it belongs to. With the first few pages yielding no identification, I ignore the tempting discoveries of the supernatural and flip to the last page. There's a sketch there, a group of people around a campfire. I immediately recognize Grunkle Stan and Ford, and it doesn't take me long to figure out that the two kids in the picture are Dipper and Mabel. Also around the fire are a man with a question mark on his shirt and a young teen wearing plaid. The pages say something about burning all the artifacts of a certain 'Bill Cipher', and then deciding what to do with the journals. Something about a bottomless pit, and throwing the journals inside. He lists the possible fates the journals could succumb to, such as ending up in another dimension or landing somewhere else in this one to be picked up by a curious soul. He signs off for the final time as Stanford Pines, and that's all the proof I need to confirm that Ford didn't tell me everything. Why would Lenzee have kept this book if it didn't hold a greater purpose to her?
I flip back to the pages concerning the bottomless pit. Some things come back, some things don't, but if it's not back in twenty four hours, it's gone for good.
{If this was, in fact, thrown into the Bottomless Pit, then that means that Lenzee must have found it within the following twenty four hours. If such is the case, then that means she's had this journal for four years. Why is she holding on to it? If she knew Ford, why didn't she just return it to him? Unless...}
I pick up some of the pages scattered across the desk. Reaching for a magnifying glass left near the phone, I turn on the desk lamp and place the notes directly in the light. It can't be another language, there aren't any accents of similarities to any language I'm familiar with. No, not another language, but maybe...
A specific page in the journal is bookmarked. I open to it, revealing a short entry about codes. Caesar, Atbash, A1Z26, the works! Lenzee's notes must be written in code! I'll just have to puzzle out what each cursive letter is supposed to be. Maybe there's someone who reads cursive really well who would be able to help me.
A flash of red grabs my attention. A loose paper has fallen from the desk, containing blood-red writing. I stoop over, picking it up. It's still in code, but it's not in cursive. Instead, the whole thing is written in strange symbols that I'm unfamiliar with. I'll have to look through the cipher book and see if it has anything on it.
I hear a loud thud coming from somewhere else in the house. Gathering up as many of Lenzee's notes as I can, I shove them into my backpack and race out of the library.
"What's going on?" Dipper asks, racing into the hallway at the same time I do.
"I'm not sure," I tell him. "It must be Mabel."
We head into Lenzee's room, our eyes darting around the interior. She has very elegant furniture, and everything matches. It looks like a show home, or perhaps an advertisement in a magazine. Everything is completely spotless and precise. It's almost unnerving.
"Mabel?" Dipper calls out. "Mabel, where are you?"
A steady thud seems to come from the wall near Lenzee's bed. Dipper runs his hands along the surface of it, searching for cracks or hidden doors. I approach the bookcase, parting different volumes to check for clues. I grab a dictionary, tugging on it, but it seems to be stuck. I pull harder, and it moves forward like a lever. The bookcase swings away from the wall, revealing a secret passageway towards a small room. Mabel is on the other side looking relieved.
"Thank you! I thought I was gonna get stuck forever!"
"No problem. How'd you get in?"
"I pulled on the dictionary, and then this door opened, so I went inside and started looking around, but then the door just slammed shut behind me, and I couldn't open the door thing again, no matter how hard I tried!"
"Hmm," I murmur, inspecting the lever. I can't see all the mechanics for it, but from what I can see I'm pretty sure that the lever works like a lock. Unless it's been pulled out, the bookcase can't budge.
"Why would someone create a room that you can't get out of?" Dipper wonders, inspecting the backside of the door. Strange runes and symbols are engraved on that side of the bookcase, something strange and unfamiliar.
"Maybe Lenzee didn't know about it," Mabel suggests. "I mean, if she's as smart as Jupiter says she is, she probably never had a reason to use the dictionary. She probably never touched it."
I peer past the doorway, letting my gaze travel across the room. It's filled with more strange symbols, and a few curious objects. I have no clue what any of it means.
"This room is giving me the creeps," Mabel whispers. "Let's go."
We head into the sitting room, with the intent of discussing anything that we've found.
"Other than the secret room, I couldn't find anything of note," Mabel reports, tucking up her legs and pulling her sweater over them.
"The portrait on the wall was dated at 1967," Dipper begins, pulling out the book from earlier. "I read that this house has been known under the name 'Redwood' for almost as long as Gravity Falls has been a place, so I decided to do some research into the name. From what I could gather, the Redwood family came shortly after the town was established, almost as if they'd been summoned. One account states that the morning of their arrival, a thick fog rolled in, making it impossible to see more than five feet in front of you. At the borders of the town, a small group of people wearing black had appeared. When citizens were finally brave enough to approach, they addressed who they assumed was the group's leader. Instead of the tall man, a woman appearing to be in her thirties or forties spoke. She told the town that the Redwood trees had come to take root, and that their journey took them across the country.She said they had been waiting for nearly two hundred years for this town to be established, though many sources say this was merely a result of mental illness and shouldn't be taken as factual. She then asked if they could stay in the little town of Gravity Falls, but it didn't sound like she was asking for permission. The townsfolk welcomed them warily, and as the woman stepped across the border, the fog cleared, revealing at least a dozen more members of their family. The Redwoods built themselves a few houses, but as time went on, the younger generations began seeking homes beyond the small town. Some ended up in other places in the United States and Canada. The only house built by the Redwoods still in their possession is this one, with Lenzee as its owner. Northwest Real Estates has attempted to purchase it several times throughout the years, but were always met with a flat out refusal."
"BOOOring!" Mabel yells. "What's the point of all this? I mean, sure, it's probably important to Jupiter, but what's the purpose in our current situation?"
"Because it's all so weird!" Dipper insists. "It's almost like there's some sort of magic involved!"
"But my family didn't originate in Gravity Falls," I point out. "Magic in my family wouldn't make sense."
"Here's the thing with Gravity Falls, though," Dipper continues. "It's a weirdness magnet. Things that are strange and odd are naturally drawn to this place by some unknown force. Your family traveled across the entire country to get here."
I shake my head and sigh. "As much as I would like to believe that my family is special or weird, it's just not the case. My parents are scientists, and they don't believe magic exists."
"Yeah, maybe stuff was just bad on the other side of the country," Mabel suggests. "It's not like there's much over there anyways."
I raise an eyebrow, but think nothing of it. I set my backpack on the ground, unzipping it slowly.
"When I was in the library, I stumbled upon a writing desk. It must be what great aunt Lenzee uses as her study. I found some strange notes, written in cursive. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was written in code, some sort of letter substitution cipher. I didn't have time to try and decode it when I discovered..."
I pause, either out of hesitancy or for dramatic effect. Cautiously, I pull the journal out of my bag, watching as their eyes widen and their jaws drop.
"Journal number three?" Dipper exclaims. "But that's impossible, we threw-"
"Threw them in the Bottomless Pit, I know," I interrupt. "I skimmed through the book, hoping to find some sign of authorship. When I reached the last page, I grew curious about the Bottomless Pit. After reading what had been done, I flipped to the initial entry on the bottomless pit and found information on how it worked. Since this journal was found, I can only assume that Lenzee stumbled across it less than twenty four hours after you threw them in. I can't imagine why Lenzee would hold on to this for almost five years, but something is going on with her. All I know is that it relies heavily on codes."
I show them the bookmarked page, and they lean closer to look at it. I also show them the notes from Lenzee's desk, but I keep the one with strange red symbols to myself.
"Ford could probably help with this," Dipper muses. "He wrote stuff in code, and he aced cryptography in college."
"I'm pretty good with codes and ciphers myself," I add. "Really I just need someone who can read cursive to translate it into something I can see clearly."
Having found our first big break, we pack up and head back to the Mystery Shack, hoping that we can find someone to help us.
***
{As I skim some of these pages, it's clear that Ford couldn't crack every code. There are some messages that he claims he cannot make sense of, some that he even claims he didn't write. I don't look too much into it, seeing as I'm only looking for stuff that's coded. Once I can read some of this stuff, I'll crack it and get some answers.}