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Something was definitely wrong with Dipper.
Ever since they had arrived back in Gravity Falls for winter break, he had been a grump! Well, more than normal, ayooo.
But seriously, Dipper had never been a fan of the cold. Unfortunately their parents loved it, so they would often make the six hour road trip to the nearest ski lodge during winter break, but even then, he was always willing to at least build a snowman or make Biblically accurate snow angels with her. Now he had barely moved from under his pile of blankets since they had gotten here! Even Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford were starting to notice, and his grumpy mood was starting to make them all miserable.
Mabel peered into the living room and watched for a minute as he glared at the TV from under his mound of blankets.
“Hey Dipper,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Whatcha watching?”
“New Ghost Harassers special,” he mumbled.
She plopped down on the floor in front of him. “How is it so far?”
“Dumb. This show makes no sense. They should’ve quit, like, 15 seasons ago.”
“Okay, who are you and what have you done with my brother?”
It was meant to be a joke, but the withering glare Dipper gave her followed by a kick to the shoulder was enough to tell her he took it seriously. “Not funny, Mabel.”
“Geez, who spit in your bean curd?”
“Spit in your—? McGucket is rubbing off on you.”
“Says Mr. I-Asked-Him-For-Death-Robot-Plans-On-the-Second-Day-of-School.”
His gaze darkened. “The PE teacher had it coming.”
Reaching a hand from the blankets, he grabbed a handful of popcorn and shoved it in his mouth. He immediately sputtered, coughing and choking and spitting it out. He knocked the bowl off the table in the process. “This brand has seriously gone downhill; that was disgusting.”
Curious, Mabel plucked a piece from the ground before popping it in her mouth. “Tastes fine to me.”
“Yeah, well, your tastebuds suck.”
She gasped. “Rude. My tastebuds are highly refined.”
He rolled his eyes and made his hand talk in a mocking mneh-mneh-mneh gesture before burrowing deeper into the blankets. “Don’t you have ugly holiday sweaters to go make or something?”
“Ooh! Good idea! I’ll go bring my stuff down here. I can knit while we watch.”
“No! I swear Mabel, if you bring your cheap, itchy, glitter infesting, worthless yarn down here, then I swear I am going to vomit all over it.”
There. There it was. Proof that something was wrong with Dipper because even if he was freezing or sick or hurt, he would never say something like that to her.
“Fine.” She got to her feet. “I’ll go somewhere where my art is appreciated then.”
Just as she was leaving the room she heard him mutter. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
Mabel took a deep breath, putting her character development from last summer to good use, and decided she could punch her brother after she had broken whatever curse was on him. And she already had an idea of what that might be…
Grabbing her coat and scarf off the rack by the door, Mabel rushed out into the snow. If there was one place she would find answers it would be at… the library!
If Gravity Falls had looked quaint and hokey in the summer it looked downright picturesque in the winter. Strands of colored lights decorated every store front. Every house had at least one kitschy yard decoration whether it was an inflatable Santa, a tree sized menorah, or Diwali flower rangolis that covered the whole yard. Snow glittered on every surface, from the windowsills to the roofs to the gnomes’ hats as they ran through town. The afternoon sky was overcast, promising more snow to come, and kinda made Mabel feel like the world was a snow globe— a good one this time. Convincing their parents to send them back to Gravity Falls for winter break had been a great idea.
At least, she hoped it had.
Mabel arrived at the library, stomping her boots in the entryway, and bounced over to the front desk.
“Fairytale section please!”
The librarian pointed her in the right direction and as Mabel began to browse the shelves, her thoughts wandered back to when they had first arrived.
The night they had arrived, they climbed onto the roof with their uncles to watch a surprise meteor shower that Grunkle Ford’s sciency sensors had picked up. They had all oohed and ahhed at the glittery pieces of dust breaking up in the atmosphere. Grunkle Ford had said that nothing big enough would make it through to fall to earth, but she and Dipper had both been hopeful. How cool would it be to take home a space rock!
She hadn’t thought it odd when Dipper winced and complained about something getting in his eye.
“Ha! Not surprised,” Stan barked. “The roof’s been falling apart since we left. Soos keeps saying he’ll get to it, but pfft. It’ll survive the winter. Probably. Snow and asbestos look the same anyway so just, uh, actually, don’t tell your parents I said that.”
Even though Ford had reassured them that he had not built the shack with asbestos, Dipper had spent the whole night grumbling about going blind and how the shack looked like it was going to fall apart on top of them. They had all chalked it up to being tired from the long bus ride and his eye hurting, but now…
“Aha!”
Pumping her fist quietly in triumph, Mabel pulled the book she was looking for off the shelf. The Snow Queen.
Maybe it hadn’t been a meteor breaking up in the atmosphere. Maybe it had been the Devil’s Mirror! Flipping through the book, she found the page that talked about it— ooh, and it had pictures too!
The story said that one day, the Devil decided to make a mirror that would corrupt the view of whoever looked upon it. Anything beautiful became twisted and ugly. The Devil commanded his minions to fly the mirror up to heaven to mock the angels that lived there, but the higher they flew, the heavier it became, until they dropped it! The mirror shattered into a million bajillion pieces. Some were big, but some were super duper tiny and got in people’s eyes, like the main character of the story!
And now Dipper.
In the end, Gerda had found Kai in the Snow Queen’s palace and her tears had washed the speck of mirror out of his eye. So maybe…
:::
Stan and Ford both jumped as Mabel slammed the door to the gift shop open shouting, “Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Ford! We need to make Dipper cry!”
The two old men exchanged a glance.
“Pumpkin, not that I don’t love watching children cry, but why?”
She held the picture book open to the picture of the Devil’s mirror and rattled off her explanation as fast as she could.
“So we need to make him cry! Or maybe we hold him down and cry on him. That's how they did it in the book. Maybe it has to be someone else's tears?”
“Mabel, are you sure about this? It seems kinda far-fetched…”
“I showed him a picture of Wendy and he said she looked like a troll doll.”
“Holy Moses, so it is serious.”
Ford interjected before Mabel could respond.
“While I do think this is worth pursuing, perhaps there's a simpler, less emotionally draining way to go about this. Maybe…” His gaze drifted outside and a thoughtful smile graced his face. “I may have an idea.”
:::
“Dipper! Dipper! Krampus is outside right now, let’s move!”
Dipper spluttered as the blankets were roughly pulled out from under him and he tumbled to the living room floor.
“Ugh, Mabel!”
“Come on! We need to hurry if we want to catch it!”
“Didn’t Grunkle Ford kill Krampus?”
“Technically it was McGucket, but that doesn’t matter right now!” Mabel was forcibly pushing him towards the door now. “He’s back and we’ve got to stop him!”
“Why us? Listen, if he’s going around eating kids, I’d rather it not be us, oka—”
SPLAT.
Dipper spluttered as the wet snowball dripped down his face.
“Yes! Direct hit!”
“Way to go, Grunkle Stan!”
“Thanks pumpkin!”
“Now hit him again!”
“What?!”
Dipper didn’t stand a chance as Mabel pushed him forward, off the front porch, and into the direct line of fire from both Ford and Stan.
“Really Stan? Did you have to soak the poor boy?”
“What? I thought that was the whole point of this.”
“Less talking, more snowfire!”
“You too, Mabel?!”
Dipper spluttered as he got a face full of powder from his own sister. Fine, if they wanted to gang up on him, he wasn’t going down without a fight!
He sprinted towards the corner of the shack and out of the direct line of fire before making another break for it towards the totem pole.
“Don’t let him get away!”
The totem pole didn’t provide a lot of cover, but it was enough for him to make a small pile of snowballs, not caring if he packed them with rocks and twigs in his haste to retaliate. He heard footsteps approaching and waited, waited— NOW!
Ford reeled back as the slushy, gritty snowball hit him right in the face, obscuring his view and allowing Dipper to slip by him and begin pelting Stan who was coming up fast behind him.
With the two old men shouting creative expletives, Dipper headed back towards the shack and where he had last seen Mabel. He needed to have a word, (and by word, he meant fist snowball fight), with her.
Moving as quietly as he could, Dipper crept low along the edge of the front porch until he caught a glimpse of a lit up Christmas sweater, (that couldn’t be safe getting soaked with snow), and struck!
Mabel must have seen him coming though because just as he lobbed his snowball he got a face full of powder himself that knocked him on his butt. Gosh, getting snow in your eyes should not hurt that badly. Maybe Stan was right about the asbestos…
“Shoot! Dipper, are you okay? I didn’t expect you to be, like, right there.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. You?”
He finally managed to clear away the snow and blink at his grinning sister.
“Never better. Want to team up?”
Dipper couldn’t help but grin in response. “Heck yeah.”
Without much time, the mystery twins got to creating a worthy arsenal while their uncles recovered.
“Where is the little punk? I don't care if he's cursed or whatever, I'm gonna cream him.”
“Curse?” Dipper asked.
“Don't worry about it. Charge!”
With reckless abandon, the twins charged, flinging snowballs left and right, screaming incoherently. The Stans were clearly not expecting to be ganged up on if their cries of betrayal were anything to go by. But they recovered quickly and soon the front yard was turned into a veritable Snowmaggedon. At some point Ford acquired a handheld snowball cannon while Mabel and Dipper formed a General Grievous-like formation to become a four-armed snowball throwing machine.
Dipper was sitting on Mabel’s shoulders in said formation when Stan pulled his arm back and launched his snowball with all the force a man his age could muster. It hit Dipper's face so hard he went flying off of Mabel's shoulders and landed with an “oof” in a conveniently placed snowbank.
“Do I need to hit him again?” Stan asked as he and Ford jogged over to check on him. “Or do we need to, uh, cry on him, like you said?”
Mabel smiled up at him. “I think he's got that taken care of.”
Sure enough, Dipper was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down his cheeks and showed no sign of stopping, and it brought a smile to the rest of their faces as well.
“I do think that's enough for now,” Ford said. “Let's get in out of the cold.”
“Come on, bro bro.” Mabel helped Dipper to his feet.
“Thanks.” Another giggle escaped as he wiped the tears from his face and the two stumbled towards the shack. “So what was that earlier about a curse?”
“Bro, do I have a story for you.”