I couldn’t find any pictures. I ran to Soos for help. “Soos?” I asked him.

“Yeah?” He looked at me as he restocked the shelves in the gift shop.

“Do we have pictures of my other Great-Great Uncle? Not Grunkle Stan.”

“...no?” He avoided eye-contact.

I narrowed my eyes. “So much lying…he wasn’t a bad guy, right? Why doesn’t anyone tell me about him! I don’t even know his name.”

“You’re right, he wasn’t a bad guy. He was a hero, actually. He just lived a very complicated life, dude. And Dipper and I both want to avoid the same thing for you and your brother.”

“I understand that. But I still think I have the right to know his name.”

“...His name was Stanford Pines. Or Grunkle Ford. He was Stan’s twin brother. That’s all I’ll tell you.”

“And he had six fingers like me.”

“Right.”

“And he was a scientist who didn’t trust anyone with his research.”

“...” Soos paused and looked at me. “Well-”

“Where was his lab! There’s gotta be at least one picture in there!”

“I can’t tell you that, dude.”

“Or…My aunt’s scrapbook!” I beamed. My Aunt Mabel kept all of her memories in her scrapbooks. And if her first summer in Gravity Falls was as crazy as Dad made it sound, then I bet that she had a picture of Grunkle Ford.

“No- Ria!” Soos warned. He tried to grab me to stop me. I quickly bolted up to the attic and pulled out my phone. I called my aunt.

She answered quickly, like normal. “Hello my beautiful niece!” She said happily.

I smiled. “Hey auntie. Can I ask you a small favor?”

“Of course!”

“Do you still have your scrapbook from summer 2012? I need a picture of Grunkle Ford for a project. I have to make a collage of everyone in my family that I know…”

“A project? During the summer?”

“Yeah! You know…English teachers.” I scoffed and laughed nervously.

She paused for a brief second. I could feel a bead of sweat trickle down the side of my neck.

“I just sent a picture to you,” she said after a while.

I sat up straight. “Wait, what? Really?”

She laughed. “Of course, dear! Auntie Mabel is always willing to help!”

I smiled. “Thank you. Times a thousand.”

“Goodbye Ria!”

“See ya, auntie.” I hung up and checked my messages, and there was a picture of a photo of Grunkle Ford. He and my dad, as a boy, were playing a board game.

He did look just like my Grunkle Stan. After printing the picture, I grabbed a marker and crossed out my dad from the picture. I just needed Ford for this. I tucked the picture away and ran down to the kitchen. I found a box of wax candles and stuffed them in my bag along with a box of matches. Then I began running back out to the woods.

I flew on Quinn’s back and landed back at the spot I was at before. I don’t know why, but I felt some sort of connection to it. 

I set up the picture and surrounded it with the candles, lighting them one by one. Then I sat back on my knees. I could feel my heart pounding against my chest. I began to read out the revival spell.

The candles turned blue. I went a little pale. My eyes started to burn. Everything started to glow.

Quinn backed up into the trees and cooed quietly out of fear.

The picture lit on fire, but it wasn’t burning away. A blue mist rose from it, forming the shape of a human. Then it solidified. Everything went back to normal.

Grunkle Ford looked around, confused. He looked just how he did in the picture. Now that I’m seeing him, I realized that he was the same man I had seen in the kitchen that night. He looked at me. “Who are you-” He looked at the journal. “How did you get your hands on that! Wait…your hands…” He looked at my six fingered hand and smiled. He held up his matching one. “Well, would you look at that.”

I watched him with an amazed expression. “It’s- It’s you! It worked!”

“Yeah- kid, how did you get my journal anyway? That was destroyed during…” His eyes became distant. “During…”

“Grunkle Ford?”

He shook his head and waved the thought away. “Never mind that. So, are you Dipper’s kiddo? Or Mabel’s?”

“Yeah, Dipper’s my dad. How long have you been…you know.”

“Dead?” He smiled as if the thought thrilled him. That kind of freaked me out. “A little more than a decade. 15 years maybe?”

“And how did…?”

“Let’s not worry about that. I wanna say hi to your dad, wherever he is.” He glanced around. “Also, what are you doing out here? This place isn’t even near the Mystery Shack. This is where-”

“Grunkle Ford, I have a few questions,” I interrupted before he could enter another terrible flashback. “My dad refuses to tell me anything about this place. But I found his journals-”

“Dipper wrote his own journals?” He looked surprised, proud, and shocked all at the same time.

I nodded. “He wrote 2. And you wrote 3, right?”

He nodded. “But, I’m really sorry about this, but I’m going to have to ask for my journal back. It’s far too dangerous, especially the 2nd and 3rd ones. Those were written during and after my life was ruined.”

“Ruined?” I stepped back, clutching the book. “By who?”

He shook his head. “I can’t-”

“Tell me.” I glared off to the side and nodded. “I know. But will you please just let me keep the book? It helped me bring you back! And now you can help me!”

“Help you? With what?”

“Ever since I’ve wandered into these woods I’ve found strange things. Like Quinn!” I urged the Quad-Owl forward. He strutted out of the trees.

Ford looked at him. “Magnificent! I’ve never seen this beast before…”

I nodded. “There’s something strange about this area. My dad won’t tell me about it, but he’s clearly been studying. He even installed his own research facility in this location. I persuaded him to let me be his intern so I can try and learn more…but he doesn’t trust me enough to let me stay in there for longer than a week.”

Ford nodded slowly. “I understand why. The mysteries of this town are a long running road that even I couldn’t reach the end of. I’m glad your father was brave enough to continue my research. He was the best apprentice I’ve ever had! Granted, he was the only apprentice I’ve ever had…but I told him I’d like to keep this study in the family.”

“And as the oldest child, I want to continue it! Grunkle Ford, you haven’t seen my grades. You haven’t seen me invent- I do it all the time! I'm a mechanic, an engineer, and a tinkerer. I could help! I just need to understand what’s going on.”

He smiled at me. “I believe you. I’ll talk to Dipper. But in the meantime, I need you to stay out of these woods. What you said, about them bringing all these weird anomalies to you- that’s because there is something terrible in these woods. A cursed remnant of a terrible entity. The entity that ruined my life all those years ago. I will tell you my story when the time comes, but in the meantime, I need you to promise that you will try your best to stay out of trouble. Will you promise?”

“I will. I promise, Grunkle Ford.” I smiled and nodded.

He nodded back. “Thank you-...”

“Ria,” I said. “Ria Pines.”

“Ria Pines,” he repeated. “Very well. Let us go back to the Mystery Shack! I miss that old place.”

I led Ford into the shack. It was around dinner time, meaning that the shack was closed for the day. “Soos?” I called. “Theo? Dad? Is anyone home?”

“Yeah!” Soos said from the living room. “What’s up?”

“Soos!” I ran to him and beamed. “I have someone I want you to see!”

He sat up from his chair, pausing his show. “Yeah!”

I quickly waved Ford into the room. He was inspecting the shack. “This doesn’t look any different than it did last time I was here…”

Soos’ jaw dropped. “It-”

“Yeah!” I beamed. “Isn’t this great? It’s the author!”

Soos flat out fainted. I paused. “...maybe we should go find my dad.”

Ford frowned and nodded slowly. “Where’s that research facility you told me about?”

“Oh, I’ll show you.” I started to lead him back out.

Theo scurried downstairs with an armful of his dinosaur toys. “Woah..who’s that?”

“I’ll tell you later! We gotta go see Dad!”

“Can I come?”

“Erm…”

Ford shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

“Yay!” Theo followed us outside.

I opened the door to the dome and walked in. “Dad?” I called.

“Ria, I’m busy!” Dad quickly responded. I peeked in and looked at him. He had some sort of VR-looking device on, and a screen behind him showing his thoughts.

Ford looked around, impressed by all the technology. He spotted the desk where his journals were laid out. “My journals!” He exclaimed.

Dad nearly choked. He quickly took the device off of his head. “GRUNKLE FORD?”

Ford looked at him and smiled. “Dipper. You’ve aged into a handsome man.”

Dad quickly ran to him and hugged him. I smiled, holding Theo’s hand.

Grunkle Ford held the back of Dipper’s head. “I’m glad to see you too, kid.”

“Is- Is Stan here too..?” Dad whispered. 

Grunkle Ford shook his head. “It’s just me right now, bud.”

“Will he come back?”

“...maybe at some point.”

“...” Dad started to cry. I’ve never seen him cry before. Sure, he got nervous often, but he never cried. At least not around me or Theo.

“Shhh,” Grunkle Ford soothed. He looked around. “This is a very impressive lab, Dipper. Would you mind showing me around?”

“S-Sure..” He nodded. He backed away. Ford was smart. He knew how to distract my dad. He followed him around as Dipper showed him all of his inventions and research.

“Maybe we should leave them,” Theo whispered to me. “I think they’ve been through something together…they seem very close.”

I nodded. “Let’s go see what’s for dinner, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I led him back outside and we made our way back to the Mystery Shack.

A cold breeze passed by. I looked back into the woods, wondering about that entity that Grunkle Ford warned me about. It must be extremely powerful to attract all of this weirdness. But I made a promise. And from what I’ve seen, Ford doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you would want to lie to.

But hey, I said I wouldn't go looking for trouble. It’s not my fault if trouble comes looking for me.