We worked until the crack of dawn, trying to find whatever findings my dad had on this creature. 

My dad seemed distant the majority of the time. 

“What’s wrong, kid?” Ford asked him. 

“I miss Stan,” he admitted. “It’s not the same without both of you here. It’s like yin without yang.”

Ford frowned and flipped the page of the 4th journal. “I understand, Dipper. Maybe we can try and bring him back as well. With the right spell this time.” He glanced at me.

I looked back at him and quickly hid my face in the 3rd journal. I was reading Bill’s pages. There was blood splattered on the papers. I understood why he was upset, though. Based on what I was reading, Bill was not to be messed with. And being possessed by him was even worse.

“Here,” Ford said after a while of searching through my dad’s journal. “Dipper, since when have you been receiving secret messages?”

“Uhm..” Dad hesitated. “You know…dreams and stuff.”

“Right…let’s see here.” He looked at the message and started to decipher it. I put Ford’s journal down and sat up so I could watch him work. “How are you doing that?”

“It’s just a cryptogram,” Ford said. “Symbols associated with letters that are used to spell out a message. Bill always uses the same alphabet to share secret messages. I memorized it a long time ago.”

I nodded and continued to watch him. When he finished, I went ahead and read it allowed: “I’ll get this puppy up and running one day, and neither Time Baby nor the Big Frilly Know It All will stop me.”

Ford narrowed his eyes. “It sounds like he is planning to build some sort of doomsday device…possibly similar to my portal.”

“What’s a time baby?” I asked.

“Time Baby,” Dad said. “Some..giant baby that controls the alteration of time. I thought he was destroyed by Bill during Weirdmaggedon but-”

“One of the survivors must have gone back in time to bring him back,” Ford guessed. “Either that, or he is immortal and was only out of the picture for a certain amount of time.”

“And the Big Frilly Know It All,” I said. “That’s what Bill called the axolotl earlier.”

“Are there any other messages that you remember?” Ford asked my dad, looking at him.

“I think so..” Dad said. “I’d have to look for it, but I know I have one written down somewhere.”

Ford nodded and looked at me.

I looked back at him uncomfortably. “What?”

“The journal,” he demanded. 

“Oh. Right.” I handed my uncle the 5th journal. He began to look through it. “Aha! Another code…” He began to decipher it.

I tried to make eye-contact with my dad. I felt very out of place. I had knowledge to offer, but I was afraid that Ford would get mad out of nowhere again. Or possessed by Bill. Technically, he and Bill’s deal was never fulfilled. So as far as I knew, Bill was still allowed to move in and out of his mind freely. 

“Curse the axolotl,” Ford read aloud. “Every conspiracy is true.”

“Conspiracies,” my dad recalled. “Plans to commit harm.”

“So…every plan to harm the people is true?” I translated. “And I’m guessing this axolotl wants to stop them from happening, but Bill has other plans?”

“If the axolotl is more powerful,” Ford said, “like you assumed, Ria, then I would assume it would be able to stop the conspiracies from coming true.”

“But Bill is sneaky,” Dad reminded. “Why else would he write the message in code? Whatever machine he is building is designed to cheat the system in order to allow all conspiracies to come true and release a harmful force.”

Ford nodded. “Very good, Dipper.”

“So what do we do to stop it?” I asked.

Ford thought. “I don’t know. The best we can do is try to avoid Bill. There’s no stopping him until we see for ourselves what his plan is in depth. If we can find this machine, and learn the rest of the details, then we just might be able to defeat him again.”

Dipper nodded. “This is a dangerous mission though. I’d like Ria to stay out of it.”

“What!?” I protested, standing up.

Ford shook his head. “Bill is going to use her, one way or another. We need to keep a close eye on her.”

Dipper nodded slowly.

I clenched my teeth nervously and looked down. “I don’t want to be used…”

Ford laughed nervously. “Unfortunately kid, you’re a little too much like me. So focused on the facts. Not focused enough on the stories behind them.”

I nodded and looked down.

Grunkle Ford looked at Dad. “You’re right though, Dipper. We need my brother here. I miss him.”

Dad smiled a bit.

“We can just do the same thing that I did before, right?” I said.

Grunkle Ford thought, scratching his chin. “I’m afraid not. The magical properties of the forest may not be able to sustain the strength of a spell that powerful. Especially after it had already been used. We’ll have to find another place with similar assets.”

My dad thought. “How about the crash site?”

Ford shook his head. “That place has weirdness-magnitude properties, which is not exactly what we’re looking for.”

My dad growled. “If only someone possessed something from the magical forest that had its magic being sustained. Something powerful. Like-”

“Unicorn hair?” I suggested. “I read in Grunkle Ford’s journal- that it is one of the most powerful articles of magic in the enchanted forest. And it’s magic can withstand for up to 1,000 years.”

Ford laughed, which made me jump. “Brilliant! The only problem is, we need to find someone with a collection of unicorn hair that has been preserved. Or else the magic would come directly from the forest and the spell wouldn’t work because of the lack of magic available at the moment.”

“Unfortunately,” my dad said. “I think I know someone.”

We pulled up to the big white mansion. 

I stepped out. “What is this place?” I asked Grunkle Ford as he stepped out with Dad.

“Gideon Gleeful,” my dad said, sighing. “Annoying as a fairy bite but gotta hand it to him; he really made something of himself as a psychic. Not many people can pull that off.”

“And you’re positive he has preserved unicorn hair?” Ford narrowed his eyes.

Dad nodded. “I remember him bragging about how he had kept a sample of everything he had found from the second journal. Before the books got destroyed.”

“Speaking of which,” Ford said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Dipper. How were you able to recreate my journals?”

“Uh- so turns out Grunkle Stan photo-copied every page when he was restoring your portal. I found the pages and just recreated the journal covers.”

Ford nodded. “Who wants to knock!”

Dad shook his head and crossed his arms.

I sighed. “I guess I’ll do it.” I walked up to the double doors and knocked. I listened in, hearing footsteps echo off of the marble staircase.

A short man, a few years younger than my dad, opened the door. He looked at me. We were almost eye-to-eye. “Who are you, fella?” He looked at my dad and Ford. “Oh no- I promise I didn’t do anything!”

Ford rolled his eyes. “Calm down, Gleeful. We need your unicorn hair.”

“NO! Not my unicorn hair!”

My dad laughed a little. “You of all people would care so much about magical hair, Gideon. We need it to bring back Stan.”

“But Stan’s right there!”

Dad sighed. “That's Stanford. We need Stanley. Got it?”

“Maybe. But you’re still not getting the hair!”

Ford growled. “We’ll pay you, you fool! Name your price.”

His eyes gleamed. “Well in that case-!” He ran to get the hair. Me, my uncle, and my dad exchanged confused and annoyed glances.

Gideon came back with his jar of unicorn hair.

Ford beamed. “This- This is perfect!” He reached out to take it. 

“Nuh uh!” Gideon pulled the jar back. “It’ll cost you 15-I mean- 20 thousand dollars!”

“WHAT!?” Ford glared. “What is wrong with you!?”

I growled. “Maybe this’ll get us a discount.” I pulled out my dad’s blaster and pointed it at Gideon. “We’ll buy it for $100, you little troll.”

“Little troll?” Gideon demanded, but he backed up to avoid getting shot. “You’re the little troll here, Pines! I’m not giving you the hair!”

“Speaking of hair,” my dad said, smiling. “How’d you feel about losing yours? Go ahead and shoot the cotton ball, pumpkin.”

I beamed and shot the blaster right through Gideon’s sparkly white hair. He shrieked. “NOOO!” He dropped the jar.

Ford quickly snatched it and laughed. “Go go go!” We all quickly ran back into the car. My dad sped off.

Once Ford finished setting up the ring of unicorn hair around Stan’s grave, I stepped inside the circle. Ford handed me the picture of his brother from when they sailed across the ocean. Stan was dressed in a cozy coat and red beanie. He was sleeping on the deck, and Ford had captured the perfect picture of him resting peacefully by the sunset.

“You died with that picture in your pocket?” Dad asked him.

Ford nodded. But he didn’t say anything.

I checked my bag for candles. “There’s only four left. And I need eight.”

Dad shrugged. “Just cut them in half.”

“Oh, that works?”

He nodded. “As long as the wick is there, it’s still a candle.” he smiled and handed me some scissors. I smiled back and started to cut the candles in half.

Ford watched, his hands behind his back. He wasn’t looking at me though, he was looking at the tombstone. Stanley “Stan” Pines. 1952-2035. 83 years old. He looked at his own grave, which was right next to it. The tombstone was slightly smaller. Stanford “Ford” Pines. 1952-2044. 92 years old.

“Why is your grave smaller?” I asked Ford as I lit the candles.

Dad laughed a bit. “Stan said, ‘If I die, make sure I get a bigger tombstone than Ford.’ We took him up on that.”

“I wanted to be together when the time came,” Ford said quietly. “But he was in a wheelchair while I was still walking. Hooked up to a machine…none of us could bear to see him like that. We brought him to the hospital and..” He teared up. “Stanley…poor Stanley…”

Dad looked down and away. I bit my lip guiltily and looked back at what I was doing. 

“9 years,” Ford went on. “I outlived him by 9 years. I remember what happened…It was the middle of the night. Bill came to me in a dream. I thought he was gone. It struck me so hard to the point of a heart attack…I saw Stanley there. And my old friend, Fiddleford. They were waiting for me.”

My dad wiped the tears from his face. “Great Uncle Ford- please.”

Ford sniffled and pulled his head up. “Right, right. Sorry. Ria, please read the incantation.”

I nodded slowly and opened the book to the page with the resurrection spell. I began to read it out. The candles turned blue. The picture lit aflame again. But instead of creating a body, everything just went quiet. The candles went out.

I looked around. “What- did it not work?”

“It worked,” Grunkle Ford said. “Dipper, shovel.”

I didn’t even notice that my dad had brought a shovel with him. He handed it to Stanford. I watched, a little freaked out, as my uncle began to dig Stan out of his grave. I could vaguely hear the old man banging against his coffin.

I quickly backed up against my Dad. “This is freaky-”

“I know.” He held my hand. “It’s okay. I’d get used to this while you can. It can only get worse with Bill out here.”

I winced. Why was this guy so pessimistic all the time? He was right though. I needed to stop being a wimp. I needed to be brave. Like how I was when Gideon tried to cheat my uncle for the unicorn hair. I took a deep breath and forced a straight face. I was brave. Intelligent. I just needed to come to my senses.

Ford and my dad pulled the coffin out. Stan whacked it open and heaved. Ford helped him sit up, then he hugged him tightly. “Shh, shh, it’s okay Stanley.”

Stan looked around. “Where are we..” he looked at his tombstone. “HAH! It is bigger than yours! I can’t believe those kids remembered-” He looked at Dad. “..Dipper?”

Dad smiled. “Hey Grunkle Stan.”

“You look…old.”

“Yep.” My dad laughed a little.

I tried to get closer to see him. He didn’t look dead at all anymore. Or even that old. Mid sixties, just like the picture. He had been put in the same coat and hat as well.

“Stan?” I whispered.

Stan quickly backed up from Ford and looked at me. “Oh hey- uh- kiddo.”

“This is Ria,” Ford said. “Our great-great niece.”

“Sheesh,” Stan said. “I knew I’m supposed to be dead but there's no way I'm that old.” He laughed.

Dad smiled. “You have a great-great nephew as well. Theo is with Soos right now.”

“Oh, yeah. Soos.” Stan stood up and brushed the dust off of himself. “How’s the guy holding up, anyway?”

“Well, he and Melody have been managing the shack just fine, if you're worried about that.”

Grunkle Stan nodded. 

Ford patted Stanley’s shoulder. “Unfortunately though, now that you’re here, we need to talk about something.”