Chapter Text
The back door to the Mystery Shack creaked open, the porch light creating a yellow rectangle in the dark, empty foyer.
“Hello?” Wendy called before stepping in. She reached for the light switch by the door, but after flipping it a few times realized it wasn’t going to turn on. “Oh come on,” she muttered, and reached for her phone-
“BOO!” came a cry from either side of Wendy.
Wendy snarled, the flashlight from her phone illuminating her from the chin up. The distorted shadows made her missing nose even more grotesque, the dark hole a contrast to her pale, grey skin. One of her eyes was hanging from its socket and almost seemed to glow, and her clothes were in tattered rags…
Dipper and Mabel screamed.
“Whoa whoa whoa, it’s ok guys, it’s just me!” Wendy said, moving the flashlight to a better angle with one hand and putting out another in defense. “It’s my Halloween costume, not a big deal!”
“Geez, Wendy!” Dipper breathed, picking up a box from the floor and pressing a button. The foyer light turned on, making it obvious that Wendy was indeed just wearing a costume- impressive makeup notwithstanding. “Maybe don’t creep around in a costume that good in Gravity Falls?”
“Re-lax,” Wendy said, giving him a friendly shove. “It’s Halloween! Besides,” she crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows. “I wasn’t the one who rigged the lights to not turn on so they could scare me.” She said pointedly.
“That was my idea!” Mabel said proudly. “You’ve gotta have a few scares on Halloween!”
Wendy chuckled. “Looks like you got the memo. That’s a pretty sweet witch costume.”
“Thank you, made it myself,” Mabel answered loftily, and took her black and orange skirt and swished it back and forth. “I’m Dani from Hocus Pocus!”
“Nice, I see it!” Wendy said. “Hey, how did you get the lights to turn back on?”
Dipper held up a box. “This thing- it’s like a super EMP from Great Uncle Ford! It ruins electrical equipment, but also undoes the damage,” Dipper added, and grinned. “Perfect for pulling pranks.”
Wendy perked up, her fake-detached eyeball bouncing against her cheekbone. “Dude, I know you’re leaving in a couple of days, but we’ve gotta make some plans.” Then she frowned. “So… where’s your costume?”
Dipper looked down at his jeans, T-shirt, and oversized jacket. “This is my costume,” he said. “I’m the brother from Hocus Pocus. Max.”
“Dude, I’m sorry, but that’s gotta be the most low-effort Halloween costume I’ve ever seen,” Wendy said.
“That was the point,” Dipper grinned.
“It was a compromise,” Mabel said tiredly. “Dipper didn’t want to dress up at all.”
“Can you blame me after Summerween?” Dipper asked. “You made me wear a peanut on my head.”
“OK, what?” Wendy laughed. “I don’t remember that at all!”
“That’s because he took it off whenever you came around,” Mabel said matter of factly. “In fact, his lack of Summerween spirit almost got us eaten by the Summerween Trickster,”
Wendy’s eyebrows shot up. “What, really?” she asked. “I thought he was just a myth!”
“No,” Dipper sighed. “He was real. Mabel, Candy, Grenda, and I fought him, and Soos delivered the final blow.”
“And you didn’t bring me along?!” Wendy folded her arms and gave a fake pout through her zombie makeup. “I’m going to have to start rethinking our friendship, Dip.”
“Shut up,” Dipper laughed. Then he frowned. “There’s not a Halloween Trickster, is there?”
Wendy shrugged. “Doubt it. Summerween’s a Gravity Falls thing, so it stands to reason we’d somehow have a monster that goes with it. Halloween is just too big. Everyone would know about it.”
“Guess you and your lame costume are safe this time around, Dip Dop!” Mabel said cheerily.
“Is that Wendy?” a gravelly voice called from upstairs. “Get her to come up and help with these boxes!”
“I’m just saying hi to Mabel and Dipper!” Wendy answered casually, turning to the stairwell.
“I’m not payin’ you to yap,” the voice came closer, and a figure holding a huge box appeared on the landing and started to come down the staircase.
“Technically you’re not paying me at all,” Wendy said, winking at Mabel and Dipper. “Soos is my boss now.”
“Yeah, but he put me in charge again while he’s on his honeymoon, an’ I ain’t about to let you rip him off like you did me,” The giant box was shoved into Wendy’s arms, revealing Stan with green facepaint, bolts coming out of his neck, and some sort of padding that made his shoulders look even bigger than they already were. “Take this stuff to the parlor and unpack it, then come back up here- we got a lot more to do before the party starts.”
“No problem, Mr. Pines,” Wendy said, and even though her face was hidden by the box, the Pines family could practically hear her eyes rolling as she made her way to the parlor.
Stan looked at Mabel and Dipper. “You kids seen Ford?”
“I think he’s still in the lab,” Dipper said.
Now it was Stan’s turn to roll his eyes. “’Course he is,” he said, but there was no malice in his voice, just the usual Grunkle Stan grouchiness. “That mad scientist getup he’s got on is no costume, let me tell you.” Dipper and Mabel tried to hold in their laughter, disguising it as coughing. Stan glared at them. “An’ what’re you two doin’ standin’ around for? The best party in Gravity Falls starts in thirty minutes, an’ you still need to set up the prices for the snack bar!”
The twins glanced at each other and grinned, then followed Wendy to the parlor to help finish setting up.
“So wait,” Wendy said from the top of a ladder as she tapped some bats on strings to the ceiling. “Was that what Soos meant when he said he ate a man alive on Summerween? That he ate the Trickster?”
“Oh, yeah,” Dipper said nonchalantly as he wrote down snack prices on some index cards. “The Trickster was made of looser candy- y’know, licorice, old chocolate, that kind of stuff.” Then he stopped as a thought hit him, and he put down the pen to look at Wendy. “What did you think he meant?” he asked in horrified fascination.
Wendy waved a hand. “I just figured it had something to do with eating a whole boatload of candy- like the weight of a man or something,” she climbed down the ladder. “You know Soos- sometimes he says some weird junk.”
“Ever’fing ‘as al’ays made fense to me!” Mabel chimed in, her speech muffled from the streamers in her mouth. She was using her teeth to hold them while she put the black and orange crepe in complicated patterns.
“Well obviously,” Dipper said. “You’re weirder than all of us combined!”
Mabel took the streamers out of her mouth and secured them with a roll of tape. “I prefer creatively brilliant!” She said, moving the streamers above her head as she twirled in place. It was pretty impressive for a few seconds… until she got tangled and fell over. “That was dumb,” she muttered, and carefully got up to avoid ripping the crepe paper amidst laughter from Wendy and Dipper.
“You said it, not me!” Dipper teased.
“You’re just jealous you’re so boring compared to me,” Mabel retorted.
“I’m not boring!” Dipper protested.
Mabel looked at him. “Says the guy wearing a grey shirt and jacket as a Halloween costume.”
“Ooo, she got you there, Dip,” Wendy said good naturedly.
“Whatever,” Dipper said, and went back to the snack prices.
“So where are Candy and Grenda anyway?” Wendy asked, taking the one end of the braided streamers from Mabel and climbing the ladder again.
“Austria,” Mabel sighed. “Marius wanted Grenda to help him host the closing ceremonies for Oktoberfest, and Candy was invited to rehearse with one of the Vienna orchestras for a Halloween masquerade ball, so they just stayed over there for a whole month. Without me.” She made a face, then brightened. “But they’re coming back tomorrow, so I’ll get to see them for a little bit before we go back to California!”
“Good deal!” Wendy said, climbing down the ladder again and folding it up so she could bring it over to the other side of the parlor. “Yeah, I think I heard about the Marius thing, but not the orchestra part. You have some pretty interesting friends, Mabel.”
“I’m an interesting person!” Mabel said, following Wendy with the other side of the streamers. “Unlike my brother here…”
Dipper dropped his marker and whirled around. “Oh come on! I’ve hunted monsters and fought zombies and discovered secrets- I’m as far away from boring as you could get!”
“You spent all last week drawing mushrooms in your journal,” Mabel said, and Wendy chuckled behind her hand.
“They were interesting mushrooms!” Dipper said. “Besides, Great Uncle Ford thinks mushrooms are interesting too, and he’s the least boring person we know! Journal 1 was full of different kinds of fungus he found here-”
“Did somebody say fungus?” Ford’s voice in some exaggerated Eastern European accent came from the top of the stairs to the parlor, and the lights flashed off and on like lightning, with a crash of thunder, followed by Ford’s maniacal laugh. Then lights steadied themselves, showing Ford in a long white lab coat buttoned up to his neck, goggles in his wilder-than-usual hair, and wearing black gloves which held a small box similar to Dipper’s EMP. Then he turned to his green monster of a brother behind him and said in his normal voice. “I thought that worked quite well, what do you think Stanley?”
Stan grinned wickedly. “I think it’s gonna scare the crap outta anyone who comes in,” he answered, rubbing his hands together. “The Masters of Fright ride again!” Stan looked at the teenagers finishing the decorations. “Pretty spooky, right?”
“It was pretty cool, but not really… scary,” Dipper said carefully. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the atmosphere was fantastic, but-”
“Eh, we got a lot more tricks up our sleeve for tonight,” Stan said with a chuckle, throwing an arm around Ford’s shoulders, his mischievous smile matching Ford’s perfectly. “Just you wait and see.”