Dipper always hated it when it was Mabel's turn to pick the bedtime story. Not that the stories she picked were bad, mind you; in fact, she would always select one out of a story treasury that they had received as a gift from their grandmother this past Christmas: "The Essential Children's Storybook." It was a big fat book, heavy enough that Dipper was amazed that Daddy didn't wince and grunt with effort when he pulled it into his lap as Dipper and Mabel tucked themselves in beside him, and was chock-full of every story a kid could think of - familiar ones like Cinderella and The Three Little Pigs and Jack and the Beanstalk, as well as more obscure titles like The Tale of the Golden Cockerel and The Goblin and the Grocer.

The stories themselves were not the problem. Even for the titles for which the twins hadn't seen a brightly-colored and musical animated adaptation, the stories never got too gruesome, too scary. No, what Dipper hated about the Essential Children's Storybook were the illustrations.

Whoever had been commissioned to draw the pictures to go along with the more or less friendly stories clearly, in Dipper's opinion, had no idea they weren't supposed to be drawing for the horror genre. The illustrations were all done in a very detailed and shadow-heavy black and white, and while the pictures at the beginnings of the stories, when they just showed Snow White chatting with deer in the forest or Rapunzel leaning pensively out the tower window as her hair waterfalled down to the ground, were perfectly fine, pretty even, inevitably at least one picture in every story would become grotesque. The big bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood was drawn with a permanent ferocious growl, drool arcing off his snapping teeth and claws extended. Every witch in the book was warty and malformed, and seemed to gaze straight out of the book's page and into the eyes of the reader. Even little Rumpelstiltskin, whom Dipper had always thought looked like a leprechaun when he saw him in other picture books, looked more like a bizarrely humanesque gargoyle then anything else.

And Dipper simply couldn't bring himself to look away as Daddy read whichever story Mabel had picked for the night. He'd cringe and shy away - as his sister sat completely undisturbed by the horrible pictures - but he still stared as Daddy turned the page and the pretty golden goose was replaced by terrifying and deformed giant. It reminded him of the first time he'd watched Fantasia with his parents. The moment that final "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence had started, Dipper had clapped his hands over his eyes, but he still couldn't stop himself from peeking through his fingers... and then suffering from nightmares for the next two weeks.

Tonight, Mabel had picked out one of the less common stories in the book, some folk tale called The Cave of Beasts. Dipper had dreaded the illustrations from the moment he heard the title, but still he settled in opposite his sister at Daddy's side as he opened the book.

"Once upon a time..." Daddy began; every story in the book began with that phrase. "A man was wandering through the woods, when he came upon seven duck eggs. The mama duck was nowhere to be seen, so the man took the eggs and started towards home, where he lived with his wife and his seven daughters."

So far, so good, Dipper thought, hugging his knees to himself under the oversized T-shirt he used for pajamas. The first illustration was just the man in the woods looking into a nest of eggs, and the second was just a cottage with seven girls playing out front. But Daddy kept reading. The story continued with the man and his wife wanting to keep the eggs to themselves, but the daughters ate the eggs.

"The father was angry with his daughters," Daddy read. "So he asked them if they would like to go along with him to their grandmother's house. But he did not plan to take them to their grandmother. Instead, the father planned to leave them in the woods, so that the wolves could eat them in the night. The older daughters were suspicious of their father and refused to go, but the two youngest daughters did not realize anything was amiss, and so they agreed to go along with their father."

Dipper shivered and glanced at his sister, who sat staring intently at the book in Daddy's hands, a soft smile on her face. Dipper frowned. How could Mabel possibly be smiling? What kind of messed up story was this? Heck, when he ate a snack he wasn't supposed to, he got a fifteen-minute time out. Being left in the woods to be devoured seemed kind of harsh.

"You cold, Dip?" Daddy asked.

"Huh?" Dipper replied, realizing that he had zoned out from the story.

"You shivered. You wanna grab a blanket?"

Dipper hugged his knees tighter. "No, I'm good," he said. And he was, really. Just get to the happy ending, try not to look too closely when the monster inevitably shows up. He'd be fine.

"He's just sad 'cause he didn't get to picked the story tonight," Mabel said with a baby-toothed smile.

"He didn't get to pick, Mabel," Daddy corrected her.

"'S what I said," Mabel replied. She turned her eyes back to the book and began idly chewing on her pinky nail.

Daddy shook his head. "It's Mabel's turn tonight, Dipper."

"I know," Dipper said. "I'm not sad."

"Okay, if you're sure." Daddy looked back to the book and cleared his throat. "When the sun was all the way down, the two girls knew they would be sleeping in the woods tonight. They looked for something to use as a bed, and noticed a large, smooth stone. They took it and rolled it away so that they could lie on it for the night. But the girls did not realize in the dark that the stone had been covering the entrance of a big, dark cave."

Ah, there it was. Dipper did his best not to cringe as Daddy turned the page to reveal a full-page illustration of the cave entrance. The scene was shadowy, with a pitch-black cave surrounded by thick, jagged trees and lit by a crescent moon. And set against the dark cave was a fierce, bright set of scowling eyes that seemed to pop menacingly out of the page. Dipper shivered again. Huh. Maybe he was a little cold.

The rest of the story moved on as oddly as did any fairy tale. The titular "beasts" in the Cave of Beasts turned out to be a wolf and a bear, their cave was full of jewels, and the girls befriended the animals and bought their father's forgiveness with their new friends' treasures. Not exactly an Aesop's fable. Dipper's biggest irritant, though, was the fact that it was just a bear and wolf. What on earth was the illustrator's excuse, then, for drawing those terrifying eyes? Bears didn't have eyes like that. Wolves didn't have eyes like that.

After ensuring that the twins had both brushed their teeth, Daddy ushered them toward their respective bedrooms. "You want me to tuck you in?" he asked them.

"Yeah!" Mabel cried, tugging on Daddy's hand. "Me first!"

Daddy turned to Dipper. "You wanna wait up for me, buddy?"

Dipper shook his head. "I don't need tucked in. I'm a big boy."

Mabel stuck her tongue playfully out at Dipper. "Nuh-uh!" she said. "Big boys don't still use nightlights!"

Dipper felt himself blush. "They can use nightlights if they want to," he mumbled.

"Daddy doesn't use a nightlight."

Daddy put his hand on Mabel's hand. "Leave him be, Mabel," he said. "You at least want me to turn out the lights for you, sport?"

Dipper paused a moment in thought, then nodded. "Okay."

"Alright. You get yourself tucked in, and I'll be with you in a bit."

"Okay," Dipper said again. He crossed the hall and walked into his room while Mabel tugged Daddy into her own. After flicking on the light, Dipper knelt down toward the electric socket where he had plugged in his nightlight, a little plastic one shaped like the head of Dumbo the elephant. He pressed the little button beneath Dumbo's trunk that turned the nightlight on, then turned and clambered into his bed. His comforter, as well as the rest of the furniture in his room, all bore the same theme of childishly basic colors and shapes. He used to share the bedroom with Mabel while they were both in cribs and the room functioned as a nursery, and the dresser and bookshelf and wallpaper were all remnants of those first few years, scattered with simple blue squares and red circles and yellow triangles and green rectangles that were supposed to somehow stimulate babies' minds. Mabel had gotten to pick the theme of her new bedroom, resulting in a veritable explosion of flowers and butterflies, but Dipper rather liked the familiarity of his room the way it was.

He rolled over to look at the door as Daddy reached in and shut off the light. "Night, kiddo," he said softly.

"Good night, Daddy," Dipper replied, and Daddy withdrew, shutting the door behind him.

Dipper rolled over again to face the wall and snuggled deeper into his covers as his room switched from the bright yellow of the ceiling light to the faint gray-tinted glow of the Dumbo nightlight. Across the hall, he could hear Mabel bidding each of her stuffed animals goodnight, individually. That routine always took a few minutes. Dipper reached his covers up to his ears to see if it could blot out the sound, but it made his face too warm, so he gave it up.

"Good night, Flopsy," he heard Mabel saying. "Good night, Mr. Squiggles. Good night, Fuzzfeet. And good night, Princess Whiskers!" Dipper strained to hear the next, but it seemed that Mabel had finished and had gone to bed. With a sigh, he rolled so that he was looking straight up toward the ceiling, and then he closed his eyes, enjoying the quiet.

The quiet was short-lived, however, when, after a few minutes, his ears perked up at the soft sound of a bzzt - a short, crackling buzz, almost unnoticeable if not for the silence. Dipper's eyes shot open and he glanced around the room. It sounded like something being plugged in crooked, or like a bluebottle fly - one of those pests that was bigger than normal flies but slower - had flown blindly into a wall. Dipper tried to bring his sight into focus so he could spot the little bug flying about, but seconds later, he heard the bzzt again, this time accompanied by a flickering of the room's soft light.

Dipper whipped his head to the little glowing elephant head. "Dumbo?" he whispered. The nightlight, naturally, did not respond. But moments later, it flickered again, and then once more.

And finally, with a tiny pop akin to that of a popcorn kernel, the nightlight went out.

Dipper laying frozen in his bed, hands squeezing his comforter as he felt his heart start to race in the sudden darkness. Don't be scared, he scolded himself. It's just dark. I'm a big boy. I don't need a nightlight. Mabel doesn't use a nightlight, and she's always just fine.

Those thoughts were small comfort, however, as his eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and what little light spilled through from the moon and streetlight outside his window seeped through the blinds, casting looming, indistinct shadows over every object in his room.

He pressed his eyelids tightly closed and tried not to think about the darkness and shadows, but trying not to think of something has always been a fantastic way to ensure that there is absolutely nothing else on your mind. So, he did what he did every other night when Mabel picked the bedtime story, and what he did that one time while watching Fantasia. He peeked.

Opening one eye, he looked around the room, and he gasped as he glanced into the closet and saw a flash of white fluttering in the shadows. With a squeak, he yanked his covers up over his head, sure that a ghost was about to come snatch his feet. When none did, however, he lowered the blanket and dared another peek into the closet, and nearly laughed in relief as he suddenly recognized his little white dress shirt perched on a hanger.

See, he thought. Nothing scary. There's nothing to this darkness thing. But he could hear his heart start thumping again as he looked to the floor and saw some long, wrinkled... thing extending out from under his bed, right beside him. Calm down, he thought. It's not the arm of a monster under your bed. Or its tentacle. Or its tail. Or -

He sucked in his breath, looked away, and shot his hand toward the floor, then collapsed, again in relief, as he recognized the feel of his shirtsleeve. A shirt, he thought. There's no monsters in my room. Only shirts. Mon-shirts. He smiled to himself, thinking that that was the sort of joke Mabel would make.

Just go to sleep. There's no monsters. No monsters. He looked about the darkened room one last time, to his closet, his floor, his walls.

He stopped short, eyes widening, his heart leaping into his throat.

He saw an eye.

It couldn't have been a trick of the shadows, as the shirt and the sleeve had been. This eye was too clear for that, its white standing out against the yellow of the wallpaper triangle it occupied. What was more, he knew this eye. Although the eyes in the storybook came in a pair, this one had to be a match. It was bright, and fierce, and evil looking. Sure, the shape was less round and the pupil was longer and thinner, but it could be no coincidence, surely. Finally that dumb storybook had decided to have a bit of extra fun.

Dipper wrenched his jaw open, but found himself too terrified to make any sound more than a tiny squeak. He took quick, hissing breaths, still staring at the eye, scared to blink until it did first. Then, slowly, slowly, the eye moved. The pupil moved from where it had been, right in the center, and was now at the side.

The eye was looking right at Dipper.

Whatever had been blocking his fearful voice before seemed to shatter, and without even realizing he was doing it, Dipper let out a scream. "Mommy!" he shrieked. "Daddy! Mommy!"

He heard footsteps thudding down the hallway, and then a hand reached in and flipped on his lightswitch, followed closely by the rest of a tired-looking Mommy. "What is it, Dipper?" she asked quickly. "What happened?"

Dipper could only shakily point toward the wall. Mommy followed his finger and looked up at the wall, puzzled. "What is it?" she asked again. "Did you see a bug?"

Confused, Dipper joined her in looking at the wall. The eye was gone, leaving only his innocent nursery-room shapes. He quickly shook his head. "No, no, there was, there was an eye. Right there, on the wall!"

Mommy sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "An eye, Dipper?"

Dipper nodded. "Yes! Yes, there was! It was all dark in the room, and I was - "

"Why was it all dark?" Mommy asked. "Don't you have your Dumbo?"

"Yeah, but Dumbo broked, Mommy. And so I looked in the room, and first I thought it was a ghost in the closet and then I thought it was a monster un'er my bed, but it was on the wall! It was this scary eye, like the one in the story tonight, and - "

Mommy interrupted with another sigh. "Dipper, if those pictures are scaring you, then you need to stop looking at them. You can just listen to the stories without needing the pictures, right? You do that when Daddy reads your Boxcar Children books to you."

"Yeah, but - "

"And Dipper, we've told you, there's no such thing as monsters." Dipper didn't answer, instead opting to begin chewing on his lower lip, so Mommy crossed the room and pulled the closet door wide. "Now, do you see any monsters in here, Dipper?" Dipper shook his head no. "Good. I don't either." She leaned her head in. "And, nope, none hiding either."

Next she knelt down beside the bed and pressed her head nearly to the carpet. "And there's no monster here either. Just the toys I told you to clean up yesterday. You'll have to pick those up in the morning." She got up and pulled open the dresser drawers one by one. "No monsters here, or here, or here, or here."

"You didn't check the wall where the eye was," Dipper said feebly.

Mommy reached up and waved her hand about on the wall as thought checking for invisible monsters. "None here, either. Don't worry, Dipper. There's no eye, and there's no monsters. You were just scared because it was dark."

"I guess so," Dipper agreed, although the tone of his voice made it clear he wasn't certain.

"Tell you what," Mommy said. "How about I leave your bedroom door open, but we also leave the hallway light on. Is that okay?"

Dipper nodded slowly, and Mommy turned out the bedroom light. "Tomorrow I'll get a new bulb for Dumbo," she said. "But you're just going to have to sit tight for tonight, all right?"

"Okay, Mommy."

"Good. And remember, Dipper: there is no such thing as monsters. Good night, sweetie."

Dipper yawned and rolled back into his covers. "Good night, Mommy."

On the wall, the yellow triangle opened its eye and looked toward the little boy snuggled in the bed. In a tiny echoing voice that nobody but itself could hear, it whispered, "Good night... Pine Tree."