They returned to the cabin with little trouble. Ford had managed to scare away the shadow wraith...if only for a while.

"Where did you find it?" her grandfather asked her as they both went up the stairs and back to the bedroom.

"I-It was weird, Granpa Ford," said Mabel. "I was nailing signs to trees when I found this one tree. It felt really hard, not like a normal one, so I looked around it and then I saw a door on the trunk…."

"So you've found the hiding place," murmured Ford. "Not good, not good...if you could find it then so could they…."

Mabel averted her eyes from grandfather in guilt. "I'm really sorry…" she began.

Ford put a reassuring hand on the small girl's shoulder. "There's nothing to be ashamed of, Mabel. In fact, I think you helped me out a little."

As they traversed up the stairs Mabel looked up at Ford with glittering eyes. "Really…?"

"I'll have to try to seek out a better hiding place next time, of course. You helped me out there." He sucked on his upper lip for a moment. "Actually...the fact that you've found it at all is quite impressive. I tried to have it so it would be near impossible for anyone to find except me. You're very inquisitive."

Inquisitive. The corners of Mabel's mouth lifted as she beamed in delight. Inquisitive. She liked the sound of it.

Grandfather and granddaughter pushed through the door; Dipper was still in his bed, looking as white as the snow outside, with a worried Soos tending to him. Robbie was there as well-he was kneading the front of his shirt.

He raised his head in acknowledgement when he saw them. "Yo, where were you guys? I was getting worried sick."

"Oh, there's nothing to worry about, Robbie," said Ford. "In fact, we have some good news."

The teenager smiled exhaustedly. "Shit, that's just what we need right now, man," he sighed, looking at Dipper with a deep concern on his face. "Poor Dipkid here's been looking worse for wear."

"Well, we found something that might as well fix all of our problems!" Stan declared pridefully, and to back up his claims Mabel held the dusty journal for all to see.

"Wow!" Soos stared at the book in awe. "...What is it?"

To Mabel's surprise a spark of recognition flared up in Robbie's eyes. "Holy...is that one of the journals you mentioned before, Mr. Pines?" He crouched down to get a closer look. "Damn...I thought you hid em away!"

"Right you are, Robbie, right you are...but a certain someone here found it." Proudly he gestured to his granddaughter.

The teenager looked to the small girl, who was trembling with excitement. "Really, Mabel kid? You found one of fabled journals?"

"I just stumbled onto it!" Mabel told an amazed Robbie happily. "I was nailing this sign to a tree, and then…." Suddenly memories of the attack came crashing back to her, slicing vividly through her mind like the jaws of the wraith. Her voice trailed off into a haunted silence.

"Mabel kid?" Robbie looked to her with concern, but before he could say anything else a groan issued from Dipper's bed.

"There's no time to waste," Ford said briskly. "Every second we spend standing here will bring Dipper an inch closer towards death. Mabel, hand me the journal, would you?"

Quickly she did and immediately she ran to her brother's side. He was looking even worse than before-a sickly veneer of sweat coated his skin, soaking the pillow underneath. His breath was coming out in short, labored wheezes.

He could die, thought Mabel, nausea creeping over her as she realized the true gravity of the situation. He could die, and it would be all my fault….

"Shadow wraiths, shadow wraiths…" Ford muttered as he flipped through the pages. "I'm certain I wrote about them in here...come on...come on…." Listening to that made Mabel's veins run icy cold. What if it wasn't in there? "...aha!" Heart jolting, Mabel looked to her grandfather instantly.

Ford began to recite. "There's only one known cure for shadow wraith bites, and that's the nectar of the fire lily."

Mabel furrowed her brow in thought. "Fire lily?"

"Quite right. Red as red can be, bioluminescent. Hard to miss them. Problem is trying to find a patch of them in the forest...they're quite rare, you see…."

This fact crushed Mabel to the core. "Rare?"

"Unfortunately," replied Granpa Ford with a equally disappointed tone. "I did have some specimens but they've been used already. We'll have to go out and find some."

"What?" Mabel breathed. "But Granpa Ford...we don't know how long it'll take us to find it. And anyway…." She swallowed nervously. "...the shadow wraith might still be out there."

"Either we go searching for it, Mabel," Ford told her softly, "or we let your brother die."

Mabel looked down at her hands, splayed on the floor. The thought of Dipper dying, leaving her, no longer being a part of her life after all those years...the small girl weighed the two choices in her mind, and one prevailed.

She got to her feet, dusted down her coat, and looked at Ford straight in the eye. "Then...then let's do it," she said.

Mabel could've sworn she'd seen a glimmer of amazement dance across her grandfather's features. "All right then," he agreed. "Let's go."

And so they set out again. As scared as Mabel was of encountering the shadow wraith, she knew that finding those lilies was of a much higher priority.

The thought of saving her brother, of seeing him alive and well again...it filled her with determination.

xxx

For some reason the tea tasted better than usual today.

Well-no. As she stirred her cup a smirk graced the girl's painted lips. There was a reason for everything, and the unusually superb quality of today's tea was no exception.

The journal had been found.

She had seen it all in the crystal ball, and it did not purvey any doubt. It was never wrong. The journal that she and the Order had been searching for for years had been finally found.

He's clever, that Stanford. She took a sip of her tea. It was an ingenious way to hide something, really, she had to give the man some credit.

Well, she would if it wasn't for the fact that a little girl had found it. Yes, he's clever...to an extent.

It was a stroke of luck when the shadow wraith appeared immediately after the discovery. Most likely it was the workings of her lord and master Bill Cipher, finally seeing the opportunity and grasping it. He'd already known that the grandchildren of Stanford Pines were visiting Gravity Falls-however, he didn't think much of it at first. They weren't something to get too harried about, and the girl very much shared those feelings.

Until the granddaughter found the journal, of course: then the girl realized that the Order was going to have quite the thorn in their side.

Problems, problems. She leaned forward in her cushioned chair and gave a sigh. The granddaughter was going to present a major problem to their plans, what with her tendency to pry about and look into everything. She was too curious for her own good, and the Order couldn't afford to have that.

She has to be rid of posthaste! she vowed silently. The girl spared no worries for the brother-he didn't look terribly bright, to be perfectly honest. But the sister...oh, the sister had to be done away with! She'd survived the shadow wraith attack, much to the girl's dismay, so she had to find another way to finish the little pestilence off.

The girl's eyes went to the crystal ball. As she peered into its cloudy depths she could see the figures of Stanford Pines and his granddaughter running desperately through the snow. Deeply she prayed to Lord Cipher that the shadow wraith would come back.

"You're playing with fire, darling," she warned the running girl, giving the ball a little tap. "And sooner or later...you're going to get burnt."