Norman heaved a sigh as he watched the scenery fly by outside the window. In the seat next to him, his sister Courtney stared down at the screen of her phone as she texted one of her various friends. It had been a little over half a year since Norman had saved Blithe Hollow from the witch's curse. The curse had caused so much damage to the town that even now, they were still working on rebuilding. It was because of this, that Norman's parents had decided to send him and his sister away for the summer, to stay with family out west.

The brakes squealed against the tracks as the train began to slow. Courtney looked up from her phone and groaned. "Ugh, are we finally here?"

Norman looked ahead to see the station coming into view. "Yeah, looks like it."

"Great." Courtney snapped her phone shut and began taking her luggage down from the overhead rack. "I'm sick of sitting on this stupid train."

Norman sighed again and looked down at the zombie backpack he held in his lap. As the train slid to a stop at the platform, he got up and slipped the bag over his shoulders. Stretching up on his toes, he reached up and pulled his suitcase down, then followed his sister off the train. Even though it was summer, the Oregon air was chilly in the early morning. Shivering, his pulled the zipper up on his sweatshirt and hugged his arms against his body.

Outside the train a ghostly conductor herded along passengers who were oblivious to his presence. He noticed Norman, and gave the boy a polite tip of his hat. Norman gave him a nod in return, then hurried after his sister.

As the two neared the end of the platform, they heard the high voice of their cousin calling out to them. "Hi, Courtney!" she sang, then her voice lowered and took on a slightly annoyed tone. "Hi, Norman."

Norman frowned. This was one of the things he was not looking forward to on this vacation. He had never really been on the best terms with his cousin, and she obviously hadn't forgotten the incident with her cat at their last family reunion.

"Hi, Pacifica," he said, raising a hand in greeting.

The small blonde glared at him, then turned and began walking towards the parking lot. "Come on," she said, "Daddy's waiting for us in the car."

They followed Pacifica to her father's Cadillac, which sat idling by the curb. The car was one of the most expensive things Norman had ever seen. It had probably cost more than his parents' house. They loaded their luggage into the trunk, then he and Courtney climbed into the back seat, while Pacifica sat up front.

As they pulled away, Norman looked out the window, his mind wandering, tuning out the conversation between the two girls. He sat in silence for several minutes, until he felt someone poking his shoulder. He looked up to see Pacifica scowling at him.

"Hey, dork. I said, are you still seeing those imaginary ghosts of yours?"

"They're not imaginary," he said automatically.

"It's true," Courtney added. Norman was mildly pleased to see the look of shock on his cousin's face.

"Oh come on," Pacifica scoffed, "You can't seriously believe this too."

"But it is true. Norman saved our town from the witch's curse last year."

Pacifica rolled her eyes then turned back around. Norman frowned and looked down at the floor.

"Hey, don't pay attention to her," Courtney said, putting a hand on Norman's shoulder.

"Alright, kiddos," Pacifica's father announced, "We're here."

Norman opened the door and looked up to see the Northwest mansion. He had been here a few times before, but the sheer size of it still amazed him every time he saw it. It could easily fit four normal houses inside it, and still have room to spare. Opening the trunk, Norman lugged out his suitcase as Pacifica got out of the car.

"Come on, Courtney," she said, "Your room is next to mine. I'll show you it. Norman, you can take the guest bedroom down the hall." She turned and began heading up the decorative walkway to the house, followed by her father and Courtney, leaving Norman standing alone by the car.

Norman looked down at the pavement and sighed. "This is gonna be a long summer."

As impressive as the Northwest mansion was from the outside, the inside was even more luxurious. The floors were marble and the walls were a dark, polished wood. Expensive objects and trinkets were placed everywhere on shelves and tables, their only purpose to make the inhabitants seem rich and fancy. All of it made Norman uncomfortable to be around. He looked around the foyer, a bit lost, until the ghost of an elderly butler floated through one of the doorways and began wandering around the room.

"Excuse me? Sir?" Norman asked tentatively.

It took the ghost a moment to realize he was being spoken to. "Yes? How may I help you, sir?"

Norman adjusted his backpack on his shoulder. "Um, could you tell me where the guest bedroom is?"

The ghost gave a small bow. "Of course, sir. The guest bedroom is on the second floor. Up the stairs and to the right and it is the second room on the left."

"Thank you," the boy said with a small smile. He turned to the stairs and began to climb, when he noticed someone standing at the top of them. Pacifica stood there, with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

"You are such a freak," she scoffed.

The guest bedroom was rather plain compared to the rest of the house. The walls were a light grey that made Norman think of a hospital. The room contained a single bed, as well as a closet, a nightstand and a bookshelf. Aside from that, it was empty. The bookshelf was filled with large, leather-bound books that looked nice and appealing, but on closer inspection they were all dictionaries and almanacs, meant to be admired, not read. Norman dropped his backpack on the floor, and flopped down face-first on to the bed. He had only been around Pacifica for a few minutes, and he was already exhausted.

"Hey there!" said a voice from above him. Norman looked up to see a glowing face protruding from the wall.

"Hello," he said, sitting up to get a better view. "Who are you?"

"Are there any oak trees around here? I never got to finish eating my last one," the ghost grunted.

"Why would you eat an oak tree?" Norman asked, baffled.

"Because I'm a wizard! Don't you know anything?"

The ghost receded back into the wall, grumbling to himself, leaving Norman very confused. It was then that he decided that the place he wanted to be right now was anywhere except this house. He grabbed his phone out of his bag, then headed downstairs. "I'm going for a walk," he yelled, as he dashed out the door before anyone could stop him. Once outside, he began to calm down. He decided to walk into town and see what was there.

"Good morning, dearie," said the ghost of an old woman as he neared the center of town.

"Good morning, Ma'am," he replied.

"Oh my. You can see me?" Norman nodded, and the woman smiled. "How wonderful. It's been ages since I've had a conversation with anyone. What's your name, dearie?"

"It's Norman, Ma'am."

The woman rolled her eyes. "There's no need to call me Ma'am, dear. I've only been dead for 87 years. Come to think of it, I haven't seen you around here before."

"I'm only here for the summer. Frankly, I'll be happy to leave. I don't really like this town much yet."

"Oh just give it a chance," the woman said with a wink. "I'm sure you'll warm up to it. You never know what will happen in a town like this."

Norman looked down. Something about the way she had said that made him uncomfortable. He raised his head and began to ask her about it, but she had vanished. He looked up and down the street, but she was nowhere to be seen. A small breeze kicked up, rustling the flyers tacked up on a pole nearby. One of the papers tore free, fluttering through the air until it came to a rest at Norman's feet. Curious, he reached down and picked it up, reading the large, colorful letters strewn across the page. It was an advertisement for a museum of some sort.

"Visit the Mystery Shack," he read aloud, "where the secrets of the paranormal world are laid bare. A must see attraction. No refunds."

A mystery museum? It did sound more interesting than wandering around the town. Norman looked around once more, to see if the ghost had come back, but the street was as empty and silent as ever. Taking another look at the flyer, he stuffed it into his pocket and set off to find the Mystery Shack.

As it turned out, the Mystery Shack really was nothing more than a shack. The building was ancient. It had probably been there as long as the town had. The windows were dirty and smudged, and the walls hadn't been painted in years. A large sign on the roof displayed the name of the museum, but at some point an S had fallen off, and it now read MYSTERY HACK. The entire building looked as if it might collapse at any second.

It was the best thing Norman had seen all day. If not for all the cars in the parking lot, it could have been the setting of one of his zombie movies. Something about the familiarity of that set him at ease.

The door burst open, and a grey haired man wearing a suit, a fez, and an eyepatch stepped out. "I'm going out for a while", he called back into the shop. "Keep an eye on things for me!" He straightened his bowtie, and strode past Norman, not even noticing the boy.

Norman watched as the man marched away, and then turned back to the door. The sign in the window identified it as the gift shop. He pulled the door open and stepped inside, pulling it quietly shut behind him. Shelves all around the shop were piled high with cheap souvenirs, all branded with the words "MYSTERY SHACK". A line of bobbleheads that looked like the man he had seen outside stared down at him as he stepped between the rows of merchandise. A tall, redheaded girl sat behind the counter, reading a magazine with a blank expression on her face.

"HI THERE!" yelled a girl next to him as she burst out of a rack of shirts. Norman yelped and fell backwards on to the floor. "My name's Mabel! What's yours?" The girl beamed at him, showing a smile full of braces.

"Uh, um, I-" Norman stuttered.

"Mabel, are you bothering the customers again?" Norman looked up to see a boy in a blue and white cap frowning at the girl. "You know Grunkle Stan told you to stop that."

"Aww, but Dipper," the girl whined, "this was gonna be my chance at summer romance."

"Yeah, you keep saying that." The boy turned to Norman, offering him a hand. "Sorry about that. She gets like that, well, a lot."

"It's alright," Norman said, taking the boy's hand and pulling himself up. "I'm used to being startled. I watch a lot of horror movies. My name's Norman by the way."

"I'm Dipper," the boy said. "And you already know my sister, Mabel." Mabel grinned. "I haven't seen you around before. You new in town?"

Norman nodded. "Yeah, I'm here for the summer. I've got to stay with my family out here."

"Cool. We are too. Our grunkle Stan runs the Mystery Shack. He makes us work in the shop down here."

"Your hair is cool," Mabel commented. "How do you get it like that?"

Norman frowned and pushed his hair down, trying to flatten it out. "I don't do anything to it. It just sorta happens like that." His efforts failed, and his hair bounced back into its normal, broom-like state.

Dipper chuckled. "That's one of the reasons I wear a hat all the time," he said, taking off his cap and running a hand through his hair, before placing the hat back on his head.

Norman smiled and shook his head. "Maybe I'll try that. I-" He was interrupted when his phone began to ring. "Hello? No, I- What? I went for a walk. I'm out right now." He paused, frowning. "The Mystery Shack." The voice on the other end of the line began shouting, so even Dipper and Mabel could slightly hear it. "Wha- Why are you yelling? What's so wrong with the Mystery Shack?" He held the phone away from his ear as the voice got louder. "Oh, fine. I'll come back. Jeez." He hung up the phone and sighed.

"Whoa, who was that?" Dipper asked.

Norman groaned. "That was my cousin I'm staying with."

"She sounded annoyed," Mabel said with a tilt of her head.

"Oh, Pacifica's always annoyed."

"Pacifica?" Dipper exclaimed. "You're actually related to her?"

"I'm so sorry," Said Mabel, laying a hand on Norman's shoulder. "Uh, no offense."

"No, it's alright. I don't really like her either. She seemed to really not like you guys, though."

Mabel rubbed her arm, looking down at the floor. "Yeah, we're kind of arch-enemies."

Norman smiled weakly. "She tends to have that effect on people." He sighed. "I guess I have to get back before she blows up at me. I don't want to deal with that for this whole trip."

Dipper scoffed. "She isn't so bad, ever since we exposed her family secret."

"Secret?" Norman asked, raising an eyebrow. "What secret?"

Dipper smiled at Mabel, who grinned back at him. "Well..."

Ten minutes later, the three of them were gathered in a circle in front of the counter. Norman's eyebrows knit together in a frown. "Did you seriously summon a video game character into real life?"

Dipper chuckled nervously. "Ah, yeah, that, uh... Didn't turn out too well. For anyone."

"I can never climb a water tower again!" Mabel announced cheerfully.

"So, this is town is pretty strange, huh?" Norman asked.

Dipper rocked back and forth. "You have no idea." He smiled, like he had a secret he desperately wanted to tell. He looked around and stopped rocking, and leaned in closer. "Okay, man, this town is crazy weird. There are mysteries everywhere. But..." He glanced around again, then reached into his jacket. "Everything is explained in this." He withdrew from the inside of his jacket, a large, leather-bound tome with gold trim. He turned it over in his hands, revealing on the cover a gold, six-fingered hand with the number 3 written in the center of it.

Dipper cracked open the book and began flipping through the pages. "Here, there's everything in here." He turned the book around and showed Norman the entry. "Zombies." He flipped the page. "Gnomes. Flying eyeballs. Ghosts. Butternut Squash with Human Face and Emotions. Okay, that one I have no idea about."

Norman blinked. "Did you say ghosts?"

"Yeah, ghosts." Dipper flipped back to the page detailing the ghosts. "We actually met a couple of ghosts a while ago."

"Y-you talked to them? You talked to ghosts?"

Dipper rubbed the back of his head. "Well, sort of. It was an old couple haunting a convenience store. They tried to kill us because they thought we were teenagers."

"But, you could talk to them? You could see them?" Norman leaned forward.

"Uh, yeah, we could see them. We haven't seen any others though. Why are you so interested?"

"Oh, uh, no particular reason..." Norman sat back, hugging his knees to his chest.

"I dunno," Mable said with a smile, leaning over. "That sounded pretty suspicious to me. Are you hiding something, Norman?"

"Uh, I, uh, well..." Norman stammered.

"Ah ha! I knew it!" Mabel shouted, shoving him in the shoulder. "So what is it, huh? Come on, tell us, tell us!" She gasped. "Are you a... vampire?"

Norman frowned. "What? I- No." He looked to Dipper for help.

Dipper shrugged. "Sorry, man. When she gets like this, there's no stopping her."

"Tell us, tell us, tell us," Mable chanted.

Norman fidgeted uncomfortably, pulling at the sleeves of his hoodie. He looked down and mumbled unintelligibly into his chest.

"Uh, what was that?" Dipper asked, leaning forward a bit.

Looking back up, Norman chewed his lip nervously, then taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and blurted out, "I can see ghosts!" He opened one eye to gauge the twins reactions. However the usual looks of doubt and suspicion were absent from their faces.

"Really?" Dipper asked, "Like all the time?"

Norman nodded. This was not the reaction he had expected.

"That's pretty neat."

Norman blinked. Definitely not what he had expected.

"Ooh, ooh! Are there any ghosts here now?" Mabel asked excitedly. "I'm not sitting on one, am I?"

"What? No, you're not sitting on one, there aren't even any around here. Why-why would you think you were sitting on one?"

"I dunno," Mabel shrugged, "It could happen."

"Why were you so afraid to tell us that?" asked Dipper. "It's really cool."

"Not everyone feels the same way you do. Most of the people in my town never believed me. Anyone that did just called me a freak."

Mabel jumped up. "You're not a freak! You're cool! If anyone around here is a freak, it's Gideon."

"Uh, thanks?"

"So how long are you staying here, Norman?" Dipper asked, changing the subject.

"Oh, uh, I'm not really sure. All summer, I guess. Until the town is rebuilt enough."

Dipper's eyebrows rose. "Rebuilt?"

Norman smiled sheepishly. "Uh, yeah. It's a crazy story."

"One that you plan on telling us, right?"

Norman chuckled. "Well, last year, my town kind of got attacked by a three hundred year old ghost bent on revenge. Apparently, my uncle was supposed to be keeping her asleep, but then he died. He told me that I had to do it, but I wasn't sure what to do. She woke up, along with a bunch of old Quaker zombies, and she started to destroy the town. Eventually, I found out that the ghost was just a little girl who had been unjustly killed. She hated the people who did it, and the whole town, but I talked to her. She was just like me, an outcast, and I knew how she felt. I helped her to forgive the people who killed her, and she moved on."

He looked up, and jumped slightly, finding Dipper sitting much closer to him, staring at him in rapt attention. Mabel seemed to have lost interest, instead playing with a hole in her sweater.

"Oh, sorry," Dipper said, leaning back, "It was just a really interesting story."

"No, it's fine. You just surprised me is all."

Dipper opened his mouth, about to say something, when the door to the shop swung open. "Hey, kids, I'm back!" announced the same man Norman had seen leaving the shack earlier. He noticed the three kids sitting on the floor. "What's going on here? Should I come back later?"

Dipper jumped up. "Oh, Grunkle Stan, this is our new friend, Norman." Norman's thoughts faltered for a second at the word 'friend'. "He's new in town. He's staying the summer, from... uh..." Dipper turned to Norman. "Where are you from?"

"Blithe Hollow," Norman answered.

Stan's eyebrows knitted together. "Blithe Hollow?" he asked, an edge to his voice. Norman shrank a bit as the old man eyed him down.

"Do you know that place, Grunkle Stan?"

Stan stared at Norman for another several seconds. "No," he answered eventually. "Never heard of it." He adjusted his tie, and turned towards the counter. "I think I'll close up the Shack early today."

"What? Why?" Dipper asked, shocked.

"Look around, kid," Stan replied, waving his hand. "It's completely empty. We haven't had a customer all afternoon. I'm not making money like this. You kids take the rest of the day off. Go play in mud, or whatever children do." He removed his eyepatch, tossing it on the counter. "Hey, Soos, how's that monkey-bat coming?" he called, walking off into the back rooms of the shack.

"Whoo! Day off!" shouted the girl behind the counter, startling Norman. "Catch you dudes later," she grinned, grabbing her jacket and rushing out the door.

"Bye, Wendy!" Dipper called after her. Mabel giggled and nudged her brother in the ribs with her elbow, making kissing noises. "Stop that," Dipper scolded. "I already told you I'm over her."

"Uh huh." Mabel rolled her eyes. "I'll believe that when I see it. Hey, since we've got the rest of the day off, why don't we show Norman around town?"

"That's a good idea. But don't you need to get back to your cousin?" Dipper said, turning to Norman.

The spiky-haired boy looked down at his phone, then smiled. "No," he said, stuffing the phone in his pocket, "Pacifica isn't the boss of me."

"Great, let's go!" Mabel shouted, grabbing both boys by the wrist and dragging them out the door.

As Norman struggled to keep pace with the energetic girl, he looked down at her hand pulling him along, then at the boy next to him, and smiled. This summer may be better than I expected, he thought to himself.

Unbeknownst to him, the same thought was going through the head of another as he watched the trio from the trees nearby.