With worried expressions that they struggle to hide, Soos and Wendy agree to end their camping excursion a day early. Soos claims he has to go back because he forgot to tell Melody he would be camping, but Dipper knows it's a lie; they're worried about him. Worried that what Wendy said about Mabel has brought him down too much. They drive Dipper back to the Mystery Shack in silence, casting him uneasy glances and looking away when he catches them.

He doesn't care. It doesn't bother him. His thoughts are miles away, still deep in the forest. Wendy and Soos may think he's depressed over Mabel, but his brain feels like it's buzzing, like radio static, like flickering light bulbs. He can feel that old itch to get out and hunt down answers.

What was that creature he'd seen in the woods? He knew, somehow with absolute certainty, that whatever it was, it wasn't connected to Bill. And it wasn't an animal. No animal could have eyes that glow like that.

When he comes in the front door, Stan is surprised to see him. Coming from the kitchen, in a tank top and boxers, a cup of coffee in one hand, he raises his eyebrows as Dipper traipses past carrying his bag and sleeping bag.

"You're back early."

"Soos forgot to tell Melody he was camping," Dipper says. Without another word he makes a beeline for the attic.

Stan stares after him. "Oh," he says to the empty foyer. He takes a grouchy sip of coffee.

Dipper spends all day tearing apart the attic, stacking boxes on boxes in the upstairs hallway, until finally, in the last dusty and dark corner he discovers them: the journals, buried in the very last box. He pulls them out and blows off the dust. They're just like he remembers, six-fingered hands on the covers, pages scribbled in without order.

Back in his side of the attic, he clears the old mess off his desk. It ends up in a pile on the floor. The light bulb in the lamp has long ago burned out; Dipper screws in a new one and flicks it on and off a few times. He plunks down a fresh spiral-bound notebook, open to the first lined page. A fresh pen. A can of soda, which he pops the tab off. He's ready.

"Hm."

He pushes his hat further up his forehead, as he does when he's super focused on something, and rubs at his chin.

Daylight deepens into dusk. Hours later, he still hasn't made any progress, but his eyes are slipping shut, and there's a collection of crumpled, empty soda cans strewn around him. He's combed carefully through dozens of pages of the first journal, but he can't find anything that fits the description of what he saw in the woods.

And he's drowsy. His brain doesn't feel right, doesn't want to focus but he forces it.

"I don't get it," he mumbles to himself.

In the darkening room, he almost imagines Mabel is here. She would be curled up on the end of her bed, elbow resting on the bedpost, watching him with a half-interested expression. His chest aches to think of it.

"Aw, don't be sad Dipper," she says. "I know you've got this. You're like, monster hunter extraordinaire."

The problem is that he doesn't have enough information. A pair of glowing eyes and a weird feeling isn't much to go on.

"You've figured things out with less information before." She smiles at him, wide and trusting. The long tendrils of her hair curl up in the neck of her sweater. Dipper feels something swell up in his throat, choking him, making his eyes sting, and he looks at her, sitting there with wide eyes and a flushed, alive face.

"Dipper! Dipper, are you still up there?"

And she's gone again, and the empty, silent room reminds Dipper that she was never really there. The blankets on her bed are only a mess because Dipper slept there; not because Mabel sat there. The space she filled then is empty now.

Stan is calling his name up the stairs.

Scrubbing a hand through his hair (his hat lies abandoned on the floor where it fell off hours ago), Dipper takes a deep breath and tries to blink the bleariness out of his eyes. Maybe it's time for a break.

He stumbles his way down the stairs into the kitchen, staggering past a very confused Stan. Stan takes in Dipper rumpled appearance, the camping clothes, the dark circles under his eyes.

"How's it going, kid?" Stan blinks at him. "Wow. You look kinda…awful. What the — what are you doing up there?"

Despite this, Dipper feels good. Thoughts of Mabel haven't plagued less since he the night before. He feels comfortable in the Mystery Shack again, like the old days when it was home.

"Uuuuuugh, grunkle Stan," Dipper groans, and for just a moment, it's exactly like the old days, when Dipper would come in from monster hunting and tell Stan everything about it. He lurches into a chair at the kitchen table and his head slides onto the wood surface, narrowing avoiding the pizza box that's sitting there, open and waiting for him, the pizza still hot. "I can't find anything about the thing I saw in the woods. It's been hours and I'm only partway into the first journal! It's so frustrating."

"Aw, no worries buddy." Stan, relieved to have Dipper talking, slides into another chair and hands Dipper a paper plate with a big grin. "I'm sure you'll find it soon. Monster hunting is your thing, after all!" Relaxed now, he divides up slices of pepperoni goodness between them. This is almost home again: Stan and Dipper at the weathered table in the kitchen, eating by the yellowed light of a single bulb. "So," Stan says with his mouth full. "What exactly did you see in the woods? And when?"

"Oh…" Dipper peels pepperoni pieces off his pizza slice and pops them in his mouth. "The other night when I was camping with Soos and Wendy, I saw something watching me."

"Something? What, like, an owl or something?"

"I don't think so." Dipper could really use some of Mabel's energy right now. For a second, he imagines asking for her help…but that's an old dream, and it quickly drifts away from him. Back to reality. He feels empty and crumpled up, like an old chip wrapper or an empty plastic water bottle. "It was just like…a pair of eyes. But they were glowing!"

"A pair…of eyes." Stan's voice falls flat with disbelief.

"No! Yes. I don't know, it wasn't just animal eyes or whatever. They felt weird. I don't know how to describe it."

Stan just shrugs at him. "Hey, if you think it was something supernatural, then I believe you. You know what you're talking about, after all."

"That's right!" Dipper beams. "And I know it's something supernatural! There's no way any normal animal could have glowing eyes. I mean, they were really glowing, light little LEDs!" He makes circles around his eyes with his hands to show where the light was. "I just have no idea where to start with that. I mean, is it a ghost? Or, uh…" His hand windmilled as he tried to think of other possibilities. "Uh, I don't know, a ghost…like…thing?"

Stan scratches his head. "Yeah, sure. Glad you're acting more like your old self again."

"Yeah," says Dipper. For a heartbeat of time, he wonders what Mabel would say to that, but then it passes and he's squashing down the thought again, pulling thoughts of monster-hunting and Bill over it. "Sure."