"Ha! I rigged it!"

Pacifica looked up from her book to see Wendy peering over the counter, watching a boy pick up a note she had left within the array of postcards placed.

The boy seemed to read, it, his face more confused than Pacifica's own expression. After he finished it, he looked up at the two girls, then placed the note back in the stack of postcards before walking away.

"Aw, I was close, there. Thought the note thing would work better, especially since he has to say yes," Wendy said.

Pacifica looked up from her novel, and over at her sister. "Wendy, I hate to be mean, but don't you think you're going a bit overboard with this whole 'getting a boyfriend' thing?" Pacifica asked.

"What? Of course not. This is my chance, I can't let a minute go to waste," Wendy replied.

Pacifica sighed, looking down at her book for a second before hearing someone walk in the door. Gideon wiped his shoes on the welcome mat, before walking over to the counter and sitting at the chair.

"Slacking already and you just got here?" Gideon asked, a grin appearing on his face. This was the first time she really noticed he had a nice southern accent. "Man, you guys are barely here and you're already learning from me."

"There's nothing much to do, and Fiddleford doesn't seem to be around much so I assume it's fine," Pacifica said.

It was true. The last time she saw her Great Uncle Fiddleford had to be at yesterday's morning's breakfast. Since then, he had maybe once come up to see some customers, but he claimed he was working for the rest of the day and was too busy to come up and see them.

It worried Pacifica slightly. Was it going to be like this all summer? Not that she really minded being in the care of Candy. Candy seemed to be the nicest person around this place, always getting up early to come serve breakfast for the family and stayed pretty late usually. She also seemed to be pretty close to Gideon, always talking to him about her time at college and what went on around town.

"Yeah, Mister Pines isn't around a lot of the time. When he is he's going berserk about something. Don't tell, but I think his age is going through his head," Gideon said. "Usually Cands runs the place. She's basically the assistant manager, even if it isn't her official title. She doesn't care if we slack or not. But when Fiddleford does come up, make sure you look like you're doing something."

"You always slack?" Wendy said. "And how come you barely ever get in trouble?"

Gideon put his arms behind his head. Pacifica but down on her bottom lip. She couldn't help but admit, Gideon was cute.

"Because Mister Pines never catches me, simply. I always make something up that people believe, it's something I'm pretty good at," Gideon replied.

"Getting out of trouble? I'm not good at that one, I always get in trouble for sneaking an extra cookie after supper. And a lot of other things along with that, though they never seem to believe me," Wendy said.

"That's because your excuses aren't generally that good," Pacifica said.

"No! They're great!" Wendy said. "Best excuses in all the country!"

Gideon chuckled. "If you must know, I used to be a showman when I was little. My parents had some idea I'd be a prodigy child. Looking back on it, it was really lame. But part of me wouldn't mind doing it again but being cooler."

"Really? Why'd you drop out, then?" Wendy asked.

"Well, someone," Gideon started. "You know what, nevermind. It's a complicated story, kid. I don't feel like explaining it all right now."

Pacifica furrowed her brow. If he liked it, why did he drop out? Or did he actually drop out, or did something else happen?

"Oh," Wendy said. "Its still awesome you were showman, though! I used to want to do that. Actually, I used to want to be a weather woman. I used to put on fake weather reports for my parents and sister."

The funny thing was, Pacifica still remembered some of those weather reports. She remembered Wendy draping a blanket over herself and putting a bunch of stickers in her bright red hair, calling them decorations and standing up in front of her parents and her and telling them what the weather was like.

Gideon chuckled again. "Your guys house sounds like a pretty sweet place to be. I'm an only child, so I've never had siblings to do cool stuff like that with. And sometimes, parents can be lame and you want someone more your age to talk to."

Pacifica felt herself smile slightly, and nodded. Sometimes it was nice to have a sibling, though other times she just wanted peace and quiet.

Gideon smiled, before looking over to his left, where the door to the basement was. "Uh oh, guys, here comes trouble, act like you're doing something."

Pacifica upon hearing that quickly took a place wandering around the shop until she found some window cleaner and start pretending to wash off the windows when she saw her Great Uncle Fiddleford open the door and come up, inspecting their work.

"Good work, everyone," he said. Though Pacifica couldn't help but think what little work they had actually done.

Though that would seem to change when Fiddleford walked to his right, and picked up a whole handful of signs, all advertisements for the Archives of Mystery and to go there.

After a few days, Pacifica understood why there were so many advertisements. Most of the stuff Fiddleford sold as being real things were incredibly fake, like,the ham-pire he had sitting in the window that was so obviously fake. The only real mystery Pacifica found was why anyone came. Advertisements might've been the only way to scrape customers from places.

"Alright, I need one of you to go hammer up some signs against trees to attract more people towards the place, out in the forest. Which one of you is going to do it?"

"Not it!" Wendy called quickly.

"Not it," Gideon said.

"Not it," Candy said. "Besides, I've got to finish replacing this light bulb so we can see around this place."

Fiddleford's eyes quickly darted to Pacifica, who always in these quick to react situations came last.

"Great Uncle Fiddleford, maybe can I do something else instead?" Pacifica asked.

"Sorry, Pacifica, these signs have to be put up some way or another," Fiddleford said.

"Please, though! Whenever I'm in those woods, I feel I'm being watched, it's really creepy," Pacifica said. "I could sweep the floors or reprice the merchandise."

"Pacifica, there is nothing creepy in the forest, it's just the fact you probably don't get outside enough and anything outside such as a ladybug is creepy crawley. This'll be good for you to go out and take a forest walk. I would do it but I have, other things, to do."

Pacifica gulped. She assumed there really was no getting out of this. She looked as Candy and Gideon, both who were giving her somewhat sympathetic looks.

"Oh, okay, then," Pacifica said, adjusting her headband before quickly grabbing the signs and storming out of the Archives of Mystery.

As Pacifica hammered up another sign, she felt herself feel nervous again, although she kept it in.

There's nothing these forests that can harm you Pacifica. Nothing! Don't be silly.

She looked at the decreasing number of signs, meaning she didn't have far to go anymore, and she could back to the Archives of Mystery soon. Although she didn't really want to. Part of her still was angry with some of them, although she wouldn't go full angry on them.

Though going back to the Archives of Mystery right now seemed like a better option than staying in this forest. It seemed like every step she took, something was going to latch onto her leg and try to eat her alive in these forests.

She heard a sound. A low, breathing sort of sound. Spooked, Pacifica turned around, though to see it was only an owl. She could've sworn before it flew away though that it seemed to have similar parts to a cow, too.

Relax, Paz. It was just an owl. You're imagining silly things now. There's no such thing as owls that look like cows or vice versa, and there's definitely no logic to support its existence. So don't overreact or you'll make the situation worse.

Though she knew better than what she was saying and she knew what she saw. There might've not been any logical explanation for this, but there was a feeling inside of her that told her that her fears were correct and there was something odd about this place.

Pacifica carefully placed the next sign against a tree, getting ready to hammer it, though it didn't even work, instead, it made a loud clank and dropped to the ground, as if the tree wasn't wood.

Metal? Trees can't be metal, Pacifica thought. But then why is this certain tree like this?

Pacifica walked around the tree, looking around it, looking for some kind of reason it would be metal, until she found a little outline in the tree with a handle on it. Pacifica put her hand on the handle, pondering for a few seconds if she should open it. After a few seconds, she pulled the handle, looking inside to see it was hollowed out.

This seems to get stranger by the minute.

Looking inside the hollowed out square of the area, Pacifica saw an old looking machine, with la few different switches and levers, although one seemed to be a lot larger than all the other ones, and something inside Pacifica told her it she should pull it. After again thinking for a few seconds, she slowly pulled down on the lever.

After a few seconds of nothing happened, there was a slow creaking of something behind her. After the initial spook of the sound, Pacifica turned around quickly to see that there had been a hole in the ground, with a small space, and inside that metal covered hole was a dusty book. She was able to make out the dark red colour of the cover, and a six fingered hand with a dark, gold '3' in the middle of the palm.

She knelt down, picking up the book and opening it to the first pages dusting the book off so she could read it. Although she dint have the time to dust it all off before people started wondering if she had gotten lost, she read the first paragraph aloud to herself.

"It's hard to believe it's been six years since I began researching the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon," Pacifica read.

Strange? Secrets? I'm not crazy! Pacifica began to flip through more of the pages, seeing everything from the moth man to the hide behind.

"It all makes sense," Pacifica said. "But why is all this stuff here then?"

"Pacifica?" She heard a voice ask.

Spooked again, she turned around quickly, trying not to scream and hoping it wasn't someone she knew or someone or something she didn't know. Spinning around, she only saw it was her sister, Wendy.

"O-Oh, hey Wendy!" Pacifica said.

"You done with the signs? Candy, Gideon and I were beginning to wonder if you were alright and hadn't gotten lost. Hey, what's that you got there?" Wendy said, pointing at the journal she had in her hand.

"Oh, it's nothing!" Pacifica lied. "Just a book I brought with me."

"Oh," Wendy said, and Pacifica internally sighed in relief. After her sister's teasing for days that she was going crazy since she thought something was wrong, now might not be the best time to show her the mysterious journal.

"Hey, but guess what?" Wendy asked. A smile appeared on her face, and it looked like she was about to either laugh or smile even more.

"What?" Pacifica said.

"Guess who got a date with someone?" Wendy asked again, her smile growing into a huge grin.

"Wait, you got a date? In the half hour I was gone?" Pacifica asked.

"First of all, it was longer than half an hour, and second of all, yes!" Wendy exclaimed.

Wait, it's been longer than half an hour? How long have I been out here?

"You have to come meet him! He's so dreamy and I think all of you will just love him!" Wendy continued.

Pacifica got up and smiled at her sister. "Well, what are you waiting for? I want to meet the lucky guy you got a date with!"