As it turned out, fairies had fangs.

Mabel didn't want to hurt any of the small beings, but she found herself swatting them away like so many bugs as they rushed at her with tiny wooden swords and bit at any exposed skin they could find. Unfortunately, since Mabel was in her winter clothes, this meant they primarily attacked her face and neck. Insectile wings flashed across her eyes as Mabel held her hands up protectively, pursing her lips shut to prevent any errant fairies from getting in her mouth.

This was not how she imagined her first encounter with fairies to go.

Dipper, for his part, batted off a few of the attacks and loudly protested the rest. "Ow! Leave us alone! You're worse than mosquitos!" He didn't seem at all inclined to leave, even as the fairies attacked him with their teeth and their swords.

Those little wooden swords hurt, too. They slashed at Mabel's gloved hands; the gloves thankfully saved her from cuts or splinters, but they didn't do much to take away the stinging slap of the blade against her fingers. She wanted to run away — indeed, she already would have if she had been alone. But Dipper wasn't leaving, and there were too many fairies for Mabel to reach out to him. She should just talk to him: but she didn't want to open her mouth, suck in a breath, and choke on an unfortunate fairy. That would be hazardous for the both of them, she was sure.

"You know, you aren't making us leave," Dipper pointed out to the fairies. "You're just annoying us. Not very effective."

"We can use more force," a fairy threatened. "Magical force that will probably have lasting effects. We're holding back to give you a chance to leave before that happens."

As much as Mabel wanted to see magic, she certainly didn't want to have it directed at her. "Dipper, let's just get out of here," she said out of the side of her mouth.

"I don't want to!"

Another fairy, who had her fangs lodged in Dipper's neck, spit him out and flew around to his line of sight. "Look, kid," she said, "just go already. You taste bad."

This statement visibly flustered Dipper, who shot back, "Yeah, well — so do you!"

Mabel winced. This was going nowhere, unless she wanted to stick around for more of her brother's comebacks. "Dip, let's go," she insisted. The thought of the fairies using "magical force" against them made her sick to her stomach, and she had no idea when they would start to use it. Very soon, probably, if they didn't want to keep sinking their teeth into bad-tasting kids.

From what she could see through the chaos of buzzing wings, Dipper shot her a stubborn look. What was he waiting for? Did he think the fairies would turn nice, if only he waited long enough? Or did he want to get seriously hurt by the fairies' magic? Suddenly, Ford's comment about sending them home in a box felt very real. Mabel realized they were only going to get out of here if she did something — instead of standing here uselessly, flinching under the fairies' attacks. So, with a deep breath (through her nose, as there were multiple fairies near her mouth), Mabel willed herself to move. She pushed her way over to Dipper and grabbed his hand. "Come on," she said, tugging him along. Then she ran, gripping Dipper's hand so tightly that he couldn't help but to follow.

They bounded through the snow, away from the attacking fairies. Thankfully, none followed them. "Let's do this again sometime!" Dipper called over his shoulder. Mabel shuddered: She had no desire to intrude on the fairies' space again. She hoped Dipper was being ironic.

The twins hurried through the forest, away from the fairies. Mabel tried to steer them back to the strange metal tree from earlier: She still wanted to figure out what was inside that secret compartment. She worried about getting lost; but with the help of her compass and her memory, they soon found the tree. Mabel let go of her brother and leaned up against the tree, catching her breath. "Okay," she said, "that was. . . unexpected."

Dipper folded his arms. "Those fairies were jerks," he said.

"Yeah." Mabel sighed, grimacing as she touched her stinging bite marks. She turned a sideways glance to Dipper. "Why did you wait so long?"

"What do you mean?"

"They wanted us to leave. They could've hurt us a lot worse — they would've if we'd stuck around, I think. Why didn't you just leave?"

"Why didn't you?"

"I was waiting for you." Now that she thought about it, she should've pulled Dipper away from the fairies a lot sooner; but she was so taken aback by the attacks that it had taken her some time to pull up the courage. "So?" she prompted her brother.

Dipper shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "Grunkle Ford kept us away from this place. But then we finally got out here, and we found fairies, just like we wanted. I guess I thought they would be as excited about that as we were. So when they weren't. . . I guess I got stubborn."

"A little bit," Mabel agreed with a small smile.

Dipper approached the tree and ran his fingers around the crack that marked the secret compartment. "So, how are we gonna get this open?"

"Dunno." She peered at it. "Maybe if we found something we could use to pry it open?"

"Like a stick?" Dipper suggested. Mabel shrugged — it was worth a try — and Dipper went to look for one around the nearby trees.

"Who do you think that boy was?" he asked as he looked. "And why would the fairies talk to him, but not us?"

Mabel shrugged again. The boy was definitely acting strange, but she couldn't make heads or tails of it. He was looking for something, she thought — the Northwest's Relief, whatever that was — and had enlisted the fairies to help him. But hadn't the fairy called him Northwest? Was it his last name? What kind of relief were they talking about, then? And who or what was the Cipher they had mentioned?

"Did you see him fly away?" Dipper added. "I think that's what I saw when I first caught sight of him and the fairy. That blue glow around him."

"That was pretty amazing," Mabel said. Watching the fairies fly was one thing — they were graceful and quick, even as they attacked the twins — but watching that boy jump into the air and soar away on nothing but light was something else entirely.

"Yeah, it was awesome." Dipper frowned at the evergreen by which he stood. "Here, let's just try this." He broke a thin branch off the trunk and brought it over, pine needles still attached. Shoving the end into the compartment edge, he tried to lever the door open — but the branch simply bent, then snapped.

"Huh." He dropped the broken branch and headed into the trees, out of sight. Mabel was about to call after him when he returned, holding another branch that was clearly from a different kind of tree (though Mabel couldn't begin to guess which). "Maybe this one'll work," he said.

It didn't work, not the first time — but it didn't break, either. Dipper kept at it, Mabel standing anxiously to the side. She wanted to help, but she didn't know if she could without getting in the way.

Soon, Dipper's eyes widened. "I think it moved a bit!"

"Really?"

"Yeah — grab the top corner and pull on it."

So Mabel took off her glove and slipped her fingers in the freezing metal crack, pulling on it from the opposite side as Dipper pushed with the branch and his own hands. The process hurt her fingers — the tiny ledge dug into her skin, and the cold was close to unbearable — but Mabel was too excited to really care. They were getting close!

With a screech of metal and a shower of dirt, the door swung open — and nearly hit Mabel in the face. She ducked around it just in time, joining Dipper to peer inside the newly revealed crevice. It was mostly bare, but dirty, with cobwebs hanging in the corners and coating the dilapidated metal box that rested in the center. A single lever stuck out vertically from the box.

Mabel and Dipper shared a wide-eyed look and, without saying anything, simultaneously reached for the lever. Then they laughed when their hands bumped into each other. "After you, my lady," said Dipper, stepping back with an ostentatious bow.

"Why thank you, my good sir." Mabel meant to say it in a smooth tone, but her voice shook with excitement. She reached into the compartment and pulled the lever.

It was stuck. She had to give it a good tug before she could maneuver it to the bottom of its track. When she did, the creaking of old machinery rang out from behind the twins.

They spun around. "There!" said Dipper, pointing. Mabel's eyes followed his finger to a spot on the ground, about a yard away, where the snow shifted in response to the machinery. The ground slid open, and the snow fell into the resulting hole.

The twins shared another look. "A secret compartment that opens another secret compartment," Dipper said with a grin. "Awesome."

Together, they ran to see what was inside.

The hole turned out to be a shallow box, rumpled with the snow that had fallen inside. The box was relatively sheltered by a tree, so there was less snow than there could have been; beneath the white fluff, Mabel could see the corners of a large, rectangular object.

"Is that a book?" asked Dipper, sounding disappointed.

Mabel smacked him lightly in the arm. "Books are great, Dipper," she admonished. She reached into the box, pulled out the book, and brushed the snow and grime from its cover, which was a soft maroon color underneath the dust. From the center, a large golden hand glinted in the winter sun. On the palm rested a bold numerical 3, its strokes precise, if a little worn. The whole book was shabby, with its rough edges on the cover and damp splotches from the elements.

It was beautiful.

"Okay," Dipper conceded, "that is pretty cool. What's in it?"

But Mabel didn't open it. While taking in its beauty, she had noticed something else. Something that made her breath catch in her throat. "Dipper," she managed, "look at the hand."

Dipper looked closer. "What about it?"

But Mabel didn't need to answer, because his eyes widened a moment later as he saw it. "Six fingers!" he exclaimed. "Just like Grunkle Ford!"

"Do you think it's his?" Mabel held up the book. "What is it? Why would he hide it here?"

"Let's read it!"

Well, Mabel rarely heard such an enthusiastic exclamation from her brother to read something. She carefully opened the book to its first page.

"'First of January, 1980,'" she read aloud. "'With the new year comes a new Journal. Just as I think I've learned everything about Gravity Rises, Oregon, this wonderful forest proves me wrong once again. This book, like its predecessors, holds record of the discoveries that I, Stanford Pines, have made about the supernatural.'" Mabel looked up. "It's a field journal!"

"A what?"

"A field journal! Where Ford wrote down what he found around here!" Mabel skimmed the rest of the page, then flipped through the rest of the book, catching glimpses of detailed sketches and blocks of Ford's small, cramped handwriting. "This is it, Dipper! This is all the stuff he won't show us!" She looked up to grin at her brother. . . but he was staring at the Journal, a faint frown on his face.

"What is it?" Mabel glanced back down.

There, on the page where she had stopped, were the words "TRUST NO ONE" in all caps, scribbled on as if gone over multiple times with a soft charcoal pencil. The words were so large and stark that Mabel nearly jumped back in surprise. She shared a brief look with Dipper before looking at the smaller words beneath the glaring banner. "'Something's wrong,'" she read. "'Work on the project proceeds as normal, yet I have this constant feeling of unease. It's as if I've forgotten something, but I don't know what. I feel I can trust no one but my closest friends. . . and even then, I must keep a close eye on them. Soon, I fear, there will be no one at all that I can trust.'"

The rest of the page was blank. Mabel flipped to the next page: It, too, was blank. There were only a few pages left, but all of them lay bare.

She closed the Journal. "Why end it there?" she asked Dipper. "Why is it out here? Why hide it like this?"

Dipper shrugged. "Maybe he thought he couldn't trust anyone. Maybe he thought it would get stolen."

"He didn't write anything about hiding it, though." Whatever had happened, Mabel didn't think it was good.

"Should we ask him?" said Dipper. "Maybe he still has the other two. This is the third book in a series, right?"

"I don't think he'd hide one book and keep the others," Mabel said. She didn't answer Dipper's original question.

There was a moment of silence, with Mabel looking to the snow beneath her feet, before Dipper spoke up. "And you don't want to tell him we found it?"

Mabel shook her head and hugged the Journal to her chest. "This. . . Dipper, this is. . . It's a guide to the supernatural. We can go exploring with this and learn about this place. We can have adventures! If. . . if Grunkle Ford wasn't going to take us exploring before, do you think he will once we give him this?"

Dipper thought about this, then shook his head. "Are we going to hide it from him, then?"

A pang of guilt pricked Mabel's heart like a thousand fairy bites, but she nodded. She could just tell: If they showed Ford that they found his Journal, he still wouldn't take them exploring. He'd take the Journal and send them back to doing chores. The last three days were too painful for Mabel to live through them again. "I guess so," she whispered. "I. . . I'll keep it. I can study it, and we can go on adventures together." She forced a smile through her guilt. "Doesn't that sound fun?"

"Yeah, it does," Dipper said. "I just don't know if we should hide it."

"Well, if Ford hid it out here, then he didn't want it to be found." Now that Mabel had made the decision to keep the Journal to herself, she felt her confidence growing. "Our options are to put it back in that hole and forget about it, or to keep it and use it to go on the adventures that Ford won't take us on."

Dipper nodded slowly. "Okay," he said. "Right now, though, I think we should go back. I'm hungry."

Mabel glanced up. The sun was still high in the sky, but the twins had been out here for a while. Now that her original excitement over finding the Journal was fading, she could feel the cold — and the minor pains from earlier — more keenly. "Yeah, let's go," she agreed. "We'll grab some lunch and something to put on these bites." Though they weren't too difficult to ignore, she could still feel each fairy bite throbbing on her face and neck. Some pain relieving salve — along with a warm meal — sounded wonderful right now.

So, after closing both of the secret compartments, Mabel checked her compass and pointed Dipper in what she thought was the right direction. Their feet plodded in the deep snow. The forest was still beautiful, just like it had been that morning — but that was before the twins had gotten attacked by fairies. Before they found the Journal. Now, after those experiences, the beauty of the forest had changed. It was a little more subdued, because Mabel knew that you really could get hurt out here. At the same time, though, it was more vibrant — because Mabel knew that she had in her arms a guide to its mysteries. Her excitement rekindled as she imagined everything she would find in the pages of the Journal.

For years, Mabel had described herself as a ghost hunter. Now she knew that it was an apt description — that ghosts really were out there. She also knew that, here in Gravity Rises, there was so much more to discover. Ghosts, fairies — who knew what else.

With this Journal, she thought, she could be more than just a ghost hunter. She could be a full-blown supernatural explorer.

And that thought made the stinging fairy bites feel completely worth it.