#(me drawing Ford: *checks image reference a dozen times for tiny details*)

[ckret2]

Chapter 21 of honestly everyone's just sorta used to Bill being the shack's prisoner now (title tbd): Stan & Ford have a birthday party! Bill is not invited. He still manages to find a way to be fiendishly evil.

Also featuring: Wendy deciding what she thinks about "Goldie," the shack's mysterious secret "guest."

####

Mabel slid a piece of paper across the gas station front counter, listing a dozen scratch card serial numbers spread across three different games. "I'd like these numbers in these cards, please!"

The cashier gave the paper a dubious look, then looked at Wendy. "We're not supposed to sell the scratch cards outta order."

"Please?" Wendy asked. "Just a little exception? For us?"

"We really wanna play our lucky numbers," Mabel said. "Plus, I had a vision. In my sleep."

She and Wendy gave him their best big-eyed hopeful pouty looks.

The cashier shrank back. "Well..." He averted his gaze from the adorableness that was Mabel, and sighed. "Just this once. But I don't want to see you two in here with your nonsense again." He started unrolling one of the spools of scratch cards, inspecting the numbers. "These'll be over a hundred dollars."

Wendy winced. "Ooh. Mabel?"

Mabel offered three dollars and a quarter. "That's fine! Can we start with 177 from the beach cards?"

She received the card, depicting a pastel beachy scene next to five miniature bingo boards. She confidently scratched off the card to reveal its winning numbers, pointed at the fourth bingo board where she'd just gotten bingo, and said, "That's $200! Our payout, please."

The cashier took the card, inspected the numbers, and stared at Mabel in amazement. She grinned at him. Wordlessly, he opened his cash register, pulled out several twenties, and offered them over.

"Thank you!" Mabel accepted the money and pointed at the paper. "The rest of our cards, please?"

As they left with eleven scratch cards, Mabel handed Wendy three twenties—"Here! For helping!"—and stuck the rest of the change in her pocket.

"Dude. That was awesome. You were so cool in there, like—" Wendy put on her coolest, most unruffled expression. "'Our payout, please.'"

"That's just the kind of rock star I am." Mabel put the scratch cards in her bike's basket. "Thanks for the help, Wendy!"

"Sure, any time." Especially if she got a surprise $60 out of it. "Heading back to the shack?"

"Yeah! I've gotta finish decorating for the party!"  Mabel waved as she took off down the road. "See you then!"

"See you." She guessed that meant she wasn't invited to hang until the party started. Given the touchy situation inside the shack, no surprises there.

She wondered what Goldie had to do with Mabel's interesting trick with the scratch cards. She was sure there was something.

####

Bill leaned into the kitchen. "Hey! How's that cake coming along?"

Mabel stopped arranging dozens of candles in the frosting to point at the door. "Out, Bill! Nobody's getting cake until the party!"

Dipper said, "You don't even deserve a slice."

"Agree to disagree!" Bill said. "But if you don't give me one anyway, I'll annoy you about it for weeks."

"He can have a slice at the party," Mabel said. "The cake's big enough." A couple of overcrowded candles spilled off the edge of the cake. Mabel picked them up and carefully stuck them back in.

Bill fought back a laugh. "Are you sure about all those candles? If you light 'em all up at once, you'll burn off everyone's eyebrows," he said. "But unfortunately, you'd also melt the frosting."

"The frosting's already a mess," Mabel said, peering at the barely-visible HAPPY BIRTHDAY STAN & FORD hidden beneath the forest of candles. "But Soos doesn't have any of those number-shaped candles, so..." 

"Roman numerals," Bill said.

"Oooh." Mabel looked at the cake thoughtfully, and started pulling out candles. "How do you make 62?"

"LXII. Fifty-ten-one-one," Bill said, then shot a grin at Dipper—who was glaring at Bill for answering before he could. "Isn't that right, smart guy?"

"Yeah," Dipper grumbled.

"You kids take the credit if they ask about the candles," Bill said. "They'll just get grumpy if they know I had any influence on the decorations."

Mabel carefully tilted the bottom leg of the L just enough to keep the tip out of the frosting, and started smoothing out the rest of the candle-pockmarked surface. "Now I've got enough empty frosting to add some decorations!" Mabel said. "I don't have enough time to draw something complicated. Maybe rainbows?"

Dipper shook his head. "I don't think either of them would be into that."

"Draw gold bars," Bill said.

Mabel blew a raspberry. "That's what you'd want on a cake!"

"No, I'd want me on a cake. Stanley likes gold! Stanford should like gold more, you could help him develop a taste for it."

"No."

Dipper suggested, "Maybe you could draw gambling stuff on Stan's side of the cake? Since they couldn't have their birthday party in Vegas like he wanted." Dipper shot a sideways glance at the reason they had to stay in Gravity Falls. (Bill shrugged. It wasn't like he'd asked the Stan twins to stay in town.) "You could do poker chips or playing cards or—"

"Dice!" Mabel said. "Dipper that's perfect, they both like dice! We can put normal dice on Grunkle Stan's side and nerdy dice on Grunkle Ford's—"

"Oh, that's great! I've got my DD&MD dice bag in the attic!"

"I'll look in the board game closet!"

Dipper and Mabel took off. 

Bill waited until he was sure they were gone.

He checked out the kitchen window for witnesses, then picked up a dozen abandoned birthday candles, licked off the frosting, and hid the candles in his hoodie's hood. Too bad they hadn't left a matchbook out, but Bill knew a fun little trick with an empty aluminum can and a tube of toothpaste that would work just fine.

When the kids returned and Mabel stuffed the remaining forty-odd candles back in their box, they never noticed any were missing.

####

Mabel had put herself in charge of the guest list. Which explained why, along with Stan and Ford's actual friends, all Mabel's friends had been invited; as well as—among other people—the mayor ("he's like the Mystery Shack's best customer, Grunkle Stan!"), Shmebulock ("Jeff said Shmebulock stole the Journal 4 you started last fall, I was hoping he might gift it back"), and the Hand Witch and her boyfriend. ("Whaaat, Grunkle Ford you met her TOO?! What a coincidence! Dipper, did you know he met—oh, you did. I didn't read those pages!") It would have been a lot more awkward if not for the fact that the birthday boys were awed and humbled that so many people had attended knowing they were coming to a birthday party for Stan and Ford Pines, and none of the guests had even been bribed.

When Soos and Melody helped Mabel carry out the birthday cake, Ford laughed at the sight of it. "Did you make Roman numerals out of candles? How clever! Stanley, do you know what Roman—"

"Yeah, yeah. I watch the Football Bowl, you know," Stan said. "Honestly, I was expecting this thing to be covered in candles."

"I almost went that route," Mabel said. "But I thought I'd save that kind of firepower for the Fourth of July."

"Hah! That's my girl."

"Happy Birthday" was sung, candles were blown out, and the party lined up to get their cake. Mabel cut a slice, loaded it on a paper plate, then glanced toward the attic window. "I'll be right back! I've gotta use the bathroom. Don't open my presents until I'm back!"

She trotted into the house, taking the cake, a napkin, and a plastic spoon with her.

####

Bill met Mabel at the top of the stairs and scooped the cake out of her hands. "You're my hero, star girl." He carried it halfway back to his window seat, stopped mid-step, and asked, "You got a piece with my name on it?"

"I got the slice with the 'Birt' and took off the extra frosting!"

"Oh," Bill said. "Heh. That's—cute." And he looked so much like he was trying to pretend he wasn't genuinely touched by the gesture, that Mabel didn't have the heart to tell him she'd only thought of it halfway up the stairs.

He flopped back in his usual window seat post—where, Mabel couldn't help but notice, he had a perfect view of the party happening outside without him. She grimaced. "I'm sorry you can't come to the party," she said. "But you did torture and try to murder the birthday boys... and most of the party guests... and left half of them with lingering trauma..."

"Speaking of, how's your therapist doing?"

"Oh, good, she's good. I think she's gonna write a paper about Mabeland."

Bill fell silent, staring out the window. Mabel almost went downstairs—when he said, "You know, I was the only person who gave Stanford a gift on his thirtieth birthday."

Mabel turned back around so fast she almost tripped on the top step. It wasn't often she got a double dose of Bill lore and Grunkle lore. "You were?"

"He didn't make new friends in Oregon and he didn't keep up with his old friends from college. His parents mailed him a gift, but it got here a week late. So I taught him a couple spells to see the stars during the day and keep rain from landing on him, and told him where to be in Portland that afternoon if he wanted to pick up a free cake from a fancy bakery."

"Aww. That was... nice of you." But Mabel had to hesitate before saying it, automatically wondering what Bill's motives had been for giving the gifts and what his motive now was for sharing this. 

Bill waved a hand dismissively. "Ahh, they were parlor tricks. They're easy, flashy cantrips that impress humans but don't do any harm," he said. "Not much harm, anyway. That night he told me all about how he was the only human to see his zodiac constellation on his birthday. The genius spent all day staring at the sun so he could see the stars!" He laughed.

But it quickly petered out. "And now I'm personally banned from his birthday party. Funny, huh?"

Maybe Bill was trying to get Mabel to pity him; but she kinda thought he was just pitying himself. She patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Losing friends is tough," she said. She paused. "And that's why we should be nice to them."

Bill cracked up so loudly Mabel half expected the party outside to hear him. "Okay, Glory Unicorn! I've learned today's moral about friendship. Get outta here. See if I ever tell you anything again." But he was grinning as he shooed her off.

####

When Mabel came back cakeless, Dipper gave her a dark look, but said nothing.

"Are we opening gifts yet?" Mabel picked up a box and flung an arm around Dipper's shoulder. "You've gotta open this one first! It's from both of us to both of you!" She waved it at Stan and Ford until they took it together.

Ford pointed at the card that said, "To our Grunkles, from your gniece and gnephew!" "That isn't how you spell niece and nephew?" Stan elbowed him.

"Nope!" Mabel said. "But it's how you abbreviate great-niece and great-nephew."

"Ah, I see! Very creative."

"Nice recovery," Stan muttered. Ford elbowed him back. Together they tore off the wrapping paper and opened their box.

Inside were two more boxes, each small enough to hold in one hand—a square one labeled "Stan" and a long narrow one labeled "Ford."

Stan opened his box and pulled out a thick gold chain with a coin dangling from it. Engraved on the coin in sloppy text were the words "#1 Grunkle."

Soos held up a hand. "I did the engraving! First try."

Mabel pointed at the coin. "We made it out of pirate treasure that we have for reasons that we can't talk about! There's a skull on the back!"

They'd hung it from his favorite gold chain. He'd been missing it for a week—and he'd never even suspected the kids. How about that. Choked up, Stan said, "It's—it's great." He took off the chain he was currently wearing, chucked it into the bushes, and put on his gift. "C'mere, you two." He wrapped his arms around Dipper and Mabel.

Soos held his arms out hopefully. Stan rolled his eyes, but waved him over for a hug too.

Ford opened his box. "A pen?"

Dipper said, "It has an ergonomic grip, can take standard ink refills, writes super smoothly—I tested it out myself—makes a very satisfying click, and it's red with gold trim to match your journals."

Mabel said, "I helped pick out the design!"

"... And that's why it's also sparkly."

"I didn't do the engraving on that one," Soos said. "We had a lotta spare pirate coins but only one pen, so. They got it done at the mall."

Ford rotated the pen in his hand until he spotted the (more professional-looking) engraving on the barrel, filled in with gold. "Mine says #1 Grunkle too?"

Dipper said, "C'mon, we're not gonna choose between you two."

Stan said, "Oh, I see how it is! Trying to butter us both up, are you?" He reached under Dipper's hat to ruffle his hair. Smiling, Ford carefully slid his gift into his coat's breast pocket next to his usual pen.

####

When Bill saw that Mabel was back outside, he got up, left the rest of his cake on the window seat, scooted aside a storage box sitting forgotten in a corner of the attic, and pried a loose board from the wall.

He took his stolen candles out of his hood, wrapped them in the party napkin Mabel had given him, and stashed them in a plastic sandwich bag where he'd already stowed a crushed cider can, its edges torn and sharp.

Then he re-hid the bag, fixed the wall, replaced the storage box, gently brushed some cobwebs over the floor to hide the trail in the dust where he'd scooted the box, and turned away from his hiding spot.

To see a gnome wearing a journal like a backpack.

They stared at each other.

"You didn't see anything," said Bill.

"Shmebulock," said Shmebulock.

Bill eyed Shmebulock, the staircase, the window—and then dropped into a crouch, knees and feet spread apart like a sumo wrestler, teeth bared.

Shmebulock cracked his knuckles.

Five minutes later, Bill added Journal 4 to his hiding spot, with a mental note to find a new hiding spot the gnomes didn't know about later.

Unfortunately, Shmebulock escaped with Bill's cake.

####

Wendy squinted up at the blonde shape in the attic window. "You know—all this last week, I kept thinking I saw someone up there. I just assumed it was my imagination," she said. "Guess Goldie didn't get invited to the birthday party, huh?"

"Nope," Dipper said. "And for good reason."

Wendy laughed. "Yeah, sounds it."

Dipper glanced toward his grunkles. At the moment, Ford was opening a cheap set of watercolor paints and giving Mabel an exasperated look. ("I thought we could try them out together! And hate them together!" "All right, that might be fun.") He lowered his voice and picked at his cake. "So. You found out the big secret, huh?"

"Yup," Wendy said. She lightly punched Dipper's shoulder. "Hey—don't look so glum, man. I'm not mad you didn't tell me. There's some kind of family drama and a missing person case involved. I get it—you don't talk about that kind of stuff outside the family."

"Yeah, hah. Right," Dipper said. "So, what do you think of... Goldie?"

Wendy glanced up at the figure in the window. "We didn't talk a whole bunch before Goldie and Stan started arguing about plagiarism," she said, "but I got that she's some kind of wildcard paranormal investigator who gives off insane grifter energy. And seems really mentally messed up from being trapped in another dimension, but like, the kind of messed up that probably makes you fun at parties?" She was already mentally playing Goldie off of her friend group, trying to figure out how well she'd mesh with them. She seemed like the kind of person who'd be into some harmless trespassing and recreational vandalism. "How old is Goldie? She was working on a Ph.D., so that's what, mid-20s? Mid-20s but actually mid-50s after not aging for thirty years? Honestly, if I just met her on the street I would've thought she was like, 15. She does not look her age." Maybe it was the lack of makeup?

Under his breath, Dipper muttered, "You have no idea." He glanced away from Wendy, stuffed a large forkful of cake in his mouth, and mumbled to himself, "How much should I say? Sharing too much could be dangerous, but if I don't say anything..." Mumble, mumble.

Wendy would never tell Dipper how funny it was that he monologued to himself and hoped nobody would notice. Usually she'd politely ignore him, but if there was something dangerous... She lightly elbowed him. "Dipper. Come on," she said. "I can tell something's eating you. You can trust me."

"Ugh, I know, but..." Dipper glanced again at the rest of the birthday party—just far enough to be out of earshot, currently entranced by some thingamajig Fiddleford had gifted the Stans—and let out a heavy sigh. Voice low, he said, "Okay, Wendy, listen. For your own safety, you need to know that Goldie is way worse than whatever you heard about him last night. And I can't tell you why, because of reasons I also can't tell you—believe me, I wish I could tell you, but—don't trust him, okay?" Dipper gave her an earnest, pleading look. "Just don't. He's dangerous. That's all I can say."

It figured that even after Wendy learned the big secret, she'd just find another, smaller secret hidden underneath. Like a matryoshka doll. (She quietly made note of the "he" and wondered if Goldie had been part of the queer scene in the 80s, or if he'd only figured himself out while he was in ghost land.) "I'm assuming he's dangerous for Weird Spooky Paranormal reasons?"

"Yeah," Dipper said, teeth grit. "Yeah, basically."

He wanted to tell her more, she wanted to know more, and she was ready to play 20 questions on Goldie's backstory. Picking through what she'd learned last night for clues, Wendy asked, "Is it connected to Ford's research? All the weird magic stuff he got into?"

"Um." Dipper shrugged uncertainly. "Y...yeah? But... bigger than that?"

"Is it portal stuff." What was the most dangerous thing she knew of that was connected to the portal. "Is it Bill stuff."

Dipper let out an anguished groan, pulled off his hat, and buried his face in it. "I can't tell you more than I already have!"

"Oh my god it's Bill stuff."

Dipper eloquently said, "MRRGHF."

"Okay got it, so Goldie was some kind of Bill groupie or discovered how to summon him or something. Something like that. I don't need to know the details! But he's totally Bill-adjacent."

"Yeah. Yeah. Yep." Dipper nodded emphatically. "Bill-adjacent is... the best way to describe Goldie."

"But Bill's gone, right? So Goldie's like a cultist without a cult leader. Doesn't that mean he's harmless now?" Wendy asked. "Or do you think he's gonna try to cause the apocalypse in honor of his boss or whatever."

Dipper tugged his hat back on his head and straightened it out. "I'm sure he'd try to end the world again if he could, but... we're all still trying to figure out what he can do."

"So, domestic terrorism risk. Cool," Wendy said. "Y'know, I sorta expected to run into a guy like that in the shack eventually, but I always thought they'd be here because of Stan, not Ford." She rolled her eyes. "I'll warn you if he starts talking about ending the world or anything."

"Thanks, Wendy." Dipper glanced uneasily toward the birthday party. (They were still distracted, currently trying to douse the flamethrower on Fiddleford's birthday gift. It was trying to eliminate the competitor gifts.) "Just... don't tell anybody else, okay? If the town finds out that Goldie is—you know—Bill-adjacent..."

"Relax." She pantomimed zipping her mouth. "I'm not gonna organize an angry mob."

She glanced up at the attic window. Goldie was still up there, staring down at the party. He noticed Wendy staring and made a face at her.

She made the same face back, and saw him silently laughing. Okay, he had bad taste in friends, obviously; but Goldie seemed kinda cool in an unhinged way. From what Wendy had gathered, Bill had conned and then betrayed half the people she knew—and if the Pines had only just managed to get Goldie back on this plane of reality, months after Weirdmageddon, that meant Bill hadn't bothered to rescue him when he could, so Goldie was just another victim. Maybe he just needed to be reintegrated into society.

Dipper said, "Hey, Stan just poured punch on the robot and it made the fire worse. Do you think we should help?"

Wendy looked at the fire—and looked up at the fire. She was moving before she spoke. "Yeah, let's do something about that."

They rejoined the rest of the party, and Wendy put Goldie out of her mind.

####

Ford stared at the ring on his left sixth finger.

Welcome back, the Hand Witch had said.

Thirty years ago, he'd met her at a carnival. She'd told him that he'd chosen the wrong allies and would doom himself for it. She'd given him a ring with a blue cabochon and told him that if it ever turned black, there was no hope for him.

He'd dismissed her as a phony palm reader; and, the night he'd decided Bill was right about Fiddleford not being bold enough to follow through with the portal project, the ring had turned black, and he'd thrown it in the lake.

Now here it was on his finger again.

He didn't think her a phony now. Everything she'd told him had been true. And anyway, it was hard to doubt she had real magic when she spent half the party trying to stop two small disembodied hands from escaping her pockets to visit Mabel. 

"Why are you giving this back to me?"

"It's your birthday! And I thought it might be useful."

"For what? Am I in danger?"

"I don't know, I'd have to give you another reading to see." She had pulled a cartomancy deck from her pocket. "Do you want me to?" The card on the bottom of the deck had been a triangle with a snake slithering through its eye socket.

Ford hadn't wanted a reading. He knew now that what he'd called superstition back at that carnival might be a legitimate form of prophecy he simply didn't understand; but he was tired of living his life by signs and portends.

All the same, it was comforting to see that his ring was blue.

Ford's view of the ring was blocked by Stan shoving over the "Get Out Of One Misdemeanor Free" coupon Mayor Cutebiker had given as his birthday gift. "Hey, do you think I'd get in trouble if I made a buncha copies of this?"

Ford took the coupon and inspected it thoughtfully. "If you do get in trouble... a coupon counterfeiting charge couldn't possibly be worse than a misdemeanor, could it?"

"That's what I like to hear!"

It had been a surprisingly long day—and, by far, the best birthday either of them had had in well over forty years. (Was it really that long?) Now they were retired to the parlor Soos and Abuelita had converted into a double guest room, sitting on their beds facing each other as they got ready for sleep.

There was a knock at the door. Ford stood. "Coming—" He opened the door to see Bill's grinning face, a foot from his own. "Oh. You." Ford resisted the urge to step back, in case Bill interpreted as an invitation to come in.

"Hiya, birthday boy!" Bill's gaze immediately drifted down to Ford's coat pocket. "Hey—new pen? I like the sparkle, adds a little pizazz."

"What do you want, Cipher."

"Just to hand this over." Bill pressed a couple of envelopes into Ford's chest, and kept them pinned there with a fingertip until Ford reluctantly took them. "I knew you'd hate getting something from me at your party, so just for you I waited until all the festivities were over. You're welcome."

Ford studied the envelopes. They were two pieces of yellow construction paper that had been folded into envelope shape, and written on each one, in lurching crayon text that drifted up and down, was "Stanford" and "Stanley". "You made cards?"

"You're flattered."

"I most certainly am not."

"'The lady doth protest too much, methinks.'" Bill shrugged. "Hey, they're your birthday gifts. Toss them in the fire if that makes you happiest. You just might wanna open them first—you know, to make sure I didn't write a fire-activated explosion spell on the inside."

Stan grabbed his envelope out of Ford's hand and eyed it in deep suspicion. "And why did you make these?"

"Because it's your birthday. Come on! Why am I explaining this, it's your species's ritual."

"I mean why are you doing it? We all hate each other. We're planning your execution, here," Stan said. "So what's your angle?"

"What do you need my measurements for, you pervert."

"ALL right—" Stan stepped toward Bill, cracking his knuckles, and was only stopped by Ford's hand across his chest.

Bill leaned back against the hallway's opposite wall. "Whoa! Consider this a peace offering! You know—'no hard feelings for all the murder, attempted or planned'! I can be a polite house guest, even if I'm not a voluntary one." Bill smiled wryly, "I'm trapped on an alien planet where I know less than a dozen people and all of them hate me. It gets boring." He looked directly in Ford's eyes. "And we've got history. Is it so hard to believe I might want to be friends again?"

This time, Stan had to put a hand across Ford's chest.

Ford said, "You're up to something."

"Is that a statement or a question?"

"Statement."

"Then you don't want an answer. Enjoy your gifts! Or don't, I'm not your boss." Bill waved, and slunk around the corner back toward the living room.

Ford shut the door. He sat on his bed, examined the envelope, and glanced at Stan, who was sitting on his bed doing the same thing.

They grimaced at each other.

"Okay," Stan said. "Is this more dangerous if we do open it or don't open it?" He hefted his envelope in his hand. "This thing's pretty heavy for just a card."

"Is it?" Ford's wasn't very heavy. He turned on a lamp on a bedside table and held the envelope up in front of it, trying to see through the construction paper. "I think he's counting on us to open these. I doubt he set a trap that will activate if we leave it closed—it's not his style."

"So, what do we think. Some kinda hypnotic mind-control magic that's activated by reading it? Or is he just trying to bribe us into liking him better?"

"He probably doesn't have hypnotic mind-control magic. If he did, why would he have spent so long trying to manipulate humans into doing his bidding?"

"I dunno, maybe he's stupid."

Testily, Ford said, "He's not stupid."

"No—listen, I've been thinking about this for months," Stan said. "You spent thirty years hopping between a zillion different dimension, right? If there's already safe portals out there, why'd he spend so long tricking someone into building a crummy one that'd destroy the universe, instead of using one of those? He's gotta be stupid!"

"I've... wondered the same thing about the portal," Ford admitted grudgingly. "But, no—I've seen him use so many roundabout tricks to manipulate minds that if he were capable of overt mind control, I'm sure he'd have used it by now."

"Fine, so mind control's off the table. But we're probably safer if we leave these alone. If we open them, they might be an annoying attempt to kiss up to us, or they might be dangerous." Stan waved his envelope like a fan. "And, we're gonna open them anyway, because not knowing will kill us, right?"

In his youth, Ford had arrogantly looked down on Pandora. "Of course we're going to open them."

They opened their envelopes.

They both contained a sheet of type paper folded in half with nothing on the front and messages written inside. Ford's read, "Stanford– I'd tell you to go to hell, but you'd barely be there long enough for it to be worth the trip. Happy birthday! –Δέος" Charming. Particularly out of the heel who'd just claimed he wanted to be friends.

"Hey, what is this?" Stan held his letter out for Ford to see: "Stanley– You were only the accomplice. I won't hold a grudge. Happy birthday! –Δέος" Stan pointed at the last word, "Is this some kind of curse?"

"A signature. Bill's real name isn't 'Bill Cipher'—it's just one of many nicknames he uses when communicating with humans. And, when writing to people who know him well, he prefers to sign with that nickname. It's pronounced déos." It meant awe—whether manifested in the form of fear or reverence. And it probably was no coincidence that Bill had picked a word that, to the untrained ear, sounded so much like the Latin deus—god.

Once, long ago, waking up to find his own hand had written a letter signed by "Awe" in a foreign alphabet had filled Ford with awe. Now... well, now it looked a little try-hard, didn't it. "Between you and me, I think Bill likes that signature best because it starts with a triangle." In Bill's handwriting, the delta looked unusually equilateral.

"Really fond of his own face, isn't he," Stan said, digging in the envelope for the rest of his "gift"—and he pulled out a handful of scratch cards. "What the...?"

How the heck had Bill gotten his hands on those? Ford checked to see if his envelope had the same—and came out with five pieces of notebook paper instead, still tattered on the edge from being torn out of a spiral notebook, covered front and back with writing—multiple languages, some inhuman, with a smattering of complex sigils and symbols. The first line on the first page read "Spell to Resurrect Fowl (chicken, turkey, duck, etc.—funny at dinner parties!)" Ford slapped the pages face down on his nightstand without reading the next line.

"What is it?" Stan asked.

"Magic," Ford said, voice flat with irritation.

"A trap—?"

"No. Magic for me. Spells I don't know. The kind of knowledge I'd—document in my journals."

Stan processed that. He tossed his scratch cards down on his own nightstand. "Lemme get this straight," he said. "Less than two weeks since he tried to kill us, with no access to the outside world and no resources at his disposal but his stupid wits—without even getting his hands on a freaking envelope—he somehow managed to get us both thoughtful, considerate gifts that are deeply relevant to our personal interests and passions! Is that about right?"

"It seems to be, yes."

"That jerk! I oughta wring his neck!"

Ford nodded in agreement. "I didn't know you're into scratch cards." He tamped down the urge to lecture Stan on the statistical improbability of making a profit.

"See, if even you didn't know, now I'm even madder that he does!" Stan groaned in frustration. "I kicked the habit. Still like playing 'em if I get them as a gift."

"Hmm." That was all right, then. Couldn't lose money on scratch cards if somebody else had spent the money.

They glared together at their thoughtful, relevant, deeply unwanted gifts, trying to decide what to do about them. Stan was the first to let out a resigned sigh and snatch his up. "What the heck. They're already paid for, I'm not gonna throw away potential free money just because it came from him." He fished around in his discarded pants pockets for a quarter. "But I'm not gonna enjoy myself!" He flipped through the cards, noting they were each labeled in a corner from 1/11 to 11/11, and muttered, "Why'd he draw triangles on some of the numbers?"

Well, if Stan had caved into his curiosity... Back into the box, Pandora, and perhaps we'll find hope at the bottom.

"Mabel must've helped him get these," Stan said. "It's the only way. And these cards have glitter and unicorns all over them." He scratched off his first card, and said, "Hey, three bunny faces—how 'bout that? I made thirty bucks already."

"At least it's not a total waste," Ford muttered, skimming the pages before him.

It was a treasure trove.

A spell to uncook food. The cipher to decrypt the Voynich manuscript. A potion to change eye color. A river stone submerged not five miles away that, when dry, hovered. A ritual involving five hours of meditation and a lot of mushrooms that opened up psychic communication with Earth's nearest alien neighbors. An illusion to make the floor look like lava. ("Good for games if you're very bored and oppressed by gravity.") The names of five hitherto-unknown demon nobles, the sigils to summon and bind them, the fields of knowledge and political influence in which they were most helpful, and a few personal tips on how to best to twist their arms into doing a favor. A complicated way to grind glasses that let one see, depending on prescription strength, anywhere from several seconds to several minutes into the future. And on and on.

And Bill didn't just toss down a few mystical-sounding words and move on: in a few terse sentences after each spell, he hinted at the principles that made them work (freely mixing magic, physics, and metaphysics), the people who'd created or discovered the trick (whether human, inhuman, unearthly, or transdimensional), where Ford could go digging to independently verify the information if he didn't want to take Bill's word for it—and what other, greater things someone might use these tricks to do, if only they fully understood how they worked, if only they had the right teacher. Bill had filled the margins, scribbled extra info in red pen in between the rows of black to double the amount of text he could cram on each line. Ford could fill an entire journal just by copying, disentangling, and expanding on everything Bill had packed into this dense five-page grimoire.

Bill had given Ford more in this letter than he had in all the years he'd been posing as Ford's friend—excluding those accursed portal blueprints. He'd shared the kinds of things Ford had always dreamed his Muse might show him. He gave it away like a free sample to entice a new customer. Five pages of deep secrets meant nothing to Bill and his infinite knowledge. He could have done this all along. He only did it now to try to bribe Ford into sparing his life: see what you could miss out on?

As Ford read the pages, his hands trembled in rage.

"—two hundred dollars, two hundred fifty dollars," Stan muttered. "Those are the biggest yet." He waved the scratch cards at Ford. "I don't understand it! That's eight winners in a row! I've made almost a thousand bucks just by scratching these off—that's not luck! How's he do it? What kinda weird alien magic gives you scratch card telepathy?"

"I don't know. I had no idea he could identify winning scratch cards," Ford said. "But I'm not surprised."

Stan shook his head in amazement, and scratched the next card.

Ford crushed the notepaper pages into a ball.

And he smoothed them back out. Bill was a monster, but this knowledge was precious. 

He looked at the Hand Witch's ring like it might tell him the correct course; but no matter which way his thoughts swayed, the gem remained a steady blue.

"This card's a thousand bucks all by itself," Stan said. "I've never won a thousand in my life. There's no way..." He scratched furiously at the last card, revealing symbols patterned after an array of gems and jewelry. "Five hundred!" Scratch scratch scratch— "Times five?! That's—!" He seized up all his cards and quickly tallied his winnings. "That's a total of nearly five thousand dollars!" He let out a disbelieving laugh. "Who needs Vegas? This monster's been better to me than she ever has!"

"Stanley, that's exactly what he wants you to think," Ford snapped. "He's giving us everything we want so we'll be more reluctant to kill him. This is less than chump change to him! Don't forget that his goal—"

"I know! I'm not stupid, I know what he's doing. Lotto numbers aren't worth the safety of the universe. But sh—shoot, Stanford, he handed me five grand for free and I'm keeping it."

"Fine," Ford said. "Fine. I suppose there's no point in throwing it away on principle."

"Darn straight!"

Ford glowered down at his underhanded "gift"—this little glimpse behind the veil into the mysteries of the universe. His whole chest bubbled and burned with rage; but beneath it—twinkling like a lonely star, twinkling like hope at the bottom of Pandora's box—was something he hadn't felt since Bill betrayed him.

Awe.

It was like waking up to a letter from his Muse.

This was who Bill could be—gift-giver, wish-granter, teacher, guide, friend—and he chose not to be. Why?! When this was so easy for him—why did he have to be what he was instead?

This charitable act only made the true Bill look even worse by contrast.

Ford re-smoothed the pages, carefully folded them in half, and stored them back in their construction paper envelope. He'd leave them there until he'd independently researched every one of these spells and ensured they did what Bill said they did and that there weren't any hidden side-effects.

And then he'd see about adding this information to his current journal.

No point throwing it away on principle.

####

(Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, I'd deeply appreciate hearing your thoughts! Thanks!)