Gravity Rises (S1)

FE: Part Six

"She's a selkie."

Mabel looked up sharply from the strange girl to Grunkle Ford.

"A what now?" Dipper asked. He sounded as confused as Mabel felt.

"A selkie. Women who can magically transform into seals by wrapping themselves in a seal skin. Well, the legends are all about women, but there are male selkies as well. They're just the minority."

"So wait," said Dipper, "this girl is basically a shape-shifter?"

Ford paused, then nodded. "That's one way to put it." Then he was all urgency. "We have to get her back to the Museum, or she could freeze. She would be warmer if she had stayed a seal; but as it is, we have to move quickly. Melody, help me carry her to the car."

Melody nodded. She and Ford got to their feet and crouched carefully on their ice skates, pushing their arms under the selkie and lifting her by slowly straightening their legs. When they were erect, they started moving to the edge of the lake, the selkie resting in their arms.

"Mabel, Dipper, make sure she doesn't slide off. Melody, take long strides in sync with me."

It took Mabel a second to get moving. Was this it? Was she seeing Ford in adventure mode? He didn't seem to have a spark in his eye, just a grim determination. But he certainly seemed to know what he was doing.

Dipper took the front, since he was better at skating, and made sure the selkie didn't slip off tail-first. Mabel followed behind, although there didn't seem to be much risk of her sliding off head-first, since she was tilted slightly forward.

The awkward procession made its way slowly, carefully, and safely across the lake. Even Dipper didn't complain about the pace. He was probably focused on how pretty the girl was, even though she was unconscious and wrapped in a seal. Long, wet dark brown hair framed the girl's pale face (although she was probably only pale from the cold). Mabel wondered what it would be like to be trapped as a seal underneath a thick layer of ice in a freezing lake. It sounded terrifying.

Finally, they made it to the lake shore. Melody and Ford set the selkie down on the dock, switched their skates for their snow boots, picked her up again, and headed to the car. Mabel and Dipper took a little longer to change (Mabel into her boots and Dipper into his brightly colored tennis shoes) before they followed.

"Do you think she's going to be okay, Mabel?"

Mabel glanced to her brother. "Yeah, I think so. Ford knows what he's doing."

Dipper nodded, and Mabel couldn't tell if he agreed with her or not. He'd seen the Journal as well as she, though he hadn't read it as much. She didn't know if he believed that Ford could act like the man from the Journal again. She didn't know if she believed it.

"Melody says she used to watch Ford when he went out on monster hunts," said Mabel quietly. "She said he looked like an adventurer." Well, what she really said was that Ford looked like Mabel when she got excited about something. Maybe it was pretentious of Mabel to label that look as an adventurer's look, but she liked the thought. "Whatever changed between then and now, I think he can still help this selkie."

Dipper nodded again, this time with a smile. "You're right." He noticed Ford and Melody waiting by the car, and he ran to open the door for them. When Mabel made it to the car, the selkie was propped up in one of the window seats. Dipper sat in the middle, making sure she didn't fall over. Mabel slid in next to her brother, feeling awkward with an unconscious passenger two seats over.

Ford turned on the heat but kept it low, increasing it gradually as they drove. He frequently looked back at the selkie, as if checking to make sure she was okay. Mabel found it uncomfortable to look at the selkie, so she looked out the window and watched the lake disappear behind the trees and cabins. The sight made her sad. They'd only been there for an hour or so, and she had just started an actual conversation with Ford. She wished the selkie hadn't turned up and ruined it.