Chapter 32 of human Bill is convinced he's the best prisoner ever and does not deserve this abuse from the Pines:
Bill gets his fingernails painted! 💅🌈✨ Look at his fingernails, I drew this week's picture just to show them off. They're fun.
Bill also gets bound to a magic poppet that can control his every move.
It's hilarious for Dipper and Mabel, but not for Bill.
The early morning still was broken by Stan's wails of despair.
At some point during the night, the egg-and-toilet-papering kids had come back to Stan's car.
And they'd brought rocks.
####
Bill woke up with a sheet tossed over him and a cupcake sitting on the window seat. The cupcake was pink with green frosting and decorated like a happy jack-o'-melon. It was sitting on top of a note:
"Sorry I didn't mention I had plans tonight! Robbie's mom made cupcakes for everyone so I grabbed you one. The music video's gonna be AMAZING! I'll show you when Robbie posts it!" Mabel had signed with a shooting star.
Bill decided he hadn't been mad at Mabel last night at all.
He battled gravity to heave himself vertical, trudged downstairs to the bathroom, stuck his face under the faucet until his mouth tasted less like sour sandpaper, agonizingly dragged himself back upstairs to his makeshift bed, and collapsed under the sheet to wait until his head stopped hammering.
####
Sprawled on the living room floor, Mabel said, "What should I draw?"
"Draw me." Bill was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, watching the news and nursing a glass of Mabel juice. In an effort to counteract the lingering queasiness from overdosing on sugar and chocolate, he'd spiked the juice with two ground-up Elderly 60+ Vitaman™ brand Man Vitamins (khaki flavor) stolen from a bottle that Ford had bought for Stan and that Stan forgot to take.
"Okay!" Mabel turned around and squinted up at Bill. "Strike a pose!"
"Not like this!" Bill shoved a hand in Mabel's face to force her to stop looking. "Draw me how I really look."
"Bill, that's illegal. Remember?" Mabel pointed at the TV. Bodacious T was reporting on a child who'd dressed up for Summerween as "that weird out-of-towner who bothered us last year, you know the one," and who, under the Never Mind All That Act, had been fined fifty pieces of candy. The child's mugshot showed his crying face, but blurred out his yellow costume.
"He'd be the coolest kid in town," Bill said, "if he wasn't such a crybaby in front of the cops. Draw me anyway."
"I don't wanna get arrested!"
"Do you see any cops?" Bill grinned. "Just don't sign your name, nobody will know it was you."
Mabel considered that. "I can sign it someone else's name." She pulled out a few crayons.
"That's what I'm talking about! Do anything you want forever and frame the innocent!"
"What do you want me to draw you doing?"
"The coolest thing you can think of."
Mabel considered that, and got to work.
The news was boring now. They were talking about the weather, and it wasn't even interesting weather. "So hey, you were gonna tell me about filming last night?"
"Oh yeah!" Mabel said. "Did I mention the part where the dead rose from their graves?"
Bill muted the TV. "And I missed it?"
Robbie had decided the cemetery at his place would be more atmospheric than the trick-or-treater-filled streets (and less likely to have their shots ruined by passersby that didn't appreciate the depth of Robbie's lyrics). It went great, until the vibrations of angsty rock-and-roll stirred the slumbering corpses and they clawed their way from their graves. It turned out Gravity Falls had been having off-and-on invasions of the undead for the past year, ever since somebody decided to reanimate every corpse in town for fun, Bill.
"You can't prove it was me, I'm not the only one who knows how to raise the dead!" Bill laughed. "Hey—you're not drawing this body, are you? You said you wouldn't."
"I'm not, I promise!"
"Then why do you keep staring at me?"
"Um."
"Let me see!"
"No! Don't ruin the surprise!" Mabel picked up a glitter pen with feathers glued to the end and waved them in Bill's face. "And no cheating with your eye-bleeding psychic magic!"
Bill smacked the pen away. "Fine! So what did you do with the zombies? Feed one of the teens to them?"
"No! I chewed like four packs of gum me and Dipper got from the weird homeless dentist and made a fake baby brain. We used it as bait to lead them into an open grave," Mabel said. "And then we realized we could use the brain to train them to do tricks! So now we have dancing zombies in the music video. They actually learned the choreography pretty easily."
"Makes sense," Bill said. "I did fill the space where their souls should be with an insatiable hunger to party."
Mabel grinned. "I thought you said they weren't your fault."
"If they're good at dancing, I'm taking credit!"
"They were pretty good—especially considering how many limbs they were missing," Mabel said. "I'll show you when Robbie's finished editing the video."
"And I'll get to see you playing a creepy ghost kid, right?"
"Yeah! We were the greatest ghosts ever! Check it out, we were like—" Mabel fixed Bill with a dead-eyed slack-jawed stare and whisper-sang, "'We're the things that you have lost. Childhood joy, dead as a ghost.'"
"Chills."
"Dipper tried so hard to get in character as a ghost that he completely zoned out for a minute! When we shook him out of it, he said he felt like he had an out-of-body experience!"
####
At his computer, Robbie clicked play on a clip of the twins standing side-by-side in front of the cemetery gate. As they sang the chorus, Dipper's face went still; and then a spectral gray form rose out of his head, still singing in sync with Mabel.
"Whoa," Robbie said. "Sick. I'm keeping that in."
####
"So, it turns out my bro is an expert method actor," Mabel boasted.
Bill thought back to Dipper drifting up and down the stairs in the middle of the night. "Yep. Sounds like he's got quite a talent."
Mabel set down her crayons and held out a paper. "Okay—what do you think?"
Bill accepted the drawing. "Am I riding on the back of a rocket ship?"
"Like a bucking bronco! See the rocket flames doing a loop?"
"Sure do. Why am I holding a fish bowl?"
"It's like a cowboy waving his hat, but, you're in space. So that's your astronaut helmet."
"It's beautiful," Bill said intensely. "It's the best thing I've ever seen."
"Aw, really? Thanks!"
"When I take over the universe, I'm rearranging the constellations to look like this."
"Don't do that, though."
"Fine, but I'm hanging it up in my throne room." Bill set down his empty glass so he could hold the picture with both hands, beaming at it as proudly as though he'd made it himself. Big change from his lukewarm reception of her house drawing yesterday. She should draw Bill more often. Being a good artist meant understanding what your audience wanted.
Unfortunately, now that she'd finished her drawing, she didn't have anything to distract her from staring at Bill. And she'd taken about as much of seeing him as she could stand. "Bill. I say this with non-judgmental love. But you look sooo terrible."
"Yeah, I know. I think I'm shaped about as nicely as a human could ask for," he pantomimed drawing a triangle in front of his torso, "but let's be real, there's only so much you can do when you're working with a human bone structure. And there's way too much neck—"
"No! Bill, your body is beautiful just the way it is, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I meant your hair looks awful."
Bill had taken a shower yesterday morning, emerged with his hair all wet and tangled, and done absolutely nothing to detangle it. And then, with it still half damp and totally disheveled, he'd shoved it under a cheap acrylic wig for the rest of the night. And then he'd fallen asleep on the floor still wearing the wig.
And now, with the wig removed, his hair looked like a bird had plucked out half a scarecrow's straw brains and made a nest out of it.
"It sure does," Bill said, with the slightly forlorn air of someone complaining about a war in a far-off country over which one had no power.
"So brush it!"
"No. Never. You can't make me."
"Why not? I thought you wanted to keep your hair all triangly!"
"Not enough to touch it. Either it'll figure out how to straighten out on its own or it won't, I'm not messing with it. I've got enough going on in my life today." By which he meant he had the last lingering traces of a hangover, which was a valid excuse to get out of all social, moral, and aesthetic obligations.
Mabel groaned in frustration. "I can't take looking at it anymore! If you won't brush it, can I?"
Bill gave her a skeptical look; but then he flung his hands out dismissively. "Sure, why not? If it bothers you so much. Have at it."
"I'll be right back!"
She got her brush from upstairs and a spray bottle from the kitchen, and directed Bill to sit on the floor so she could get on the couch behind him. After making such a fuss about brushing his hair, Bill was surprisingly well-behaved with somebody else brushing it for him. He didn't even complain when Mabel accidentally yanked on some nasty snarls a little harder than she meant to.
"I feel like a corpse getting prettied up for my funeral," Bill said. "Grooming each other is how humans bond, isn't it? This is one of your little social rituals? If all you wanted was to make sure we're still friends after you ditched me last night, you could have just asked."
Mabel shoved her foot between Bill's shoulder blades. Wise guy. She joked, "Yeah! We're bonding now! After this we're gonna paint each other's fingernails and talk about what kind of boys we like."
"I want rainbow spiral fingernails."
Mabel really should be used to this—but she still kept getting surprised that Bill was interested in the stuff she liked. And not even in a patronizing sure-I'll-play-along way. He'd turned to look at her. There was a gleam in his eyes. He really wanted rainbow spiral fingernails.
And now she wanted rainbow spiral fingernails, too. "Fine! But look forward until I finish your hair." One way or another, Mabel vowed, she would reform Bill into a proper good guy—even if she had to drag him there kicking and screaming. Fun dress-up partners were hard to find, and she couldn't afford to lose Bill.
####
Soos wandered to the living room to find somewhere to hang up his and Melody's "Best Couple Cosplay" award, but stopped in the doorway.
Bill, Mabel, and Waddles were sitting on the floor, watching some kind of cartoon psychedelic fairy princess lecture a spider on the importance of colors, with a bowl of popcorn between them. Bill and Mabel both had bright multicolor fingernails and were eating the popcorn with chopsticks to avoid touching their nails. There was more popcorn on the floor than in the bowl. Waddles had taken no such cares to avoid dragging his freshly painted hooves through the carpet.
"Truth or dare," Bill said.
"Dare!"
"Dare you to assassinate the..." Bill trailed off. "I can't have the mayor assassinated, he runs Rainbow Club. And the sheriff and deputy invited me... There aren't a lot of public officials in this dumb town, are there?"
"I'm not killing anybody, Bill. Truth."
"Fine, coward. What's your favorite toxic fume fragrance?"
"That's easy! Gasoline!"
"Hey, mine too! At least on this planet. It smells like—you know that smell that heralds the coming of rain? Gasoline is the smell that heralds a really fun time."
"Yeah! Like going on a road trip!"
Bill paused. "Right! I was... I was definitely thinking about road trips. That's exactly what I meant."
Mabel added, "And it looks so cool when there's a little bit spilled in a parking spot—"
"The rainbow puddles! Yes! Big fan of the rainbow puddles—"
"I love parking lot rainbow puddles! It's like surprise happiness in the most boring place on the planet!"
Soos mumbled, "Girl talk," decided to hang his award up later, and left.
####
Dipper heard the bedroom door open and Mabel call, "Hey Dipper!"
"Hey." He didn't look up from his journal, where he was documenting last night's zombie adventures. "Oh, hey, bad news—Wendy said she got a text from Robbie, it sounds like all the footage from the cemetery last night is ruined?"
"Aww! What? But we worked so hard to train those zombies!"
"Yeah, it's just static. But everything we shot outside the gates is fine. I wonder if it's something supernatural that interferes with electronics?"
"Something supernatural? In the cemetery? Full of zombies? What are the odds of that!" Mabel laughed. "But heyyy, I've got some good news!"
"What?"
Mabel stuck a hairbrush full of gold hair between Dipper's face and his journal. "I got a replacement for the Bill hair sample we gave Pacifica!" She grinned and whispered, "Wanna make a poppet?"
####
It would have been really cool if the first full moon of summer vacation had come on Summerween. But the calendar gods were unkind that year, and instead, it came the next day, on June 23.
Which worked out, in the end, since it meant they didn't have any scheduling conflicts on the one night they could make a poppet.
They had the ritual space set up in their bedroom—a chalk star drawn on the floor with a black candle at each point—and the doll representing Bill—which Mabel had upgraded with button eyes and a miniature version of his favorite knit hoodie. They collected all the shed blonde strands off Mabel's hairbrush, wrapped them around the doll's neck, and tied them on. They set the doll in the center of the star; Bartholomew talked them through the ritual; the flames on the candles leaped a foot in the air, turned a pale blue, and then went out; and the binding ritual was complete. The doll was now connected to Bill Cipher.
"Weird," Bartholomew said. "Usually the flames turn black. I've never seen them turn blue before."
Dipper said, "That's not a problem, is it?"
"No, no. I've just never used the binding ritual on an alien before! I guess it works a little different!"
Dipper picked up the doll and eyed it skeptically. "Mabel, I know we said we're saving this for emergencies only, but—maybe we should test it out just to make sure it actually works?"
"I guess we should," Mabel said, grimacing. "Just—don't do anything that'd hurt him. Okay?"
Yeah, Dipper should've expected that. Whether he liked it or not, Mabel didn't just see Bill as her weird experiment in criminal rehabilitation—she saw him as her friend. He sighed. "Okay. But is it fine if we do something that would embarrass him?"
Mabel shrugged. "I don't see why not!"
####
As they crept from their room, Mabel whispered, "What if we stick him in a box and shake it up? And then tell him there was an earthquake!"
"I thought you were the one who didn't want to hurt him."
"Oh right."
Bill wasn't on his cushions under the window, so they crept downstairs. Halfway down, Dipper stopped, putting a hand on Mabel's arm. Bill was sitting at the kitchen table, chin in his hand, staring out the window.
"This is perfect," he whispered. "He's completely vulnerable. He's got his back to us, he's looking at the moonlight—even if he turns around, he won't see us because his eyes will have to readjust to the dark."
"I don't know if his eyes need to adjust," Mabel said. "Have you ever noticed he never turns the lights on when he goes into a room?"
Dipper considered that. He hadn't noticed—but now that Mabel mentioned it, Bill did have a tendency to lurk in the dark. "Well—okay, but he's still not looking at us. Let's see how this works..." He studied the doll; then turned it around and gently brushed a finger through its yarn hair.
For a moment, nothing happened; and then Bill swatted at the back of his head and looked around, as if he was trying to find what had touched him.
"I think it's working," Dipper hissed.
"Are you sure? What if there's actually a fly in the kitchen?"
Could be. "Let me see if it can control him."
"Careful—"
Dipper grabbed one of the doll's arms and tentatively lifted it.
Bill's arm shot up. He stared at it in bafflement. "Wh...?"
Mabel bit her lip. Dipper waved the doll's arm.
Bill's arm waved. After a pause, he tentatively asked, "Hello?" As if he thought maybe his arm was waving at someone and he should play along with it.
Mabel and Dipper clapped their hands over their mouths, fighting to keep their giggles quiet. Mabel elbowed Dipper, "Hey Dipper Dipper Dipper, get him to stand up, let me control his legs, I have the best idea—"
Bill knocked over his chair and had to flail his arms for balance as he abruptly jerked to his feet. He looked around, eyes wide and wild, an edge of panic to his voice as he hollered, "WHAT'S GOING ON!"
Dipper held the doll out to Mabel. "Okay hurry!" Mabel took it by the legs—
—and Bill started doing the cancan. He shrieked. "WHAT?!"
Dipper shoved his shirt over his mouth to muffle his hysterics. Mabel was letting little wheezy squeaks out through her nose. Bill's voice was almost an octave higher as he screamed, "WHEN I FIND OUT WHO'S BEHIND THIS, I'M GONNA SHRED YOU—" and they both got so close to bursting laughing out loud that they had to pause to punch each other's shoulders for self control.
Still holding one of the doll's legs up, Mabel hissed, "Dipper do you remember the bottle dance. Where they crouch down with bottles on their heads. Can we—can we get a tiny bottle for the doll—"
Bill was failing both arms to avoid falling with one foot held in the air. He grabbed the counter for balance. And then, with a grunt of effort, he wrenched his foot down and stomped it to the ground.
The doll's leg yanked out of Mabel's hand.
Dipper and Mabel fell silent, staring at the doll. They looked at each other. Mabel whispered, "It shouldn't be able to do that, right?"
They looked at Bill.
Bill's face was burning red, and he was so far past fury that his expression was perfectly blank. His eyes were huge, and round, and pointed straight at them.
They bolted up the stairs.
Bill charged after them.
They screamed in terror. They weren't loud enough to drown out Bill: "WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU BRATS—"
Mabel grabbed Dipper's arm. "Dipper, do something!"
"Uhh—!" He tossed the doll in the air and caught it.
They heard an alarmed yelp as Bill was launched in the air and then a crash as he landed on the stairs again.
They scrambled into their room and slammed the door. "Safe!" Mabel said.
"Yeah," Dipper said, panting for breath. "Can't get us here."
The doll's head twisted 180 degrees to stare up at them.
They yelped. Dipper tossed the doll to Mabel. Mabel held it out at arm's length, threw it in her nightstand's drawer, and slammed it. It tried to open again and she leaned against it with her full body weight. "Dipper, the duct tape! In my craft supplies!"
"Which craft supplies?!"
The tiny knocking inside the drawer was echoed by the pounding at the door, accompanied by a string of creative death threats: "—and when I'm finished the coroner won't know which corpse was which! I'll make a belt out of your spinal columns—!"
"We didn't do anything," Mabel shouted, "it wasn't our fault!" She took the duct tape from Dipper and frantically wrapped it around the night stand. Dipper added, "It was someone else! And we'll never do it again—"
Sleepy and muffled, Soos's voice drifted through the door, "Dudes? What's all the hubbub?"
Dipper and Mabel gasped, "Soos!" "Save us!"
His voice the perfect tone of righteous indignation, Bill declared, "I'm being assaulted, that's what!"
Stan's voice joined in from downstairs: "BILL! If you don't leave those kids alone I'll cave your nose in!"
"THEY'RE THE AGGRESSORS," Bill screamed, half hysterical. "They are! I'm the victim here! I'm being victimized!"
Stan shouted, "Kids, good work! Bill, you can go to—" He grumbled as he self-censored, "—sleep! Shut up and go to sleep!"
"You can go jump in the bottomless pit, Stanley Pines! I'll tear you all apart with my teeth if I have to! NOBODY in this stupid junk heap of a shack is getting any sleep until I get my—"
From just outside the attic door, Stan roared, "BILL!"
There was a dull thud as Bill leaned against their door; a lot less shouty, he quickly said, "I'm going to bed, I'm going to bed, I'm going to bed."
"That's what I thought," Stan snapped. The kids heard his footsteps retreating downstairs. Soos said, "Um... night," and his door shut. After a moment, there was the creak of footsteps retreating from the attic door.
Dipper and Mabel slowly, softly snuck across the room to the door, and pressed their ears to the crack. No sound.
They stayed there for several minutes, barely breathing, listening to the silence.
Finally, Mabel pulled away and looked at Dipper. They both nodded, and Dipper opened the door a crack to check if the coast was clear.
Bill's eye stared in. "Hey, kids!"
They yelled. Dipper tried to slam the door; but Bill had already shoved his hand through. Fingernails painted with neon colors and black spirals clawed at the doorframe. He shouldered through the gap in the door, and then he was in the room, smiling much too wide and eyes fixed on them like helicopter spotlights on two wanted criminals. There was blood on his teeth. "Wow! Playing with poppets?"
Dipper upturned his suitcase and held it up like a shield. Mabel pointed a can of spray paint at Bill's face. Bill took a step closer and they took a step back.
"Pretty advanced trick for a couple of children your age," Bill said conversationally. "Not bad, not bad at all. Heck, I'm impressed you pulled it off! Although you didn't make a very smart choice of test subject." He stomped a foot twice.
Something in the nightstand thudded twice. The twins jumped. Bill laughed at them.
Mentally cursing himself for having flinched, Dipper straightened his back and glared at Bill. "You're just mad you got jerked around like a puppet! What's the matter, Bill—you can dish it but you can't take it?" Mabel looked at Dipper like he was crazy.
Bill's indulgent smile cracked, dropping into a snarl of rage. He shifted his weight toward them. Mabel dropped into a judo stance and Dipper sucked in a breath to shout for Stan.
Before anyone could launch a full attack, Mabel took a shaky breath in, forced a nervous smile, and said, "Bill, hey..." (His eyes snapped to her face like a predator that just heard a twig snap.) "This was—just a funny prank, and we're all cool? Right?"
"Mabel," Dipper muttered. "Shhh!"
But Mabel kept looking at Bill. "Right? Buddies?" She held up her arm, showing Bill her friendship bracelet.
Bill stopped and rocked back on his heels. He gave Mabel a long, hard look—like he was seriously considering whether to accept the reality she was inventing. "Yeah. Real funny." Smiling through grit teeth, he said, "You know—it's been a while since I've had my energy strung between two vessels. I didn't even know what that experience felt like for a human! Very interesting. Educational. And it was nice to feel weightless again for a second. Even if the landing was a little rough." He licked the blood off his teeth. One of the teeth shifted. "So—thanks so much for spicing up a boring night. It's been a real blast. Hasn't it." He stared at them like he expected an answer—and possibly like he planned to strangle whoever answered first.
Dipper and Mabel exchanged a look. Dipper shook his head slightly. Mabel looked Bill in the eyes again. "Yeah! Big blast. So, you're not... mad. Right? Nobody's mad!"
Bill stared her down for a moment longer; and then said, "Sure, kid! It's all fun and games!" He forced a laugh—and then another, longer one, hahhh, like he was exhaling all his rage. And just like that, he was back to normal. "I'll admit it—for a second there, you almost got me good! Not bad at all." He held out his hand insistently. "And now the game's over, so you're gonna give me that toy so I can neutralize it. Aren't you?"
Dipper bit his lip, looking past Bill toward the stairs. He could yell for Stan; there was no way Bill could kill them before reinforcements got here—
Mabel elbowed Dipper's side and whispered, "We can't keep it."
And she was right. Now that Bill knew about the doll, he'd be spending all his time plotting how to get past them to take it, and they wouldn't have a second's peace. Either he got it now, or he got it later. Bill wouldn't rest until the doll was out of their hands.
Because he was terrified of it. Why wouldn't he be?
"Yeah," Dipper sighed. "Game over."
"I'll get it." Mabel peeled just enough duct tape off the night stand to wiggle it open a crack and try to squeeze her fingers in. Bill stretched his hand toward Mabel, and the doll stretched an arm out of the drawer. Mabel flinched in surprise, but grabbed the arm and yanked the doll free.
"Ow." Bill grabbed his shoulder and rolled it gingerly. "Careful, kid, are you trying to dislocate my arm? I don't mind popping it back in, but eventually that socket's gonna wear out."
"Sorry! It was a tight squeeze." She held the doll over Dipper's suitcase shield. "Here."
Bill snatched it from her hand. "Thanks a million, star girl." He favored them both with his most nearly-charming, far-too-wide smile. "Good night, kiddos. Have sweet dreams."
"You too," Mabel said weakly.
Bill left. Dipper shut the door. He and Mabel both heaved a sigh of relief.
From the loft over the attic, Bartholomew called, "Is he gone?"
"What are you doing up there?" Mabel asked. "Barty-mew-mew the scaredy-cat."
"I'm not fighting that guy, I'm porcelain and he's crazy."
Dipper flopped on his bed and stared at the ceiling. "Welp. I'm gonna have nightmares about Bill chasing me up the stairs."
Mabel sat on her own bed. "He just wanted to terrify us. And to keep us from seeing we'd terrified him." She fingered the star beads on her friendship bracelet. "He wouldn't have hurt us, I'm sure of it."
"Wh—seriously? You don't think Bill—"
"I know! But he's changed a tiny bit! He'd hurt anyone else, but he won't hurt us," Mabel said. "Or—well, me, at least. But I think he'll leave you alone too if I'm with you!"
Dipper pushed himself up on his elbows to look at her. "If he'd caught us on the stairs, do you really think he wouldn't have tried to tear us apart?"
Mabel considered that; and then reluctantly admitted, "He wouldn't hurt me as long as he remembers he doesn't want to hurt me."
"Yeah, well. I wouldn't count on him remembering when he's mad." Dipper slid under his covers and rolled over. "Barty, can you get the lights?"
"Sure, one second." All the lights and lamps in the room flickered ominously; and then, with a sinister pop, snapped off without being touched.
"Thanks, man."
Mabel didn't climb into bed. She was staring at her fingernails. She'd painted them the same colors as Bill's; but she'd used a black marker to draw spirals on his, and he'd drawn stars and sloppy tiger stripes on hers. In the dark, the colors were all faded.
This time, just once, maybe she and Dipper were the bad guys. He might disagree—he'd actually been puppeted, maybe he saw this differently from Mabel—but that probably didn't make it okay to do it back to Bill just for fun. They should've saved the poppet for an emergency. And the cancan, she decided, was definitely too much.
She smoothed out her covers; then she pulled up her knees to her chest, hugged them, and stared thoughtfully down at Bill's face in the middle of her zodiac blanket.
####
In the dark and quiet of the downstairs bathroom, Bill sat cross-legged on the toilet lid. He held the doll in his cupped hands. Soon, he'd disassemble it—but not yet. Tonight, it was his tool. He shut his eyes and focused on it.
There was the thinnest thread of energy, channeled through his shed hair, connecting this doll to him. He studied the thread, feeling it in his mind, exploring it, strengthening it—until he could almost feel it tugging on him.
And then he started psychically groping for similar connections.
He set the doll on the floor, on top of the drawing Mabel had given him.
His other eyes—the billions of depictions of his face scattered across this planet—weren't meant to be used in this dimension. They were designed like windows he could peer through from the Nightmare Realm; here on Earth, he was on the wrong side of the windows to see through them. And he wouldn't be surprised if the Axolotl had somehow found a way to blindfold them on top of that—after all, he seemed to have done the same to most of Bill's other abilities.
But Bill was resourceful, he was stubborn, and he didn't have anything better to do.
He focused all his energy on trying to feel the drawing the same way he felt the doll, searching for a connection between this body and that face—and he searched, and searched, and searched.
He wasn't sure how long he tried. At least a couple of hours. Straining, straining—for nothing. His head hurt.
What was the difference? The doll was shaped like him, the drawing was shaped like him. What did the doll have that the drawing didn't?
The hair. A bit of his flesh.
Bill knelt over the picture, studying it in the dark. He opened an eye wide, wiped a fingertip across the surface of his eyeball to collect his tears, and pressed it to the drawing's eye.
He could feel a thread of energy stringing from his eye to the paper.
He climbed back on the toilet lid, shut his eyes, and focused on that thread. With an effort that threatened to split his head in two, he pried open his inner eye. And then he was staring up at his own human form from the drawing on the floor.
His body was shaking. His head was throbbing. He wobbled dizzily on the toilet; and as he saw himself topple off, his trance broke, the vision disappeared, and he blacked out. White spots burst behind his eyes.
When he next opened an eye, the room was spinning. He shut his eye. It was several minutes before he could sit up without being sick. He leaned against the wall and let the sweat on his forehead and cheek soak the old wallpaper.
The white spots he'd seen as he passed out were his distant all-seeing eyes.
He'd done something tonight. That was good. But there was no way he was seeing through any other pictures like that. He needed something he could focus his power through, like an antenna.
He needed gold.
####
(Last chapter of the year!! If you enjoyed, I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts & comments! Thanks!)
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