It's hard to be a ghost hunter when adults stop you all the time.

Thirteen-year-old Mabel Pines knew this better than anyone. How often had her parents, or other concerned adults, pulled her away from a perfectly good ghost hunt? Again and again, she tried to explain what she was doing. That there were bound to be ghosts nearby. That she didn't actually want to hurt the ghosts, if that's what her parents were worried about: She only wanted to find them. Maybe help them, if they needed help. And no, Mom, she wouldn't step on broken glass in that abandoned house. She just wanted to explore!

Again and again, she was ignored.

Until now. Now, things would be different. Now, she and her twin brother, Dipper, were on the last leg of a bus ride from their home in California to the middle of Oregon. They were headed to a town called Gravity Rises, to be specific — a town Mabel had never heard of before now.

She'd never heard of the man they would stay with, either. But he was family. His name was Stanford Pines, and he was Mabel's great uncle. A town local, the owner of a museum, and — oh yeah — a supernatural researcher.

Her parents had tried to warn her. Don't get your hopes up too much, Mabel. His museum is a tourist trap. He just pretends to be a supernatural researcher to attract customers. Surely the displays will all be fake.

But Mabel knew better. A supernatural researcher, in her family? He had to have the same instinct, the same drive, that she had! A small part of her brain believed her parents, and that part tried to keep her from getting her hopes up, but most of her was too excited to pay attention. Surely Great Uncle Stanford would be everything she was imagining. He would show her what he was studying — he would take her and Dipper on magical adventures — and, for once, he wouldn't be an adult that stopped her from exploring.

She could hardly wait.

The scenery, drifting by as the bus rumbled down the road, only added to her anticipation. "Dipper, look at all that snow!" she said, pointing out the dingy bus windows. "I've never seen that much! What do you think is hiding under there?"

Her twin bounced up and twisted around in his seat, pressing his face to the window. "A fox? A tiny moose?" He gasped. "A system of ice tunnels! With snow mice!"

Mabel cocked her head. "What are snow mice?"

"Mice made of snow! They melt in your hands, but they're super cute, so it's really hard to resist picking them up."

This description made Mabel smile. As far as she knew, snow mice weren't a thing, but Dipper had a talent for coming up with fun ideas off the top of his head. "Well, maybe Great Uncle Stanford keeps snow mice as pets," she said.

"I hope not," Dipper replied. "They melt indoors."

"Maybe he has special cages for them."

"Maybe!"

Mabel looked back out the window, her smile lingering as she watched the snow. Pretty soon, though, her doubts started to surface. She'd done a good job ignoring them thus far, but with less than an hour left on the trip, she couldn't stop them from popping up anew. Thoughts like: What if Stanford is a fake? What if this winter break is a huge disappointment? What if she and Dipper were stuck inside with nothing to do for weeks on end?

"Mabes? You okay?"

Dipper, ever observational, had noticed her smile melt from her face like a captive snow mouse. She sighed and looked to her brother. "Yeah, Dip, I guess so. Just nervous."

"About Great Uncle Stanford?"

She nodded. "I mean — you know how you imagine something, and you get all excited for it, but then it never turns out as awesome as you thought it would be?"

Dipper frowned. "No. Usually stuff turns out even cooler than I thought it'd be."

Of course it was. Dipper never seemed to have high expectations, and almost anything could excite him. "Well," Mabel said, "let's hope that's the case when we get to Gravity Rises."

"It will be," Dipper said. "I mean, even if the stuff in the museum is fake — not that it will be," he added hastily; Mabel's face must've given away her sudden lurch of fear. "But if it is, at least it'll still be cool to look at."

Mabel's eyes dropped to her shoes. "That's not good enough," she murmured.

"Huh?"

She repeated what she said, louder this time. "It has to be the real thing, Dip," she said. "It has to be. A reclusive great uncle, that we've never heard of, living in a small town and researching supernatural phenomena? That's just begging to turn into an adventure! It has to be real!"

Dipper thought about this, then nodded, then shrugged. "We'll find out soon enough. Want to play a game while we wait? It'll distract you."

If there was anything Dipper was good at, it was distracting Mabel from her worries. "Sure," she said. "What game?"

"Bus Seat Treasure Hunt!"

Mabel instinctively recoiled. "Dip, that's so gross." Bus Seat Treasure Hunt was a game Dipper had made up at the start of their journey, and it mainly involved checking under the bus seats to see who could find the coolest — or grossest — items beneath the padding.

"But I found a peso earlier!" He held up a dirty coin, smudged with unidentifiable white goop, and grinned as if he were the richest boy in the world.

"Can we play a different game?"

"Aw, Mabes, c'mon." Dipper stared at her with large brown puppy-dog eyes.

She sighed. "Okay, fine. As long as I don't actually have to touch anything." A mischievous little grin worked its way onto her face. "I bet I can find a cooler-shaped stain than you."

Dipper grinned back. "You're on!"

The twins pulled up the bus seats and checked underneath. Mabel made very sure not to touch anything but the tops of the cushions, which were relatively clean compared to the horrors on the undersides. As gross as it was sometimes, there really were cool things to see. Dipper eventually won the game by finding a stain shaped a little bit like their mom's face. The twins got a good laugh over that — then a better laugh by imagining her reaction to seeing the stain.

After that, it wasn't long before the bus passed a sign for their destination. "Welcome to Gravity Rises: the hidden gem surrounded by the beautiful Blue Mountains!" Mabel saw the sign first, and she pointed it out gleefully to Dipper. He looked up just as it passed out of view, but he was more focused on the town beyond it, anyway.

"Woah! Mabel, look at that building!" He stabbed the window with a finger, pointing to a log-shaped diner.

Mabel looked at the cute little diner, then the rest of the town. A large snowy road, flattened by tire tracks, cut through sidelined snow banks that looked to be half Mabel's height. More snow rested on wayward bundles of pine trees, which partially shielded cabins and other buildings from view. In the distance, looming mountains sheltered the small valley town.

It seemed like the perfect place for a magical adventure.

Bolstered by the beautiful view, Mabel found a smile coming to her face. Maybe Dipper was right. Maybe this would turn out even better than Mabel thought it would be.

Maybe, in this quiet little town, she would find magic after all.

A/N: Hello, all! Thank you for choosing to read my story. I really hope you enjoy it :) I have a little disclaimer in my description that I want to restate here so that there's no confusion.

When commenting on this book, please, do not swear. This includes: anything considered a swear or an explicit word in current society, the Lord's name in vain, and inappropriate words that have been starred out (as your brain still fills in the gaps). I really do not like this type of language, nor do I like it showing up in my notifications, nor do I like it sitting in the comments section. I will delete any comment that violates this guideline; and, if someone repeatedly uses coarse language, I will mute them. (If I do so, the person will be able to read my works but will be unable to comment.)

Thanks for following my request. I hope you enjoy my book (which, of course, is profanity-free)!