"Mabel?" Norman hissed at her, quietly. He tugged on his handcuffs, as if trying to get away in embarrassment, but Mabel noticed that he didn't tug too hard, and he cast a worried look at Fraser as he did. Fraser gave him a look that Mabel couldn't discern back.

"Don't worry," Mabel whispered at him. "Me and Kris are here to clear you name!"

Norman looked like wanted to say more, but he bit his lip, keeping his mouth shut. Mabel gave him a wink as she stepped up on the stage.

"So basically," Mabel started, awkwardly. "This guy could never do what you all were saying, because I know him, and he's a really nice guy! He wouldn't be in cahoots with evil!"

Mabel paused after that, or at least, Kris thought she paused. But as she didn't continue, Kris was forced to look over the heads they were sneaking out behind to peer at her and see what she was doing. Kris paused. Was... Was that really the extent of Mabel's evidence?

Mabel shrugged.

"I...Is that it?" Father Arlen asked her after a minute. "Young lady, are you really saying that you came up here with no evidence or witnesses? With the intent to waste our time?"

"Oh..." Mabel thought for a minute. "Actually, I DO have a witness-."

Kris grit their teeth in annoyance. They were trying to AVOID attention, Mabel!

"Uh, no, actually, no witnesses," Mabel hastily remedied. "I... only have my word. So, I'm my OWN witness! I'll testify for Norman!"

"Father, how long is this going to go on for?" Grier interrupted, stepping up. "This girl is only wasting our time! You already made a verdict!"

"I understand that, Mr Grier," Father Arlen said. "Unfortunately, we want this trial to be as... fair, as possible, so we let everyone have their say, if they so want it."

"But-," Grier tried, but Father Arlen shook his head.

"Relax, Mr Grier, I do not believe this trial will last very long," Father Arlen reassured him. "This girl doesn't seem to have much to say, anyway."

"I have plenty to say!" Mabel argued, but she was met with a giant groan from the audience, and a smirk from Father Arlen.

"Get started, then, girl," Father Arlen told her with faux tiredness. "We don't have all day."

"Fine," Mabel said, stepping up with her best determined expression. Kris, feeling the attention of the church wane, sent her a little message:

Just lie. Make up the best lie you can, and keep the attention on you. Mabel nodded. Kris was surprised. She seemed to have a plan. Kris continued on... semi-confidently.

"First of all," Mabel started. She turned to glare at Father Arlen, who seemed taken aback by her hostility. "Why are you saying ghosts aren't real? I met a ghost once, it processed me! Dipper told me it did some wild things, but I didn't get to see, because of the ghost."

"...You must be mistaken," Father Arlen replied after a second. "Those things might have said that they were spirits of our past, but they were lying. No such things exist."

Mabel gave him a strange look. "You believe in monsters and evil creatures but not ghosts?"

"I believe in the Lord," Father Arlen answered simply. Apparently, Mabel's line of question threw everyone for a loop, because no one paid any mind to Kris, non-covertly sneaking past the pews. They got some odd looks, but it seemed Mabel was more entertaining than a strange, mischievous looking kid sneaking across the floor.

Mabel's lie was working...! Well, if she was lying. She was either lying badly by putting way too many details in it, or she was telling the truth.

"Yeah, yeah, 'The Lord'," Mabel mocked. "That isn't evidence! You've just been saying stuff that you have no way to back up!"

"I have plenty of reason to 'say stuff', after all, I am the highest authority in this town!" Father Arlen argued, and as he spoke, his voice rose in pitch. "I am the one closest to God!"

"Yeah, but this is a trial!" Mabel argued back. "You say we need evidence, and I'm the one who has evidence!"

"Oh, what evidence?!" Father Arlen cried, and a slow, evil grin spread on Mabel's face.

"Well..." she said slowly. "I'M the one that's been helping Norman! This girl isn't really me! I'm actually a ghost, who's POCESSING this girl! I'm actually the Princess... er... Whitna Von... Snowdess! A ghost!"

Kris froze. A giant gasp rolled out from the crowd. Norman went white, before burying his face in his hands. The tip of his ears went red. Father Arlen didn't know what to say.

The entire church was silent, and more a long couple seconds, no one moved. It was only when Grier jumped up to the front of the stage that the spell was broken, and loud whispers broke out. Grier said something, but it was lost on the crowd. It was only when Father Arlen banged on his podium with his fists that the space quieted down, and Grier was able to be heard.

"You can't be the one that boy was talking to!" Grier accused. "Don't forget, I overheard a lot, and gathered a lot of... information about this gho-creature. It wasn't a Whitna Von Snowdess. For one, Norman specifically said the ghost was a boy."

"What?" Mabel asked him, incredulously. "How do you guess that?"

Grier sneered. "Well, for one, he addressed the creature as 'Finn'."

"Oh, that," Mabel said. Kris had to give her props for sounding so calm after being directly contradicted. "That's my nickname."

And Kris would be taking those props away now.

"Your nickname," Grier asked flatly.

Mabel only hesitated a split second before nodding. "...Yep," she said. She turned to Norman. "Right?"

Norman looked miserable, but he nodded along anyway.

Mabel beamed at Grier. "See?"

"Miss... Von Snowdess," Father Arlen spoke up. "I'm afraid your claim is rather big and hard to believe. If you don't mind, Mr Grier will be cross-examining you, and testing you on what he over heard. Alright?"

"Um..." Mabel looked lost. Kris shook their head. Just say yes. This church was pretty long when you were trying to stay hidden, and they hadn't even passed the halfway point. Keep them talking. "...Sure!"

Norman groaned and Grier smirked.

"Well, let's get started, shall we?" he asked. "First of all, something easy. Well, if you actually are who you say. You talked about your best friend quite a bit. What was his name again?"

"Yeah, that IS easy," Mabel bragged. "Annalyn Haapamen."

Grier gave her a look. "It was Jake."

"That was her nickname," Mabel responded easily. Grier sighed, before rolling his eyes.

"You're going with that again, are you?" Grier grumbled. He crossed his arms. "Fine. Next question. You said you only drink one thing, and it's the thing that we noticed had started going missing from the kitchens, recently. What is that?"

"Well, that's easy," Mabel laughed. "It's...It's..."

Kris winced as they heard Mabel faulter. Grier was right, it'd be a lot harder to lie about this. But Kris still wasn't even slightly close to the stage so Mabel would just have to keep holding on, no matter what...

Suddenly, a white notebook appeared in front of Kris, and they jerked back to avoid it. But the notebook didn't attack, it just hovered in front of them, silently. Almost like it was being held up somehow. There was something written on it, too, and after an awkward moment, Kris read it.

Coffee.

Mabel suddenly brightened. "It's coffee!"

Grier's face fell, and he looked shocked before he hid it. Meanwhile, the notebook in front of Kris turned over a page and a smiley face was drawn on.

Yeah... thanks, whoever that is.

Grier continued asking questions, and that notebook kept appearing in front of Kris, showing all they needed to know before they relayed it to Mabel. Sometimes, Kris caught sight of Norman's face, and got a feeling of satisfaction of his look of utter confusion as he watched Mabel answer questions she couldn't possibly know the answer to. Kris thought it was funny.

Also, apparently this ghost, if that is what it was, wasn't only helpful for that. One time, Kris had nearly bumped into a person moving from a pew, but behind them, something was knocked over, and as the person turned to look, Kris snuck by them.

Kris was actually grateful for that one.

With the show onstage, Kris managed to sneak by the people in the pews mostly undetected, and a lot faster than what was happening before. Unfortunately, though, the back and forth of questions had gone on for at least fifteen minutes, and it was obvious people were starting to get bored. It was obvious that with everything Mabel was answering correctly, Grier was almost starting to believe her, but he kept glancing at Father Arlen, who looked more and more annoyed.

It seemed that Grier was running out of questions, too. If they could just continue on a little longer... the front of the stage was so close...

"Your favourite colour?" Grier asked her.

Something was scribbled onto the notebook: 'Baby blue!'

"Baby blue," Mabel replied without enthusiasm. Even she was starting to get bored.

"Favourite food?"

Meatloaf.

"Meatloaf."

"Favourite song?"

...Kris paused as nothing was written on the notebook.

On stage, Mabel frowned. "Uh... it's uh..."

Kris also frowned. What was it?

Slowly, words began appearing on the notebook: '3 baby spiders'.

"Three baby spiders," Mabel answered quickly. Grier scowled. On the right of them, Kris slipped on stage, hiding behind the statue. Hm. What exactly were they planning to do now?

Onstage, Grier opened his mouth to ask a new question, but this time, Father Arlen raised a hand, effectively stopping him.

"Mr Grier," Father Arlen huffed out. "I think that's enough for now. We've been here for a long time, and I think it's time for a break."

Grier frowned, but he didn't argue. It seemed that as much as he didn't like it, he agreed. Father Arlen turned to address the rest of the folks in the church.

"Thank you all for your patience in this trial," Father Arlen called out to them. "We truly appreciate what you're all doing for us, and this young boy. For now, we'll take an hour or so to have lunch before reconvening here. I assure you, this will not last much longer."

Almost before Father Arlen was done speaking, people were rising up from the pews, and quickly shuffling out through the doors. The mass couldn't seem to leave fast enough, and Kris heard them all talking between themselves. Kris even heard some of their belly's growling.

Father Arlen watched them leave with a furrowed brow. "Hm... Mr Grier and Mr Fraser, if you can come with me, please?"

Fraser and Grier stopped from where they both had been following the crowd. Fraser winced, while Grier nodded enthusiastically.

"And you two..." Father Arlen cast a glance at Mabel and Norman. He sighed. "Do what you wish. If you want, you can get some food. Well, you can..." He looked distinctly at Mabel. "...But he stays here."

"Why?" Mabel asked, but Father Arlen didn't answer, turning on his heel and stalking away, Fraser and Grier in tow, who sent smug and indecipherable looks back at them, respectively. Mabel, Norman, Kris and also the ghost, probably, watched them leave.

Mabel breathed a sigh of relief when the church doors closed behind. "I think that went well."

Kris stepped out from behind the statue, and Norman glancing from Kris to the floating notebook.

...Or the thing holding the notebook.

"What are all you doing here?" Norman asked them, and somehow, Kris wondered is the ghost was included in that. "Did you come to save me?"

Kris and Mabel exchanged a glance. Not exactly.

Norman jolted, giving Kris a surprised look.

Mabel rubbed her arm awkwardly. "Sorry, Norman, we didn't even know you were here. We were actually looking for those flowers. To save our town from... a god?"

Mabel pointed, but Norman only gave it a glance before looking back to them.

"Yeah, I figured," Norman said, nodding to himself. Mabel stepped up to him.

"But we're glad we found you!" Mabel told him. "When you all disappeared, we were so worried... but we're glad you're alright. What happened? Why'd you come here? We thought..."

In a surprising turn, Mabel reached behind her back and brought out a piece of paper. The note that group had supposedly left.

Mabel showed the note to Norman, who's eyes widened. "It said you were going to the mountain, and then to the forest."

"Oh, that..." Norman frowned, and he looked down, suddenly unable to look Mabel in the eye. We had gone there, at first, and then to the house in the mountain. But when we got into the house, it was... like a maze, and we all got separated. There was a lot in that house, and I ran into a zombie bone dragon, or something, and then I went through a door and ended up here."

Mabel and Kris glanced at each other; they both agreed on the same thing: Norman's explanation was suspiciously vague. What was Norman going on about?

Kris watched Mabel's fingers tighten on the paper. "You got separated? So you don't know what happened to the others?"

"I don't know, Mabel, sorry," Norman told her quietly. He looked like he wanted to say something else before he changed his mind. "Look, there's something I need to tell you all, quickly."

"You can tell us after the trial!" Mabel told him brightly, but Norman shook his head.

"No, no, I need to tell you now," he said ungently. "Um... we're not the firsts ones here. There was another group, just before us, of sixteen. They tried to leave this world, and they almost did, but something happened to them. And as soon as they were all dead, we arrived."

Kris and Mabel were equally stunned, but Norman continued before they could properly process this information.

"They're trying to kill us, too," Norman explained, lowering his voice like someone else was listening in. "And they're-."

Before he could continue, the doors behind them suddenly flew open, and Father Arlen stalked in, Grier and Fraser behind him. Mabel jumped, startled, and Kris found themselves being pulled back by some sort of force.

"U-Uh... it hasn't been an hour yet!" Mabel called, but she didn't sound sure. Father Arlen scowled.

"There's been a change of plans," he growled by way of explanation. And behind them, people started to file in.