Della

• New to town (as of late December '21). Except...
• Summer camp in Gray Harbor: did you cross paths in the late 90s?
• Attracted to gadgets: are you messing with something mechanical?
• Now glimmers (as of early March '22).
• Lives on 5 Oak Avenue with Una and Jules: know them? Or are you neighbors?
• Is not the coffee shop Della. (But she likes coffee.)

Della's never believed in dowsing, but the divorce still isn't final and the house won't be sold till the spring, and she has to get out of Dodge. She knows she's lucky (though there's bitterness in her laugh): her job will follow her anywhere with internet, her parents have other daughters to spend the holidays with, and the storage unit has cameras. Besides, she gave Bella just about everything anyway.

Della and Bella. It was like they were meant to be, and for years they were, from meeting in physics class ("Heat and Magnetism!") to surviving grad school to getting married when finally they could. And then they couldn't, not any longer.

Della's never believed in dowsing, but one day she's on speakerphone and messing around with her stylus, nothing else to do with her hands, when suddenly it slips free. When she picks it up off her tablet, the driving directions have changed: not to a city but up north-northwest. To that place... that place she went to summer camp, once upon a time. Hadn't thought of it in twenty-plus years, but there it is: Gray Harbor.

Why not?

She favors smooth styles that suit her sleek mid-height frame, neutrals to set off her warm coloring, and scarves for flair. Her brows, well-groomed as the rest of her, arch over not-necessarily-warm brown eyes; her mouth's still inclined to be generous. In her thirties, she carries herself with a certain amount of presence; if she's fraying about the edges, it doesn't often show, but her olive skin's paler where her wedding band should have been.