Chapter 1: Advent

Bridgette Gustafson used the corner of her bath towel to rub a clear spot in the fog on her bathroom mirror. She used the resulting hole to see well enough to run her hairbrush over her short blonde hair a few times, taming the worst of the snarls. Her hair was shorter than she’d ever had it before, but the memory of her hair dragging for many miles on the ground had driven her to it. Besides, she’d found, she didn’t look half bad with hair as short as it had been cut.

She turned to brushing her teeth, gargling mouthwash before a mild application of deodorant and foundation makeup. There was nothing, she thought, like being exposed to how much the chemicals made her stink. That didn’t mean she wanted to smell like sweat at the end of the average day. Now she used the smallest amount she thought would work.

She went into her bedroom. The first thing she donned was a real bra. She’d recently had an experience where she had only a sash-like band for support. It had worked, but the sad fact was that as uncomfortable as a bra was, it was head and shoulders better than the alternative. She had been surprised how tender her breasts had become over three weeks without decent support.

She finished her morning routine and went into the dining room where her father sat. Her father cheated, she knew. Without feminine issues meant his morning routine was pretty simple. Most days David Gustafson nodded to her and kept on eating his breakfast. At least until the last couple of weeks, when he seemed to have developed an inordinate curiosity about her affairs — even as Bridgette was determined that there would be no affairs for him to be interested in.

Her father looked serious and cleared his throat before speaking. “I’m sorry to say this, my dear, but Toby Bucknell was killed yesterday evening.”

She was a million years older than she’d been a month ago. She recognized code now when she heard it. “Killed? How?”

“Murdered out by the Pallas place. Steve thinks it’s a drug deal gone bad.”

“Steve” was her Uncle Steve, her father’s two-year-older brother, and the town sheriff.

“Toby Bucknell? Not a chance.”

“Steve says he was a known stoner. I’ve heard the same thing at school,” her father said, trying to sound reasonable.

“You heard it wrong,” Bridgette said with authority. “Toby’s parents stopped giving him an allowance when they heard he was smoking pot. Has he ever hit you up for a quarter? He has everyone else.”

“For a coke? I don’t encourage such from my students and would refuse; he never asked me.”

“He was really asking for a quarter to go towards his next lid. Dad, he and his buddies, Alex and Adam Driscoll, and lately Paula Compos, thought it was cool to play D&D stoned. No one else would play with them because they played stupid. They tried to play Magic stoned — that was a mess. They sucked huge rocks, and no one else would play with them.”

“And you didn’t feel important enough to tell us.”

“Don’t be silly; they are harmless. They have to share their ganja. A drug deal gone bad? A five-buck lid deal gone awry? Be for real.”

“Say what you want, this is the first murder in Pine Knoll in a hundred years. Steve has to resolve this.”

“Paula obsesses on Adam Driscoll. She worships the ground he walks on. Maybe Toby was cutting in. But Dad, Paula is — chunky. I can’t imagine any guy at school would be willing to kill for her. Adam is a shy guy who is always polite and had never given her any indication he was interested. How was Toby killed?”

“It’s nothing you need to know.”

“Then, dear father, the next time you grill me for your brother, I’m going to have memory lapses.”

“Knowing will do you no good.”

“Let me be the judge of that. I know all of them.” She decided a little dig was in order. “I’ve played Magic and D&D with all of them.”

“He was tortured to death. Someone shoved burning slivers under his fingernails, and they were zapping him with a taser. About the zillionth taser zap, his heart quit.”

A shiver went down her spine. “You’re right, no one wants to hear that — but you either accept that I’m an adult or take pot luck.” She mentally grinned at the use of that word.

“Are you in any way better off?”

“Dad, you let me see one of the chainsaw massacre movies a couple of years ago. It still gives me shivers to hear a chainsaw. Am I better off? No. But am I worse off? I doubt it. Bad things happen in the world. Your brother has the job of trying to help ... you’ve said he does a good job and I think he’s doing a good job and the good people of Pine Knoll have elected him sheriff six times. I do believe that means they agree.”

“And is there a point to this sudden paean of praise for my brother?”

“He’s a good man. Whoever killed Toby isn’t. I’ll put my money on Uncle Steve.”

“Somewhere along the line, you’ve gotten a lot older lately,” he said.

“A hail of bullets going past your head should get your attention.” Well, it was a story, and nothing like the truth. There had been a hail of bullets and they had missed her. Except she was God-alone knew how far away when the bullets were flying and one of them had touched her stand-in. Not that she hadn’t had her own problems at the time!

Her mother had come in, poured a bowl of dry cereal. She spoke up for the first time. “Do you suppose we could change the subject to something like the weather, dear? I’d like to eat my breakfast in peace.”

Her father cast a significant glance at Bridgette. “Sorry love, you shouldn’t have had to ask.”

Bridgette was back to driving back and forth to school only in the last few days, with promises of never, ever being late again coming home from school without letting people know. She didn’t know why her parents had relented on her grounding, because the grounding had almost nothing to do with her adventures, but she was grateful.

She got to school and walked into the commons, rather different than the one in the other Earth where things had kicked off — for all that it doubled as the cafeteria.

People were milling around more than usual. The main topic of conversation was Toby Bucknell. She sat quietly at one of the tables where her friends sat and didn’t speak.

Classes started, and because summer and graduation were both fast approaching, there was eager anticipation to the approaching summer in spite of the upcoming finals.

Bridgette was surprised when her father drew her into the teacher’s lounge about eleven o’clock. A few of the teachers eyed them, but most went back to their tea, coffee, and conversation.

“I told Steve about what you said. Bridgette, they found Francisco Martinez dead this morning, in a boat on the Lewis. He’d been fishing, I guess, at dawn. He died the same way as Toby. There’s going to be an announcement shortly and an assembly just before the last bell to warn people to be careful.”