Page 12 of Bear and Order

Town meetings are proof that democracy is occasionally a terrible idea.

The community hall is already crowded when I arrive, rows of chairs filled and conversation bouncing off every wall. Mayor Hawthorne stands near the front reviewing paperwork. Several residents wave when they see me and I wave back automatically — years of practice make smiling easy, even when I don't feel like it

Daisy slips into the seat beside me. "You're late."

"I'm not."

"By Daisy standards, you are."

"Those aren't real standards," I tell her.

"They absolutely are."

I smile and wave at Gavin briefly. He gives a gentle nod before stepping out of the hall. It had been weird between us since I turned him down.

The familiar exchange helps. A little. Mayor Hawthorne eventually steps forward, the room settles, and community updates begin — road repairs, festival planning, budget concerns. Normal town business, until an older man near the center aisle raises his hand and stands.

"I have a question," Gav announces. "About the bakery."

Every muscle in my body tightens. Beside me, Daisy goes still.

"What about it?" the mayor asks, her expression carefully neutral.

He shifts. "I've heard there are ongoing investigations."

Murmurs ripple through the room, and then it opens like a wound — a woman near the back mentions health violations, another resident brings up multiple complaints, someone else invokes the Council, and each version that surfaces sounds worse than the last. The room grows louder, questions overlap, and rumours blend together until fiction starts wearing the face of fact.

Daisy leans in close. "Don't," she says under her breath.

I glance at her.

"Don't let them see they're getting to you."

Too late.

Mayor Hawthorne raises a hand, the room gradually quiets, and before she can respond, a voice cuts through the crowd.

"So are the rumors true?"

The question lands directly on me. No hiding from that. Every eye in the room turns my way, and heat creeps into my face with all the subtlety of a spotlight.

I rise slowly. "There aren't any health violations." The room stays quiet, so I continue. "There haven't been any."

A man near the side wall frowns. "Then why all the complaints?"

I try to speak but can’t because I don't know — I genuinely don't know — and the silence that stretches in place of an answer says exactly that. A woman near the front folds her arms.

"People don't file complaints for no reason."

The words hit harder than they should, because she sounds reasonable. Logical. And that's the problem with rumours — they always sound reasonable when nobody has all the facts.

"I don't know why they're happening," I admit. Several expressions shift immediately — doubt, suspicion, the quiet recalculation of trust. I can practically watch my reputation slipping through my fingers, and the sensation is exhausting. It goes beyond tiredness.

A chair scrapes somewhere behind me.

"That's not how evidence works."

The room falls quiet. I turn.