The sun still shone through when the morning came, despite the curtain's efforts to hide it. Lina groaned and put her pillow over her head, hoping that she might be able to get some more sleep before she was thrusted out of bed to start her day.
And to sum up her night, it was more or less a giant nightmare-conspiracy-theory that involved everyone in the town, especially Danny. It had not been a pleasant night, to say the least; and the sun came up far too early for her liking today.
A knock on her door, however, gained a moan from the bear before she got out of bed. She opened the door, nodding to the person who knocked—Pete.
"Here's your mail," he said, handing Lina a small stack of letters. Then he gave her a small nod goodbye and left again.
Lina first checked to make sure all of it was actually her's, given Pete's tendency to accidentally mix up letters, and then closed the door again after being satisfied with knowing that they were in fact addressed to her.
She walked over to the table, turning on her TV for background noise when she walked past it. Lina scattered the mail across the table, overlooking all the ones from the other villagers. One letter in particular caught her eye, though; and it had a tiny sack of something tied with it. Oddest of all was that it didn't have the sender's name. She opened it, and began reading.
'Dear Lina,
I see you've met the new mayor. How is he? Dumb? Foolish? Does the words 'prying idiot' suit him well? Honestly I'm interested in meeting him for myself one day…mind telling me about him?
Anyways, I have a feeling you'll need this sooner or later. I can't wait to meet you both face-to-face one day.
Make it quick,'
And the last part was a complicated signature she couldn't piece together; not even a single letter seemed to stand out in it. It almost just looked like swirls and slashes.
Still, curiosity hit her as she reached for the sack attached to the letter. Lina peered inside, to see quite a bit of gold coins. She shook it around in hopes of getting a rough estimate of how much it was, before seeing the "2" written on the sack.
"Two thousand Bells..?" Lina wandered aloud, knowing that it definitely wasn't just two. "Why would I receive this..?" Actually, she realized she had never actually had this much money before, however little it actually was. Almost everything she owned was either gifted to her or was left when the rest of her family moved.
The thought came to her that maybe Danny had received something similar…although she doubted it a bit, it would explain why he seemed a little desperate to find out what everyone knew about the mayor before his arrival.
She quickly checked the rest of her mail, setting aside several to remind herself to write back later, turned off the TV, and then started towards the door with the mysterious letter in her paw. Maybe she could ask Pelly where the letter came from—surely she'd be able to help, right?
Lina locked the door behind her as she left, and pretended to just be casually going to Main Street. She smiled and waved at the other villagers as she passed them, hoping that it didn't look too obvious that she was a little unnerved. After all, who wouldn't be if an unaddressed letter was sent to you, with two thousand Bells attached to it?
Checking to make sure no trains were anywhere near coming, she walked across the tracks and up the stairs to Main Street. She waved to Digby as she passed him, and walked over to the Post Office door. And her paw hovered over the door, just about to open it, when she heard people talking on the other side.
"Who told you to send this letter?" It sounded like Danny. But a lot angrier version of him, not the generally-casual one that Lina had met the day before.
"I don't know," this was a calmer voice; Pelly's. "But obviously it wasn't anyone in this town, otherwise one of the staff here would've seen the sender. It might have been sent through the inter-town mail system; in which it's almost impossible to track the original sender unless stated. Now please, mayor, calm down."
"This isn't a situation where you just tell me to 'calm down!' I was thrown into this mess, without a single clue on who these people thought I was, and still no one can just give me a simple answer as to why!"
"I'm sure there's a way to help you. You're new; adjusting to a new town's lifestyle might be proving a bit too—"
"Okay, whatever. I'll figure it out on my own." The voice as getting louder; was Danny leaving? "I swear if it wasn't for the fact I'm apparently the mayor, I would've left days ago."
Lina had a feeling she should step away from the door, so she did right before it flung open by a seemingly very angry Danny.
He didn't seem to notice she was there; although maybe he did, and just didn't want to talk to her right now. Either way, he passed her without saying a word, or even a gesture of recognition. She didn't really mind.
She just stood there for a moment, watching Danny disappear on the other side of the tracks. Had he really received a letter similar to hers? Interested, she decided to head back to her own home for right now—to give him a bit of space—before causally coming over to his house to see what was up…if she could find it.