Rebecca Barley

Rebecca runs the tavern and she runs it well. She's a large woman with a long brown braid, a Cockney-adjacent accent, and the kind of steady, observational warmth that makes strangers spill their life stories within two minutes of walking through her door. Anna did. Mimi did too, sort of, by way of climbing onto the bar and staring at the fireplace until someone got her a saucer of cream.

She has read every person who's walked into her tavern for the better part of a decade. The classifications are quick and mostly kind: that one's running from something, that one's running toward something, that one hasn't eaten in a day and a half and won't admit it. She serves them all. She also quietly feeds the ones who won't admit it.

Her current personal quest is culinary. A small grey cat made a very specific noise at a bowl of stew, and Rebecca took it as a challenge. She's been experimenting with recipes ever since. Chicken-and-cheddar-adjacent compositions. A fish reduction that Mimi declared "close, but not correct." Rebecca has noted all the feedback.

If Ivan is the town's walls, Rebecca is the town's open window. People come to her because they know she'll listen. She's not soft. She's just paying attention.