Mad Mabel

Every Saturday morning, just after the kookaburras had finished arguing with the sunrise, Mabel began the ritual she loved most. The kettle went on, steam curling gently through the tiny kitchen of her tiny home, where everything had its place because it had to.

Routine mattered. It kept things steady, predictable, contained.

That particular Saturday felt no different. The breeze moved softly through the Cyprus Pines, the bay shimmered in its usual unbothered way, and the island carried on at its familiar, unhurried pace. Mabel made her tea, picked up her canvas bag, and set out for the library, passing the same faces, the same dogs, the same quiet rhythms she had come to rely on.

The Coochie library was calm when she arrived. A couple of regulars. Pam behind the desk, sorting returns with her usual easy efficiency.

“Morning, Mabel.” “Morning.”

Mabel wandered the shelves, letting her fingers drift across the spines of books she trusted. Fiona McIntosh. Nora Roberts. J.D. Robb. Stories that took her places without asking too many questions in return.

Then something caught her eye.

A flash of green. A book that didn’t belong. 

She tilted her head.

Mad Mabel.

She let out a soft huff of amusement. “Well, that’s new.”

Curiosity did what curiosity always does. She picked it up.

It wasn’t the title that unsettled her. It was the line beneath it.

They called it murder. She called it justice.

Something shifted. Small, but sharp enough to notice.

Coincidence, she told herself. It had to be.

She opened the book. At first, it was nothing. A setting. A voice. The slow build of a story finding its feet. Then came a detail. A phrase. A moment described just a little too precisely.

By the end of the first chapter, her tea had gone cold. By the second, her hands were no longer steady. By the third, she stopped reading.

Closed the book.

Stared at the cover.

“No,” she said quietly.

Not coincidence. Not even close.

Because this wasn’t just a story about a woman named Mabel.

This was a story about her.

Not the version the island knew. Not the quiet woman with the canvas bag and the polite nod for everyone she passed. The other one. The one she had very carefully left behind.

She had been careful. After everything, she had been careful. A new place. A quieter life. A name slightly adjusted. Not a lie, exactly, just rearranged enough to disappear. And Coochie had made it easy. People didn’t pry. They let you be.

Mabel had taken full advantage of that.

So how did someone find her?

She forced herself to keep reading. The story wasn’t exact. It had been softened, polished into something that could sit comfortably on a shelf. But the bones of it were unmistakable. The man. The situation. The moment. The choice.

She remembered that moment clearly. The stillness. The understanding. The quiet, undeniable truth that no one else was going to step in.

They called it murder. She called it justice.

Mabel closed the book again.

Across the room, Pam glanced over. “You alright, love?”

“Just found something interesting.”

“Best place for it.”

Mabel smiled, but her thoughts had already shifted.

Because now there was a problem.

The book was here. On this island. In this library. Where curiosity travelled faster than the ferry. What happened when someone else read it?

Maybe nothing.

Maybe everything.

Of course she borrowed it.

Part 3 next week! 

Part 1 here if you missed it

Over 100 new titles at the library to read, including 'Mad Mabel'! Check them out at the Library every Saturday from 9 - 11am.