Quiet, With Edges [Narrated]

A Maggie B. Casefile

Lower Tissington knows how to handle missing jam, borrowed teapots, even a misbehaving gnome. But when fig bars vanish and a stranger begins turning up in the same places as Maggie, the mystery isn’t about what’s gone missing. It’s about what’s beginning to appear.

Quiet, With Edges

The fig bars were missing. That’s how Maggie knew she was being followed—
or at least, that someone had begun to share her habits.

She stood in the post office queue, drafting a letter no one would read. When her turn came, she asked for stamps and glanced—out of habit—at the wire rack behind the till.

Empty. Again.

“Sorry, love,” said Dot. “Last packet went this morning. Young girl. Backpack. Hair like she’d lost an argument with a whisk.”

Maggie blinked. “Not local?”

Dot hesitated. “Staying at Lavender Cottage, I think.”

Lavender Cottage.

Audrey Crenshaw had been muttering about it for weeks—urbanites with boundary issues and sourdough in the wrong bins.

The girl turned up again at the bakery. Then at the Community Gardens.

Once, Maggie spotted her perched on her bench—slouched, notebook open, scribbling like invisibility was earned. Maggie paused just long enough to see the cover.
Grey. Spiral-bound. Frayed at one corner, biro pressed faintly through the first page.

She said nothing. Just adjusted her scarf, then checked the sky like she was timing something.

The next day, she walked the dog past the river. The girl followed, two paces behind, pausing when Maggie paused, pretending not to look when she definitely did.

On Thursday, the girl appeared at the WI bake sale. No shopping. No chatter. Just loitering with a cup of tea and the last fig bar, nibbled with tragic deliberation. Small, careful bites—the way Maggie once took hers when no one was watching.

“She’s watching me,” Maggie muttered later.

Reginald, polishing the top of his thermos with unnecessary focus, replied without looking up.
“Or she’s noticing. Not the same thing.”

“She bought my fig bars.”

He shrugged. “Once had a corporal who copied my salute.”
He rubbed the lid until it squeaked, then set it down.

Maggie said nothing. Neither did the dog.

The girl—Nell, as Dot eventually let slip—wasn’t from the village.

She didn’t walk like she knew where things were. She had city shoes and a silence with edges.

“She’s the niece,” Dot said, arranging dog treats with the care of dispensing pills. “Lives at Lavender when it’s empty. Gets sent to Beeley with her aunt when they’ve got bookings.”

“Mother’s in Spain,” she added, flat, as though noting a side effect.

Maggie didn’t press. But she stored it, quietly.

It wasn’t until the Tuesday after the compost bin fire that Maggie and Nell spoke properly.

They were both at the gate to the Community Gardens. Maggie unlatching. Nell hovering.

Her hand lingered on the latch longer than it needed to.
Nell shifted her weight but didn’t move forward.

“You’re early,” Maggie said.

Nell blinked. “I like the quiet.”

Maggie gestured toward the notebook tucked under Nell’s arm. “Writing?”

“Not really. Mostly… recording.”

Maggie tilted her head. “I’ve heard that before.”

Nell didn’t smile, but something flickered.

“I’m not mocking you,” she blurted. “I mean—I am copying. But only because you make it look like survival.”

Maggie raised one eyebrow.

“You seem like someone who notices things,” Nell continued. “And I’m trying to figure out how not to disappear.”

Maggie said nothing.

Then: “Fig bars are a start.”

The next morning, one appeared on the bench beside her. Wrapped, intact. No note.

Maggie picked it up, unwrapped it, and left it there.

That afternoon, it was gone.

Two days later, Nell walked beside her as far. Didn’t speak. But matched pace.

At the stile to the public footpath, she said, “My aunt says I need hobbies.”

Maggie replied, “Your aunt grows lavender like it’s a personality trait.”

Nell smirked. “She says the quiet is healing.”

Maggie considered this. “Sometimes. Other times, it’s just quiet.”

They didn’t speak again that day.

But Maggie noticed, later, that her dog seemed to like Nell.

And Maggie’s dog was a famously poor judge of character—unless fig bars were involved.

That evening, she made tea, poured half into a plant pot by mistake, and opened her notebook—the grey one, hardcover, a little warped where it once kissed the toaster.

She flipped past compost diplomacy and ecclesiastical biscuit truces, and began a new page.

Case #22: Quiet, With Edges
Observation: Not all mimicry is mockery. Sometimes it’s the beginning of a language you haven’t heard spoken in a while.
Outcome: Fig bar accepted. Dog withheld judgment.
Additional note: She carries the notebook like a shield. I did too.

She tapped the page once. Then closed the book.

Outside, ivy rustled against the drainpipe.

Footsteps. Careful.

She didn’t turn away.