The Angel’s Share [Narrated]
A Maggie B. Casefile
Some stories start with a headline. Others with a whisper.
This week’s Flashback Friday takes a quieter turn.
It began with a poem I wrote years ago—a dreamy recollection of a late-summer day in Cognac. Sunshine, laughter, a breeze carrying children’s voices, and just enough mystery to make you wonder if the moment really happened... or if it was something softer than memory.
I hadn’t meant to do anything with it. But the feeling stayed with me.
Naturally, Maggie B. got involved.
What followed wasn’t quite a mystery in the usual sense—no jam scandals, no gnome standoffs—but a quiet haunting.
Not the kind you solve. Just the kind you feel before it disappears.
The Angel’s Share
It began with a bottle and a bench.
Not unusual, in itself—benches appeared occasionally, quietly donated in memoriam, bearing plaques: beloved mother, keen rambler, fond of dogs.
But this one said nothing. No name. No brass.
Fresh varnish. Alder shade. Set just beyond the bend, where the council forgot to mow.
And tucked beneath it: a bottle of cognac. Unopened.
And a folded napkin.
Maggie passed it on a morning walk. The air was thick with late summer—the kind of warmth that makes people nostalgic without knowing why.
She knelt briefly, careful not to touch. Inside: a square of paper, creased three times.
By the river, bare feet dangling in the water
Sit a couple who look familiar
Oblivious to their surroundings
They only have eyes for each other
I smile at sharing their secret
Walking on, I leave them to their happiness.
No signature. No date.
She stood quickly. Brushed off her knees. Called the dog. Walked home faster than usual.
Two days later, the cognac was still there. So was the note. A postcard had joined them—Bergerac—tucked between the slats.
On the back: nothing but a smudge of blue ink.
Netta said it was a ley line crossing. Audrey was already drafting a letter.
Reginald, however, said nothing. Not then.
He showed up on Sunday, walking the opposite way, hands clasped behind his back like he’d planned it. They crossed paths beneath the alder.
Reginald, still smug from his recent victory over Plot 91, raised an eyebrow.
“Well,” he said, glancing at the bench, “either someone’s staging an elaborate picnic... or we’re witnessing a haunting.”
“It’s just a bench,” Maggie said.
Reginald studied her. “Is it now?”
The dog barked. The wind shifted. The moment passed.
That evening, Maggie made tea she didn’t drink. She opened the middle drawer, lifted the lid of a small tin, and took out a photograph.
Two people. Barefoot at the water’s edge. Heads tilted in toward one another. Grinning like they hadn’t yet learned how rare that kind of moment could be.
She closed the tin too quickly. As if memory had knocked.
She passed the bench again on Monday. She didn’t stop. But noticed a second glass had been added beside the bottle. Empty. Clean.
It hadn’t been there before. She didn’t stop to wonder why.
She kept walking.
By Tuesday, the bench was gone. Audrey’s doing. “Health and safety,” she’d announced at the community board. “Unregulated spirits and public glassware.”
But Reginald found her at the bakery.
“They took the bottle,” he said, “but not the story.”
Maggie didn’t look up from her fig bar.
“You once said some stories don’t need solving. Just seeing.”
“That was about the gnomes.”
“Was it, though?”
She folded the napkin slowly. “Some ghosts don’t want naming, Reginald. They just want the bench.”
That night, she sat on the back step and let the dark settle.
She opened her grey notebook with slow fingers.
She flipped past mislabeled jam and gnome incursions, and began a new page.
Case #14: The Angel’s Share
Observation: Not all hauntings come with chains. Some arrive with cognac and the smell of sun-warmed water.
Outcome: Cleared. Covered. Mostly.
Additional note: There are names I still cannot write. But I remember how they tasted.
She tapped the page once. Then closed the book.
Outside, something moved in the ivy.
Reginald would probably ask again.
And next time… she might not deflect so quickly.