🐾 THE DAY ANNA MET MABEL 🐾

Sally Somerton, Island Writer.

Island Mysteries, Midlife Adventures, with a touch of Psychological Suspense.

🐾Here I share a vignette, introducing you to Mabel, one of my characters, in my Island Mysteries series set in the Azores.

The morning Anna Ashcott stopped pretending she was fine began with perfect weather.

Sunlight poured generously across the terracotta roofs, as if nothing in the world had ever gone missing. The sea, just beyond the low hum of the town, gently met the beach. It was, objectively, a beautiful day.

Anna did not appreciate it.

She stood barefoot on cool tiles, a mug of freshly-made coffee in her hand, and felt the peculiar hollowness that comes when life shifts without asking permission. Four years. Packed into a suitcase and flown neatly back to the UK under the tidy label of consultancy work. No argument. No dramatic ending. Just… absence.

“Is this it, then?” she muttered to no one in particular.

The words hung in the stillness, unanswered.

Work continued, of course it did. Journalism didn’t stop for heartbreak or existential doubt. There were always threads to untangle, stories to pursue, truths hidden in inconvenient places. Usually, that was enough. More than enough.

But not today.

Today, the silence was louder than any story.

No horses. No dogs curled at her feet. No partner moving about in the kitchen, making tea slightly too strong.

Just space. And time. Too much of both.

She didn’t decide to go to the shelter so much as… drifted there. A habit, really. A quiet way of giving something when she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. The place sat just beyond the town’s edge, low, sun-warmed buildings with the faint, familiar chorus of barking and hopeful eyes.

“Ah, Anna,” called the shelter manager, wiping her hands on her jeans.

“We’ve had a new arrival. Well… two, actually.”

Anna smiled politely, though her heart wasn’t quite in it.

“Trouble already?”

“Always,” came the reply, with a knowing look.

“Come and see.”

They were in the far enclosure. One older dog, small and apricot in colour, looked dignified despite her circumstances, sitting with a kind of quiet resignation. Next to her, however, there was chaos in fur form.

The puppy.

Six months of unfiltered curiosity, spring-loaded energy, and complete disregard for personal space. She was mid-bounce when Anna approached, skidding slightly on the concrete before launching herself forward with alarming enthusiasm.

“Oh!” Anna laughed, instinctively crouching as the small creature scrambled up her legs with determined affection.

“Well,” the manager said dryly, “I see she’s chosen you.”

Anna didn’t answer straight away.

Because something had shifted.

Not dramatically. Not in the cinematic, life-altering way people write about. It was quieter than that. A soft click, somewhere deep inside her chest, as though a door she hadn’t realised was closed had just… opened.

The puppy wriggled into her arms as if she belonged there.

And perhaps, Anna thought, with a flicker of something dangerously close to hope, perhaps she did.

“What’s her name?” Anna asked.

“Mabel.”

Of course it was.

Anna studied her properly then. The warm apricot curls, the bright, unapologetically curious eyes, the way her entire small body seemed to vibrate with life. There was no caution in her. No hesitation. Just presence. And joy. A bold insistence on being exactly where she was, without apology.

“Hello, Mabel,” Anna murmured.

Mabel responded by licking her chin with great conviction.

It wasn’t dignified. It wasn’t subtle. It was perfect.

The older dog watched, calm and knowing, as though she’d seen this sort of thing before and approved.

Anna exhaled, long and slow.

Timing.

It really was everything.

She hadn’t come looking for anything. Not a solution. Not a companion. Certainly not a small, exuberant force of nature with questionable manners.

And yet… Here she was.

“Reckon she might need a home,” the manager said lightly, though her eyes were warm.

Anna glanced down at the small bundle now settled, temporarily, at least, against her chest.

“I suspect,” Anna replied, a smile finally settling where it hadn’t been all morning, “she’s already found one.”

Mabel gave a soft, satisfied sigh, as if to confirm the arrangement.

And just like that, without ceremony, without overthinking, without a single carefully constructed plan..

Anna Ashcott’s life shifted again.

Not with loss this time.

But with a beginning.

Sally Somerton

Island Writer

©sallysomerton2026