Goodbye, Mr. Regret

"Ma'am?"

Mabel stepped in front of the TV, smiling brightly. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

That only made Jessica more suspicious.

She gently moved Mabel aside and glanced at the screen. The camera lingered on Timothy for a moment before cutting away.

The news shifted back to the anchor, who began introducing other stories.

Timothy didn't appear again.

Jessica checked the schedule: it was the morning news.

So Timothy had made headlines first thing in the morning.

Mabel let out a quiet sigh of relief. Jessica, meanwhile, grabbed her phone and began typing a message into her text-to-speech app.

"Mabel, did you block the TV because you saw Timothy with someone else?"

The app's gentle female voice rang out. Mabel, too flustered to wonder where the voice was coming from, immediately shook her head. "N-no, of course not!"

Jessica shot her a skeptical look.

to deflect, Mabel asked, "Wait, where did that voice just come from?" Jessica pointed to the ring on

was the

never thought that ring could talk! With it, communication is so much easier for you. I heard Master

the subject, Mabel," Jessica pressed. "What

gentle voice sounded

Timothy cares about you. Henry was worried you'd return his gift and Timothy would be upset, so he asked me to help keep it quiet. But now the ring's

was a tangled

of paper,

had gone

strong reaction to

stacked up, and Jessica simply couldn't convince herself not

she really just imagining

knew asking Mabel wouldn't get her anywhere. There was only one person who could give her answers:

her phone-she needed to

could use her own to type

just wasn't going to cut it

bedroom, settled into the sitting

up almost