[tape recorder crackles to life] Henry: Testing… Lorie isn’t at home. I’m not sure where she went, and the adults she’s staying with aren’t sure either. I…I’m trying not to worry. I know it might seem like I’m trying to stop her from finding out answers about the town or something like that, but I’m not. There are some things that I wish I could figure out, too, but… We just aren’t supposed to know. Bad things happen to people who go poking around and I cannot let Lorie become one of them. [takes a breath] Right, well. This means I’m by myself today, so I may as well talk about myself. My name is Henry Willard. I’m twelve years old. I’ve lived in Breagh my whole life. My mums don’t talk a lot about how I was adopted, just that I’m the best thing to ever happen to them and sappy stuff like that. I love my mums, obviously, you have to love your parents, but growing up was a bit rough. I was the only child in town, basically, for a while, and I had to play by myself and figure everything out by myself. I used to run around all over the moors so often that my mums would worry about me getting lost almost every day. One time, I actually did get lost, when I was seven or so and the best course of action I could think of was to just sit down in the shrubs and have a bit of a cry. Someone found me and carried me back to the edge of town, I can’t quite recall who. I was young back then, I suppose it might have been one of my mums… The point is, I know this town and the area around it inside and out. It’s my home, the only one I ever knew and, despite what Lorie makes it sound like, it’s nice. Quiet and secluded with not much to do, but the people here are great. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s the best. Well…most of the time anyway. [responding to someone] I’m coming! [recording ends] [recording starts up again] H: I made it sound worse than it is. It’s really fine. Most of the time. Like 90% of the time, Breagh is totally fine. [recording ends] [recording starts up again] H: I totally jinxed that because something weird just happened. I’ll back up a bit. What you need to know is that, sometimes, we have storms. I know you’re thinking, ‘oh, everyone has storms, Henry, you aren’t special’, but these storms are different. They have the usual overcast clouds for the entire day and pouring rain and soggy mud (we are British after all), but the thunder in our storms sometimes sounds a bit off. It sounds less like a force of nature and more like a force of mutually assured destruction. I’ll put it simply. The thunder above Breagh always sounds like bombs. We had a big storm last night. It was clear the whole day that it’d come rolling in, so I was prepared, of course, had my blanket and pillows all piled up in a sort of nest on my bed so I could hide. When the sky finally broke and started making that god awful noise, it was almost a relief after everything just being grey and sort of expectant. I was just hiding in my nest and then…well… Sometimes things in my town don’t happen the way they’re supposed to. It’s like they slip through the cracks of how life is supposed to work, like whoever’s writing the play where we’re all characters makes a typo or accidentally adds a bit of one scene before it’s supposed to happen or after. And I can always tell that a slip like that is going to happen because my head starts to hurt like crazy. So I’m sitting in the nest and I get a splitting headache and then… Then, I hear a little kid crying. You know when a kid cries and it’s like their heart’s breaking because they’ve never experienced anything that bad before in their short little life? Yeah, it was like that. Just wailing, “Mum, Mum!” And despite the fact that my head feels like it’s about to crack open, I get up and stumble to my window because, as far as I know, there aren’t any kids younger than me and Lorie in town, so this is proper weird. I look out the window and there he is, a little boy, walking down the middle of our street and just sobbing. And that would be strange, sure, but the really strange thing is what he’s wearing. He’s dressed like a little wax doll in a history documentary. He’s got a little coat on and just under it are a set of stockings and little boots sticking out and on his head is a hat almost like a beret, you can see a bit of blond hair sticking out. I swear, he looked like something out of a war movie. I’d have thought I was dreaming, but I wasn’t, I swear. The sky was pouring, thunder was crashing, my head was pounding, and a boy in a beret was calling for his mum. Now, I’ve told you that sometimes things just happen in Breagh. Slips. And the best thing to do when they happen is to just ignore them because trying to help will just make things worse, like the woman with the clock tower. You can’t help them. But still, I’m not heartless, you know. You see a little kid crying, you wanna help, it’s like hardwired in your brain. Evolutionary response. I wanted to go down there. I really did. I laid back down in my pile of blankets and pulled a pillow over my head and pretended I couldn’t hear the crying until I fell asleep. Kids always cry like that. Like their little hearts are breaking. Doesn’t matter what’s really happened, they just cry. I’m sure it wasn’t even that bad, I’m sure his mum was just around the corner, probably looking for him too. The thunder was really loud that night. [recording ends] [recording starts up again] H: When I woke up, the sky was still grey, but lighter, and the rain had finally stopped. I ran to my window to look down the street and sure enough, the boy was gone. I was almost sure it was a dream at that point, but… I squinted and, there, lying by the side of the street, was his stupid little beret, all wet and muddy. I went downstairs and picked it up. Sewn into the lining of the soggy beret, there was a little tag that said “John Wickers”. It had clearly been sewn by hand, probably by the mum he was crying for. As I looked at it, my eyes sort of started to blur and then, before long…I must have dropped it and forgotten about it because when my eyes turned back to normal, I was in the kitchen and when I checked outside again, the little hat was gone, probably to the same place where little John Wickers went. [recording ends] [recording starts up again] H: It’s just slips. Whatever it is about this town that makes it a little strange, sometimes it slips through. Slips in time, in space…I don’t know what else to call it. And I know what you’re thinking. But Breagh is fine. It’s a fine town most of the time and, well…I’m willing to ignore the times when it isn’t. I can ignore when it’s creepy or weird or downright mad because if you don’t ignore it you’ll turn into one of the lost people staring at clocks because you want to leave. If you can’t ignore the little boys missing their mums, you’ll want to leave the town and then you’ll go mad because there is no way to leave– [recording ends] [recording starts up again] H: [suddenly cheery again] Ignore all that. I went off on a bit of a ramble. I’ll just give you the important bit. My name is Henry Willard. I’m twelve years old. I’ve lived in Breagh my whole life. Breagh’s a great town and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I’d never want to leave here. And neither should Lorie. Alright, thanks for tuning in! [recording ends] Outro: This episode of Into The Ring stars Thomas Malinovsky. It was created by Thomas Malinovsky and Olivia Spreen. It is written by Thomas Malinovsky and edited by Olivia Spreen. Cover art is by our friend Nick, you can find them on Instagram at @nickick._ Music is from Epidemic sound. Special thanks to Val Zvinyatskovsky. Thank you for listening, if you hear a child crying, it’s probably best to ignore it. Until next time, welcome into the ring.