“Why do I have to be on the bottom?” Harry grumbled as he struggled to maintain his balance.

“Well, it's because you have a lower centre of gravity. That's what Mr. Rasmus says anyhow. Just don't drop me until I look on this shelf. Come to think of it, don't drop me then, either.” Sarah lightly grasped the shelf to steady herself, then stretched as far as she dared to inspect its contents.

“Do you see the key, Sarah?” The shelf mainly held books and assorted bric-a-brac, most of which Sarah happily scattered to the ground to get a better look. One such book, that she found very boring, was a dictionary.; it was a gift from Mr. Rasmus to aid her education. She knew what she liked, and what she liked was books with pictures, doing things and drawing things, and she especially liked knocking dusty old books off shelves in the hopes of finding the key to her father's workshop.

The dictionary twisted and turned as it fell, landing page up. The first word on the page, though neither of them had time to read it was this: Consequences n. the effect, result, or outcome of something occurring earlier. Harry yowled in pain as a very large book landed on his tiny foot. He lost his balance and fell backwards to the ground, letting go of Sarah entirely. Sarah, in a blind panic, now hung precipitously from the shelf, her legs desperately flailing to find something below her for footing. A large crack formed on the bedroom wall and rapidly spread along the ceiling. The shelf came loose and she landed with a bump atop the hill of books she’d only just created, while the shelf itself came crashing down inches from her feet. “Find the key, then?” Harry asked, covered from head-to-toe in dust and flecks of plaster from the ceiling.

Sarah carefully got off the ground and tried not to step on any of the books she actually did like, and helped Harry to his feet. He gave his toes a wiggle and tested his foot by putting a little weight on it. It still hurt, but a person couldn't have spare feet, he thought, so this will have to do. Sarah picked her way through the graveyard of books, giving the dictionary a boot as she passed by it, and picked up a box. It was small and wooden, and something that she wouldn't have ever described as pretty, which was just as well, as there was now a large crack in the lid. Inside sat an old brass key, highly polished and festooned with ornate engravings. “Found it,” she said. She straightened a misaligned table lamp, brushed the dust from her shoulders and pocketed the key.

***

“Are you sure we should really be doing this?” Harry asked. He scrabbled past Sarah as she opened the workshop door and rendered his own question somewhat redundant. As the door opened, lights clicked and hummed into life, illuminating the whole workshop floor-by-floor with a satisfying clack-clunk-clack. Sarah had never seen the workshop in any state of order or tidiness, and it was brilliant. If the workshop was neat and tidy and she knew where everything was and what everything did, it would be so incredibly dull. There was so much to explore and so much to find, and between them, the intrepid explorers were going to find everything. It was Sarah that had found the thermostats and assorted spare parts the last time the Tirren's oven broke. She was especially proud of that, but not as proud as she was when she found the large spring just sitting out in the open, behind a stack of crates, inside its own unmarked crate that she'd had prise open with a crowbar.

She took a small notebook out of her pocket and unfolded a piece of paper from it. On it was a crude sketch of the crate maze. Crates she had checked were marked with a number that corresponded to an inventory in her notebook. She’d counted over seventy crates, both large and small, but so far had only found the time to search eight of them. Erica didn't like her to be in the workshop, even accompanied, so finding the time to get anything done was getting harder and harder as her sister's hiding places for the key were getting better. She held up the map above her head and allowed Harry to see from his perch atop the crates. “That one,” she said and started navigating her way through the maze. Harry hopped from crate-to-crate, narrowly avoiding a tumble along the way, and arrived just before Sarah. It was one of the smallest crates in the workshop, as they both knew they had little time to work. It’d taken them half-an-hour just to find the key this time, so they'd have to hurry.

Sarah took a crowbar from off her belt and quickly set to work prying the lid off the crate, while Harry produced a pencil and a piece of paper from his back pocket. “Ready,” he said. Sarah removed handfuls of straw and crumpled up paper from the crate and neatly piled them over by the lid. She reached in and removed the first item.

“Saucepan.”

“Saucepan!” Harry confirmed, writing it down on his list.

“Wicker basket.”

“Wicker basket!” Harry was starting to get a bad feeling about the crate. It didn't seem like much fun at all. He marked it down on his list.

“Helmet,” Sarah said, still not looking up from the crate. The helmet was shaped like a teardrop and was designed to cover the top half of the head. It was made of a hard, shell-like material and from what Sarah could see, it was very well-padded on the inside. Harry covetously snatched it from her. By time she had looked up from the crate, he was carefully fastening the strap under his chin.

He danced and glided around the workshop floor in celebration of this new find. His first thought was, “I hope I don't have to give it back.” This was quickly followed by his second thought, “I wonder if this will go with my glasses.” And finally, his third thought, “Why is the ground getting closer? Oh dear.” Harry's head impacted the unforgiving stone floor of the workshop with a force that culminated in a sickening thud. “This is great!” he yelled from the floor. He shook the saucepan off his foot and quickly got to his feet, he then threw himself to the ground again for good measure. Sarah moved from horror to mild bemusement, then onto a full-blown belly laugh faster than she assumed possible. By time Harry had moved on to experimentally headbutting things to see if it would hurt, it didn't, Sarah's side ached and she struggled to catch a breath.

“Whatever do you think you're doing?” Erica called. Her voice echoed from within the maze of crates. Sarah and Harry stuffed the padding back into the crate and had started on replacing the lid when Erica called again. “Whatever do you think you're doing?” Though, this time, her voice was followed by a crackling rasp and a hum of static. They both held their breath and waited for the voice to come closer, but it didn't, it just crackled and sputtered and repeated several more times before moving on. “What are they?” Again, the voice repeated several times, again it originated from the exact same place – the centre of the crate maze. Sarah stepped out from her hiding place and beckoned Harry to follow, who begrudgingly did.

“You have better ears than I do, come on.” She nudged Harry towards a crate and helped him up onto it. “Which way is it coming from?” Harry tilted and twisted his head, his ears twitching as he tried to locate the source of the sound.

“Over there!” he said as he carefully hopped across the crates towards it.

“What are they?” repeated Erica. It contained the same exact tone and urgency, and Sarah was certain that it was the exact same sentence rather than the same sentence being repeated. Harry came to rest atop a large, square crate in the middle of the maze and pointed down to a smaller one below him, one sitting in the gap between several much larger crates. The sound repeated from inside the crate.

“Can you reach it, Harry?” He shook his head and dropped to the ground, his new helmet giving him a sense of invulnerability, and made his way around the surrounding crates to look for the lightest one.

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“This one, I think.” He pushed at the crate, which unfairly he thought, was refusing to cooperate. It was. Sarah slipped around the back of the crate and started pulling. Between them, they were able to spin it on one of its corners and create a large enough gap for her to squeeze through and grab the smaller one.

“This doesn't make sense,” came the voice, the intensity and urgency had dropped to that of stunned bewilderment.

Sarah weaved through the maze and back to the reclaimed wilderness that was Erica's desk and swept aside her sister's neatly organised belongings despite there being no reason to do so, sending papers and folders across the floor, and set the crate down on the table. She jimmied the lid and tossed the crowbar aside. Inside, along with the usual collection of straw and pieces of crumpled paper, was a small box. It, too, was made of wood, but in the centre of it was a circular piece of cardboard, and on the side of it was a small button that sat above a dial of some sort. Sarah held the box up to the light to get a better look. As she did, it said in Mr. Tirren's voice, “What do we do?” Harry took the box and held it to his chest. The box called out again, and Harry could feel a slight vibration rumble through his tiny body.

“I think we need to tell mum,” he said.

Sarah nodded. “But first, I think we need to tell Mr. Rasmus, he might know what this is.” They scrabbled up the stairs and shut the workshop door behind them, the lights going clunk-clack-clunk as they set about turning themselves off again. Harry bolted out the front door and ran to the end of the garden path, where he impatiently waited for Sarah to catch up and hopped from one foot to the other while he waited for the box to speak again. As they reached Mr. Rasmus' house, he emerged from the door holding three tattered old knapsacks.

“Hello, my friends. I've finished the packing.” He lifted all three knapsacks with one arm. “See, light as a feather. I suppose your sister told you of my little transgression with the rocks?”

“No,” Sarah replied. “I haven't see her since this morning. We came to you because we think something is wrong.” Harry felt a low rumble in his chest, and held out the box a second before it spoke. It was his papa again, repeating the same thing he'd been saying for the last ten minutes. Rasmus gave the pair a puzzled look, then dropped the knapsacks and hobbled quickly towards Harry, one arm outstretched towards the box. He took the box and gently placed a finger on the cardboard circle, a small vibration ran through his hand as it spoke. “Interesting,” he mumbled to no-one in particular, then he turned his attention to the buttons on the side. He turned the dial one way, it clicked into position with each turn, and listened carefully for any changes, making sure to return it to its starting position for several seconds before he turned it the other way and repeated the process. As the box repeated itself, he pressed the small button below the dial. The box crackled and buzzed and stopped speaking. He pressed it again and it buzzed into life.

“I see,” said Rasmus. “I'm guessing you found this in the workshop.” He knew they weren't allowed in there, but he kept his tone neutral and without reproach. Now certainly wasn't the time for it, and if it was, he wasn't in the mood for a hike to the moral high ground. Not with his hip. “Sarah, wait for me inside. Harry, go fetch your mother, please.” Sarah collected up the knapsacks and carried them inside. She set them down in front of the boarded up window. Once all this was over with, she'd have to remind herself to ask how it happened. Harry sprinted off in the direction of his house, his new helmet making him at least forty-percent more aerodynamic than usual. Rasmus pressed the button on the device to silence its repetitious communications, then handed the box to Sarah, who was already seated at the kitchen table, and slumped into his chair.

“Do you know what this is, Mr. Rasmus?”

“I do, though I don't exactly know how it's going to help us. Your father called it a speaker-box, though I fear he may have been dumbing it down a little.” Sarah didn't know what it did, but was suddenly all the more interested now that it had a name. She was slightly disappointed, though, that she didn't get to name it herself.

“A speaker-box,” Rasmus continued. “Is a device that can send sound across small distances-”

“-Like with a piece of string and two cups,” Sarah said.

“Yes, just like that but altogether less hazardous to my health. And this means that Ms. Erica and our Mr. Tirren are close to another such device.”

“So that means we can talk to them using this?”

“I don't think so. From what I understand, and that is little, it appears to be broken. That's the reason for the static and the repetition.”

The door swung open. Harry wanted to see if he could open it with his head, and he could. He looked considerably happier than his mother, who followed in short order, her face was sullen and drawn. She wore her look of confusion and mild irritation like perfume.

“What's going on, Emmanuel? Where's my husband?” she demanded.

“Please, sit down, Bridget. We have much to explain, but please don't worry. Sarah, would you care to start our explanation?” He didn't wait for her answer and instead rose from his seat and ushered Harry outside. He shut the door and sat down on the step next to him. “I have something else for you do to, because you did such a wonderful job last time,” he said. Harry nodded, beamed a smile and eagerly awaited his next mission. “Please go and get Tobias and Ms. Kessler and bring them here.” Harry nodded and ran off, head down into the wind. Rasmus creakily got up off his step, not quite making as much noise as his front door, and headed back inside.

“And you see, Mrs. Tirren,” Sarah finished explaining. “That's why we think they might be in trouble.” Sarah had turned the speaker-box back on. It continued to repeat its message but it had, however, changed to a slightly different one; one of, “I don't understand any of this.” The panicked tone that left Erica's voice earlier had slowly crept back into it.

“When do we leave?” Mrs. Tirren asked.

“As soon as the others get here, Bridget.” He squeezed her shoulder on the way back to his seat and eased himself down. Sarah turned the speaker-box off and slid it across the table to Mr. Rasmus.

“I've asked Tobias and Ms. Kessler to join us. Ms. Kessler will be our eyes, while Tobias- Well, you know how he'd feel about being left out.”

Mrs. Tirren looked up from her malaise. “Of course, he needs to know,” she said, then immediately let it envelop her again.

There was a knock at the door, which came more as a warning of entry as opposed to asking permission. The door slid open and a slender wing emerged around the side of it, that was shortly followed by a slender leg that ended in three webbed toes, followed presently by the rest of Ms. Kessler. Isla Kessler stood impressively tall and impressively thin, having not needed to open the door all that much to be able to comfortably slip in. She wore three things; the first being a patchwork dress that she had proudly assembled herself out of pieces of much better dresses, a flower delicately tied to one of her head feathers, and an almost permanent look of bewilderment. Mrs. Tirren liked the second one, had offered to help with the first, and gave up all hope entirely with the third.

“Hello,” she said, needlessly drawing out the 'O' sound. “Need me to have a little fly, is it? People are always wanting me to have a little fly. 'Isla, why don't you flap off somewhere, they say.' They never say where, though, but I loves a fly, me.”

“We need your-” Rasmus began.

“-Is it style tip? Because I can do – Oh, hello, Bridget – style tips. Take this room for example-”

“-Finding our lost friends.”

“Oh,” she said. The room descended into an awkward silence, broken almost immediately by Harry throwing open the door with his head. It quickly returned to awkward silence as they waited for Tobias to get up the steps and through the door.

“We were just saying, Tobias.” Rasmus made sure to start talking before Isla could fill the void with critiques of his décor. “Both Bosco and Erica have, it seems, gone missing.” He turned on the speaker-box again. It crackled and hissed and repeated the same sentence it had ten minutes prior. He didn't pause for questions this time. “So we're rounding up all the help we can. Ms. Kessler, we need you to fly over the woods for us, in a north-easterly direction towards the large clearing. If you can see them, we'll need you to guide us towards them. Tobias, please wait here with Harry in case they come back while we're gone.” Sarah handed Mrs. Tirren one of the knapsacks and placed the other on the table for Mr. Rasmus. She already had the straps on hers fastened and was ready to leave when they were. She’d prepared multiple arguments in her head for when Mr. Rasmus tried to tell her she shouldn't and couldn't come, but he just nodded towards the door and slung his rucksack over his shoulder. “Ms. Kessler, ready when you are.”