Lena was fourteen years old and had just moved to the seaside. Brzegory was a town with a lighthouse that supposedly never lit up. In the evenings, Lena would draw it in her sketchbook, counting the windows like stars. The school smelled of paint, the harbour languished and the wind sang in the aerials. Under the library she found a compass without a needle, heavy and warm as a pebble. On the back it had waves engraved on it and one word: just Between. When Lena turned it towards the lighthouse, the unmovable dial trembled slightly. Fine sand appeared in the window, swirling like the breath of an enclosed desert-dweller. The sand formed not an arrow, but the shape of a staircase, leading upwards without end. Lena glanced at the sketchbook; yesterday's drawing of the lighthouse had suddenly faded strangely. The windows on the paper were streaked with graphite, as if waiting for someone to look in. She decided to check the legend of the lighthouse, which leads ships elsewhere. The door was boarded up, but someone had drawn a narrow mark in the threshold with chalk. The compass trembled harder, the sand flowed in a spiral and stopped at the letter. The sign cracked like ice; behind the planks, a crevice smelling of dust and salt spread out. Inside, a staircase of chalk lines awaited, spacious as a gallery installation. She touched the first step; the cold smoothness trembled under her finger, not the paper. 'If you make up a path, it will rise,' whispered the wind from the lantern shade. Lena put her foot down; the drawn step took weight, creaked, and held. Then an image flashed in the glassy eye of the compass, as if the reflection of someone behind her. The shadow on the wall moved away from the drawing and took the first, impossible step. Each successive step grew from under her thoughts, and the walls changed the drawing. A map appeared intermittently, white spots swirling like holes in the water. In the compass, sand began to fold the letters, but they were immediately pulled apart by a low gust. Lena realised that something inside was responding to her every intention. A paper rustled behind her back, though she was carrying nothing, and the scrap of day died away. The shadow had ceased to be a shadow; a silhouette, faceless, shining in chalk, had detached itself from the floor. She stretched her hand towards it, and the compass dropped, heavy as a boulder. The silhouette moved its lips, though it had none, and spoke Lena's name.