August nights in Cisowy Jar smelled of metal and heated dust. The Srebrnica River had receded so far that in its riverbed one could find the skeletons of bicycles, lost keys to cellars and even a rusty road sign that once probably indicated 'bridge', although the bridge had long ago been swept away by a flood. Everything was watched over by the Clockmaker's Tower - slender, dark, with a dial that shone at high noon and went out at dusk like a closing eye. - 'Today it will also count to thirteen,' said Iwo, putting his hands behind his head as if he were checking the tension of the sky. - And everyone will pretend that this is normal. I smiled, but there was the same pin of anxiety in my stomach as yesterday, when the thirteenth count really rang out. It was said in Yew Yar that Erasmus Wanderer, the first clockmaker, had inserted a serrated heart into the tower, which once every hundred years beat out the extra beat of the world. This sounded like a legend told over tea with raspberry juice, until the bell added that one unnecessary, yet inescapable sound last night. People in the market held their breath. Someone chewed, someone else laughed too loudly. I just felt something inside me, deep down, shift the cogs. - If Grandma Halina had seen this.... - I muttered, adjusting the strap of my canvas bag. A disc of brass swayed inside, darkened from the touch of many generations. Iwo looked meaningfully at the bag. - 'Have you got them with you? - We'll try it today,' I replied. - If there is anything to try at all. We walked down the cracked slabs, which only a month ago were covered by water. Small shiny shells crackled under our feet, as if someone had scattered handfuls of glass. The sun stood low, and the shadows of the tower, the houses and the two of us formed long lines that converged where the river, dried to ashes, curved under the mill wall. This was the place we had found the night before. It was not marked on any map. It lay in the middle of the bend, where the bottom transitioned into a gentle bowl of rocks. When I rubbed the stone with my hand, dust particles spilled out and a symbol emerged from under the layer of clay: twelve rays around a hollow centre. Today I took a disc from my grandmother's dresser - an astrolabe with an engraving of the same rays. Only in the place of the thirteenth, just below the small circle for the pendant, someone had years ago added a delicate scratch, almost invisible, like a too-bold breath. - Ready? - Asked Iwo, even though he knew that was why he had brought me here. I crouched on a cool rock. "Astrolabe" is a big word for something that fit in the palm of my hand, but my grandmother called it that when I discovered it in her drawer of lace and sewing supplies. I put the disc in the centre of the radiant pattern. The metal sizzled so quietly that I thought it was just blood pounding in my ears. Then I saw the scratch-extension, the thirteenth one, light up with a pale light and creep along the edges, as if someone had spilled milk over a granite plate. - Leno... - Iwo leaned closer. - Can you see it? I saw it. The light was not warm, nor was it cold - it was like the breath of night escaping from a bottle. It spilled through the rays, filled the rivulets on the sand like water, until it touched the edge of the bowl and stopped, as if waiting. The tower then rang out. At first the usual: loudly, twelve beats, even and predictable. Each met our breasts, the glass in our pockets, the metal of the disc. As the twelfth rang out and broke into tiny sounds in the air like glitter, silence hung over Yew Yard; that silence that has weight. The thirteenth bell fell like a drop of mercury. It didn't hit us, it hit the stone bowl in front of us, the puck. The glow of the scratch twitched and shot downwards like a bolt of lightning driven into the ground. The water in the Silvertree, that thin remnant hidden in the cracks, began to gather around us. Tiny trickles crept into the bowl, merging into a bright sheet. A circle was forming before our eyes, smooth and transparent to such an extent that for a moment I had the impression that I was looking down from a very high window. Beneath this glass surface something moved. Something that couldn't move, because underneath us there was only the river bed, stones and old silt. Iwo knelt down and touched the surface with the end of a stick. The stick clattered against the surface like ice - a soft sound that shouldn't belong in summer. Circles spread across the taffrail, but they did not smudge the reflection. In the reflection I saw a tower, and something else: on the face of the clock, just at the top edge, flashed a mark that wasn't there. As if someone had drawn an eyebrow over the twelve. As if the dial had a hidden eye. - This is... - Iwo didn't finish. Maybe because he didn't know if it was a question or an answer. I put my hand on the disc. The metal was warmer now, as if it had been lying in the sun for a long time, even though it was covered by the shadow of the tower. The skin on my wrist was inflamed; it was the place where I'd had a mark since birth, a tiny swirl with a dot on the left. I had always thought it looked like a coincidence. Now the rays from the drawing were converging straight into that dot, and I felt something 'click' inside me and inside the earth. A rasp, very low, rolled under the stones, like the laughter of rocks. Off to the side, on the wall of the mill, there was a shadow that was not cast by any visible body. It was sharp, clear, and yet it trembled, as if breathing. Iw and I looked at each other. We did not need to say: yes, we both see him. - Maybe we should ... - I started, but didn't finish. The liquid sheet suddenly pulsed. In the centre of the circle a staircase showed. They went down, cutting into the darkness wrapped in a pearly sheen. Each step was carved with such precision that it reminded me of the teeth of the wheels in my grandfather's watch: perfect, silent, unrelenting. The stairs couldn't be there. And yet there they were. The tower rang out belatedly, as if the bell had run out of breath halfway through. The thirteenth sound continued, dragging, streaking through the air with a low buzz. It had something of a purr in it, something of a warning, something of an invitation. - 'Leno,' said Iwo and put his hand on my elbow. - 'If this is a trap... - This is the answer - it slipped out, though I wasn't sure what question. Maybe to all the ones we didn't dare ask Grandma Halina when she was still there. I took a step. The sole of my trainers touched glass, which was not glass at all. It was hard, and yet it gave way under pressure, as if it remembered that it had once been water. I felt a chill from underneath and something else, a metallic taste on my tongue, like after a bite on the cheek. Somewhere behind us a crow cawed ochrily. The wind turned the pages in Iwa's notebook, the ones with the diagrams of the mechanisms outlined, as fast as if he was afraid someone would take them away from him. The tower above us trembled subliminally, and the sound of the bell shifted to a vibration felt in the bones. The edges of the circle parted a millimetre, then another. The staircase moved as if alive, and at the bottom, on the border between light and darkness, something responded with a movement, too soft to be called a step. - 'Do you hear that? - Iwo lowered his voice to a whisper, as if that could change anything. I heard it. It wasn't the wind, not the water, not the stones. Something was scraping against the underside of that transparent gate, as if checking to see if our side was as firm as that side. Something brushed my name from inside my head, almost so gently that I could take it as my own thought. "Lena." Clear as the first sound of an alarm clock. - Who's here? - I asked deep inside the circle, though what was in me wiser than fear told me to keep silent. The shadow on the mill wall twitched the way wings tremble just before flight. The taffrail collapsed by a hair's breadth, the steps looked out another step. Deep below us, in a darkness that shone with its own pearly light, something rose upwards and began to come up the steps, and the thirteenth bell, finally falling silent, left streaks in the air so thick that for a fraction of a second I felt as if I could grasp them with my fingers.