Lena arrived in Brzeźnica late in the evening, when the viaduct was cutting the sky into black stripes. The City Library smelled of dust, wild moss and smoke from the cooker that clattered like a clock. She was supposed to help tidy up the underground storerooms because the director was complaining about a lack of hands. After the session, she preferred the silence, the slow light of the lamps, the long corridors and the rows of stillness. At the gatehouse she signed a slip of paper, was given a metal badge and a bunch of heavy keys on a lanyard. Each key had a number and a scratch, as if it remembered someone else's fingers and the smell of rain. On the second level, she found a cardboard box with unsigned books wrapped in grey paper. Inside lay a thin volume with a brass lock and the title Atlas of Lost Passages. She opened it carefully, hearing the pages stick together like leaves after a storm. The maps resembled a library plan, but contained places she didn't know and couldn't find in the index. One was marked with an inked dot and signed: Stairs without shade, descent only for those who remember. She felt the air tremble in the silence, as if someone was whispering behind the bookcase, but she saw no one. Then Mr Ruczaj, the oldest of the librarians, appeared, carrying a lamp like a trophy. He had a bandage on his finger and a gaze that examined the shelves the way a doctor examines a pulse. He said the lower floors were closed after flooding and strange power failures. Lena showed him the volume and he nodded as if he had just been waiting for this scene for years. He handed her a head torch, a small rope and a sheet of paper with the corridor numbers written in small script. "If you hear someone calling out, count to five and only answer". - he added with a slight smile. As she walked down, she could feel the chill of the damp walls and the smell of paint that refused to dry. The light fell with her, quieting on the stones like drops in empty bathtubs. She counted the steps, passing metal doors marked with levels that no longer matched the map. At level seven, the corridor widened and the floor suddenly became soft, as if covered in old felt. She stopped at an alcove where a sashless frame hung, the air trembling inside it like hot asphalt. On the frame she found a scratch in the shape of a key and an inscription: Let memory be your rope. There was also a small key in the book, tucked between a map and a list of non-existent streets. It fitted the scratch so well that the mechanism surprised effortlessly, almost with relief. A shred of light flew through the empty frame, followed by another, tying themselves into thin threads. At their ends hung images: lakes made of letters, bridges made of the backs of volumes, staircases leading into the depths of someone's breath. Lena heard the tune her grandmother had taught her, and felt the melody respond from that side. Before she could decide whether to enter, the frame vibrated and someone's voice just behind her whispered her name.