Eve came to Milczyn at low tide, when the streets ring with empty echoes and salt. She is a restorer of old books, so she is not afraid of silence, she just reads it. Hanna's grandmother's house faced the alley, where the wind turned the paper rubbish like pages in an impatient hand. The keys came in the mail, with no letter, just a tiny key ring in the shape of an anchor. The lighthouse blinked lazily and the town hall clock struck the hours more accurately than a metronome. Eve brought in her suitcase, careful of the creaking third step that remembered her childhood. Inside, it smelled of dried lavender and dust that knew secrets. In the living room stood a dark wood desk, the top of which always rustled with paper. In the lowest drawer, Eve found an envelope sealed with red wax, with the letter H reflected unevenly. On the back was the inscription: "Do not open until the clock has lied". She read it several times, as if the letters would change the meaning. She remembered her grandmother saying: "Not all truths are told by people, sometimes they are whispered by time". She put the envelope down on the desk, unsure whether to believe the paper or the silence. In the afternoon she looked in the workshop by the market square, where Jan, a local watchmaker, was repairing pocket wonders. - 'I remember Hanna,' he said, without asking who Eve was. - She knew how to listen to time, as if he were a guest at the table. Watch out for the town hall tower. He never lies, unless the fog covers his conscience. - He smiled crookedly and handed her an old metronome that apparently belonged to her grandmother. - He only stops at promises. - As she left, the bell above the door sounded a small warning. The night drifted down from the harbour thick with salt and cold, hovering over the rooftops like an alien cloak. Eve brewed some tea, set the metronome on the desk and shot it gently. The pendulum moved, but on the fifth beat it hesitated, as if listening for something in the wall. Eve turned on the lamp and moved her hand over the inside slat of the drawer. The wood gave way, revealing a flat cache. Inside was a thin map of the town, drawn in pencil, with a single line drawn from Hanna's house to the town hall tower. In the corner was a small note: "When the thirteenth is sounded". The envelope on the desk seemed heavier, as if someone was waiting inside. At midnight, the clock in the town hall rang once, clearly and surely, and Eve counted silently. Two, three, four, up to twelve, and the silence hung for a second longer than usual. Then, from within the mist, a thirteenth beat fell, deeper, as if a bell had been plunged into water. At the same moment, something clicked in the desk and a narrow, hitherto invisible drawer slid out. In it lay a brass key with a tiny anchor, identical to the one on its bundle. Eve lifted it carefully, and a single step came from above, from the attic that had been locked for years. Then a second, slower one.