The wind is never silent in Morskovice. It slides across the wet tiles, gets into the cracks of the windows and plays the stovepipes like a flute, until you don't know whether it's the weather or someone trying to say something. My father used to say that glass remembers touch, and I, Lila Kowalska, have learned that it also remembers sound. When I put my ear to the glass in our studio, I hear the song of previous hands: hammer blows, laughter, breaths, and sometimes something completely different-as if an echo of a storm that has not yet come. Our studio stands at the end of Lighthouse Street, right under the cliff on top of which the Raven Lighthouse grows. Black, tall, with a steel balcony wrapped around a glass spell. When I was a little girl, I used to dream that this spell was a great eye that winked once at me and once at the sea. Now, at seventeen, I know that it shines thanks to an old Fresnel lens, layers of glass arranged like the scales of a fish. I also know that for the past three days the lens has been singing-silently, but to a not-to-be-missed extent. At the fish market, sipping bitter coffee, I listened to people talk about the Triple Light. Lighthouse keeper Boris, who remembers more lighthouses than anyone, warned: - The Glass Whirlwind is approaching. The unexplained awakens as the air meets the glass in that one unfortunate chord. - And what chord is that? - Asked Veronica, my best friend, whom I usually call Vera. She is of those who measure with a ruler and don't believe stories until they touch. Boris smiled toothlessly. - The kind that you hear once in your life and then you already have it in your bones. It starts with a hum, ends with darkness. I didn't tell them that I could already hear it. Nor did I say that when I put my head to the glass in our studio yesterday, something called out to me by name. In a low, drawn-out whisper: Lila. As if someone had banged a nail against the edge of the glass and was waiting for me to approach. I only have to mention something like that once and they look at me like I'm a child still waiting for my brother to return. Natan disappeared a year ago, on the night of the storm. He didn't leave a ticket, he didn't send a message. He just went to sea, everyone says. And I remember his hands glued to the glass of the lighthouse, the light flashing in his pupils, the wind howling like a violin and that one second when the air suddenly stopped. Whenever I walk by the lighthouse, I feel a prick under my skin-as if the memory of that second is trying to escape to the light of day. That afternoon, when the sky had turned the colour of translucent paper and the seagulls were darting about more than usual, I found a shard on the beach. It was not like ordinary sea glass-smooth, frosted, greenish. This one had a depth to it that shouldn't be contained in such a thin thing. Inside it shimmered something like steam enclosed in a bottle. When I touched it, I felt a tremor, as if someone had struck a string. It sounded like a yew, which in my head immediately found an answer-h, e, gis-and before I knew it, skipping across the wet stones I had arranged the entire chord in my pocket. - Again? - Veronica grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me up towards the cliff steps. - I could see her pulling you up. - She stopped and looked me in the face. - 'Lila, don't do that. At night you talk in your sleep. You talk to the glass. - The panes speak first - I replied, trying to joke, but my voice trembled at the end. - 'Vera, I have to go to the lighthouse. - I pulled a shard out of my pocket. - Look. She took it in her fingers and twitched. - Cold. And... sort of heavier than it should be. - She wrinkled her forehead. - Boris should see this. We found Boris at the door of the lighthouse, wearing a jacket stitched with salt, with his keys clanking like little bells. He raised his eyes at us and looked first at Vera, then at me, and finally at my hand closed in a fist. - What are you carrying? - He asked quietly. I placed the shard on his hand. He looked at it, turned it over, pressed it against the light of the loft. For a second there was a shadow on his face, as if he saw someone he hadn't seen for a long time. - It's from the lens,' he said. - From the old one, which is no longer there, and yet... - he broke off. - The Triple Light will be tonight. You will not go to the cliff. - He handed the shard back to me. - And you, Lila, hide it in a place where the wind doesn't reach. - Boris - I started, but the door creaked open and someone came out from inside the lighthouse-an employee I didn't know. Tall, with a scar going across his eyebrow arch. He nodded to Boris and walked past us without saying a word, the smell of salt and grease left like a trail in the air. - Who's that? - Veronika asked when the man disappeared around the corner. - A swagger for the night,' muttered Boris. - 'They're checking the mechanisms. - He hit his bunch with a bunch of keys. - The whirlwind will break before dinner gets cold. To the houses. We obeyed. At least until dark. When the sky stretched three pale circles overhead-as if an extra, hazy halo had appeared around the moon-I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. I lay on my back, listening to the glass above my head shake against an invisible sound. The shard in my jacket pocket was warming, though it was colder than ice. I stood up. Veronica appeared under the window like a shadow before I even had time to think I could walk alone. - Let's go,' she said. - 'And if you get the idea of climbing on the balcony again, I'm going first. She laughed in whispers, but I could see that she also felt the pull-that something in the air was calling even those who prefer rulers to legends. The wind was turning over the cliff, following the footsteps back like a dog tracking its own tail. A light was burning in the lighthouse. The seaward door was slightly ajar, as if waiting. - 'No,' Veronica said. - 'It can't be that easy. - 'Sometimes everything bad starts with the door ajar,' I said and didn't even pretend my knees weren't trembling. Inside it was warm and smelled of dust, salt and lamps. The mechanism purred as if it were asleep. The stairs ascended in a spiral, their metal steps wiped under the feet of generations of lamplighters. We walked slowly, counting our breaths. Behind us, the door slammed quietly, as if someone had pushed it from outside. - Boris? - called out Veronika, but only an echo answered her. Upstairs, under the canopy itself, light spilled over the walls in a milky stain. The Fresnel lens stood still, and yet in the centre of it, between the layers of glass, tiny bubbles of light moved about-like pollen that someone had blown off and forgotten that they had hovered motionless. My heart was pounding like a hammer. I pulled out the shard. It trembled. The air became thick. - Lila - Veronica tightened her fingers on the railing. - 'Don't do anything stupid. I approached the lens. Deep inside it, I saw something I shouldn't have seen: a familiar cliff line, but not ours; a sea so calm as to be unnatural; and three moons, clear as polished coins, hanging over the horizon. This was not an image reflected through glass. It was a window. - Can you see it? - I whispered. - I see... something. - Veronica took a step forward. - Like... the other side. I touched the surface of the lens with a shard. A circle of brighter light appeared at the point of contact, and the air resonated. I felt it in my teeth. The mechanism in the lantern shifted a millimetre, rearranging itself, as if someone had pulled an invisible wheel. A whirlwind hit the walls. A cup shattered somewhere below. - Lila! - Veronica grabbed my wrist. - We don't know what we're doing! And all I could hear now was what was coming from inside the glass: voices like whales singing, distant and poignant, and one voice among them, the one I remembered forever, even though a year had passed. Natan. - 'Lilka,' he said, from over there, stretching my name like he used to do when he teased me about being slow on my maths homework. - I'm here. My knees bent so that I had to lean against the railing. Veronica drew in the air sharply. - Do you hear that? - She asked, pale lips touching her trembling smile. - Do you hear it? Instead of answering, I picked up the shard and applied it to the circle of light. It sparkled. A glassy sound cut through the air, it didn't hurt, but everything in me wanted to scream and laugh at the same time. A whirlwind blew in through the smallest crevices, rustled through my hair. The lens moved a fraction. And then I saw-in the middle, on the other side-a hand. It pressed against the glass perfectly where my shard had been. The fingers were long, thin, familiar. A bandage was torn on the finger. Just like it was then, the night Natan had left and not returned. - 'Move back,' Veronica said, but she didn't manage to sound confident. - It could be... - She didn't finish. At the same moment, the lantern mechanism unlocked with a clatter. At the top of the shaft, the pinion clicked as if someone had inserted a key. The light pulsed, and something like a thin crack - not a crack, more like a gap that shouldn't exist - appeared in the spell of the lens. The air thickened to its limits, and the wind fell into a single, low sound, identical to that of my pocket. - 'Lila,' Natan's voice was closer now, clearer, so real as to be cruel. - 'If you open, you won't be from this shore anymore. Downstairs, someone banged on the door. Someone else shouted. A streak of light shimmered in the gap, as if someone had put a torch on that side. The shard in my hand got so hot that I almost let it out of my fingers. And then something on the other side moved the lock. The key we couldn't see began to turn slowly, biting into the silence with each tooth.