The tenement at 13 Swallow Street smelled of rain and cinnamon dust, as if someone had just baked an apple pie in an oven from a hundred years ago. In the high, shady courtyard grew a chestnut tree so old that its roots bulged the cobblestones like the bows of a hand holding the stones in check. Between the balconies, laced with wild vines, swallows flew by, drawing quick, silver commas. And in the depths, at the entrance, there it stood: a lift with a checkered iron door, with a brass handle smooth from the touch of thousands of hands and with a needle pointer under which, instead of mere numbers, there were ... letters. "This is no ordinary lift," thought Lena, convinced from the first moment that the devices had humours and habits. She was eleven years old, with freckles on her nose and a notebook in her pocket into which she wrote down sentences she heard at bus stops, in shops and on trams. Her brother, Kacper, a year older, always carried with him a city plan folded in fours and a millimetre pencil. He believed that there was a map for every puzzle, only it could not always be seen immediately. He and his mum moved here one August Monday, when the air was heavy with thunderstorms and the suitcases liked to creak strangely on their own on the bends of the stairs. Mum, a painting restorer, had been commissioned by the museum on the other side of the park: for a few months she was to restore colour to paintings that had long since faded. Lena and Kacper got a room with a window overlooking the chestnut; later that day they found out that Mrs Rozalia, the administrator, lives on the third floor, who can hear when someone walks up the stairs barefoot, and that the lift has its own 'rules'. - 'Numbers, dear ones, by all means,' said Mrs Rozalia, taking a slow sip of tea from a china cup. - Zero, one, two and so on. But please don't touch the letters. They are... older. - Here she broke off and grunted. - And besides, the needle likes to hang up. - The letters? - repeated Kacper, pretending not to feel a thrill of excitement at all. - What letters? - N, S, W, E. The directions of the world. 'And then there's that ridiculous wind rose on the floor of the cabin,' muttered Mrs Rozalia, as if she were talking about something she'd rather not see. - It's an ornament. Nothing else. Lena pressed her face into the grille and looked at the indicator: indeed, next to the numbers, four letters were painted in a beautiful Art Nouveau font. Underneath, someone had painted a tiny compass symbol - a wind rose swirled whenever the lift vibrated, as if it had its own invisible draught inside. That afternoon, while the boxes of books still stood unpacked and the pots clattered from the bottom of the cardboard boxes, the siblings went scouting around the townhouse. The corridors smelled of fresh laundry and lavender soap. Someone had left a pot of macchia on the stairs, the scent of which slipped into the nose even uninvited. Above the door to the cellar hung a drawing of a chestnut, the work of some child from the third floor - in thick crayon, but with tenderness. The lift stood on the ground floor. Its grille, though old, opened smoothly. Inside, the floor was decorated with a mosaic of tiny milky tiles, on which the darker stone was laid with the aforementioned wind rose. Kacper crouched down, touched the letters. - 'That's not paint,' he muttered. - It's a brass inlay. Someone had made an effort. Lena, meanwhile, had found something else. Under the mahogany panel with buttons, the bottom corner was coming away a millimetre, as if the wood had faded over the years. Something flashed in the crevice. - 'Kacper, shine the torch,' she hissed, then squeezed her fingers together and carefully slid out a copper disc, the size of a coat button. On one side it had a tiny symbol engraved: a six-rayed snowflake. On the other - a miniature hole, as if for a key. - This fits into... - Kacper glanced at the panel. Between the number and letter buttons was a tiny, almost invisible flake-shaped hole. - Here. - He pointed. - But you'd better not... - 'Mrs Rozalia only said not to press the letters,' Lena pointed out. - She didn't mention anything about putting anything in. Besides, don't you want to know why anyone needs a lift with world directions? Kacper hesitated for a second. Eventually he put the disk in his pocket, as if he wanted to deceive himself. - Later. We'll unpack the books first. - He had the kind of face he always made when something was of great interest to him and he pretended not to. In their new room the cardboard boxes had turned into towers from which they formed continents and narrow straits. In one of the shelves left by the former tenants, they found a roll with a map as fragile as potato chips - so old that the rivers resembled veins on the palm of their hand. In the corner of the map someone had written in pencil: "Where the needle holds two roads, choose north". Lena said it out loud, savouring every word. As evening fell, the tenement became soft and quiet. The lamps on the staircase spread yellow circles like honeycombs, and a storm finally passed outside the window, leaving fresh, washed-out air in its wake. Mum fell fast asleep, tired from the whole day. Kacper counted to one hundred, to two hundred, to three hundred in his mind. Lena couldn't stop thinking about the snowflake on the copper disk. Suddenly they heard a sound. A bell. One, short. Then another. It sounded like a lift call, the kind of thin, polite voice of a metal spring. - Can you hear it? - Lena sat up on the bed. - Impossible. Someone arrived at this hour? - Kacper glanced at his watch. It was approaching midnight. the seconds hand had just climbed to twelve when the bell sounded for the third time. And here's where something really strange happened: the old clock above the staircase, which usually chimed quarters of an hour, gave off thirteen quiet, insistent beats. The door to their room was ajar. Through the crack, they saw that in the corridor the lift indicator had moved on its own. The needle first jumped from the ground floor to the first, then twitched almost uncertainly and ... jumped to the N. The letter. The N flashed with a soft, pale blue light, as if a little borrowed from the moon. - Swear it wasn't you," Lena whispered. - 'I swear it's not yet,' whispered Kacper and was already on his feet. - Shall we go? - Let's go,' decided Lena before the fear had time to multiply. She slipped her feet into trainers without socks and grabbed a torch. Kacper took the copper disk. The corridor was cooler than it should have been, as if someone had opened the door to a freezer full of stars. The lift was waiting. The grating was closed, but not to the amen - a slight push was enough for it to give way with a quiet sigh. Inside, the mosaic glistened wetly, though no one had washed it. On the panel, the letter N still glowed. - Is this it now? - Lena nodded at the drive. Kacper slid the copper disc into the hole in the panel. It fitted perfectly. Something clicked - not loudly, but in such a way that it was impossible not to feel it in your bones. The lift twitched and purred, like a cat that had just sat on your lap. The needle slipped off the N and began to slide along the edge of the dial where there were neither letters nor numbers - as if searching for an invisible sign. - 'Maybe it's a stupid idea,' said Kacper, but he didn't withdraw his hand. The door slammed shut slowly, without a jerk, like a curtain in a theatre. The cabin moved. Not up and not down. Rather... sideways? Lena felt it the way you feel a turn in a car when your eyes are closed: a tilt, a soft wave of pressure in your ears, a smell that suddenly slid into the cabin. It smelled of resin, sea air and ice. A silver vapour began to pour from the ceiling, from the tiny air vent, which was not smoke - it was like the breath of a very, very old winter. - 'Make a note,' Lena whispered, although she knew that Kacper would remember everything anyway. - I'll write down: 'The lift goes on the map we can't see,' he replied half-heartedly. After a moment, the noise quieted down. The needle stood on the N again, but the letter light now took on a deeper hue, almost dark blue. Something crunched under the wheels of the cabin, as if the lift had come to a stop covered in ice. The door did not swing open immediately. First a plume of steam appeared in the gap, then a speck - a snowflake - that hovered in the air without falling. - Ready? - Kacper looked at his sister. His pupils were dilated, but not a single letter trembled in his voice. - 'Always,' Lena breathed, feeling her hands warm and her fingertips prickle. For reassurance she pressed her hand to the pocket where she kept her notebook. The door began to swing open. On the other side, there was no corridor of Swallow 13. There was a long, low gallery, sparkling with frosted vines that climbed the walls and ceiling, forming vaults like in a greenhouse. Instead of lamps, there were lanterns of milky glass, in the centre of which glowed a modest, bluish flame. The floor shimmered like ice on a lake, but underneath, dark lines pulsed slowly, like hearts - like drawings of ancient rivers. Lena felt something muscling her ankle. She looked down. A footprint. Someone's small footprint reflected in the frost, as if someone's bare feet had walked this way not more than a minute ago. Next to that, another one. And another. They led deeper into the gallery, towards where the light was brighter. From the same direction came their quiet sound, like bells moved by the wind. - Can you hear it? - Kacper asked. - Like a sleigh. Or like... He didn't finish because the air changed once more. A breeze came through the crack in the door, bringing with it the smell of the sea surface at night and a short, poignant word that wasn't a word - it was a sigh. And then, in that bluish light, just beyond the threshold of the lift, something moved that was shaped like a shadow and a glow at the same time, and took the first step towards them.