Fog was climbing the hillside like a lazy river when Lena stopped the car at the foot of the spruce-covered hill. Above the trees, the edifice of the Dawn sanatorium was silent - vast, pale wings with symmetrical windows that reflected the sun in summer and the frost in winter. Closed for years, they hung like a sentence without a full stop. - 'I told you it would be a short trip,' she muttered, turning off the engine. - 'We'll take a few pictures, talk to Mr Rich, write a few paragraphs and come back. Kacper smiled broadly, though his smile disappeared into the darkness. - 'Sure. And then we'll have pizza. Unless this place decides to eat us first. - Very funny - she replied, but a shudder went through her too. She came from here. As a child she used to run along the boulevard below the sanatorium, counting her steps to the cracked fountain with the ceramic swan. Back then, Dawn was bustling - the conversations of the patients sounded in the smoke of the mineral inhalations, the wooden deckchairs clattered on the verandas. Now that the town's shop windows were going out, someone whispered that at night the lights shone again in the deserted halls. Mr Roch was waiting for them by the wrought-iron fence. He wore no uniform, but an old coat and a bunch of keys on a metal ring said it all. In his hand was a torch, which he turned restlessly. - You made it,' he said quietly. - 'I saw today too. First the window on the third, then the corner one. There have been no wires here for years, Mrs Leno. And it's still glowing. - Someone might be playing with the genset,' chuckled Kacper. - Or... someone changed the batteries in the moon. Mr Roch didn't even smile. - The genset can be heard. And there's silence. And another thing. The door is sometimes open. Although I close it. Always. They walked through the gate, the ossified leaves rustled like paper. Tiles cracked at the main entrance, and frozen needles crackled underfoot. Lena lifted her head: the stone "Dawn" plaque was scratched, but the letters still danced in the torchlight. Beneath them, on the tarnished glass, someone had left a handprint. Fresh? No. More like old dust scratched by a casual gesture. Or maybe she wanted to believe it. - 'We won't risk the stairs,' muttered Mr Roch, slipping the key into the heavy padlock. - 'I don't trust them after all these years. Stay close. The smell of musty, iodine and dried resin hit them when they opened the door. The hallway was high, and all the sounds sounded alien in it: footsteps grew damp, whispering grew serious. To the right hung a board with a plan: Balneology Department, Inhalation Room, Doctors' Offices, Treatment Rooms. Below, a row of clocks, each set to a different time, each stopped. The one above the reception desk indicated 3:17. - 'I used to have inhalations here,' Lena said, not knowing why herself. - It smelled like a damp forest after a storm. - 'Now it smells like a damp cellar after a broken river,' replied Kacper, lifting his camera. The shutter clicked like the tooth of an un-oiled lock. They crossed the hall to the reception desk. On the counter lay a stay book, leatherbound, its edges cracked like a clay road in winter. Lena opened it carefully. The web of paper rustled. The last entry in bold, practised handwriting ended with the year 1995. Below it, in the bottom margin, was a single line, finer. "S. Riedel - consultation." No date. No room number. Black ink as if fresher, a little shinier. - Who's that? - Kacper asked, looking over her shoulder. - A doctor? Or someone who likes to add to other people's books,' she replied. She didn't want to say out loud that the name sounded like an echo. Like something that had been circulating in the town for a long time. A single sound came from the corridor they were about to move into. Not loud, rather shy. As if someone had gently struck a piano key and immediately fled. Mr Roch became immobile. - Did you hear that? - he asked. They had heard. A second sound, quieter, delayed, hung in the air. Lena felt the skin on the back of her neck crinkle from the cold, even though she was wearing a scarf. - 'There are no more instruments here,' said Mr Roch, more to himself. - They carted everything away at the beginning of the 2000s. - Maybe the wind. Pipes. Whatever - Kacper tried to sound rational, but his hand with the camera was trembling slightly. They moved along the corridor. Shadows sawing the walls flashed in the torchlight, as if someone behind them, across and along, was cutting the air with invisible files. Names remained on the plaques in front of the door: "Gab. Dr Veronika Lach", "Kinesitherapy Room", "Reagent Warehouse". Some were crooked, as if someone had tried to unscrew them and had run out of patience. Under the "Reagent Warehouse" there was a trolley on metal wheels, the kind used to carry bowls and dishes. The wheels had traces of mud on the rims, dark streaks. Lena knelt down, touched her finger - damp. She felt like rubbing it on her trousers, but something inside her said: don't leave a mark. She stood up, slipped her hands into her pockets. Threads of cobweb dangled from the ceiling, from cracks in the plaster. From afar, as if through water, two sounds came again, this time in quick succession. Not a melody, more like a test. A test to see if anyone would respond. - I don't like that," growled Mr Roch. - I have one torch. The phone doesn't catch here. - Mine does catch - muttered Kacper, looking at the screen. - But it's a different network... See. 'Spa. I've never seen an operator like that. Lena pulled hers out. Emptiness. No line. Kacper raised the phone above his head, as if he could pick out a better signal from the ceiling. The screen flicked on, illuminating the number 3 on the door deep in the corridor for a second. At the height of the lift, all three stopped. The panel by the door had a dented casing, but one button glowed unexpectedly with a soft, yellowish spot. "Call." Mr Roch reacted as if scalded. - 'Don't touch it,' he said, though no one intended to. - There's no power here. Everything's cut off in the basement. I switched it off myself when we took it over from the county. Lena looked at him briefly. - 'You're sure no one's run anything from the outside? - I'm sure. - There was no certainty in his voice, only stubbornness. - Tell me what to do, but quickly. - We'll just check the concert hall,' she said. - If it's the kids, we'd better know which way they came in. If it's ... wind, we'll write that there's wind playing in the sanatorium and that's it. Let's go, Kacper. The concert hall was two turns away. It used to be played for dancing, and at weekends it was used as a cinema. Now the ceiling was bursting with spangled stars, and a lampshade dangled from the left corner like a semi-conscious jellyfish. Against the wall was a piano - no, not a piano, just a trace of it: candles of wax on the floor, a rectangle of lighter dust, as if something had stood there recently. Only none of them could say when 'recently' meant. A note hung in the air: not a sound, but the memory of a sound. - Do you hear it? - whispered Kacper. - It's the third floor. Maybe the floor above. But there's no instrument here anymore. Lena raised the torch, moving the beam along the walls. On one, someone had drawn the outlines of mountains with chalk. They resembled the hill they had stood on just a moment before, only steeper, rougher. Beneath the drawing was an inscription, barely visible: 'Breathe'. Lenie's fingers tightened on the cold metal of the torch on their own. From across the room, in the corridor, the stairs creaked. Not the way an old building creaks under its own weight. Rather, the way boards creak under the weight of someone who doesn't want them to creak. Once. The second. - 'Someone's here,' whispered Mr Roch, taking half a step back. - 'Or something's let go and it's about to...' - he broke off, as if the words were too heavy. There was a quiet beeping sound just outside the lift, followed by a distant, undercurrent of muttering. The panel glowed more clearly. The digit 4 floated to 3. A half-second pause. 2. Half a second. 1. Metal somewhere in the glass groaned, like an old man dragging himself out after a nap. - See? - Kacper lowered the camera and just stared. - After all, it's ... - No - cut off Mr Roch. - It's not possible. Lena looked at her hands. They weren't trembling, yet she had the feeling that they were holding something fragile. A row of images shifted in her head: the look on the bakery shop clerk's face when she said "did you know it flashed again last night?", the laughter of the boys at the bus stop, "look, guggles, why do they need them?", and her own reflection in the car window, indistinct. She had come here for the text. Now the text was looking back at her from above, from the level of the numbers flashing on the panel. The drawer under the lift buttons rattled, as if someone had moved the metal inside. The number 0 flashed. A bell, as delicate as porcelain, chimed once. The doors began to swing open, and a blast of chill hit them from inside, not like from a basement, more like a February morning by the sea. It rolled across their shoes, rubbed against their knees, lifted a strand of Lena's hair. Kacper's phone vibrated at the same second. A message popped up on the screen, above the camera icon: "Incoming call - Dawn". - 'Don't answer,' hissed Mr Roch. But it was too late. Kacper, more out of reflex than curiosity, moved his finger. The bell still echoed in the concert hall, skimming the cobwebs above their heads. Lena felt a word that shouldn't have fallen float onto her tongue, and she swallowed it, like swallowing a bitter medicine. A whisper came from the phone's speaker, harsh and very close, though it was unclear whether it came from above or below: - Leno, are you there yet? The lift stopped with a soft clatter. In the dark interior, just above the floor, someone had left a semi-circular handprint on the dusty tin, completely fresh. The door slid all the way open, and the air from inside smelled of something out of sync with the place - algae, salt and anemones - as if there was no cabin behind the metal wings, but another shore. Lena took a step forward, and then, from above, from the third floor, came a fourth sound, the clearest of all, struck by a firm, sure hand.