The last week of the holiday in Birchwood had the smell of heated dust and paper. The hot air stood still and the wind, if it passed through the town at all, only peeped through the pages in the open windows. The former railway station converted into a library murmured quietly, as if still waiting for late trains. An old station clock hung above the entrance. Its hands had once stopped at 20:47 and since then it had stubbornly pretended that time had stood still. - 'It's still not working,' muttered Lena, messing with her head. - As if someone wanted it to stop. - Or it's working, just differently - replied Igor and tapped his finger on the glass. - He could be showing something we can't see. - For example? - Lena raised her eyebrows. - For example, when it gets most interesting. He smiled half-heartedly. Lena knew that smile: it usually came just before something that ended up in a conversation with the headmistress of the school or at least with Mrs Frost, the librarian. Except that Mrs. Mróz, with a voice always a tone too calm and glasses that made her look a bit like an owl, had a fondness for Igor. And Lena - with tasks. Today she asked them to flip the folders of pre-war newspapers onto the bottom shelf and check whether anything had been eaten by the damp. - Just don't move anything around unnecessarily,' she reminded them, disappearing behind the counter. - This place doesn't like being rearranged. Lena and Igor looked at each other simultaneously. This 'place' did indeed seem to have a mood. As the sun went down, it got crisp in the darkest corners and smelled of ozone, like just before a storm. Occasionally, a single fluorescent light flashed in the corridor, although it had been replaced last month. There were those who said that the breath of trains could still be heard here. - 'I swear it's just the ventilation,' Mrs Frost always said. Lena crouched down by the newspaper rack. A blue envelope, so thin you could barely see it, was stuck between the Daily Brzezinski and the Kurjer Powszechny. Someone had slipped it deep, as if they didn't want the world to find it. Lena stuck her fingernails under the edge and gently pulled it out. - What have you got? - Igor leaned his elbow against the back of the chair, but immediately moved away because the piece of furniture squeaked as pretentiously as if he had something against eavesdropping. - A postcard. No stamps, no address. But see... - Lena slid the card under the lamp. On the back were two dashes, one shorter, one longer, and something that resembled an imprinted circle. - And the inscription: "Whispers fall silent at 20:47". Igor leaned over until his hair almost touched the card. - The circle is embossed. As if after a ... a token? - Aha - muttered Lena, already rummaging through the poster drawer. - Or after something that leaves such a mark. Wait. No, she wasn't looking for treasure. She was looking for scraps of damaged copies, on which Mrs Frost sometimes taught them to save paper. Instead, she came across a metal disc the size of a five-penny, taped to the cardboard spine of the oldest yearbook of the 'Timetable'. A '0' was stamped on the disc, and on the other side of the delicate was engraved: "Reading Room". - There you go... - Igor raised the disk to the light. - Who makes tokens in the library? Lena raised her arms. The token matched the embossing on the postcard so perfectly that it sent shivers through her. - "Whispers fall silent at 8:47 pm" - read Igor. - 'So that's when they have a break? - 'Maybe that's when it gets quiet in here,' stated Lena, glancing at the clock, which, of course, showed 20:47. The library had a few odd nooks and crannies. Behind the magazine rack was a door to a storage room that might as well have been a tunnel to another world. Seemingly ordinary, but without a handle on the outside. Mrs Frost always carried a bunch of keys like a castle guard and rarely looked in there during opening hours. - You think... - began Igor. - 'I think that if you push this bookcase up an inch, Mrs Frost will appear out of nowhere,' Lena interrupted him. - And that the token is for something that is not a coffee machine. They knelt by the ventilation cover. In the grille, whose screws were grated, someone had once scratched out: "0". Like a signature. Like a signal. - Help me - asked Igor. - Only quietly. The bookcase was on felt glides. He moved with a sigh, like a man who had been interrupted by someone taking a good nap. Behind him, just off the ground, a narrow metal flap with a window the size of a postage stamp was revealed. The window was covered by a brass shutter. Next to it - a slot for something just the size of a token. Lena looked at Igor. - 'This is the moment we call for Mrs Frost,' she said, but her hand was already gliding with the token into the slot. - Or the point at which we stop being boring,' Igor added, holding his breath. The metal accepted the token with a deafening click. Somewhere inside, something clattered, the sliders slid open as if in an old safe, and the air grew cold, as if someone had opened a fridge full of November. Lena and Igor looked at each other, as neither dared to name it out loud. - Just for a second - whispered Lena. - 'We'll have a look and then go back. The flap swung open and opened upwards on a creaking spring. Behind it ran down a narrow, very steep staircase, clad in rubber that remembered a different system. On either side of the wall stretched a handrail, cool and smooth as a steel pen. It smelled of dust, oil and.... rain, which had not yet arrived that day. - 'Take the torch,' said Igor. - 'Just don't turn it on straight away, let's see if there's light down there. They descended five steps, then another. Somewhere above them, the library continued to mutter with its usual rhythm: pages turned, the whisper of conversation by the catalogue, the footsteps of Mrs Frost, whose heels always sounded the same. Here, however, it was different. Something else was felt: a quiet, distant tapping. Even. As if someone was tapping iron in a rhythm that could be a code. Igor, who had once learned a few Morse characters out of boredom, raised his hand. - Can you feel? - he hissed. - It's... W. R. O... and a break. Then C... or G. I'm not sure. - 'Maybe it's just the gutters,' Lena replied, but the sounding letters in her head had already spread like naughty dogs that don't want to leave the garden. Downstairs there was a lamp burning in a wire cage, the kind you only see in films. It was flickering slightly. Beyond the last step, a narrow corridor opened up, cooler than anything the library above knew. The walls were painted a colour that had once been cream. Now it was just old. A recipe sign hung on the wall: "Absolute silence. Do not take appliances out. Hand over the lamp on exit. Entrances after 20:47 - only with authorisation". Igor turned to Lena, his eyes bigger than usual. - Entrances after 20:47 - he repeated. - And our clock always shows 20:47. - Maybe it's a joke - muttered Lena, but a joke, if it was a joke, had too good a case. Behind the plaque, in a niche, stood a table. On it was a thermos in a woven basket, an empty mug and a book, bound in a thick, cracked leather spine. The Reader's Registration Book - so proclaimed the golden inscription. Lena put her fingers on the cover and felt the gouged lines, thick as the wrinkles on her grandmother's hands. She opened it. The first page was from 1954. Then 1962. 1971. Where 1973 began, the ink was more faded and the writing as even as if a machine had learned to pretend to be human. - Look - Lena moved her finger over the entries. - V. Murawska. B. Reszka. H. Arendt. I... - She swallowed her saliva. - L. Kowalska. - But you... - Igor broke off. - 'You weren't even in the plans then. Beneath the entries from the 1970s were more recent ones, already in normal, contemporary pen. The last line: "I. Rybak - 24 August, 20:47". Today's date. Igor swallowed. His name at this point looked both completely ordinary and completely out of place. - Someone is here,' he whispered. - Someone who knows our names. - Or something using an old list,' Lena replied, trying not to make her voice sound like a jacked-up phone line in a horror film. The corridor led them to a door. Heavy, metal, with a small window through which nothing but a strip of black could be seen. On the door someone had drawn a zero and a down arrow with a marker. Igor touched the handle but did not press it. - 'One more time,' he said. - 'If you want, we're going back. Lena wanted to reply that yes, that of course they would be back, right away, already, but then the light in the cage flicked on more intensely. On the other side of the door something rustled. No, not "something". The rustling was rhythmic, like pages being moved. She thought of hands flipping through catalogues, of a pen jotting down names. Of someone - no, not someone. About a presence. About a job that hasn't ended, even though the ticket office upstairs has long been closed. - Do you hear that? - Igor asked. - Yes. - That means we're not crazy. - Or we're crazy together," Lena replied and, before her sanity had time to grab her arm, she pressed the door handle. The lock gave way with a quiet squeak. The door moved a millimetre, then two. There was a chill blowing from inside, but not that of a cellar; it was the chill of a night platform, where voices bounce less off the walls and footsteps sound different. - Lena... - Igor stretched out his hand as if he wanted to hold her or at least be next to her. - Do you have a torch? She switched on the app, but the screen flicked on and off. Igor tried his - same thing. It was as if someone above them in the library had pressed an invisible switch. The watch on Lena's phone stubbornly showed 20:47. Then, right at their feet, on the other side of the threshold, something rolled, hitting the metal. A token. The same as theirs. It stopped evenly at the edge of the light coming from the stairwell. Lena crouched down - her finger touched its cool edge. - Hello? - She said into the darkness, which smelled of currant jam, dust and something iron. - Is there anyone there? A quiet, deep sigh came from inside them. Then the sound of pencil-touched pages and a rustling, as if someone had pushed back a chair. - Please... - spoke a voice, low, indistinct, but close. He didn't sound threatening. He sounded familiar. - Don't be late. And don't turn around when he starts....