On Moon Street, pumpkins twinkled with cut-out eyes, paper bats fluttered on threads and the smell of cinnamon and baked apples wafted from open windows. The night was clear as glass, cool and buzzing with excited whispers: "Trick or treat!" Maja adjusted her purple felt hat, to which she attached two rows of flickering LED lights. Her cape flew lightly like a moth's wing. Olek walked beside her, tapping the cardboard armour against his own knees. The hilt of his 'sword' was wrapped in foil, making it look almost real in the lantern light. "The plan is simple," he said, unfolding a crumpled sheet of paper with a map drawn in pencil. - "Here we get jelly beans, here marshmallows. At Mr Zawadzki's - necessarily caramels. Then a shortcut across the pitch and we'll be back before Mum starts writing the news." Maja nodded. She liked things to have an order. Even Halloween stuck to it: pumpkin - knock - laugh - candy in the bag. A group of younger children ran out from around the corner, their false teeth shining like stars. Someone had cardboard bat wings on his head, someone else was dragging a ghost-shaped torch behind him. Moon Street was full of sound and colour, yet a corner seemed stubbornly darker. The watchmaker's workshop "Under the Clock" had stood closed for years. Wooden puppets dusted in the shop window, motionless and without a glance. On this evening, however, their glass visors shone as if someone had just rubbed them down. Above the door, an old brass clock ticked - although no one had wound it for a long time, the hands trembled slightly, like a heart after a run. "Look," whispered Maja, touching Olek's elbow. - "There, on the handle..." Someone had tied an envelope of cream-coloured paper to the doorknob. On the front, in silver ink pen, it was written evenly: "Maja and Olek". "All right," Olek looked around. The adults were standing in groups, talking and laughing. No one was watching them. - "It's definitely some kind of school quest. The art lady was talking about something like that." Maja untied the ribbon. Inside she found a folded map and a thin, rusty key attached to a string. Their street was drawn on the map, but with additions: wavy dashes over the playground wall, tiny stars at the pedestrian crossing, and - strangest of all - a stylised maple leaf at the end of the street. Underneath was a short sentence: "Light the carrying glow at the maple gate and you will see a road that is not there." "Carrying glow?" - Olek repeated. - "A torch?" "Or a lantern," Maja pointed to the corner of the map where a small, old lantern had been inked in. She thought of the house under the spreading maple tree, whose leaves looked silvered even at night. There was always a rusty hook hanging on its gate - empty. - "Let's go there, it's five minutes." The road feathered slightly upwards, and the closer they got to Silver Maple, the quieter it became. The shrill cries of the children grew distant, as if someone had turned down the voice on the radio. The crown of a tree rustled above them like a gown, and there was indeed a lantern hanging by the gate: metal, on glass tarnished by time. Maja was sure it hadn't been there before. "Light the carrying glow..." - she muttered. She slipped one LED light from her hat. The tiny bulb shone stubbornly, even though it should have died long ago. - "We'll try." They opened the lantern door. Inside it smelled of dust and old metal. Maja slid the lamp inside and slammed the glass shut. Something clicked. Light spilled across the lantern as evenly as if the glass had drunk it and given it back with its own colour. The glow was silvery, unpleasantly calm. The lantern started up in earnest, though there was no battery or wick anywhere. "Whoa..." - Olek whistled all the way. - "This is better than a torch from a phone." Maja lifted the lantern and after only a moment she noticed something else: the pavement in front of the gate was covered with tiny specks, as if someone had sprinkled flour on it. When she moved the lantern, reflective footprints lit up in the powder - tiny feet, narrow, running along the wall. "Can you see it?" "I see it. And I don't think anyone else sees it," Olek reflexively adjusted his sword. - "Shall we go?" They walked along the wall, the lantern swaying slightly, and footsteps jumped under their feet like sparkling fish. They led into a narrow alley, which they usually passed because it smelled of rusty water and rotten leaves. Now it smelled only of cold. On the way they passed a hydrant with paint falling off. On the map it was marked with a dot and the tiny number 3. "Three knocks?" - guessed Maja. She took the key from the string and tapped it three times on the metal of the hydrant. The sound spread like a string. Somewhere beyond the fence, with a clatter, the chain moved. The rusty wicket opened noiselessly. On the other side began a thin, forlorn footpath that wound between currant bushes and the blind wall of the garage. The footsteps now shone more clearly, as if they were glad to have someone following them. "This really was prepared by someone," Olek said in a half-hearted voice, but he sounded like he was trying to convince himself. - "Probably a school theatre. Actors in cat costumes are about to fly out." "If that's the case, they'd better have cool costumes," joked Maja, but her hands were damp and her heart was knocking faster in her chest. Between the currant bushes something rustled. Maja lifted the lantern higher. Tiny silhouettes no bigger than her hands moved in the light - iron moths, formed from bits of tin and cogs. Their wings twitched, as if they suddenly remembered that they once knew how to fly. One perched on the railing of an old porch, let out a thin sound - something between a cicckle and a sigh - and froze. "They're from the watchmaker's workshop!" - Olek leaned in delightedly. - "Look at those microscopic rivets!" "Later!" - Maja pointed with her head at the house. It was tall, with bright window frames and a porch bowed by leaves. It was called the Silver Maple House, though no one had lived there for years. - "The map leads here." The platform was guarded by two stone lions, their morgues overgrown with moss. The door had no handle, just a narrow slit and a star-shaped lock. When Maja moved the lantern closer, the star shone with a thin, pale rim. On the wood, someone had long ago carved a fingernail-wide line, resembling a scratch, which in the light formed a word: "Stuk. Stuk. Tap." "Three knocks," Olek repeated, getting serious. - "Just like at the hydrant." "Only with what?" The lantern in her hand became heavier, as if she had tied invisible strings to them. Maja leaned it carefully against the threshold and knocked the key three times on the metal of the lock. Sounds rolled off the porch board, crawled into the doorframe, hid themselves - and then something strange happened. A quiet ticking came from inside the house. Not like a watch on your wrist, not like an alarm clock - more like a flock of tiny gears that suddenly remembered how to work together. "Do you hear that?" - Olek tilted his head. - "Like someone's winding... everything." Maja nodded. She noticed that another iron moth had settled on the edge of the porch. She spread her wings and moved them once. Then once more. Like a signal. "And this?" - Olek picked up a tiny piece of paper from the threshold that had not been there before. On the paper, in the same silver ink, were three words: "A whisper of the guard's name." "Guardian?" - Maja furrowed her brow. - "Who was the guard here?" On the wall next to the door, next to an old bell with a cracked heart, hung a brass plaque. From the worn-out letters one could barely read: "Hilary Nowak, watchmaker". "He was the one who kept track of time. It had to be him." - Olek grunted. - "Well then... are we talking?" Maja leaned her hand against the wood, holding the lantern so that the light touched the lock. The street behind them now seemed very far away, and at the same time they could hear its echoes: a child's scream, laughter, the sound of scooter wheels. Here, under the Silver Maple, the air was thicker - as if full of the dust of time. "Hilary," she whispered. The lock vibrated. The ticking multiplied, spilling across the board, across the porch, across their hands and arms. The lantern grew warmer, and in its silver light the star on the castle widened like a pupil. "Try again," Olek said, glancing at her with the glint in his eye that Maja had seen when they solved the most difficult puzzles. "Hilary," she repeated, a tad more confidently. Something clicked deep, very deep, as if the house had a huge, hidden lock box inside and the first of many bolts had just turned. The lock on the door flicked softly and flared. For a moment they felt a slight breeze, so cool that it tickled their noses. "I think we need to do it again." - Olek raised an eyebrow. - "Up to three times a piece." Maja looked at him, then at the lantern. The light that emanated from it was no longer the same: it seemed to move in a ticking rhythm, to breathe. The iron moths on the railing twitched all at once, as if waiting for a signal. "Hilary," she said a third time, very quietly. The lock flared so brightly that they had to squint. Something inside the house hooted, as if a giant pendulum had moved from its place after years of standing still. The star on the castle swung six tiles apart, revealing a narrow, black hole. The lantern moved on its own in her hand, as if hooked by an invisible thread, and extended a slender tongue of light that slid into the slot of the key. Suddenly they heard a rustle on the other side - footsteps? air being drawn in? - and a quiet old whisper that resembled the rustling of shifting cogs: "You're just in time..." There was a millisecond of silence, exactly like the one before the bell struck. The lock clicked, the door vibrated, and Maja and Olek reflexively squeezed the lantern tighter, as something on the other side began to move.