Lena returned to Skotny Dolne for Christmas after her first year at the art high school. Snow glued the branches of the spruce trees together, and her grandmother's old house rumbled quietly from the wind. In the kitchen, borscht was steaming and poppy seeds smelled; in the living room, lights on a crooked wire flashed. There was hay waiting under the tablecloth, though no one knew where it still came from. The attic above the ceiling seemed bigger than before, as if something breathed inside it. In the evening, while decorating the Christmas tree, Lena came across her great-grandfather's box of baubles. At the bottom lay a carol star made of milk glass, heavy and cool. When she touched it with her fingers, the glass shimmered pale, as if it hid the embers from an old candle. On the shoulder of the star someone had engraved the phrase: "He who carries the light will hear the song". And that's when Lena really heard it - the quiet melody of a carol was drifting from above. - Can you hear it? - she whispered to Kacper, the neighbour who had brought the wafer for her grandmother. - Winds in the chimney - he shrugged his shoulders, but also fell silent, listening. Kacper played the herods on the drum and knew every legend of the valley. According to the oldest one, once a century a star led a chosen person to the Glass Crib. Apparently, it only opened when a carol sounded in someone's heart longer than the echo of the bells. Before Christmas Eve itself, the electricity went out and the house crouched in the soft silence of the snow. The melody was already coming clearly from the attic, as if someone was practising a carol without words. Lena picked up a star and a torch, then opened the creaking staircase upstairs. Hanging from the beam was an old trunk with an iron clasp in the shape of a five-pointed star. When she put the glass star to it, the lock clicked and the lid lifted of its own accord. Inside lay a map of the area, greased and signed with a date from three decades ago. A piece of paper with her name on it was stuck next to it, as if someone had been waiting just for Lena for a long time. From downstairs came a knocking on the glass, short and insistent, like the Christmas rhythm of a drum. Outside the window stood carol singers in masks, holding a star bigger and brighter than her own. One of them, a king with a paper crown, whispered in a familiar voice: - It's time to go. As they descended into the courtyard, the church bell struck thirteen times, although it was only nine o'clock. The snow stopped suddenly, as if someone had laid a hand on the sky and stopped the clouds. The carolers moved towards the old chapel under the larch tree, and Kacper's star trembled like a living thing. Lena held hers, which suddenly cast a sheaf of light into the stone above the threshold. The stone flashed with the Epiphany markings, shifted silently and revealed a narrow, black crack. A chill gushed from within and the same carol sounded, already without a single instrument.