The basement of his great-grandfather's house smelled damp and dusty. Tymon entered there reluctantly, escaping the ordinariness of daily conflicts with his parents and his thoughts about the future. Everyone claimed the house hid secrets, but no one wanted to talk about it. He found it by chance. An old wooden box, hidden behind a row of mouldy jars, attracted him by the pattern engraved on the lid - a maze of swirling symbols that for a second seemed to move under his touch. Inside lay a book. Thick, bound in polished leather the colour of deep green, reminiscent of mossy stones in the forest. Tymon sensed that he was not holding an ordinary book in his hands. The letters glittered on the pages, as if floating above the parchment. He did not understand most of the words, but one word repeated itself often: Border. That night he could not fall asleep. He lay in bed with the book under his pillow, and the world outside the window turned a murky grey. Suddenly, he felt an icy breeze and saw that the cellar door had swung open silently. A quiet, low light emanated from inside. Tymon tiptoed in, sensing that he was just crossing something more than the basement threshold. In the darkness, he discovered that the light was emanating from a book he no longer had with him - it lay on an old table, open to a page he had not seen before. A shadow of a figure appeared beside it - indistinct, blurred, with eyes like two burning stones. A voice spoke silently in his head: "Are you ready to cross the Border?"