Lena found a compass in a shoebox hidden in the attic. The brass needle spun nervously, as if she no longer knew the directions. She was fourteen and had been going to the storerooms since she was a child with a torch. Her grandfather had once said that the compass was capricious, but never deceitful. That afternoon the needle stopped at the wall of the warehouse by the river. The wall was covered with waves of graffiti and a thin, almost glowing circle of chalk. Lena touched the chalk circle and the compass sounded like a glass spoon. She felt a chill under her fingertips, quite different from the stone after the rain. The sky was a whitewash, the wind was rumbling through the pipes, and she was taking pictures. At home she looked at the photograph and noticed a streak of light behind the circle. It wasn't the filter on the camera, as she checked each slider three times. The light was not coming from the street, but seemed to be coming out of the wall. The next day she returned with Kacper, who was carrying a meter and a torch in his backpack. Kacper liked things that buzzed, and trusted numbers more than legends. He connected the cables to the metal of the railing, then measured the field by the chalk. The pointer jumped and the circle grew brighter, as if someone was breathing. The hairs on the back of their necks stood up, but neither wanted to move back. Lena whispered her grandfather's name, because that's what the old notebooks in the attic advised. The chalk did not budge, but the air thickened and began to smell of salt. Water appeared in the circle, but it did not run down the bricks to the ground. It stood upright, rippling, like the glass of an aquarium with something flowing behind it. Kacper stuck his torch out and moved his hand away as it reflected in the depths. Instead of light, another glow returned, green and flickering like the scales of a fish. The river behind the warehouse fell silent for a moment, as if listening to the same breath. Then something touched the surface from the other side and left a streak. The streak was thin, like the claw of a map, laying out the river through the white land. Lena felt the compass warm her skin, and heard a single whisper. The whisper spoke her name, then added coordinates she had no right to know. As a drop of water broke away and floated into the air, Lena held out her hand. It grew brighter on that side, as if someone had just taken a step forward.