For Halloween, our town looks like a theatre with no ticket taker and no end in sight. The night thickens with candle smoke and pumpkins twinkle from windowsills like signals. I'm seventeen and have a recorder from my dad, who used to record birds. This year I'm not looking for candy; I'm looking for answers to one old rumour. On the school's forum yesterday, someone issued a challenge: see if the legend still breathes. Maks brings a torch so powerful that it burns holes in the mist under the town hall. Zuza throws sweets in her backpack for an excuse and a crumpled plan of our route. In the library we found a clipping from years ago about the water tower ringing thirteen times. Apparently the extra bell wakes up the Whisperer, which collects stories but gives back memories. We walk down Pottery Street, where the stones remember more steps than the city chronicle. The lantern above us crackles, as if it has a rhythm of its own, and suddenly goes out without warning. "Take it easy," I say, although my heart is trying to escape into my jacket sleeve today. The dictaphone records the silence, but the indicator vibrates as if someone is whispering from the pavement itself. The water tower stands behind the sawmill, fenced in with netting, more empty than an unfinished sentence. Someone broke the padlock earlier; the hanging metal swings like a pendulum counting down our steps. "If we escape, we'll say we ran out of batteries," chuckles Zuza, feigning a joke lighter than seriousness. Inside, it smells of rust and apples, like Grandma's attic where nothing is dead. Maks puts his torch on the concrete and the light jumps on the walls like an ownerless ball. Under the stairs I find a Polaroid with someone's face smeared like rain, signed with my name. "Stop it, Lena, it's a joke," says Maks, but he doesn't even laugh for a second. The recorder plays a crackle, then our laughter from a moment ago, and finally the voice of an older woman. The voice says: "Give back what you took," although I swear we haven't managed to take anything from here yet. Suddenly, the first church chime comes from outside, although it is nine o'clock, and no one is jingling anymore. A second thump scatters dust from the gallery, a third stirs a Polaroid that falls out from under my feet. The phone's display flashes on its own, despite aeroplane mode, and a new photo appears on the screen. In it we are all three of us, at the entrance, with a fourth silhouette holding a key next to my hand. Behind the door, we can already hear a fourth thump, and then a fifth, and something is moving the lock from inside.