Even before the start of the school year, the town was asleep, but the tower on Bald Mountain was not. The old meteorological clock had stopped long ago at 3:17 a.m. and was pretending to be dead. People said that the hands only move once a year when no one is looking. Iga didn't believe the rumours until a night-time recording prompted a new question. She hosted a school podcast about local stories, collecting sounds and voices, and liked to keep her nerves in check. That evening she left the recorder under the station fence and returned for it in the morning. A muffled tapping sounded on the path, as if someone was counting steps with their fingers, evenly and patiently. Then a quiet whisper said her name, uncertainly but clearly, like a recording from another room. The next day she took her cousin Olek, her backpack containing a torch, batteries, a dictaphone and the courage borrowed from the morning mirror. They walked uphill along a forest track until they reached a gate with a chain where someone had left a chalk line. The sun was hiding behind the forest line and the wind had stopped, as if listening for something. Next to it in the sand were the footprints of boots, fresh and narrow, as if after a fast, uncertain run. Olek muttered that this was a bad idea, but the clanking of the chain sounded exactly like the recording. The grille didn't give way, instead the small service window was slightly ajar, as if someone was checking it. They slipped inside and smelled dust, metal and something electrical, like after a storm. The barometer was panting without wind, and a barely audible hum, rhythmic as breathing, was coming from the old speaker. They put up the recorder, turned on the torch; the minute hand twitched, the phone caught no network, Iga tried to sound reasonable. - 'If anyone's here, we just want to listen,' she said, clutching the strap of her rucksack. Olek picked up a folded piece of paper with a map and a header from their school, outlined their street. On the back someone had written three words in pencil: Don't turn around. The murmur in the loudspeaker ceased to resemble breathing and became a counting, a quiet thumping against metal. One, two, three, pause; one, two, three, pause; a rhythm exactly from the recording the night before. Someone stepped on the glass in the corridor, and the pointer vibrated once more and stood at 3:17 a.m. Olek squeezed the map so tightly that it squeaked, Iga slowly raised the torch, out of breath. In the darkness, just behind them, someone counted to three and knocked on the metal. Three short beats answered in exactly the same rhythm they had come to look for.