An autumn evening was pressing into the library in the former Rusalka cinema. Nela, a fourteen-year-old volunteer, stacked the returns as evenly as a bricklayer bricks. On the trolley lay a notebook in navy blue cloth that no one had registered. The title Atlas of Imagination was embossed on the cover, though the letters trembled as if they were alive. Cuba, her colleague from the film club, whistled and poked her on the shoulder. "Don't take it, the old paper sometimes bites," he joked, but his eyes were alert. Nela turned the first page and smelled the rain on the heated stones. The page was clean, but there was a tiny silver compass needle floating in the margin. The needle spun until it stopped precisely at Nela's name, written in pen. The name had not existed a moment before, but now the plump letters shone in fresh black. Lines began to spill out, like wet threads, forming a plan of the surrounding streets. They recognised the market, the river and the bridge, and then also a street they didn't know. A line sprouted between the bakery and the workshop, signed 'Unseen', as if shy of the light. The compass needle twitched and glided towards the door, as if inviting them to leave now. "It's a number or a trick," whispered Cuba, but his eyebrows were drawn together gravely. They walked out into the drizzle, holding the notebook like a torch, though it didn't really shine. As they turned behind the bakery, the atlas suddenly darkened and a shadow moved on the paper. On the wall, where there had always been only brick, a door without a handle scratched. Letters dripped down from the lintel, forming the inscription Unseen, and the air tasted of metal. Nela raised her hand to knock when, behind the door, someone moved the lock knob. The atlas jerked in Nela's hands, as if trying to precipitate itself to the ground. One sentence jumped out in the margin, so fast they barely caught it. Don't knock a second time, because the house listens, and its hearing is long, she warned curtly. Cuba took half a step back, but Nela swallowed her saliva and clenched her fingers. The lock clicked once, then a second time, and something like stardust shimmered in the crack. Someone's hand touched on that side, stopping exactly opposite her hand.