The block of flats on Wolska Street smelled as it always did: wet concrete, weathered drippings and detergent from the laundry on the ground floor. When I returned from tutoring, the light on the staircase blinked every three seconds, as if wondering if it wanted to shine at all. Mrs Olga from the third floor was watering the ferns in her alcove by the window, and I, with a bag full of notebooks and a coffee mug in my hand, tried not to think about logarithmic tables. - 'Sigh again,' she said without greeting, straightening up. - Lift. Like a human being. Did you hear that? - She pointed with her head to the windows, as if her ears were there. The lift at our place did indeed sigh sometimes. Not the usual cable whine, but something like a protracted 'uff', as if it had just climbed all those floors and needed a moment to catch its breath. When I was younger, I was afraid that one day she would really run out of air. Now, at seventeen and with an equally heavy air in her head from tasks and plans, that sigh sounded almost like understanding. I pressed the button with the one. Next to it, on the brass plate, someone had again outlined white dots with chalk. Someone had been connecting them with thin lines for some time until they formed something that resembled the sky as seen from the undergrowth of clouds. At first I thought it was the kids, but the patterns were too precise, too still. One morning when I was taking out the rubbish, the arrangement resembled Orion, the next it seemed to repeat the placement of the windows of our block of flats. On the third, it didn't match anything I knew. I began to photograph them. I wrote down dates and times. I didn't know what for. That afternoon I found a small, transparent envelope in the box. No stamp, no print, just my name - NINA - in big letters in black marker. Inside was a key. The kind you say "glass" about: smooth, with a translucent head, a light, almost icy pin. When I held it up to the light, the inside shimmered like a sugar cube drenched in tea. There was also a scrap of paper, folded in four, smelling of a new book. Two sentences, in even print: "When the lift sighs, don't breathe. Between seven and eight there is room for those who listen." For half an evening I was sure it was Basia, that she was doing a number on me again because she knows I collect all sorts of strange urban oddities. I texted her on Messenger a picture of a key and a card. "Yours?" - I asked. "I wish I could be that cool. Seriously not mine. That sounds like the beginning of a bad horror movie," she wrote back after a moment, then added: "But you're going to do it anyway, right?" I closed my eyes and counted to five, as if that would get one definite answer out of my head. I knew. Of course I was going to do it. Not because Basia believed in me, but because I had really heard that sigh for a month. And I had seen those white dots. And I felt that something was coming together, even if I didn't yet know into what. The house falls silent otherwise after midnight. The voices on the neighbour's TV went off, the pipes stopped whistling, the loose sheet metal on the balcony one floor above stopped knocking. I set my mug on the sink, put on my trainers and hoodie, grabbed my key. It felt like it was warming my fingers through the fabric in my pocket. The stairwell was darker than usual, as if the light bulbs had offended the whole block. Only the red LED by the lift button was smouldering softly. Someone had run chalk over it too. White dots led from the letterboxes to the button panel, forming an arc along the way. On the floor, I discovered one more, freshly placed dot - just between the '7' and '8', where no mark had ever been. - Really? - I whispered, though there was no one to answer. I pressed the call button. From a distance came to me the vibration of cables, some sort of small grunt. The door opened with a slight resistance, as if someone had held it from the inside a second longer than necessary. Inside, it smelled of liquid soap and laundry powder, but underneath that was the smell of freshly flooded pavement after a summer rain - impossible at this time of year. I walked in. The panel inside looked ordinary: a row of numbers glowing with a pale, greenish light. From one to eleven. Only today, between seven and eight, there was this one, faint, round dot, like a pupil, burning. I raised my hand, but did not press it immediately. From my pocket I took the key. It was warmer than my skin. "When the lift sighs, don't breathe." It was a ditty. And of course it's impossible not to breathe on cue when you're thinking about it the most. I tried twice in a row, opening and closing my mouth like a fish. My heart was pounding in my throat, as if it too wanted instruction. - Okay, lift,' I muttered. - If we're going to do it, we're going to do it now. I pressed the dot. For a split second, it seemed to me that the cab didn't move up or down, but... sideways. It was as if someone had turned the floors and corridors sideways and then squeezed them into the space between wall and wall. The light that had previously been blinking suddenly stopped, and the numbers no longer displayed numbers. In their place four letters blended together. N I N A. Not selected, not painted; simply the light formed my signature. Then I heard it. A sigh. It came like a warm gust on a chilly morning, spread over my shoulders and down my neck, reached down to my fingertips. It wasn't ANYTHING scary. It was the kind you've always known, even if you don't know from where - like the sound of your own footsteps on familiar stairs. I stopped the air. I counted: one, two, three. The cabin vibrated and stood still. The door slid open silently until all I heard was the slight hiss of a seal. There was no familiar floor in front of me. The light wasn't like that from the cages - unwelcoming, cool. It flowed from places you can't see, diffuse, soft and yet somehow precise. It smelled of ozone, new books and something else that I associated with the first hour of the holidays. The corridor was the same width as our floors, but the walls were painted with paint that changed tone by half a breath, going from dove grey to deep navy blue. There was no terrazzo underfoot, just smooth, matt concrete, unbitten by time. On the walls - not any plaques with flat numbers, but tiny white dots, some connected by almost invisible lines. As if someone had drawn the whole sky here, only twisted by a few degrees. I took a step forward, but the cab seemed to hesitate behind my back, undecided whether to let me out. In my pocket, the key moved of its own accord. Or it was me who twitched, as I felt its edge lightly nick my skin through the material. At the end of the corridor something sounded - metal against metal - like a bicycle bell being hit by the wind. I felt myself smiling for no reason. Or maybe for a very specific reason: the promise that here, in this something-in-between, nothing would be straightforward, and yet everything would make sense, if only you listened properly. Without all the noise of 'five more assignments' and 'don't forget your papers for school'. Without the rubrics on the worksheet. - Hello? - I spoke up half-heartedly, more for my own courage than out of the conviction that someone would answer. No voice answered, just a movement of air. The dots on the wall seemed to flicker. Or it was the light that trembled. I heard rustling, as if someone was turning a page. Then footsteps - light, unhurried footsteps. To the left of the corridor, where the door to Mr and Mrs Gorczyks' flat should have been in our block, there was a recess. Something slid out of the alcove and lit up like a phosphorescent streak. And then I saw that it wasn't a light. It was a hand. It was holding the same transparent key as mine. Before I had time to raise my eyes higher, the lift cabin behind me moved quietly, as if to close. The doors began to slide open very slowly. I had a second, maybe two. A hand from the alcove moved, as if giving a sign. Someone was standing there, in the shadows, so close that I should be able to see a face, yet the light dissipated every time I tried to sharpen my gaze. - 'Nina,' said someone softly, without surprise, as if they were mentioning the fact that my hair was tied in a messy ponytail or that there was a paint stain on my blouse. - Look closely. The lift door was halfway gone, and the key in my pocket got hot, as if it didn't want to stay inside. My breath was burning in my lungs. I hadn't let the air out yet. Not yet. I took a step towards the alcove, and then the light on the wall rearranged itself like a map laid in a loose hand: the points merged into a new outline. I didn't know the shape, but I knew I should. I could feel it in my spine, in my knees, in the place on my tongue where the word begins that is missing. The door hissed open one last time, almost closed. Someone from the alcove, still invisible, lifted his key; he became, for a moment, a lamp and a shadow at once. I raised my hand with mine. I did not let out my breath.