The leaves danced in the wind like orange confetti, and the whole town smelled of cinnamon, roast pumpkin and wet wood. On the hill, above the lantern-laden market, stood the Town Library - a tall villa with a turret, silver gutters and windows that reflected the clouds. That evening, on Halloween, its doors were decorated with a garland of dried leaves and tiny bat-shaped lights. - Finally! - whispered Lena, correcting the paper feather headband in her hair. - Mrs Clementine had said that Reading Night would be special this year. Olek, with his plastic wizard's cloak, pretended to eat his fear - although his cat-shaped torch betrayed a slight tremor in his hand every now and then. Berry was wearing a jumper with stars sewn on it and a backpack that she zipped up as carefully as if she were going on a mountain expedition. It was warmer inside the library than outside. Paper moons dangled from the ceiling, and between the bookcases stood bursting pumpkins with cut-out smiles. Mrs Clementine, in a purple cape and with bells at her cuffs, strolled around the room, setting out bowls of apples and mugs of tea. - My reading stars! - She exclaimed as soon as she saw them. - It's great that you're early. I have a task for you. Someone returned a book today and inside I found this. She placed a brass key on a black ribbon in her hand. The key was heavy, smooth from the touch and had a feather-shaped head. - No card, no name. Just the key. - Mrs Clementine lowered her voice. - I would have carried it myself, but I have to see to the kettle. Take it, please, to the Directory Office upstairs and put it on the desk. Just politely - and please don't open anything. This office is... um... sensitive. - Sensitive? - repeated Olek, as if he tasted the word. - Like a cat that doesn't want to be scratched? - 'Exactly like that,' smiled Mrs Clementine mysteriously and was already running to the kitchen corner where the water was hissing. Lena took over the key. It was cooler than her fingers. She showed it to her friends and raised an eyebrow. - It's just a trip upstairs. Back and forth. - Jagoda pushed Olek slightly with her elbow. - We'll make it. The stairs to the first floor creaked, as if recalling a long-forgotten melody. Old portraits of librarians hung on the walls. Some were smiling good-naturedly, others were looking up from under their bushy eyebrows as if assessing something. In the middle of the corridor stood a clock with a cuckoo that was silent, but the pendulum ticked again and again: tick-tock, tick-tock, like the quiet leaps of a heart. At the end of the corridor, behind frosted glass, a door with a sign could be seen: Catalogue Cabinet. Lena pressed the handle - it didn't budge. - The key - suggested Olek. - Looks like it fits. She slid the feather key into the lock. It fitted perfectly. The lock sighed and gave way. Inside it smelled of dust, lavender and ink. The dark wood desk bowed under the weight of drawers, old index cards, pens and inkwells. Boxes with labels stood evenly on the shelves: "Authors A-D", "Maps", "Manuscripts - children's section". On the wall, someone had once attached a pen to a nail - it now hung like an arrow pointing downwards. - 'Strange,' Jagoda remarked, glancing at the floor. - 'Here, by the desk, there's no dust. And nobody walks around here, do they? - 'Someone does walk around though,' whispered Olek, pointing to a thin smudge between the door and the desk, as if someone often dragged their hand there. - Or something. Lena put the key on the tabletop. Next to it stood a stack of catalogue cards tied with string. On top, not fully pressed, lay one card with a hand-drawn pen and an arrow. The arrow pointed to the bookcase on the left - a shelf marked with the letter 'P' and the number 13. - P for pen? - muttered Lena. - Or P for... A shelf where someone was looking for something. They walked up to shelf P13. On it stood atlases, old calendars and something that looked like a very thick notebook without a title. It had a binding of dark green material and a slight dent where the inscription should have been. Lena carefully slid her fingers under the spine to slide it out. Something clicked quietly. The shelf moved as if breathing and moved a few centimetres away, revealing a narrow passage between the bookcase and the wall. - Well, no... - Olek touched the wall. - Really? A hidden passage? In a real library? Berry looked around, as if checking to see if anyone was watching them. All that came from the corridor was the ticking of the clock and the distant buzz of conversation from downstairs. - 'Mrs Clementine said not to open anything,' she reminded quietly. - But it opened by itself," Lena pointed out. - And it was just a matter of putting the key down. The key is already lying there. Let's just take a peek. Two steps. If it's scary, we go back. Olek switched on the cat torch. Its golden light turned the dust into sequins. They squeezed into a passage that smelled of old paper and cold. Narrow steps ran down the wall at knee height, cutting through the darkness like a path carved in a book. The arrows marked with arrows every few steps glowed slightly in the semi-darkness - someone had drawn them with chalk, which shimmered like fish scales in the torchlight. They descended slowly, carefully, counting the steps. The path twisted and then turned again. All they could hear was their breaths and the quiet crackling of the wood changing temperature. Finally, the steps let them out into a small room under the stairs - so small that Olek had to duck his head. In the middle stood a low table, and on it a glass lantern with iridescent walls. Next to it, on the ground, stood a wooden box. On the lid was carved the same feather as on the key. - Look - Jagoda brought the lantern closer. - This is no ordinary lantern. Indeed, there was nothing inside the lantern - no candle, no wick. Yet one of the walls was warmer to the touch, as if someone had just whispered to it. Lena put her hand on it and immediately took it away. - Warm - she muttered. - I... did you hear? Everyone froze. For a second they thought it was the rustle of pages being turned in a very thick volume: fast but precise. Then it fell silent. - 'It's probably the wind,' muttered Olek, although there was nowhere in the room to get the wind from. - 'Or that clock upstairs is chattering so strangely through the walls. Lena knelt down by the chest. The lock was shaped like a feather, with something like a tiny eye glinting inside - matching the narrow slot in the key. - This key... - She looked at Jagoda. - Do you think it's for her? Jagoda bit her lip. - 'We were supposed to put it on the desk and that was it. But... - she glanced at the lamppost, which had fogged up a little on the inside, as if someone had blown on the glass. - 'What if someone left a trail here for us to find? This card, the arrows, the feathers.... - They left it or someone keeps arranging it,' Olek added, as one of the same cords lay under the table as on the desk. - Maybe it was Mrs Klementyna who prepared some kind of game for Halloween? - Mrs Klementyna has lots of ideas, but she said "don't open it". - Berry looked at her friends. - Except she didn't say 'don't go down'. Olek and Lena burst into short, nervous laughter. Lena took a deep breath. - 'Okay. I put the key in and if anything squeaks, if we don't like anything, we go right back. Olek - torch. Jagoda - count how many times anything knocks. Just in case. - A hundred? - Olek tried to joke, but his voice was a tad too high. Lena lifted the key. It flashed like fish scales in the kotolatarka light. She slid it gently into the lock. The lock accepted it without resistance - all too smoothly. The metal was cool, but the handle of the key was warm, as if warmed by someone's hand a moment ago. Lena looked at her friends. They nodded their heads. - 'Once,' whispered Jagoda and tightened her fingers on the strap of her backpack. Lena turned the key a quarter turn. Something in the chest vibrated, so quietly that it might have seemed like imagination. Olek swallowed his saliva. The torch flicked on for a second, as if the room had run out of air. - 'Two,' Jagoda counted in a whisper, though nothing rattled but their hearts. Lena was about to make her next move when the lantern on the table, this one empty and impossible, lit up from within with a honeyed light. No fire. Without a plume of smoke. Warmth spread over their hands, over their faces, over the wooden age of the box. A shadow danced on the wall - tall, slender and unlike any of them. It danced and then stopped, as if listening. - Did you hear that? - mouthed Olek. They heard it. The same melody that the stairs sang: a creak, but not the usual kind. As if someone was adjusting the steps, placing them very carefully on the steps just behind them. - 'Three,' uttered Berry, now no longer joking. Lena turned the key a little further. The lock clicked louder. The box gave way by a hair. The lantern flicked so that a shadow on the wall almost reached the ceiling. - Hello? - Lena called out reflexively towards the stairs. - Mrs Clementine? No one answered from upstairs. All that came from downstairs was muffled laughter and the clink of spoons against porcelain, as if the other part of the library belonged to a completely different world. - 'We are not alone,' whispered Olek, more to himself than to the rest. At the same moment, something knocked on the lid of the chest. Once, emphatically. Then a second time, quieter, like an echo after the first. The lantern lit up so that their own shadows disappeared. - 'Four,' choked out Jagoda, though counting was probably no longer necessary. Lena felt the key turn gently on its own, as if someone was holding it on the other side of the lock. Cool air gushed through the crack, smelling of ink and autumn. And then, above their heads, on the stairs, something softly set foot on the next step, and a shadow on the wall took a step forward.