On Christmas Eve, a moving bauble, a whisper from the attic, and an old chest with a star lead Lena and Antek toward something they were never meant to find.
Christmas Eve smelled of cinnamon and pine, and snow kept tapping softly against the window as if it wanted in. Lena was straightening the fairy lights on the tree while Antek looped the last strip of paper chain around a branch. In the kitchen, cups clinked and grown-ups called to one another, but in the living room everything glowed warm and still, except for the star on the top of the tree, which seemed to shimmer a little too brightly.
Lena took a step back to admire her work. A bauble on the lower branch shifted.
She stared. The cat was asleep under the armchair. The bauble moved again, sliding deeper into the needles as if something small and careful had nudged it from behind. Antek saw her face and stopped tying the chain. “Did you see that?” he whispered.
Before Lena could answer, a sound drifted down from somewhere above them. It was faint, like a bell ringing through snow. Then came a whisper, so soft she almost thought she had imagined it.
“Lena... Antek...”
Both of them turned toward the attic stairs. The landing above was dark, and the open doorway at the top looked like a mouth in the shadows. Tiny white specks glittered on the steps, as though someone had just walked up there with frozen shoes. Lena reached for the torch in the drawer beside the fireplace and pressed it into her brother’s hand.
They climbed slowly, each step creaking under their weight. Cold air seeped through the open attic door, carrying the smell of snow and old wood. Inside, in the middle of the floor, stood a chest Lena had never seen before. A star was carved into its lid.
The silver lock gave a tiny click.
Then the chest shivered, and a pale light began to leak out from beneath the lid.