Maja and Leon stay after closing in an antique shop where, after midnight, the objects begin to speak and a hidden voice draws them into a maze of riddles.
Maja and Leon could never walk past Mr Horst's antiquarian without slowing down. The shop pulled at them with its warped shelves, its cracked teacups, its brass clocks ticking out of sync, and the dry, papery smell of old books clinging to everything like a secret. So when Mr Horst asked them to help him close up on a hot summer evening, they said yes before he had finished speaking.
By midnight, the street outside had gone quiet and the shop had changed with it. The front windows reflected only darkness now, and the rows of antiques seemed to lean closer together, as if they were listening. Maja stood between a cabinet of porcelain dolls and a shelf of globes while Leon locked the back door. The last candle on a brass stand burned low, throwing a thin blade of light across the floorboards.
Then the wind hit the building with a sudden, hard shudder. The windows rattled. Every candle in the shop went out at once except the one on the brass candlestick, and for a moment the whole room seemed to hold its breath.
'Maja?' Leon's voice was barely a whisper.
'Listen,' she said.
From beneath the grandfather clock came a small, dry sound, like a laugh trapped in a throat made of dust.
Leon stared at her. 'Tell me you heard that.'
Before Maja could answer, the globe on the stand beside them gave a slow, deliberate turn. Its painted continents slid through the candlelight, and a voice, thin as parchment but unmistakably alive, said, 'If you're looking for answers, children, you've come to the right place. If you're looking for safety, you are already too late.'
Maja stepped back so quickly her shoulder brushed the doll shelf. One of the porcelain faces tilted, its glass eyes catching the flame. 'Hurry,' it murmured. 'He knows the shop is awake.'
'Who knows?' Leon asked, but the answer came from somewhere above them, in the dark corridor over the stairs: a measured footstep, then another, then the faint drag of something heavy being moved across the floor.
The candle flame bent sideways.
And from the far end of the shop, where the light could not quite reach, a voice called their names.