A brave little boy finds a shining gate in the grass, and one touch sends him into a world of light and mystery.
One sunny afternoon, seven-year-old Kacper was playing in the backyard, where a stick could be a sword and a stone could be a dragon's egg. He was pretending to be an explorer when something flashed in the grass.
He crouched down and blinked. Nestled between two clumps of clover stood a tiny silvery gate, no taller than his hand. It looked old and scratched, with little curls along the top, like a gate from the cemetery in the city. Kacper held his breath. It did not look like any toy he had ever seen.
"Could it be a portal?" he whispered, remembering the stories his mother read at bedtime.
He leaned closer. The gate gave off a cold little glimmer, as if it had its own moon hidden inside. Kacper touched the rusty latch with one careful finger.
At once, the backyard spun away. The grass, the fence, the apple tree, everything turned into a blur of silver light. The gate flashed bright as lightning, and Kacper felt himself falling, though his feet never left the ground.
Then the light swallowed him whole, and in the middle of the shining whirl, Kacper heard a tiny sound from the other side of the gate, like someone calling his name.