Three teenagers investigate the rumours haunting an abandoned orangery and find a hidden threshold where another world glimmers just out of reach.
At school, Olive had been told more than once that knowledge and courage were the only things worth keeping close. She had always thought that sounded wise. Standing now at the iron gate of the abandoned orangery with Maximilian and Zosia beside her, she discovered that wisdom did not stop her hands from shaking.
Everyone in town knew the stories. At night, lights moved behind the cracked glass. Shapes crossed the rusted domes. A few people had claimed they heard music there, too, thin as a thread and impossible to forget. Most laughed it off. Olive, Maks, and Zosia had not.
The gate gave under Maks's shoulder with a long, reluctant groan. Inside, the air was damp and sharp with the smell of mould, old leaves, and something metallic that did not belong to any plant. The silence felt watchful. Even their footsteps seemed to hesitate before touching the broken tiles.
Zosia tightened her grip on Olive's hand. Maks lifted his phone, though the screen's pale light did little to push back the dark. Beneath the high, shattered ceiling, the skeletons of iron frames climbed around dead vines and toppled pots. Then Olive saw it.
A glow, small at first, hovered in the branches of an ancient ficus tree. It flickered once, then slid downward like liquid starlight. The air where it touched began to bend.
Olive stared as a narrow seam opened in the darkness. Not a window. Not a reflection. Something deeper. Beyond it, she could see a lake shining under a sky she had never seen before, with blue-purple grass rolling over low hills and strange birds circling in silence.
Maks breathed, barely audibly, "Tell me I'm not imagining this."
Zosia didn't answer. She was too busy staring at the place where the world had split.
The seam pulsed wider. The orangery shimmered around them, as if two versions of the same place were trying to occupy the same space at once. Olive felt a sudden pull in her chest, soft but relentless, drawing her towards the opening.
Then something moved on the far side.
A figure, or a shadow, stepped into the light and turned its long, slender shape directly towards them.