Four friends uncover a hidden casket in Thomas's attic and find a map and letter that point toward something neither of them can yet explain.
In a small town in the north of the country, cradled in a valley between high mountains, there lived four friends: Thomas, Anna, Cuba, and Alice. They were inseparable in the way only people who have grown up side by side can be, carrying one another's secrets, arguments, laughter, and impossible plans without ever letting the weight become too much.
One hot summer afternoon, when the sun was hidden behind a veil of cloud and the air had turned soft and still, they decided to do something they had talked about for years. They would open the old attic in Thomas's house, the one room everyone in the family avoided, as if dust alone could keep its doors shut.
It took effort to force the warped latch, and for a moment none of them spoke as the door gave way with a dry, scraping sigh. Inside, the attic was larger than they had imagined, its rafters slanting away into shadow. Old furniture stood beneath sheets of grey dust. Books were piled in unstable towers. Boxes filled the corners, each one tied with brittle string, each one seeming to wait for a hand brave enough to disturb it.
Then Alice noticed the desk.
Something sat on it beneath a thick skin of dust, small and dark and out of place. It was shaped like a casket, though not one any of them had ever seen before. Thomas wiped a sleeve across the lid, and the air around them seemed to tighten. The lock had already been broken. When he lifted it open, a folded map lay inside, scarred with age, along with a letter covered in cramped, unfamiliar writing.
None of them could read a single line, but the marks looked deliberate, urgent, almost nervous. Cuba traced the edge of the map with one finger and frowned. The paper was marked with a symbol repeated in three places, each one beside a name none of them recognised. Anna leaned closer, and just as she did, a cold draft moved through the attic though every window was shut.
The map rustled in Thomas's hands.
And from somewhere deep in the house below them, something answered with a faint knock.