When Olive and Kuba explore their grandparents' attic, they discover a locked casket with a strange message on it. Then a sound from the shadows makes them wonder if they are really alone.
Olive always looked forward to visits to her grandparents' house. It smelled of dried apples, old wood, and something faintly dusty and magical, as if every room kept a secret. The attic was her favourite place to imagine, although she had never been brave enough to go there alone. This summer, her younger brother Kuba had come too, and the two of them made a habit of hunting for hidden corners, locked drawers, and anything that looked forgotten.
One afternoon, while the adults were resting after lunch, Olive tugged Kuba toward the narrow stairs at the back of the house. Each step groaned under their weight. At the top, the attic opened into a low, dim space packed with trunks, leaning picture frames, broken toys, and towers of dusty books. Kuba clutched the banister and whispered that they should leave now, before something old woke up and started looking for them.
Olive was about to laugh when she saw it. Half-buried beneath a drift of yellow newspapers in the far corner was the edge of a small casket. She crouched down and pulled the papers aside. The box was heavier than it looked, made of dark wood and fitted with faded metal patterns that curled across the lid like vines. A tiny padlock hung from the front, shut tight without a keyhole. Etched into the wood, in uneven letters worn almost smooth by time, was a sentence that made her stomach tighten: He who opens it will learn the secret of the family.
Kuba leaned closer, but before he could ask what it meant, a soft rustle came from behind the bookshelves. Both children froze. The attic seemed to shrink around them. Then something shifted again, slow and deliberate, as if someone had just moved a step in the dark. Kuba gripped Olive's sleeve. Olive did not answer. She could only stare at the locked casket, feeling very sure that whatever was hidden inside it had not been forgotten at all.