Four friends follow a hidden path in the forest of Nalecz and stumble into an ancient grove where a copper key, strange footprints, and a rising chant suggest something ancient has awakened.
Nalecz stood at the edge of the forest, where the trees grew so thick that even at noon the light went green and dim. The elders warned the children to stay on the paths, but Lila had never liked being told that a place was mysterious, as if that were enough reason to leave it alone.
That afternoon, she went into the woods with Filip, Zośka, and her younger brother, Miłosz. They carried torches, notebooks, and the raspberry jam sandwiches Lila’s grandmother had packed for them, though no one felt much like eating. On the way back from the river, Filip stopped so suddenly that Lila nearly bumped into him.
"Look," he whispered.
Between the ferns, half-hidden in the moss, were footprints. Not deer tracks. Not rabbit prints. These were long and deep, as if someone had dragged something heavy through the undergrowth. The marks led them to a clearing where five old oaks stood in a perfect circle. In the middle, the ground was dark and bare, as though a fire had burned there only moments ago.
Miłosz bent down first. His fingers closed around something cold in the grass, and he lifted out an old copper key, green with age. The moment his skin touched it, every oak tree shivered at once. Leaves trembled overhead, though the air was still.
Zośka gave a nervous laugh. "Probably just the wind."
But Lila was already staring past the trees, where a thin green light had begun to gather between the trunks. Then came a sound so soft she almost thought she imagined it: a chant, low and clear, rising from somewhere behind the largest oak. The mist in the clearing started to turn, folding itself into a shape she knew she had seen before...