Kacper finds an old clock in the attic that can talk, and its warning suggests a secret hidden in the house is about to surface.
Kacper had always thought the attic was the most useless room in the house. It was all dust, sagging boxes, and old furniture wrapped in sheets like ghosts that had given up trying. So when a strange sound dragged him out of bed that Friday night, he almost stayed put.
Almost.
He crept up the narrow stairs, each step complaining under his weight, and pushed open the attic door. Moonlight slipped through the small round window and laid a pale stripe across the floor. In the middle of the room stood a tall wooden clock he had never seen before. Its glass face caught the light, and its pendulum swung back and forth with a steady, patient rhythm, though no one in the house had wound it in years. The hands sat exactly on midnight.
Kacper took one careful step closer.
"Best not come any nearer," said a voice.
He spun around so fast he nearly hit the doorframe. The attic was empty. Only the clock stood there, ticking softly, as if nothing unusual had happened.
"Over here," the voice said, dry and a little annoyed. "I’m not shouting just because you’ve walked in with the manners of a startled rabbit."
Kacper stared at the clock. His mouth went dry.
"You... you can talk?"
"Clearly," said the clock. "I’ve been waiting a very long time for someone who could hear me. And you arrived at the worst possible moment."
The pendulum slowed, then gave a sharper swing, as if it were warning him. Kacper felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
"What moment?"
The clock did not answer at once. Its hands twitched, inching closer together.
"Because when midnight is reached," it said quietly, "the thing your family has kept hidden all these years begins to wake up."
Before Kacper could ask what that meant, a faint creak sounded behind the clock, deep in the darkness between the old floorboards.