In Aunt Maja's old house, a clock strikes the wrong hour and opens a door to the attic, where Lena and Bartek hear a whisper that seems to know their names.
Lena stopped at the end of the corridor and looked at Bartek. Aunt Maja's old house was always full of creaks, sighs, and little sounds that made the shadows seem alive, but tonight felt different. The air was colder than it should have been, and her skin prickled as if someone had just walked over her grave.
In the living room, the tall clock by the wall began to chime.
Lena stared at it. Her watch said ten o'clock. The clock was striking midnight.
"Do you hear that?" she whispered.
Bartek moved closer, his eyes fixed on the clock face. The hands jerked, spun once, then twice, turning faster and faster until they blurred into a silver circle.
"It's broken," he said, but he sounded as if he wanted to believe it more than he actually did.
The room gave a low, wooden groan. One of the upstairs doors, the one that led to the attic, slowly swung open.
Neither of them touched it.
A thin voice slipped out of the darkness.
Come back to me.
Lena caught Bartek's sleeve. The whisper was so quiet she almost thought she had imagined it, but the clock had gone still now, as silent as a held breath.
Something rustled above them. Not the wind. Not a mouse. Something heavier, shifting over the floorboards in the attic.
Bartek swallowed. "Lena... did that voice sound familiar to you?"
Before she could answer, a pale light flickered deep inside the attic, brief as a blink, then vanished.
The stairs were steep and narrow, the kind that creaked even when no one was on them. Lena took one step forward, then another, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.
Behind them, the floorboard in the hallway snapped.
Both of them turned at once.
No one was there.
But from the attic came the whisper again, closer this time, almost pleased:
Lena... Bartek...