Chapter Text
I sighed, rubbed my arms, and braced myself against the back of my car. It barely moved an inch as my feet scrabbled in the snow. I looked around, squinting as loose snow blew into my face. I'd managed to pull off the main road as the wretched thing cut out, and was at the top of what looked like a smaller country lane. I needed to get the car out of the way before it got in the way of the locals.
Not that there were many of them, if the lack of tire tracks in the snow were any indication, but you never know.
Served me right for trying to drive across the mountains on my own. I'd obviously missed a turning, my head full of thoughts of my recent breakup. I hadn't even noticed until the major road I was following got narrower and narrower between the trees.
I stamped my feet, glad for my boots, and rummaged on the back seat for my gloves. I pulled on my long wool overcoat, wrapped a scarf around my head, and considered the situation.
I was lost. My car was dead and blocking a road. My phone had no signal. It was a little below freezing, and in an hour or so it would be dark.
At least the car was full of food. And everything else, from CDs to shoes, that hadn't been packed into storage.
I decided to follow the road a little way and see if I could get a phone signal. It wasn't a strong hope, given that there hadn't been any for the last twenty minutes when I was trying to find my way back to the main road. But my other option seemed to be 'sit and cry about your situation.'
The car had no heat, and I was less likely to get hypothermia while walking. I filled my pockets with chocolate, tucked a bottle of water into my coat, and made a deal with myself. I would follow the smaller road for no more than twenty minutes, and not take any turnings. That way I would be back before it got dark, and I wouldn't get even more lost.
Swearing, I began trudging along the edge of the road through a hand's depth of snow.
I'd been walking for perhaps ten minutes and seen no sign of people when I rounded a corner and the valley opened up before me. I stood for a moment, taking in the view. As I turned, I saw that a couple of miles away was a castle.
I didn't remember a castle being marked on the map. I must have come further out of my way than I thought.
But it was there, and the road I was on seemed to lead directly to it as it jutted proudly from the mountainside. I stood staring at it as I debated with myself the wisdom of walking toward an unknown, possibly deserted castle in the dark, as opposed to turning around and heading back to my car where I could huddle underneath all the possessions I owned, apart from furniture, and possibly freeze to death before someone found me anyway.
I squinted into the setting sun, trying to make out details. I decided that after everything I'd been through, the breakup, the forced moving out, and now getting lost in the mountains of Eastern Europe on the way to my new job, I might as well die dramatically in a castle, instead of huddled on the backseat of a car filled with empty memories.
I stood up straight, sighed, slouched again, and kept walking along the smooth curve of the road as it hugged the edge of the mountain, pines towering over me on one side and a sheer drop I didn't even want to think about on the other.
I was extremely grateful to have good boots on.
Gradually, the sun's disk dropped behind the mountain and the night closed in as I went. There were patches of ice under the snow, and sometimes it was hard to keep my feet. When I wasn't glaring at the ground for trying to betray me, I stared at the castle as it crept closer. Lights appeared in some of the windows and I held my breath, hoping that they weren't just the reflection of the last rays of sunlight. But they stayed past when full dark arrived, and I did a ridiculous little dance in the middle of the road because I couldn't believe my luck.
There were people in the castle. Those people might let me in and give me a hot drink, or at least let me use a phone and tell me exactly where I was. I shook my arms and wrapped them tightly around myself, starting to feel the cold in my fingers. I picked up the pace.
Hi, floated into my brain, my name's Brad Majors, and this is my fiancée Janet Weiss. I laughed, clouds of steam from my breath billowing. They were swept away quickly as the wind picked up. The snow started coming down faster, the flakes bigger. But I was almost there, only a couple of hundred metres to a set of wrought iron gates which looked like something out of a fairytale. They were topped with vicious spikes, the bars interlaced with a curling latticework of iron, set into a stone wall at least twelve feet high.
I reached them, and leant against the wall for a moment, looking for an intercom system or a bell to ring, a way to warn whoever was inside that I was here. There didn't seem to be anything, but there didn't seem to be a lock either, and after a moment's hesitation I pushed at one of the gates. It moved slightly with a screech from the hinges, and jammed against a snowdrift on the other side. I sighed, and eyed the gap. Probably just about big enough to wriggle through, although it would be a squeeze with all my winter layers.
The buttons on my coat were almost ripped off, but I got through.
I took a moment to arrange myself, to blow my running nose and try and bring some order to the four skirts I'd been wearing because they wouldn't fit in the suitcase. Taking a deep breath, I walked toward the castle, its shape becoming more indistinct as the snow whirled more fiercely. I reached a huge door, and pulled the chain hanging beside it. A ringing as loud as a church bell echoed around me.
I heard the door being unlocked, and squashed the urge to start quoting the rocky horror show. It opened slightly, and a man's face regarded me suspiciously.
I knew a little Romanian, but I couldn't bring any of it to mind.
"Hallo."
The man scowled.
"Englisch oder Deutsch?" His voice was indistinct.
"English."
He didn't look any more cheerful, but he pulled the door wider and beckoned me in. I followed, feeling guilty about the snow that I was tracking onto the stone floor, but glad to be out of the wind. He didn't seem to care, but gestured for me to move further into the entryway while he relocked the door. His hair was thinning, and his shoulders were rounded.
I took a few steps and stopped, looking around me in awe. Although the room wasn't much warmer than outside, and the lighting was dim, it was magnificent. A staircase spiralled at the far end, and the walls were lined with portraits. I turned in a circle, my mouth open, and was about to turn ask if I could use a phone when I noticed a man descending the stairs.
He looked to be in his forties, in a perfect black suit which emphasised his broad shoulders and lean frame. He must have been comfortably over six feet tall, pale with long dark hair that showed hints of grey at the temples. I was suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that I was wearing so many layers that I looked like a walking laundry heap, and with just as many creases. But even at my most gothically elegant, I could never move as gracefully as this man did. He walked down the stairs as smoothly as water flowing over a stream bed.
The man who had opened the door intercepted him on the bottom step, while I stood awkwardly and wondered how much my eyeliner had run, between the crying and the trek through the snow. They had a quiet conversation, and then the taller man approached me with a friendly smile.
"Koukol says you have appeared from the storm like a ghost," he said, his voice unexpectedly deep and slightly rough, his accent barely distinguishable.
He held out his hand, and I pulled off one of my gloves and shook it. His fingers and nails were long, and his grip was firm but quite cold.
"I'm sorry about that. My car broke down at the top of the road, and" you've arrived on a rather special night, shut the fuck up brain, "I couldn't get a signal on my phone. Could I maybe use yours, please? I don't want to leave it there in the way."
"I am afraid that I cannot help you. We are currently without electricity, as you can see, but I can ask my son to collect your car and bring it here until the storm has passed."
I looked around. The dim lighting of the hallways wasn't, as I had first assumed, from dimmed bulbs, but instead from candles. The air smelled faintly of beeswax.
"Oh, I couldn't ask you to do that-"
He cut me off with a wave of his hand.
"Nonsense, you are unfamiliar with the area and it would not be safe to walk around in a storm such as this is shaping up to be. But come with me, we shall go somewhere warmer and you can take off your coat and have a hot drink."
Koukol muttered something I didn't catch.
"Koukol will take your coat and boots, so that snow does not melt along the corridors."
I fumbled with the buttons on my long black coat, wishing there weren't so many of them. I passed it to Koukol, thanking him, and then stood on one leg to pull off my boot. I managed to get the second foot caught in my skirts as I lifted it, and the long-haired man took my elbow to steady me.
At last, I followed him past the stairs and down a corridor carpeted in deep red. His hair reached to his waist. We walked past a large mirror, spotted with age, and I took stock of my reflection. I had certainly looked more appealing. My nose was red from cold, my cheeks from embarrassment, and my eyeliner looked like a sad panda. My hair had come partially unbraided and was straggling out from under the scarf still wrapped around my head.
The man pushed open a door at the end of the corridor, and I stepped into a room filled with warmth and light. It was a kitchen, with candles standing on every reasonable surface, a fire burning in one of the huge stone hearths and an aga standing against the opposite wall. The windows were small and high, snow piled against the outside of the glass.
He gestured to a wooden chair beside a huge table, and I sank into it gratefully, pulling off my gloves and scarf and unbuttoning my outer cardigan.
"My apologies, I have not introduced myself. My name is Johannes."
"Cassandra. Thankyou so much for letting me come in."
"No reasonable man could leave you wandering in a snowstorm, and I enjoy having visitors. Would you prefer tea, hot chocolate, or Glühwein?"
I thought about it. Tea would be the sensible answer, but today was not a sensible day. "Glühwein, please, if it's not too much trouble?"
"None at all."
He turned away and started opening cupboards, and I looked around, taking in the kitchen. It had obviously been here as long as the castle, and been updated as the centuries passed. I couldn't see anything that required electricity, and I wondered if there was any in the castle at all. The cupboards and countertops were all wooden, and the room, while spotless, gave off an air of being rarely used.
Johannes turned back to me and set a steaming mug down on the table beside my gloves. I picked it up, wrapping my fingers around its warmth and cradling it to my chest as he sat opposite me.
"Aren't you having any?"
"I do not drink wine."
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
At that point the door flew open, rebounding off the wall with a bang and admitting a young man with flowing blonde hair, carrying shopping bags and wrapped in a lavender knee length coat.
"Vati,"
"Herbert," said Johannes, rising to clasp him by the shoulder. "We have a guest, an English speaking guest."
Herbert turned to me and seized one of my hands, shaking it so enthusiastically that I feared I would spill my drink.
"Hello! Delighted to meet you! I'm Herbert. Are you stranded because of the weather? Oh! It must be your car at the top of our road. I pushed it over to the side, but I can fetch it if you like. I was just coming to tell my father that it had been abandoned and we must search and rescue the driver!"
I gently extricated my hand from his grip. "That would be incredibly kind of you, but it's broken down. And the weather is dreadful."
"Oh, that's no problem. I know the road like the back of my hand, I can take something bigger and tow it." Herbert hoisted his shopping bags, a seemingly even mix of shelf stable foods and designer clothing, onto the countertop.
"Will you be going out again tonight after retrieving the car?" asked Johannes, eyeing the heap of purchases as a tin of tomato soup rolled onto the floor.
"No, I'll be in for the rest of the week probably. I'll leave you two to get acquainted, then!" Herbert paused in the doorway and winked at me. "Be careful, he bites!"