Lost in the Castle

"Sam! Come on, we are nearly there!" The girls called me from the top of the hill, but I decided to ignore them.

They were too noisy, my two friends, disturbing me from my pleasant reverie. Right now, I wanted to stay alone for a while, to admire the beauty spreading around me.

This was the trip of my dreams. I always wished to visit the Bran Castle in Transylvania, and now that I was finally here, the place was making me feel... strange. As if I had been here before, as if I knew it well, just couldn't remember it entirely. The feeling I had was like a distant memory, or like one of those dreams that fade away with the sunrise, and all that is left of them is a faint hint.

"You go on, I'll reach you inside!" I called to the impatient girls.

"Fine, but hurry up. The tour starts in ten minutes."

I nodded, and finally, they jogged up the road to join the group of people gathering outside the castle, leaving me on my own.

The sudden silence washed over me like a flood and enveloped me like a thick blanket, muffling all the sounds. I took a few more steps up the centuries old road, and reaching the top of the hill, I noticed that all the people had already disappeared inside the medieval fortress.

This way, the place was perfect-- I was there alone, surrounded by its timeless beauty. It was a Halloween evening when the gates between the worlds stood open and anything was possible...

Pleasant shivers ran up my spine as I contemplated the haunting silhouette of the castle, set against the backdrop of the tree covered hills of the Carpathian Mountains. The motionless trees were incredibly colourful, as if painted by an eccentric artist, with thin stripes of fog coiling through them like a rugged veil. A stray ray of the sun, already beginning its descent towards the far horizon, illuminated a narrow, silvery ribbon of water rushing along the bottom of the deep gorge on the right side of the road.

This view reminded me of the setting of Bram Stoker's book. I wanted to believe that this really was the castle that had inspired his story, and something more-- a special place where time stood still, and anything was possible. Especially on a Halloween night. Absorbed in my fantasies, it was easy to imagine hearing a distant, ominous howling of wolves, clatter of wheels of an invisible carriage rushing past me, and a silent, chilling laughter carried towards me on a swift gust of wind.

Shaking my head to clear it from the too vivid images, I took my copy of Stoker's Dracula from my bag and hurried to join my friends in the courtyard of the castle.

The small group was gathered and waiting there. The ten of us, all in our twenties, were staying in the same hotel, located some thirty minutes' walk from the fortress. I had met them all over the last few days.

Letting my eyes stroll from one person to the next, I searched the group for my two friends, Anne and Lia. The girls were at the far end of the courtyard, absorbed in conversation with two boys, Mark and Lucas, two young Londoners, just like us. I walked over to them, but seeing that they were all quite busy with one another, and hardly looked at me when I joined them, I stayed a little on the side.

When we were invited to enter, I strolled a few steps behind them as the last member of the group, letting the gap between me and the rest of them stretch as we walked. That was exactly what I wanted, to soak in the atmosphere of the place alone, undisturbed.

"Sam, come closer," Lia urged when we walked into the first room, a large, dark hall redolent of times long past, with an impressive staircase leading to the upper floors at its end.

"I'm fine here," I whispered back even as we were joined by a guide who welcomed us in the castle.

Lia shook her head disapprovingly but didn't insist. She knew me well enough not to argue.