Letting my tears flow freely for a while as the bus descended the narrow, rocky road, I forbade myself to look back towards the castle. My home.

I was leaving my heart behind; I felt strangely numb, as if I was dreaming while sleepwalking, rather than moving around in the real world, abandoning this place on my own volition. The thought didn't really hurt, not yet, I was just empty and sad, feeling... lost.

Trying not to think about anything, I looked among the dark trees of the surrounding forest, noticing the path leading to the lake. Our lake. I drew a shaky, painful breath, then looked on the other side of the road. We were just passing what before, when we walked by on our way up, looked like a small, insignificant ruin. Now, I recognized it as the mill.

You mustn't cry. Once you start... It's not the right moment now, my subconscious reminded me. You'll have enough time to cry yourself to oblivion once you arrive home, to London.

I wiped the last tears off my face, closed my eyes, and didn't reopen them until the bus rolled to a stop in front of our hotel.

"Are you ok, Sam? Shall we go?" Lia put her hand on my arm, urging me to stand up and follow the other passengers out of the bus.

Even the small town spreading around the hotel in every direction looked huge, noisy, and too bright, illuminated by the tall lamps lining the pavements. How would I ever get used to London again?

Wrapping my arms around my body, feeling cold and insignificant in this place, I followed Lia, Anne, and the two young men inside.

The exceedingly steady and strong electrical light illuminating the interior was strangely disturbing after the soft, warm flicker of the candles and the moving, whispering fires I lived with for a year. It was making my headache worse again, forcing me to squint.

Where's Katerina with her willow bark? Would she be back from the mill by now, looking for me? Was the miller feeling better? Poor Clara, lost somewhere, and... Ioan... Was Vlad all right? Junior only said that he had been imprisoned, but there had been a fight. Had he been injured? Oh, why did I not push him to tell me more?!

"Do you have a headache?" Lia's voice disturbed my thoughts.

"What? Yes," I admitted, startled out of my reverie by her question.

"I've got some medicines in my luggage, I'll give you something as soon as we get upstairs," she promised as we reached the reception desk.

We should have taken the key with us as all the others, I thought, looking longingly at the rest of our group going directly upstairs. It seemed it was only us and the two guys who had left the key at the reception. I was too tired to wait now, I needed to lay down.

I leaned against the long counter, propping my elbow on its wooden surface, letting my head rest, face hidden, in the palm of my hand.

"Good evening. How was the tour? Have you met our ghosts?" the receptionist, coming in from one of the adjacent rooms, asked.

I looked up; it wasn't the same young man with whom we had left our keys in the morning. A year ago. This was a middle-aged woman, addressing us in English laced with a heavy Romanian accent, teasing, making fun of us. For her, we were just a typical bunch of young British adventurers. If only she knew what I had seen.

"Well, I haven't seen any ghosts," Anne said, taking the key from our room and following... Mark and Lucas, bingo!, up the stairs. "Maybe Samara has met some though; she looks disturbed, says she got lost!" she called across the hall, looking towards me, laughing.

The receptionist smiled politely at her joke and looked at me.

I saw her eyes widen with... recognition?... as they met mine, the smile freezing on her lips. She averted her gaze quickly to a low table placed by the window, full of books and postcards for sale. Then, as if she wasn't really sure that she wanted me to notice, the woman looked at the screen of her computer, pretending to be busy.

Too late. As Lia made to follow Anne up the stairs, I walked to the table and moving a few postcards around I found... myself and Vlad. Our wedding portrait printed on a postcard. Tens of them.

My heart started to race as I took one, bringing it to the woman at the desk.

"Come on, Sam!" Lia called from halfway up the stairs. "I'm never leaving you alone again."

"Just give me a second then!" I called back to her. Then I spoke to the receptionist quietly so Lia wouldn't hear, in a fluent, if not the most modern Romanian, "How much is this?"

The woman, whose name tag informed me that her name was Alina, how very original, gaped at me, then collected herself somehow and said, "It is you! You can keep the postcard, of course. But... What's happened, how come you are back here? He's been waiting for you for so long..."

"What do you know?!" I asked urgently, my curiosity overpowering all my other feelings.

She knows something, there's still hope... The realisation turned into a sense of relief, even as I begged myself not to get too happy, too excited. I had no idea if this woman could help me.

The receptionist shook her head. "Not now. Come back later, alone. We will talk."

"Sam!" Lia shouted again, getting impatient.

I sighed. Lia was at least as stubborn as me. If she said she wouldn't leave me alone, then she wouldn't.

"I'm coming!" I called to her, then turned back to the woman who was observing me intently again. "I'll be back."

She nodded, and I climbed up the stairs, feeling a tiny bit more optimistic. A memory of what Vlad had said once, a long time ago, came back-- the passage opened sometimes, and he spoke to those he met on the other side... This woman met him, knew him, I was sure about it.

I joined my friends at the top of the stairs, and we walked down the long corridor together, leaving the boys in front of their room, two doors away from ours.

Then we entered our room, and Anne headed directly for the bathroom. She wanted to be showered and ready when the boys came to pick her up for their night out later, she informed us.

"Just make sure you won't stay up too late. We are leaving tomorrow, remember? We must be at the train station by nine."

"I know, the awful train took hours to get here from the airport. I'll choose our next trip, I'm tired of Samara's ideas," Anne announced, closing the bathroom door behind her.

Whatever, I thought, lying down on my bed. The only thing I cared about at the moment was what I should do next. I needed to convince Lia to go out with the lot of them or to remain up longer than her if she stayed with me. So I could sneak out of the room to talk to Alina the receptionist unnoticed.

Yawning, I removed my jacket, then the jumper. The room was stifling hot, I wasn't used to this sort of temperature anymore.

I took my copy of Dracula from my handbag, tempted to reread Vlad's note, hidden among its pages, but decided against it. It wouldn't help my current state of mind at all. Instead, I put the book on my pillow and slid the postcard inside it, too.

I was exhausted. My headache was escalating, and the nausea was still there... Time travel didn't seem to agree with me at all.

"What have you got there? Let me see." Lia sat down next to me, taking the postcard in her hand and studying it. "So, whatever happened to you in that castle? You looked... spellbound around that black-haired guide. Not yourself at all..."

"Lia, please..."

"I want to know, Samara. You are suddenly... different. Something has happened to you. You are my best friend, there have never been secrets between us, remember? Whatever it is, you'll feel better once you've told me. Take all the time you need, but I want to know, ok?"

"Who are they?" I was saved for the moment by Anne, joining us on my bed after her super fast shower. She took the postcard from Lia. "You know, she looks a bit like you. If you brushed your hair that way..." My scalp ached at the memory of Katerina's hairdos. "And this guy definitely looks like that guide. I wonder if that's the reason why he got the job."

"That's Dracula and his first, mysterious wife. No one really knows who she was, nor if they ever really lived together in Bran. This portrait is apparently the only 'proof' the current owner of the castle has got about it. That's what the guidebook says, at least." Lia shrugged. "And you are right, Anne. They do look like Sam and the guide..." Lia looked at me, eyebrows knitting in surprise and confusion.

"Go dry your hair Anne, you're dripping all over my bed. Hurry, or you'll be late," I said, taking the postcard from her and hiding it in the book again.

"What time is it?!" Anne asked, springing to her feet. "The guys said I had fifteen minutes, and I still have to get dressed!"

One was gone. Now I had to do something about the other.

"Can I finally have something against my headache, Lia? And then go get ready too. You've heard, fifteen minutes..."

"You wish. I'm not going with them. I'm not leaving you alone. And I must study tonight, you know that," she said, passing me a small white pill and a glass of water.

"I'll tell you what," Lia continued, grabbing her purse as someone knocked on the door. "You go take a shower; you need it. Wash your hair; the smell of burning wood lingering around you is awful. I'll go down with Anne and the boys and get us a pizza in that small restaurant across the road. I'll be back in ten minutes."

"Bye Sam, hope you'll feel better soon!" Anne called from the door, pulling up the zip of her jeans hastily while grabbing her coat and the handbag from the only wardrobe the room contained, standing by the door.

Then they were both gone, laughing at something with the boys.

"Have fun!" I said as I took my warm flannel pyjamas and a bag of toiletries from my luggage on the way to the bathroom. I braided my hair and pinned it up securely before stepping under the shower. I was definitely not going to wash it, I wanted to keep the memory of the castle trapped in my hair for a little longer.

Lia was already back when I exited the bathroom, seated at a small table where she had laid our food, watching television. She frowned at my braid as I passed by. I frowned back at her, took my pizza and Coke, and brought it all to my bed. I did miss the modern food, yes, I realised as I sank my teeth in my Margherita. But I wouldn't mind eating Cook's meals for the rest of my life if it meant that I could stay... Stop!

Lia got bored of the television soon. While I collected the empty boxes and cups and packed all the things I didn't plan to use anymore in my luggage to save time in the morning, she took her shower, then lay down on her bed, a huge book open on her lap.

I flicked through all the available channels just to do something, choosing a programme in Romanian. That earned me more curious looks and frowns from Lia, but I didn't care. It was amusing how I could suddenly understand the language perfectly.

Finally, my friend fell asleep over her book. I put a long sweater over my pyjamas and left the room silently, leaving the television on so she wouldn't wake up to the sudden silence.

My heart beat fast as I walked down the corridor and descended the stairs. I realised that my body had been filled with adrenaline and working overtime ever since I found out that the receptionist might be able to help me somehow.

Who was she? What did she know about all this?

I could see her now; she was still sitting at her desk just as she had been when I had left her before, her open, friendly face illuminated by the bluish light from the screen of her computer.

"So here you are, Lady Samara," the woman said, standing up politely and looking me up and down as soon as she noticed me approaching.

I must have been a sight-- grey plush slippers, blue checkered pyjamas with a long white sweater on top, and a messy braid redolent of wood fire pulled over my left shoulder. Very ladylike indeed.

"Please tell me how you know who I am. Tell me everything. I need to go back to him," I begged.