Bran Castle
Somewhere in the hills of Romania
Wednesday, November 16
Cold, bleak, mountainous.

“Is this the only motorcar?” Lady Middlesex demanded, waving her arms in the way that English people do when speaking with foreigners who don’t understand them. “Only one automobile? What about the servants? They can’t ride with us. Simply not done. Is there a bus they can take? A train?”

None of her questions produced any response at all and in the end she had to concede that the maids would have to sit in the front with the chauffeur. He didn’t seem to like the idea of this and yelled a lot, but it became clear that braver men than he had quailed before the force of Lady M’s determination. Chantal and Queenie tried to squeeze into the other front seat, but there simply wasn’t room. In spite of the spacious interior of the motorcar, there was only one seat and we three women fit rather snugly. In the end Chantal was given the front seat and poor Queenie had to sit on the floor with her back to the driver and the train cases and hatboxes piled beside her. The rest of the baggage was eventually loaded with some difficulty into the boot of the motorcar. It wouldn’t close, of course, and string had to be found to tie it together. We looked anything but regal—more like a traveling circus—as we finally set off from the station.

It was now almost dark but from what I could see we were driving through a small medieval city with narrow cobbled streets, picturesque fountains and tall gabled houses. Lights shone out and the streets were almost deserted. Those few pedestrians we passed were bundled into shapeless forms against the cold. As we left the town behind, snow started to fall in earnest, blanketing the ground around us with a carpet of white. The driver mumbled something in whatever language he spoke, presumably Romanian. For a while we drove in silence. Then the road entered a dark pine forest and started to climb.

“I don’t like the look of this at all,” Miss Deer-Harte said. “What did I tell you about brigands and wolves?”

“Wolves?” Queenie wailed. “Don’t tell me we’re going to be eaten by wolves!”

The driver perked up at a word he understood. He turned to us, revealing a mouth of yellow pointed teeth. “Ja—wolffs,” he said, and gave a sinister laugh.

Up and up we drove, the road twisting back and forth around hairpin bends with glimpses of a sickening drop on one side. Snow was falling so fast now that it was hard to see what was road and what might have been a ditch beside it. The driver sat up very straight, peering ahead through the windshield into murky darkness. There was not a light to be seen, only dark forest and rocky cliffs.