This was nothing like home. It was wilder. The forest sprawled and fought through the dark, roots and branches reaching their fingers and toes towards the road. But nothing like home had been exactly what I wanted. Hadn’t it? A place as far away from home as I could find. An opportunity for change, to be a different person for a while. To leave the empty terraced house behind. My mind drifted back to it, to the room I now kept locked, imagining the dust collecting, the heavy air I’d longed to escape. My chest tightened with fear.
Alexandru broke the silence, pulling me from those thoughts. “You are not here for holiday?”
“No,” I said.
“Then what will you be doing?”
“Writing. I’m meeting other creatives for a retreat that we’re filming and streaming on the internet. We all have a social media following and those followers are also patrons, so they can pay for exclusive content.”
Alexandru shook his head as though the concept seemed nutty to him. To be fair, I understood why. The strange world of social media influencing is not entirely accessible or easily understood by older generations.
“This is what you do for a living?”
I laughed. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“And your parents approve of this… trip?”
There was no way for me to answer his questions without lengthy explanations, so I simply made an mmhmm sound.
We were on a narrow road with a steep drop, but his eyes found me in the mirror for a brief glance. There was both warmth and hardness in his expression that reminded me of a father either about to scold his daughter or give her a life lesson. “What is your name?”
“Cath.”
“Okay, Cath, I will tell you about the curse because you should know. But remember, it is a story, a legend. Truth and fiction combine in this story. A lot of it is not real. Do not let it frighten you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
I saw his shoulders relax and decided that Alexandru was a decent man. “Good. Sfântul Mihail is an old building. At least two hundred years old but I forget the date. Lived in right up until the unfortunate event in 1946, just before the socialist republic began. The true part is, almost everyone in the monastery died one night. There was one survivor—the abbess. This place is not what you would call a monastery. You call it a nunnery, but we have no distinction between the two in the Orthodox Church. But all of the victims were women.”
“That’s tragic,” I said, sitting up straight, one hand clenched around my emergency sewing kit. My eyes darted from the bouncing headlights of the car, to Alexandru’s reflection in the mirror. Out there the darkness closed in, blocking out the precipitous drop. Enveloped in the night, we existed on our own plane, away from the world.
“Yes. Great tragedy.” He glanced at me again, but I could tell he was mostly concentrating on the difficult drive. “Since then, villagers say the building is cursed. That the souls of the nuns roam Sfântul Mihail. But it is nonsense.”
“Of course,” I replied unsteadily. “Ghosts don’t exist.”
“You’re not a believer. Good. Best to keep sceptical. The other part of the legend is a little… strange. Well, not so strange considering where we are.” He hesitated again, and I saw the question in his eyes as he wondered whether to tell me the rest.
“Go on,” I prompted. I almost wanted to add “I can take it” but I didn’t.
“They say the bodies were bloodless with wounds at the neck. They say an argument ensued among the villagers. There were those who wanted them to be staked, or have their heads removed, because the old stories of the strigoi are still told in remote places.”
“Strigoi is the Romanian word for vampire, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. Again, his eyes appeared in the mirror, and again there was a hesitation, a warning. “You must understand that most Romanians are not this superstitious.”
I nodded to show I understood.
“Well, I do not know whether the bodies were decapitated, but I know there are those who claim the ghosts walking the corridors are not ghosts at all.”
Chapter Two
The night robbed me of my first glimpse of Sfântul Mihail. It was through hazy yellow lights that I caught sight of old bricks and stained-glass windows. In the darkness, those walls could have been carved into the mountainside. They shared the same bruised blue of the silhouettes seen in the distance from Brasov. Alexandru cut the engine and the lights. It was a darkness I’d not known before. He flicked the lights back on.
When I opened the car door, the night chill tickled my extremities, and the strong breeze tugged at my loose hair. Even Alexandru rubbed his arms as he hurried to the back of the taxi. Before joining him I found it difficult to tear my eyes away from the ill-lit building before me. Now, with the wind and the rustling of the trees around us, the jagged church steeple barely visible against the night sky, and the clear dots of white stars suspended above, I could see how easy it would be to concoct a legend about this place. To imagine life continued beyond what we knew existed. Stalking corridors. Pale fingers dragging against stone. I shivered. Up here we would be utterly alone.
I snapped out of my trance and walked around the car. Alexandru grunted as he pulled the suitcase from the boot.
“Thank you for the safe journey,” I said, handing him the cash owed, along with a generous tip. He handed half of the tip back to me.
“For the button,” he said. “My wife died, and I would not have done it myself.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. And then I added, “Perhaps next time I’m in your taxi, I’ll show you how to sew.”
He laughed. “Teach an old dog new tricks, ha!”
I smiled, and then I gazed out along the narrow track back down the mountain. “It’s a long drive to Brasov in the dark. Perhaps you should stay the night here.”
I watched as Alexandru regarded the pale façade of the monastery, currently illuminated by yellow headlights. For the barest of moments he went still, his back held so straight it was stiff. It took that moment to understand the fear emanating from him, which made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
“No thank you, I will drive.” He reached into his pocket and produced a business card. “You must take care now, Cath. Here are my details if you need anything.”
“It was lovely to meet you.” I took the card. “Thank you for telling me so much about the history of this place.”
“I wish it was a better story,” he said, ducking into his car.
My heart lurched as he drove away. I thought of those narrow, winding roads, the precipitous drops down the mountainside. It was not a journey I would like to make by myself.
“You must be Cath.”
The lilt of a faint French accent made me jolt from my thoughts. I tugged my suitcase and turned around to see a tall, slim woman standing in the large, arched entranceway. She wore shorts and a pyjama top. Her feet were bare, and her hair trailed loosely over one shoulder, tendrils of messy curls hugging the curve of her chest. A silk eye-mask had been pushed high up her forehead.
“Well, come on,” Irene said. “It is draughty enough already inside.” She rubbed her upper arms as I dragged my suitcase along to greet her. “Of course monasteries just have to be open in the centre. Who designed such a thing?” She glanced at me up and down as I approached. “Long journey?”