at Castle Rannoch were spartan in the extreme, this room was full of drapes, hangings and heavy furniture. In the middle was a four-poster bed hung with velvet curtains that would have been quite suitable for the Princess and the Pea. Similar heavy curtains covered one wall, with presumably a window behind them. More curtains concealed the door I had just come through. A fire was burning in an ornate marble fireplace but it hadn’t succeeded in heating the room very well. There was a massive wardrobe, a dressing table, a bulky chest of drawers, a writing desk by the window and a huge painting on the wall of a pale, rather good-looking young man in a white shirt, reminding me of one of the Romantic poets—had Lord Byron visited these parts? But then Byron had been dark and this young man was blond. The lighting was extremely poor, dim and flickering, coming from a couple of sconces on the walls. I looked around, still feeling queasy from the ride and uneasy from the strange tension that had been building ever since that man had tried to enter my compartment. It wasn’t the pleasantest feeling standing in a room with no obvious window or door and I decided to go and pull back the curtains on the far wall.
As I crossed the room I detected a movement and my heart lurched as I saw a white face looking at me. Then I realized it was only a pockmarked old looking glass on the wardrobe door. I pulled back the curtains enough to reveal the window, managed to open the shutters and stood looking out into the blackness of the night. Not a single light shone out from the dark forested hills. Snow was still falling softly and cold flakes landed on my cheeks. I looked down. My room must have been in the part of the castle built on the edge of the rock, because it seemed an awfully long way down into nothing. Far away I detected the sound of howling coming through the stillness. It didn’t sound like any dog I had ever heard and the word “wolves” crept into my mind.
I was just about to close the window again when I stiffened, then peered intently into the darkness trying to make out what I was really seeing. Something or somebody was climbing up the castle wall.
Chapter 12
Bran Castle
Somewhere in the middle of Transylvania
Wednesday, November 16
I couldn’t believe my eyes. All I could make out was a figure all in black with what looked like a cape blowing out behind it in the wind moving steadily up the apparently smooth stone wall of the castle. Then all at once it vanished. I stood there, staring for a while until the wind picked up, carrying with it the howling of wolves, and snow started to blow into the room. Then I closed the window again. I lay on the bed and tried to rest but I couldn’t. Drat that Deer-Harte woman. If she hadn’t brought up the subject of vampires, my thoughts wouldn’t be running wild at this point. I lay looking around the room. The top of the wardrobe appeared to be carved with gargoyles at each corner. There were faces in the crown molding and—dear God, what was that? A piece of furniture I hadn’t noticed, half hidden behind the door curtains. It looked like a large carved wood chest. A very large carved wood chest big enough to conceal a person. Or . . . it couldn’t be a coffin, could it?
I got up and tiptoed across the room. I had to know what was inside that chest. The lid was infernally heavy. I was just struggling to get it open when I felt a draft behind me and a hand touched my back. I yelled and spun around. The lid crashed shut with a hollow thud and there was Queenie looking scared.
“Sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to startle you. I came in real quiet-like, in case you were still sleeping.”
“Sleeping? How can I sleep in a place like this?” I asked.
She looked around. “Blimey. I see what you mean. This is a spooky old place, ain’t it? Gives me the willies. Reminds me of the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussauds. Except for the bloke on the wall. He’s a bit of all right, ain’t he?”
“I’m not sure I like him looking at me when I’m in bed,” I said, and as I said it