love men in general

The motorcar had climbed the serpentine road through the Carpathians, leaving the modern bustle of Brașov far below. Before them, silhouetted against a sky of brooding, pearl-grey cloud, rose the stark and familiar outline of Castle Dracula. To Lucy, who bounced in the passenger seat, it was the thrilling culmination of a vampire-themed pilgrimage.

“Can you feel it?” Lucy breathed, her face pressed to the window as they parked in the designated lot, a blatant anachronism. “The vibes! It’s so… intense. You can just tell this place has stories.”

Beth could feel it. But the sensation that coiled in her stomach was not excitement. It was a profound and unsettling melancholy, a deep-seated ache that seemed to resonate in her very bones, as if the mountain itself were sighing a sorrow she recognised but could not place.

“It’s certainly… atmospheric,” Beth replied, her voice softer than intended.

They passed through the rebuilt gatehouse—too new, yet trying desperately to look ancient—and into the main courtyard. The stone was cold and worn smooth by centuries of weather and feet. Lucy immediately began narrating from her guidebook, her voice bright with historical gossip.

“Okay, so this was the stronghold of Vlad the Second, Dracul—the Dragon—and then his son, Vlad the Third, Ţepeş—the Impaler,” she said, her tone relishing the macabre titles. “Can you believe it? The real Dracula! Not a vampire, but a prince. A hero, actually. He defended Wallachia from the Ottomans. A bit brutal, but you know, times were different.”

Beth barely heard her. Her attention was captured by the sheer, vertiginous walls, the narrow, slit-like windows that seemed to watch their approach. The air within the courtyard was still and cold, tasting of damp stone and ancient dust. It did not feel like a museum. It felt like a skull, its grandeur hollowed out and put on display, the essence of its life long since fled, leaving only a chilling echo.

They entered the Great Hall. Ropes of faded crimson velvet cordoned off areas, and discreet placards offered dry historical facts in three languages. The grandeur was undeniable, yet tragically frozen. A massive oak table, scarred and darkened with age, stood surrounded by high-backed chairs that seemed to hold the ghosts of their last occupants. A vast, threadbare tapestry on one wall depicted a hunting scene, the figures of stags and hounds blurred by time, their colours muted to shades of rust and moss.

Lucy flitted from exhibit to exhibit. “Look at this! A real broadsword. Can you imagine him holding it?” she whispered, snapping a picture with her phone.

Beth did not need to imagine. Her eyes lingered on the hilt, and a bizarre, unbidden thought flashed in her mind: the weight of it, the cold grip of the leather, the specific heft needed to swing it. She blinked, and the sensation was gone, replaced by a hollow thudding in her chest.

“His family held it for centuries,” Lucy continued, reading aloud. “But then, get this—in the 1880s, the last descendant, some reclusive count, was accused of a huge conspiracy against the crown. They say he was utterly mad. The castle was besieged, partly destroyed, and abandoned. I don't understand why they destroyed the castle if it was just a conspiracy, but.... It was left to rot until the government decided to rebuild it in the 1970s. Such a shame, all that history just… crumbling away.”

A conspiracy. Madness. Destruction. The words landed on Beth with a peculiar, personal weight. She moved away from Lucy, drawn to a smaller, glass-topped case. Inside, on a bed of black velvet, lay a few personal effects that had somehow survived the purges of time and conflict. A signet ring, its dragon crest worn almost smooth. A fragment of a letter, the ink faded to a pale brown. And a woman’s silver comb, set with a single, cloudy pearl.

Her breath caught in her throat. A pain, sharp and sudden, lanced behind her eyes. For a fraction of a second, the museum fell away. The air grew warm, smelling of beeswax and woodsmoke. She could almost hear the rustle of heavy silk and the low murmur of a voice, a baritone that vibrated in the memory of her soul rather than her ears. It was a sense of immense, devastating loss, so profound it felt like a physical wound.

“Beth? You okay?” Lucy’s voice cut through the vision, and the cold, silent museum snapped back into place. “You’ve gone pale. Isn’t it just awesome?”

Beth turned from the case, forcing a smile that felt brittle on her lips. “It’s a lot to take in,” she said, her voice faint. “So much… history.”

She looked around the cavernous room, at the tourists in their bright anoraks speaking in hushed, excited tones. They saw a monument, a storybook castle. But Beth saw something else. She saw the ghost of a home. She saw the shadows of conversations in corners now roped off, of footsteps on stairs now worn smooth by strangers, of passions and terrors that had seeped into the very stone, forgotten by everyone but the stone itself.

As they wandered through the grand, sparsely furnished rooms, Lucy, her cheeks flushed from the cold and excitement, continued her ardent narration. "And the most tragic part," she whispered, her voice echoing slightly in the vast space, "is the story of him and his wife, Elisabeta. It was a love story for the ages, Beth. Completely unusual for the time. A prince who adored his bride, who would have laid the world at her feet. And she, they say, worshipped him in return."

Beth listened, her gloved fingers trailing absently along the cold, carved stone of a windowsill, watching the grey winter light filter through the thick glass.

"It all ended in horror, of course," Lucy continued, her tone dropping to a more sombre note. "No one knows exactly how. Some accounts say the Ottomans ambushed her while Vlad was away at battle and she was killed. Others... others say a false message reached her, telling her Vlad had fallen in battle. That her heart broke so completely, she threw herself from the highest tower of this very castle. And the real tragedy is that he was alive, riding back to her. Can you imagine?"

A strange, tight pain clenched in Beth's chest, so acute she had to pause for a breath. She could imagine. The image, unbidden and terrifyingly vivid, flashed in her mind: a crushing despair, the dizzying height of cold stone, a fall through misty air. Either death sounded terrible.

They moved into a more intimate suite of rooms, the guide’s placard indicating they were the private apartments. The air here felt thicker, the silence more profound. In a glass case, bathed in a soft, protective light, stood a gown. It was a magnificent thing of deep, forest-green velvet, its bodice intricately embroidered with silver thread that shimmered like trapped starlight. But Beth’s eyes were drawn not to its beauty, but to its flaw. There, just over the left breast, was a faint, irregular stain, a shadow of rusty brown that the centuries had not been able to erase.

A cold dread, ancient and absolute, trickled down her spine. Blood.

She turned away, and found it at a delicate writing desk and vanity, clearly a woman’s domain. A silver-handled brush, a few porcelain pots that might have held creams or perfumes. And beside them, a object that made her breath catch: a small, exquisite music box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

“Oh, look at that!” Lucy breathed, coming to her side. “That was a wedding gift from Vlad to Elisabeta. Can you hear the melody it must have played?”

Beth could not hear it, but she could feel it—a ghost of a tune, a whisper of delicate notes that seemed to vibrate in the core of her memory. She was overcome with a wave of dizziness. “How… how do you know all this, Lucy? All these intimate details?”

Lucy shrugged, a little embarrassed by her own passion. “I’ve always been obsessed with vampires. And you have to know the story of how it all supposedly began, don’t you?”

Beth frowned, tearing her gaze from the music box. “I don’t understand. What does a Wallachian prince’s tragic marriage have to do with vampires?”

It was then that Lucy’s eyes lit up with the thrill of the tale. “This is where the legend starts,” she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “After Elisabeta’s death, Vlad went mad. He desecrated chapels, renounced God, and swore an oath on his own power. And as a punishment for his blasphemy, he was cursed. Cursed with eternal life, to walk the earth as a strigoi, a vampire, forever denied the peace of heaven. They say he spent four hundred years waiting for her, Beth. Four centuries. Now that’s true love. Can you imagine any man today waiting that long?” She leaned closer. “And that ‘last descendant’ involved in the conspiracy in the 1880s? The mad count? Some say that was him. Vlad Țepeș himself, finally destroyed not by man, but by a messenger of God.”

Suddenly, Lucy gasped, grabbing Beth’s arm. “Beth, look!” She pulled her towards a large, darkened portrait hanging in an alcove. The plaque beneath it read simply: Vlad al II-lea Drăculești și Soția Sa, Elisabeta.

The painting was old, the colours dimmed by varnish and time, but the figures were clear. He stood, tall and formidable, in black armour, a hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his expression not one of cruelty, but of a fierce, unwavering intensity. Beside him, seated, was a woman in a green gown. Her hands were folded in her lap, her posture graceful. Her face was pale, with high cheekbones, and eyes of a deep, soulful shade that seemed to hold a universe of tenderness and sorrow. Her hair, the colour of winter wheat, was arranged in intricate braids.

“My God, Beth,” Lucy whispered, her voice full of awe. “She looks… she looks just like you.”

Beth stared, a cold tremor skittering along the nape of her neck. The resemblance was uncanny. It was like looking into a faded, ancestral mirror.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Beth said, forcing a laugh that sounded brittle even to her own ears. She tore her gaze away from the hauntingly familiar eyes of the portrait. “It’s just a trick of the light. A coincidence.”

“No, it’s not!” Lucy insisted, her eyes wide. “It’s the shape of the face, the features, the eyes, the hair… it’s you!”

Beth shook her head, a firm, definitive denial. The feeling of vertigo was returning. To change the subject, to ground herself in the rational world, she grasped at the legend Lucy had just spun. “So, according to this fairy tale,” she said, her tone deliberately light, “did Dracula ever find her? The… reincarnation of his wife?”

Lucy opened her mouth to reply, but then shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. The stories never really say—”

“Some people believe he did,” a man’s voice interjected, smooth and deep, from the shadows just behind them.

Both women started, turning abruptly. A man stood there, having approached so silently they had not heard him. He was tall, dressed in a long, dark coat that seemed to blend with the gloom of the castle. His features were sharp and aristocratic, and his gaze, which passed over Lucy and then settled on Beth, held a polite, detached curiosity.

He offered a slight, apologetic bow. “Forgive my intrusion. When I entered, the passion in your telling was quite compelling. I found I could not help but listen.”

Lucy, far from being offended, beamed with delight. “Not at all! It’s so rare to find someone who knows the Tale. Do you know the rest? Did he ever find her?”

The man, gave a modest shrug. “I am from this region. One hears the official history in the books, and the… other stories, whispered by the fire. The legend says he did. Not long ago, a locket was found in the ruins of the west wing. At first, it was believed to belong to a soldier who perished when the castle was destroyed in 1880. But when it was opened…” He paused, his dark eyes glinting. “The photograph inside bore a striking resemblance to the portrait of Elisabeta. It was… uncanny.”

“Is it here? On display?” Lucy asked, her voice trembling with excitement.

“It is,” he said. “Allow me.”

He led them to a small, discreet vitrine. Inside, on a bed of black velvet, rested a tarnished silver locket. Its lid was open, revealing a small, sepia-toned photograph of a woman. The image was faded, but the features were unmistakable.

Lucy gasped, her eyes darting from the portrait on the wall, to the photograph in the locket, and then to Beth’s face. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Beth… look. Look at it. You cannot deny it now. That woman… it’s you.”

Beth said nothing. She could not. The air had left her lungs. She was staring at a photograph of herself, a face she saw every morning in the mirror, captured in a time that was impossible. The resemblance was not a mere suggestion; it was a perfect, chilling duplication.

The man, intrigued, followed Lucy’s gaze. He too looked from the photograph, to the portrait, and then studied Beth’s face with a new, quiet intensity. A faint, unreadable smile touched his lips. “The similarity is… remarkable,” he conceded, his voice a low murmur.

“It’s… it’s a coincidence,” Beth finally managed, her own voice sounding thin and far away. “A trick of the the old film. Please, Lucy, stop being so conspiratorial.”

Amused, Lucy nudged her playfully. “Perhaps you are the second incarnation of Elisabeta! Maybe your Vlad is out there, searching for you right now.”

“Oh, stop it,” Beth chided, a faint blush colouring her cheeks. She gave her friend a gentle push. “Go on, go explore the rest. I’ll catch up.”

Lucy laughed, executing a playful, mocking curtsey. “As you wish, my princess,” she said, before skipping off, leaving Beth alone with the stranger and the ghost of her own face.

Beth could not tear her eyes from the locket. A faint shudder ran through her, a primal recognition she could not explain.

“You truly see it?” she asked him quietly, her eyes still fixed on the tiny photograph.

He gave a slight, elegant shrug. “The features are undoubtedly similar. The line of the jaw, the set of the eyes. It is… notable.”

Beth laughed, a short, nervous sound. “It’s nonsense.”

“Do you not believe in reincarnation?” he asked, his tone conversational, yet probing.

She searched for the right words. It wasn't that she didn't believe in the concept, but the idea that she was the reincarnated princess of a Gothic tragedy, and that her soulmate was a centuries-old vampire… it was the stuff of ridiculous fantasy. “I think the idea that I was a princess and that Vlad was a vampire who waited 400 years sounds… rather improbable,” she said, trying to sound dismissive.

He admitted with a faint smile, “Perhaps the vampire part is a theatrical embellishment. But the notion of a soul finding its way back? That seems less far-fetched. And after all,” he added, his dark eyes holding hers for a moment, “you could have been a princess.”

His words, surprisingly, drew a genuine smile from her. “Thank you for the compliment.”

Then, emboldened by a sudden impulse, she turned the tables. “To be perfectly honest, you bear a rather striking resemblance to him,” she said, nodding towards the formidable portrait of Vlad.

They both turned to look at the painting. The man raised a single, sceptical eyebrow, a gesture that itself seemed eerily familiar. “Do you think so?”

“I do,” Beth insisted. “The resemblance is just as strong.”

For a moment, they stood in silence, contemplating the impossible parallels. Finally, he broke the quiet with a soft chuckle. “Then it seems we are both doppelgängers for tragic historical figures. A curious coincidence of features, nothing more.”

The strange tension broken, he extended a hand. “A pleasure to share this odd moment with you. I am Vladimir.”

She took his hand. His grip was firm, his skin cool against her own. “Elizabeth,” she said. “But my friends call me Beth.”

“Beth,” he repeated, and the name sounded like a long-forgotten melody on his lips. “A beautiful name.”