Blows hammered against the long-forgotten door, shaking dust and snow from its ancient wood. The lock broke, the doors swung open and the crisp storm air broke into the dark stale corridor for the first time in decades. Jack pushed in past Ellie and looked around the ice-cold hallway with disdain. Ellie closed the doors behind her and looked up at the frozen room. Home.

“You mean to tell me we came all this way for this?” Jack’s anger hadn’t eased any. Ellie felt her excitement drop immediately. She glanced over at him silently, noticing the sour expression that scored his face. Was this just a permanent thing for him now? He walked into the room and kicked an old chair across the floor. It bounced a few times before stopping by a dusty cabinet of plates. The sound of wood on stone echoed into the endless silence. “Can’t say I’m all that impressed. I’m fucking freezing and I’m a vampire. Still, I guess it’ll have to do. If this is where the prophecy wants us to mate, then I’m all for it…”

Those dark red eyes looked over at her. There was a glint of unappetizing greed in them. It sent a shiver down her spine. She forced a smile back at him long enough until his gaze returned to the room once more. She walked away from him and decided to look around at her own pace. Home. She was really home.

Her feet carried her into a long stone hallway which ran adjacent to the room. Faint memories flashed before her eyes as an image, and she saw herself and her two friends running along the corridor. She looked out at the ghostly image and smiled. Jack appeared by her side, erasing the image and her good mood.

“Jesus. This hallway must run through the entire castle,” he said.

“It does,” she said without looking at him. “It loops round the entire ground floor. The main communal areas are at the center of the castle.” She spoke almost as if on auto-pilot, surprised at the hidden knowledge.

“How do you know that?” he said, eyeing her suspiciously.

“I’m not sure,” Ellie said honestly. “It just came to me then. I’m going to have a look around.” She pursed her lips and looked at him. “Do you want to come?” Secretly she hoped that Jack would leave her to it and let her explore on her own. She could already tell he wasn’t as enamored with the castle as she was, and it broke her heart a little. Why couldn’t he be excited for this like she was? Couldn’t he see how amazing this was? Their destiny had brought them back here, together, all the way back to the place she grew up in.

“I suppose there is a lot of frozen nothing to investigate,” he said with some distaste. “I’d rather just wait down here and find fuel for a fire…” Hope sprung in Ellie’s chest momentarily. “But I don’t trust you alone in this place…”

She turned her head, knotting her brow in question. “Trust me? You don’t… trust me?”

“Not to hurt yourself,” he said hastily after a moment of uncertainty. He forced an empty smile, stepped forward and brushed a hand through her hair again. Ellie remained in her spot but felt the strongest urge to reel back and put distance between them. Every move he made felt possessive. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight. “This old hellhole is probably a deathtrap. Can’t risk you going off on your own and getting hurt.”

She forced another empty smile and sighed. “Okay but can you… can you be nicer about this place? I know it’s a bit run down but this is where I grew up. I know it doesn’t look like much now, but we can make this castle a home together. Can’t you realize how amazing it is that we even found the castle in the first place?” She looked down the long stone hallway and shivered slightly with the cold. It was run-down, and it was freezing, but it didn’t change the fact that it was beautiful to her.

Jack looked around him, the sour expression on his face unchanging. He noticed she was watching him and tried to force a look of understanding. “No. You’re right honey. I get it. This dump is beautiful. I see it now.”

“Okay,” she said quietly, looking down to the stone floor to hide her tears. He didn’t get it at all, and she didn’t get him at all. She tried to ignore the deep-rooted feelings of dissatisfaction brewing inside her to focus her excitement on the castle instead. “Let’s just go.”

Another empty smile from those flat red eyes, another awkward silence. They walked down the long hallway in silence, exploring the ground floor and its many frozen rooms. Jack, thankfully, was quiet for the most part, and it gave Ellie a chance to explore the castle on her own in a way. As she walked she saw more of those ghostly memories, flashing before her eyes as living ghosts. There were the faces of regal men and women. They were familiar to her, but unknown at the same time, smiling back at her like strangers on a train.

Alongside those happy memories were the occasional flashes of the bad times. She stood at the foot of a broad staircase near the main hall, watching in silence as the attack replayed itself. A cold breeze flustered down the steps and swept over her face, bringing a whisper with it.

Up here. Up here.

“Everything okay?”

Ellie jumped out of her skin at Jack’s sudden appearance. He stood there holding two flaming torches. “Jack… you scared the life out of me. Don’t sneak up on me like that. Where have you been?”

“I found us some warmth. And light. Thought it might help us explore this ruin—I mean, castle—together.” He handed her a torch and she took it, instantly feeling it’s warmth flicker her into her bones. It was a simple gesture, but a nice one. Perhaps the nicest thing he’d done for her in a while.

“Thank you, Jack. I was going to look upstairs. Want to come?”

The upper floors of the castle were just as disheveled as the ground floor, but Ellie noticed the castle’s current state less and less as they walked. Each new room brought distant memories of strangers. Each new corridor held the smiling faces of people she once knew. They entered a sitting room of some sort and stopped by a tall window to look up at a portrait of a family on the wall. The portrait showed a man and woman, accompanied by three young girls, all with different colored hair.

“This must have been the family that owned the castle,” Jack said as he looked up at the portrait. Ellie stared up at it too, her gaze transfixed on the three girls smiling back at her from the bottom of the portrait. One with brown hair, one with blonde, one with red. Her heart beat in her chest rapidly as she saw those images for the time with her own eyes. It wasn’t just a fantasy. It wasn’t just a dream. Had she somehow been a part of this family? All her memories painted her as a servant, but memories had a funny way of being wrong.

Another breeze flustered across the floor from the doorway, bringing whispers with it.

This way.

She turned silently and followed the voice back along the corridor to an open doorway at the opposite end. The door creaked open on ancient hinges, revealing a small room with an open broom closet. Her feet rooted to the floor as her eyes locked on the closet. It was the same one her mother hid them in during the attack.

Come. Come.

Something pulled her forward, making her walk hypnotically. It dragged her across the room and brought her attention to the floor at the back of the closet. There on the stone there was a small object, wrapped in black velvet. Ellie crouched to her knees, looked back over her shoulder for sign of Jack but saw none. She picked up the velvet pouch, turned it over in her hands and pulled open the drawstring at its top. Inside there was a small silver dagger, its handle studded with bright green stones. Another voice sounded, making her jump once more.

“What’s that?” Jack reached forward and pulled the dagger from her hands.

“Jesus Jack! I told you not to—” She broke away mid-sentence to see Jack drop the dagger to the floor. He cursed loudly, holding his blood-soaked hand.

“Fuck!” he wailed. “Stupid thing cut me!”

Ellie jumped to her feet and rushed toward Jack. “Jack! My goodness! Are you oka—”

“Back off! This is your fault!” He swung a hand out, pushed her hard on her shoulder and sent her flying back. Ellie crashed against the stone floor, hurt, surprised, confused.

“J-Jack?”

“Fucking thing is pure silver.” He clutched his wrist tight, trying to stop the flowing blood. “I’m lucky it was just a nick. Anything bigger and my healing…” He trailed off, his whole body trembling with rage. “I’m going to find somewhere to clean up. As for you… get rid of this fucking thing! I never want to see it again. Is that clear?!”

Breath trembled from Ellie’s lips as she nodded her agreement. Jack tore from the room, leaving her alone once more. She attempted to still her racing breath and sat up straight, picking her torch up from off the floor. He’d pushed her. He’d really pushed her.

“What am I doing here?” she whispered to herself. “What’s happening to him? Why is he like this?”

The push had hurt her body, but only slightly. The real pain came inside. It was the feeling of her heart tearing in two. He wasn’t the man she thought he was. He was a bully. A coward. He wasn’t Jack. She fought back the urge to cry and choked back her sobs. Back on her feet again, she walked over to the dagger and picked it up off the floor, wondering how to dispose of it.

It was curious how such a small thing could produce so much blood. She didn’t understand how it had even pricked his skin. Curious. Dangerous. Probably best to throw it away. Looking around the room, the only answer that came to her was the old iron-crossed window on her right. Ellie walked across the room, forced the old window open and found some relief in the cold brush of air that swept in.

Below the window a wall of frozen stone curved down to a snow-capped wood. She looked down, held the dagger out in the air and dropped it. The silver blade glistened in the moonlight, tumbling silently through the air to land in the snow below. She pulled her hand back through the window and paused. What was she doing? Why was she doing what he wanted? Him… the man that had just hurt her?

Ellie ran from the room and made her way back downstairs to the ground floor, somehow emerging outside at the spot below the window. Decades had passed since she was last here, but her mind still knew how to navigate the castle. She ran out into the cold toward the small wood at the castle’s side. The dagger had landed blade up in the snow, glinting in the moonlight by a tree at the edge of the wood. She swept down, brushed it off and put it back into its velvet pouch.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the dagger. “You are part of my home. You don’t deserve to be out here in the snow.” She felt a little crazy stood there under the moonlight, talking to a dagger, but it would feel even crazier just leaving it out here. Without thinking, she tucked the velvet pouch into the waistband at the back of her trousers and turned to head back inside.

As she turned she noticed something in the corner of her eye and looked back to the trees ahead. She approached the nearest tree and crouched down, brushing a light cap of snow from its base. There in the dirt were four black stalks. Widow’s Draught!

She loosened the soil around the tree’s base and gripped the black stalks, pulling the white roots up and out of the cold ground. She held them up to the light, feeling a strange sense of longing. This was the same root Monica had used to drug Jack back at the northern border. Back then he’d seemed like a completely different person.

Without understanding why, Ellie stood up and shoved the roots into her jacket pocket, brushing the dirt from her hands as she did so. She turned back to the castle and made her way back inside, expecting that Jack would start looking for her if she was away much longer. She couldn’t say why she’d grabbed the root, all she knew is that having that option available made her feel a little safer. Ellie closed the door behind her, knocked the snow from off her boots and made her way back upstairs.

If Jack tried to hurt her again she would be ready this time. She could use the root to sedate him and try to restrain him somehow in his fatigue. Something had gone wrong with her lover, and she no longer felt safe around him. She walked back down the long stone hallway on the second floor, back toward Jack, hoping she wasn’t walking to her death.