The artist took a step back from his finished picture as he wiped his paintbrush with a solvent-infused square of cloth.

The strong scent of turpentine flared up his nostrils, reminding him, as always, of a forest... a place... a trip he could not remember. No.... It was more. It made him recall... home.

He shook his head and walked to the window of his studio. Nonsense. This was his home, the only home he had ever had after moving out of his parents' house which sat at the outskirts of this city years ago. The city whose roads he could see deep down, artificially straight and tree-less, crawling with people and cars.

He opened the window to let some fresh air in, then shut it quickly again as he was reminded about the price to pay for breathing the air in this place-- the unbearable noise and smell of the never ceasing traffic. He much preferred the wood scent and silence reigning inside his flat.

The young man returned to his just finished picture, letting the clean brush drop into a glass jar placed on the easel, next to many others. He observed the castle he had conjured up with hundreds of patient brush strokes on the previously blank square of canvas critically.

The bright, fragile-looking building seemed to have materialized out of the rugged veil of early morning fog rising from the depths, and stood on top of a tall hill covered in mint-green conifers, as if it was floating on a silvery cloud... The view was... eerily motionless, lifeless... Timeless.

This was the upteempth time in the course of the last few years that he felt the urge to paint this castle, a place only existing in his imagination.

He turned around slowly, observing the pictures covering every single surface of his studio. His breath caught when he realised that it had really been a long time since he painted anything else but different views of the same castle, its numerous chambers, vast courtyards, white towers, sweeping staircases and the forests surrounding it... and... the girl from his dreams.

The artist faced the wall by the window, and stared at the life-size portrait of a lady, dressed up in a fairytale-like gown. He approached it, and as always, brought his fingers gently to her full rosy lips, then to her cheek which seemed to blush under his touch. The Princess, that's how he named the painting, was breathtakingly beautiful, and perfectly lifelike.

He sighed, he had become obsessed by this fantasy, and it was growing stronger, clearer with every new dream. The young man knew that he should stop thinking about it before he went completely crazy.

But not before he... found out if this place, and his lady, were really just figments of his imagination.

He started, letting his hand drop to his side. This thought was not his, it seemed... as if it belonged to someone else. As if it was transmitted to him by the girl from the painting. The artist shook his head. Of course the place was not real, it belonged to the realm of his dreams, but... he had to make sure.

He cleaned up the rest of his paintbrushes, then set his laptop on a desk by the window. How did one look for a castle from a painting, he mused, letting his eyes stroll back to his newest picture, observing the elegant bright towers he knew so well.

It didn't look ancient. It must be... neo gothic castles he typed, then added, of Europe. It could not be anywhere else, he felt sure about it. Not too far, somewhere in the north...

The young man looked through the pictures appearing instantly on the screen of his laptop, not really expecting to find anything more than a vaguely similar building.

Until he found it-- a photograph of a castle perched on a hilltop, of the same white towers piercing through a cloud, or a veil of morning mist, rendered in the same, unusual pastel hues as in his painting.

How could he have painted his castle without ever having seen this photograph before... and moreover, what was this place? Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, a short article informed him, a nineteenth century historicist palace.

The artist pushed his chair back and stood up, feeling bewildered. It was... weird. Either this was a photograph of his just finished painting, which was impossible, or this palace from his pictures was real.

Why on earth did he keep painting a castle situated in a country he had never visited before? he despaired, pacing around his studio. Soon, the painter stopped in front of his Princess again. Feeling drawn to her as if she called him, unable to disobey, he approached her and placed his fingers to the girl's cheek again, taking a deep breath. He could not fight this obsession, he knew that if he wanted answers, he would have to go to visit that castle in Germany.

He spent the night consulting maps and choosing the best route leading to the village of Hohenschwangau, in southwest Bavaria, where the palace stood. His two bags-- one full of brushes, paints and squares of canvas, the other containing an armful of random clothes-- were ready in a few moments, leaving him enough time to rest before the long journey.

However, even once he laid down the sleep eluded him and in the end, he set out before sunrise, leaving the flat after one last caress to his Princess' cheek.

The journey was long but the artist was too excited to notice how the hours passed, how the sun rose then set again, how the city spreading along the road outside morphed into towns, then villages, interspersed with fields, then trees. He did not realise how or where he stopped to eat and refill the car, until he finally reached the German village encompassed by an endless, coniferous forest.

He parked his car by a small, cobbled square, then stepped out into the cold darkness. It was nearly midnight, he noticed as his eyes landed on the clock at the top of the church tower, then skipped to the elegant white palace perched like a snow-white swan on a nearby hilltop. It was artistically illuminated, the multiple beams of light made the building well visible even at night.

Stretching his limbs, breathing in the fresh air redolent of turpentine, and shivering as the cold found its way under his clothes, he observed the building, that... ghost of the past, beckoning, reaching out to him. He still could not believe that he really found it, but there it was, in front of his very eyes.

It was too late to go up there now. The painter turned around, his eyes searching the age-old square for the hotel where he had booked a room during one of his stops, finding it right behind him. He took one of his bags from the back seat, then walked across the deserted road, his footsteps echoing in the perfect silence of the night.

In the morning, the young artist was one of the first tourists admitted into the castle. The building wasn't as he had imagined it, as he saw it in yet another dream the previous night, but he knew that he was in the right place. He only needed to find that portrait...

He gasped with disappointment when he finally stood in front of it.

"Sir, are you all right?" The guide whom their group had been following through the chambers and up and down the corridors and staircases for an hour now approached him, looking concerned. She noticed the pale guy lingering behind the other tourists the moment he arrived. He looked... suspicious.

"This portrait." He muttered. "The lady... it is not her. And yet it is the correct painting... or at least the frame..."

"Who... are you looking for?" She asked, intrigued.

"The young girl dressed in a long medieval gown." He said, closing his eyes as he described the lady from his dreams to her.

When he looked at the guide again, he found her staring back at him.

"How would you know about it? We have not published anything yet..." the young woman said. "Please, wait."

She left him standing by the picture, running his fingers lightly along the ancient gilded frame, while she showed the way out to the other visitors.

"Would you follow me, please?" The woman asked, then, not waiting for his answer, walked towards one of the doors leading out of the chamber, then another, leading to an office.

And there it stood, leaning against the stone wall, the portrait of a lady he knew so well.

"It's her." He breathed, looking at The Princess, not noticing how two security guards entered the office after them, silent like shadows.

He observed the picture, recognizing every smallest detail, barely restraining himself from touching the princess' cheek as he used to do at home, while he listened to the guide's voice reaching him as if through a thick layer of cotton wool.

"The portrait in that chamber is a copy. A perfect copy of the picture we found... painted on top of this one. It took our experts years to clean the layers of paint obliterating this medieval beauty... What we are thinking is that this painting was taken from the medieval castle which stood here before, and was destroyed to make space to build Neuschwanstein in the nineteenth century."

"Who is she?" He asked, voice shaking, as he forced himself to tear his eyes off the painting and look at the guide.

"Princess Elisabetta, of the House of Habsburg," the woman said, her eyes boring into his, not allowing him to look back at the portrait. "As I said, no one except us knows about this... and the other painting."

"Which other painting?" The young man asked, confused.

"The self-portrait of her beloved painter. The one that was stolen, vanished without a trace, last week." She said, nodding to the security guards he only just noticed. "I'll need you to talk to the police now. Should they decide that you have nothing to do with the theft, I'll be happy to tell you about the legends encompassing the two lovers. They are quite something..." the guide trailed off.

The young painter nodded silently, letting the security guards accompany him out of the office. He didn't care about the police... he finally found her...

The eyes of the painting followed him down the corridor.