Leaving the bags in the corridor in front of my room, I ran towards the bathroom. I locked myself in and leaned against the cool wood of the door, sliding slowly to the floor. My silent tears have become audible sobs; I've never felt so weak, tired, and inconsolable before.

I didn't want to be here. My place was somewhere else, my home was the castle. There, I could take a bath by the fireplace, not a shower in my modern, bright, minimalistic bathroom, designed by Mum. I missed Katerina with her warm towels and clean clothes, and my wolves for company. And more than anything, I missed Vlad, his arms around me, holding me tight, his voice telling me I mustn't worry...

For a year, he had been the centre of my universe. My sun, brightening my days, warming me up, holding me, keeping me safe within his own gravity. Now, I was in darkness, feeling cold and void, hurtling through the universe towards my unknown future, alone.

I didn't know how long I sat there, my head resting on my knees, tears flowing ceaselessly, before I forced myself to stand up, get undressed, and walk under the shower.

With a pang at my heart, I let the water flow over my hair, deleting the last trace of the castle that still lingered around me. My tears had ceased eventually, and I took a few shaky breaths before I finally turned the water off and stepped out.

When I looked in the huge mirror filling the opposite wall as I wrapped myself in a too soft and large towel, smelling of Mum's favourite, jasmine scented fabric conditioner, I saw the same old Samara who left for a Halloween trip to Romania a few days ago.

On the surface, if I didn't look close enough to see the hints of sadness and seriousness that hadn't been in my red, swollen eyes before, I was the same. As if nothing unusual had happened.

No. That's not true. I scowled at my reflection, then closed my eyes and took another deep breath. It had been all real. It is real. You have the ring and the book full of pictures. You have... your love for him.

Standing there, feeling desperate, my eyes closed to shut out the world, which I did not belong to anymore, I could imagine Vlad standing behind me. I could feel his hands coming to rest on my shoulders, sending ripples of pleasure throughout my whole body, then making my breath catch as our eyes met in the mirror...  But when I reopened my eyes, he was gone, leaving me with an illusion of a scent of cinnamon, the one he preferred in his bath.

I shook my head to disperse the beautiful but cruel vision and walked away from the mirror, out of the bathroom and towards my room, caressing the stone of my ring.

Another day is gone, I tried to console myself as I took out some pyjamas from a drawer, put them on, and crawled in my bed. Having decided to leave the luggage unpacked, dumped in the corridor, and feeling too tired even to dry my hair, I switched off the lights. One day less to going back, to seeing him again.

"Off you go! We don't want you here. Lily is scared of you!" Mum's urgent voice, coming from the back garden through the closed window, woke me up.

As soon as I realised where I was, that the vision of Vlad, laughing at something I had said, had only been a dream, I wanted to go back to sleep. I put a pillow over my head and pulled the covers up to my chin, trying to block out the world surrounding me, wishing Vlad to come back. It seemed to be easier to stay buried in bed, surrounded by memories and illusions, than to face reality.

"Go away!" The sound of Mum's voice, now with a hint of desperation, was followed by a loud clatter of some objects landing on a hard surface... Is she throwing stones at something?

I sighed when I realised what was happening. The fox must be back, looking for food again. And the animal is your responsibility, I reminded myself, standing up and wrapping my Harry Potter quilt around my body. I had been feeding the creature secretly for a couple of weeks now, ever since I found it stealing scraps of food from Mum's wooden composter.

I rushed down the stairs, enjoying the novelty of the nausea-free feeling. It had been weeks since I felt this well in the morning.

"Why are you wrapped in that blanket, for goodness' sake, where's your dressing gown?"
Mum called, looking at me with a puzzled expression, as I joined her on the stone patio of the frost-bitten garden.

Even without snow, every single stem of the perfectly trimmed late autumn grass was white and sparkling. Thick fog, risen from the nearby river and brought within the confines of the garden on a light, freezing breeze, lingered in the cold air around us, making the place look yet more peaceful and charming. The only speck of colour present was the patch of copper of the fox's pelt, barely discernible through the mist. The beautiful animal was sitting patiently, so still that it looked lifeless, by the back, stone wall. The garden looks like one of my snow globes, I realised, smiling, remembering my collection...

"Samara, why are you smiling, silly? This is not funny, and where's your dressing gown?" Mum repeated, disturbing my reverie.

Right. I have a dressing gown in this century.

"Why are you shouting at the poor animal?" I asked her.

"What poor animal?" she looked lovingly at Lily, snuggled in her arms. "The awful fox is back again, and my dog is scared to go out because of it."

"That's not a dog, mum. It's an oversized squirrel. Of course, she is scared."

"What are you saying? The fox is not supposed to be here, I need to call someone..."

"The fox is just hungry. It won't even come closer if you leave it some food by that wall every day. I'll deal with it, ok?" I said, walking back into the kitchen and towards the fridge, Mum in tow.

"Samara, if you'll feed it, it will keep coming back. And poor Lily won't go in the garden..."

"Lily never gets off the patio anyway. Your indoorsy dog doesn't like walking on the grass, remember? No one ever goes in that part of the garden; let's leave it to the fox. It... it might catch or scare off mice, be helpful somehow, I don't know. But I'm going to feed it," I insisted, closing the fridge, a pack of sausages in my hand.

I reached the counter and grabbed a pair of scissors. Unwrapping the fox's meal, I placed it on a small plastic plate.

"Those were for..." Mum started to protest again.

"There are three more packs, Mum. I'm going out later, don't worry, I'll buy it some proper dog food," I said, walking out again.

I descended the two steps of the patio and made my way towards the back wall across the frozen garden.

When I approached the wild animal so much that it started to tremble visibly out of fear, fighting between the urge to run and the need to eat, I put the plate down and walked back. I closed the door behind me to trap our human voices and smells within the house to make the poor fox feel safer.

Taking my soaked slippers and the quilt wrapped around my shoulders off, I watched the creature through the floor to ceiling glass sliding door, which substituted the wall of the kitchen facing the garden.

It was gorgeous, it's yellow-red fur alive and moving while it ate, trembling like a candle in the wind. Then, as soon as the food was finished, the fox vanished into the fog, like a blown-out flame.

"There must be a hole in that wall somewhere," Mum said, her voice startling me.

"And you won't call anyone to find and fix it, Mum," I said, turning around and looking at her.

"You are so... weird sometimes, Samara, you've always been..."

"I know, Mum, you and Dad have told me so, often enough. Never mind. I'm going to have some breakfast, then unpack."

"I already washed all the used clothes from your luggage and those you left in the bathroom, too. They're all in the dryer, should you need any of them. The rest of your things are in the spare bedroom, I didn't want to wake you up."

"Mum, you know that I like to do my things myself," I said, feeling irritated but resigned at the same time, while I poured some milk in my bowl of cereal. She was really annoying.

"Sorry, I know, but I couldn't sleep, and so I had a lot of free time before my rowing class... Oh! I must run or I'll be late in the end," she said, coming to kiss me before she rushed off.

"Is Dad at home?" I called towards the corridor leading to the stairs where she had vanished.

"No," she called back, her voice coming muffled, decreasing in volume as she ascended the staircase. "He called late last night, telling me that something came up and he must work even today. So he stayed in his flat in the City."

Sure. Dad and his endless reasons for not having to bother to come back to Barnes and sleep at home. More and more often, I mused over my breakfast.

"If you go out, Samara, just lock the door, I've got my keys. Don't worry about Lily, she has eaten, she will sleep all day. I'm off rowing, then I might have lunch with the girls. I'll see you when I see you, have a nice day, honey!" Mum called from the front door as I carried my bowl to the dishwasher, rushing out of the house even before I could reply.

I walked back to the glass wall and picked up my quilt, but decided to leave my slippers there; they were still too wet. Then I poured myself a cup of coffee and took it upstairs with me, a thing I could only do when I was home alone. 'No food or drinks allowed in the bedrooms' was only one of Mum's many strict rules.

If Mum's crazy house rules are the reason why Dad bought his little flat in the City, then I can't blame him, I thought. I really couldn't understand why they didn't divorce and went their separate ways, if they couldn't stay together anymore.

I placed the coffee on the nightstand and went to collect my things from the spare bedroom, situated up one flight of stairs, where mum had taken them. As she had said, all of my clothes were gone, and the large luggage was nearly empty.

I carried both the bags back in my room. Taking out the large history book first, I put it on my desk by the window. Then I spread the other long skirt I had bought over the back of a chair and removed Lia's shoes from their box. There, I only need to find a suitable top for the grey velvet skirt, and I can go out...

Suddenly recalling that apart from buying some food for the fox-- Whisper, it's name is definitely Whisper, I decided, remembering the susurrus of the fox's paws treading over the fragile stems of frozen grass as the only sound it had made-- I had to book a table at the restaurant for tonight, I remembered my phone. I found it at the bottom of my handbag, unsurprisingly dead. Carrying the bag with me towards my bed, I sat down and put it to charge next to my cup of coffee, knowing that Lia would call, to check on me, sooner or later.

Then I reached inside the handbag again, and taking a deep, shaky breath, I took out my copy of Dracula. Memory flashed, of Vlad leafing through that book, looking at my drawings, asking me, amused, why did I draw him too... That little flashback was enough to bring tears in my eyes. As much as I wanted to open the book, to look at his face sketched over the printed words, I couldn't. Not yet.

I put it under my pillow and made the bed, then drank my coffee while I got dressed. Once ready to leave, I switched on the phone and walking out of the room, skimmed through the three new messages, all from William. I decided not to reply to him this time, hoping, praying, that he would give up, eventually.

On reaching the staircase, I realised that I couldn't possibly leave without my book, so I ran back for it. Having it within reach made me feel better, less lonely somehow. I caressed its spine with my finger gently, carefully, as I walked down the stairs lost in memories, then put it in my handbag and reached for my long winter coat and keys, both hanging by the front door.

As I reached the church it started to snow, the weather giving me the perfect excuse to pull the hood of my charcoal coat low over my eyes, and hide from the world where I felt like a stranger. I made my way to the pond through the maze of silent and empty back lanes, to avoid the most of the typical Saturday mornings' crowd composed mainly of happy families strolling along the river bank in any kind of weather, before going for a brunch in one of the many cafés scattered along the high road.