While dropping her car off at her beautiful white two-story house, she comes out with two bags; one filled with snacks and the other has a few sodas and teas in it. I didn't think we would need that much... Apparently, she did. After fighting the lunch hour traffic, we finally launch the boat.

Gina is patiently waiting in it while I park the truck and does a pretty good job at keeping it close to the dock so I can get in.
"That wasn't too hard!"

I chuckle at her, "So far so good! All is in check." She nods and moves away from the wheel.
I take it and start driving us off.

She looks up at the sky. I do the same and see it's getting pretty cloudy out. More rain? The weather guy said it should hold off for hours... It's already cold out.
"Better hurry up with this." She mutters.
"Yeah." I agree.

So here we go... We have our snacks bagged, we're determined and mostly fearless, and we have our phones charged and ready to take plenty of pictures. I'm not telling mom and dad a thing about this. No one but Gina knows what's up. Oh, and I brought along Eric's tire iron–and my journal. We're well-prepared indeed!

"Why did you bring a tire iron anyway? Are you expecting trouble?" she asks me. I smirk, "Well, it was convenient and I would rather have it and not need it than the other way around. I didn't bring anything else because I was in such a big hurry to do everything at once. That's a bad habit of mine. I've had it for as long as I can remember."

She warily smiles at me, "That could really put you in a bad position, you know."
"Yeah I know." I mumble, then look away from her to the island ahead of us. It won't be long now; I'd give it about 5-10 more minutes and then we'll be there.

"So what's making you want to do this?" She asks. I start to turn my head but pause midway. Do I tell her it's because I have a serious obsession over castles and stuff like that or do I make something up? Would she judge me as a closet-Goth and tell others about it? She strikes me as a person who wouldn't want to be associated with a Goth. The last thing is what worries me the most. I care too much about what other people think of me–that's the truth. I don't want to be somebody I'm not.

I look at her. "Well, I'm like you–I'm adventurous and I want to experience something new." I smile innocently. There: the truth–In a way.

She nods slowly at me, "Ohh... ok... Well-" Before she can finish talking, raindrops start to pepper us. She makes a troubled face and looks up. As do I.
"Oh man..." I muse. This is not-

Just like that, the rain starts pouring down on us like crazy.
–Good–This is not good!

There are a few loud crashes of thunder and lightning.
Definitely not good for us! CRAP!

"Aww, c'mon!" I whine, trying to speed the boat up. I wish it'd work, but sadly enough, I can't manipulate things with my mind. "I knew this was a bad day to do this!" Gina complains. I see a sandy place with a big 'no trespassing' sign where we can land, so I move in closer and pull the motor up.

As the boat slides up onto the sand, I jump off the bow with a rope and run to the nearest tree to tie off the boat. I tell Gina to throw the lunch hook off the stern to keep the boat in place while we explore. The rain is coming down steadily now. Gina grabs the bags and other effects, throws them to me on the shore, then lowers herself from the boat and wades in the water to me. She looks a little pissed as I pick up the bags.

"We can't go back right now, and do you see that sign Ivy?" I look at it. Yes, it certainly is a big sign.

"Well that's just for people passing by at a distance." I quip. She looks past me through the leafless trees and points, "We need to go that way. I can see the building towers from here." Great. We really have to keep our eyes peeled; the only way we know where we're going is by looking up at those towers. "Keep your voice down!" I quickly warn her. She nods at me.

Soon, she points to the north-left, "Look! A stone trail!" We run that way and follow it. Now that we're doing that, our way to the building is becoming clearer; the trees are arched over our path like someone has been keeping the branches trimmed. It's nice but we don't have much time to admire it. It doesn't make sense to me that everything around us now looks so neat. Perhaps someone works or lives here...?
Interesting...

We stop as soon as we're out of the trees, right in front of this-
"Oh... my... god." I breathe, also shivering from the cold rain. It's a beautiful Gothic castle! Three stories high, majestic, nicely manicured from top to bottom, has a large fountain in the center of a white brick roundabout with a woman holding a pot full of spilling water, and there's a big overhead with a black lantern hanging from the ceiling. My god–it's magical...

I don't care that it's raining anymore or about how chilled I am. I could stand here all day! I'm not usually this emotional, but I have to confess that I have tears welling up in my eyes to seeing such beauty! I never thought I'd be able to stand in front of such a magnificent structure!

"IVY!" I hear Gina cry.
I refocus my attention to see where she is.

She's under the overhead, trembling, soaking wet, holding the bags impatiently. I check my hands and see the tire iron in the right one. I look back up to her and hurry over.

When I approach her, I wipe my face and try to catch my breath, "Hey, sorry!" I turn my gaze up to the ceiling, then back down to the big dark-brown doors with black iron holding the wood together (they're medieval-styled doors). There's a strange hybrid beast holding the doorknocker in its mouth, I think. I give it a good examination to figure it out, but I can't.

"What were you doing out there?" she scolds.
Quickly, my eyes meet hers again, "I'm sorry! I don't know what came over me!" She huffs and shakes off some of the rainwater, "Well, we have to get inside somehow. This is not good for our health to be out here like this." She reaches for the doorknocker and suddenly, we hear one of the doors' handles being jiggled. She quickly withdraws her hand and we take two steps back.
The left door opens. Right away we feel a gust of slightly cool air.
I shiver.

There, peering through the opening is a tall, thin, older man with salt-and-pepper hair. We can only see his face. He looks at us with a sort of dismissive curiosity.
Holy shit...

"I don't believe we are expecting any guests today." He says in a sinister low voice.
Oh my... that's creepy.

He's looking down his nose at us, also noticing the tire iron I have. His expression is authoritative and very intimidating.

"Um, well, uh," I stumble over my words. What a fool I'm being! Gosh this is so embarrassing! He raises an eyebrow.

"Well..." Gina starts saying, "The weather got bad and we had no choice but to land-" He cuts her off by asking me, "What is that for?" He's talking about the tire iron.

"Defense... against animals." I carefully answer.
He stares at us for what seems a long time, then he steps aside and waves his hand toward the dimly lit interior, "Well then... that is, I suppose... a good reason. It seems you both are in some difficulty and require something to dry off with. You may come inside if you'd like." his eyes move past our shoulders, gesturing that he's speaking of the rain. I drag my own eyes away from his face and peer inside. It's dark but I can still see everything. There's a large white marble set of stairs straight ahead through the foyer. To seeing it, I get a little red flag in the back of my mind but I ignore it. It seems most of the stuff I'm able to see in there is illuminated by firelight.

I give the man a strange yet emotionless look, "Alright." But don't try anything with us, I feel like adding.

I motion the unsure Gina to follow me in. "Ah, ahh," he stops me. I look at him. He asks for the tire iron and bags. I slightly turn my head to the right as I try to understand his intentions better. I'm not so keen on giving this tool up.

Sighing frustratedly, Gina gives him the bags and tells me, "Ivy, hand it over. Just do it." I don't look at her; my eyes are locked on his. But, I soon do it...
I give in and let him take it from me.

He smiles–Very, very faintly and bows his head; "Carry on then." Though I am suspicious of him, I calmly proceed through the foyer into the main room, gesturing Gina along. Just like me, she makes a face at him as she trails behind me. I think we've seen far too many movies...
He arches an eyebrow again while watching us, then he slowly follows us.

I stop walking and look all around me. The things I look at first is the ceiling, which is very high up, the huge white marble staircase that splits in two at the top and has grayish, gold trimmed statues of women at the bottom on each stair post, holding things, the giant rooms with arched doorways on both sides, the floor that's–like I said–white marble and actually has hints of blue and yellow in its large tiles, the dark red walls that have really beautiful large paintings on them, and last but not least, I see the GIANT fireplace glowing, where the biggest painting in all of the room is; it's of an old dark-haired aristocratic man posing authoritatively–like the famous George Washington's portrait. He's posing just like Washington! At the fireplace, there are 3 elegant Victorian styled sofas. They're red fabric with crafted golden metal trim along the edges. There's a loveseat at both sides and a long couch directly in front of the fireplace. I must mention that there are old-fashioned lights on the walls. This place–it feels shockingly, creepily, and amazingly familiar to me. I don't want to find out why; I might scare myself!

I'm not sure where I am, but I was right to want to come here!-I think. This castle is just...WOW!

As I'm standing off alone, lost in awe, the wary and astonished Gina asks the strange man, "Is this your castle?"

After putting our items down on a big empty table in the closest corner to the doors, he says, "No madam... Dmitri Vladoiu II is the master of this castle."
Master?

I abruptly stop right in the middle of enjoying the views and turn to him. The 'master' of this castle? What is this–1800 something?-Or even before that for that matter...
So, it isn't just one person that lives here, but surely there are many employees...

"Master of the house, eh?" I ask with a small scoff.
"Indeed miss." he moves past me. "I shall fetch a few towels for you two. Please wait here; I will return shortly." He goes into the large room on the right, leaving us alone. I look at Gina, who then uneasily shrugs at me and wanders over to stand by the fireplace.
I nod and join her.

For a minute, we stay quiet. There are only the sounds of the crackling fire. It's quite echoic and awkward in here–pretty wild. Soon though, Gina looks at me with a disbelieving shake of the head. "Wow... you sure know how to pick them. I didn't think places like this existed in the United States." she spreads her arms out, "This is incredible... I would've never thought of coming here! Fear would've driven me away from the idea." My unmoving eyes remain on her. Again I almost tell her that ambition and obsession made me do it. I wanted to do something different this weekend. I found that 'something' and wanted to explore it before my birthday.

I lower my head, "Well, that's what makes me so different from anyone you've ever met–I suppose. When I see an opportunity to do something out of the ordinary that seems really cool, I go for it–I take that opportunity. Isn't that what most people should do?"
"I...guess so." she says, "Yeah, that does make sense. I wouldn't have become a nurse if I didn't want that job badly enough."
I smile at her, "Precisely."

She asks, "...Hey Ivy? What time do you think it is?" she quickly grabs her phone from her back pocket to check it, "Great. Dead battery. Never mind." she puts it away.
"Hold on," I look at my own, "Mine's dead too... That's odd... I had a full charge before we left the boat dock."

"Ladies," We hear. We look back and see the butler coming back into the room with white towels draped over his arm. Gina takes hers with a shy gratifying smile and I do the same. He straightens his posture and clears his throat, "The rain is very heavy... Perhaps you would like to wait here until it dies down a bit?" I slowly move the towel away from my face–By the way, it smells like lilac. Very nice.

"That would be a good idea...but," I glance at Gina. Well, apparently she's okay with this–The face she's making says so. "That would be most preferred." she agrees.

I look at him again. He's just standing there, lips pressed in a thin line. He's kind of
emotionless. Really creepy, I must say.

"Okay...I guess we'll stay for a bit. So...what's your name?" I ask.
"Walter." He says through his teeth.

"Well... nice to meet you...Walter. I'm Gina Lewis and she's-"
"Ivy Summers." I quickly say. I don't like our names being revealed but they have to be.

He bows, "Likewise. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintances. I apologize that I've not asked before... Would you both like something to drink?"
After being out in the rain in the Sound? Ohh-kay...

"Water..." I uncomfortably chuckle.
"Yes please–water." Gina says.

"Alright then." he cracks a quick smile, which looks sort of like a type of grimace. "Make yourselves comfortable. I will return in a moment." he bows again and walks away.

Gina looks at me and whispers, "I think we should get out of here. Something's not right. This is just too easy."

I whisper back, "I know, but not yet. It wouldn't be wise to leave now anyway. The weather is bad."

She doesn't understand why I say that, but she'll get it pretty soon, most likely.