Huck glanced at me with a concerned look on his face. I tried to keep calm, to erect a false front and forget about all of it. Yet barbs of worry continued to plague my thoughts and prick at my chest.
My family bloodline.
Vlad the Impaler.
His cursed ring of three bone bands.
Order of the Dragon.
Rothwild.
Sarkany.
Magical spells on banknotes.
Wooden talismans.
Dead bodies.
Witches.
Wolves.
Father.
In the middle of all this chainlike panicking, I suddenly remembered that we’d forgotten to return to the telegram window at the station to find out if Jean-Bernard’s butler had replied. How selfish was that? I was busy getting handsy with Huck, and the poor man could be at death’s door.
That realization was my breaking point. I couldn’t think anymore. Couldn’t worry. Couldn’t panic. Couldn’t try to make impossible puzzle pieces fit together. My brain had reached its limits. It compartmentalized everything I’d learned on this trip into lockboxes, posted an “out of order” sign, and refused to cooperate.
Eighteen across, “admit defeat.” W-H-I-T-E-F-L-A-G.
The bus ride became easier after that. I fell into a dull daze, and Huck and I took turns staring at sweeping mountain vistas and napping on each other’s shoulders for much of the trip. Halfway through, the nosy Romanian woman in the floral kerchief kindly woke us when the bus stopped at a station with public restrooms and a street vendor selling fried dough. We took advantage of both, stretching our cramped legs, and returned to the bus for the final leg of its journey.
To my mother’s hometown. And the Zissu brothers.
And hopefully, to my wayward father.
The rest of it could all go to hell.
By the time we rolled into Bra?ov, the late-afternoon sun was falling behind snowy mountain peaks that surrounded the town like arms. The medieval town was a fairy-tale skyline of snow-dusted terra-cotta roofs, Gothic spires, and baroque buildings. I tried to imagine my mother living here and struggled. It was old-world, and she’d been so modern and revolutionary. Maybe that was why she had left: it was too small to hold her. Too sleepy and lost in time. When she spoke of it, I recalled, it was as if it were the setting of a fairy tale. Not entirely real.
But it was. Very real. Did I still have family here? I didn’t even know where her old family home was, and that made me angry at my father for failing to share any of this with me—foreverything. All of this was his fault, and I couldn’t even yell at him for it. All I could do was shadowbox a stuffed dummy that looked like him in my mind.
Sleep deprived and road weary, Huck and I exited our bus at a terminal across from the central train station and stopped at a posted tourist board to get our bearings. It had a helpful map and information in English, German, Hungarian, and Romanian.
“Oh, look,” Huck said, reading a factoid. “Local legend not only claims that the Pied Piper of Hamelin reemerged here after luring away children from Lower Saxony, but also that Vlad the Impaler’s army captured a nearby castle for a year when he was quarreling with local merchants. Maybe that’s where you get your temper from, banshee.”
“Thanks for that. Lovely to be reminded that I’m descended from a monster who murdered thousands of people.”
“Everyone’s family has some bad nuts,” Huck said.
“Oh, really? Do you have a famously cruel warlord in yours?”
“I had a great-uncle who shot his wife and died in prison. That’s close, yeah?”
I snorted. “Exactly the same.”
He knocked his shoulder against mine as if to say “it’s not so bad,” but we both knew that wasn’t true. And after staring at the information board like lost puppies, both of us deep in our thoughts, he sighed heavily and said, “Well, I suppose we’re here for a reason.”
