The wind howled with blistering delight, whipping through the moonlit valley. Normally choked with fog, the sky was unusually bare tonight – the wind again, stealing the fog and carrying it off to blight some other town. My car, sleek black body dotted with beads of stubborn mist, carefully traversed the rock-strewn road, and I cursed as the tyres slipped again.
It had been a long journey, longer even than I had anticipated when setting off from my native Milperra – but my editor had insisted. The interview, he’d proclaimed, was simply too exciting to let a little thing like travel get in the way. I’d agreed, reluctantly, and had only grown more resentful of my position with each passing mile.
My car was definitely struggling. I mean, is squealing one of the signs my car needs a brake service? If it is, the brakes were definitely showing signs of wear. Plus, the seat was barely held together by ancient stitching.
But it had seen me true, in its defence – and now I had arrived.
The castle rose out of the cliff face to meet me, as striking as a thunderclap. I momentarily lost my breath looking up at it, wondering why it loomed so dark ahead of me. After only a moment, I surmised that the cliff was blocking the light of the moon. I imagined it would also do well to stop sunlight ever reaching the castle windows.
‘Bizzare,’ I murmured to myself, thinking over my prospective interviewee. ‘What sort of a man would live in a house with no sunlight?’
As I approached the huge oaken doors, my mind wandered back to my final hours leaving my home – passing by the Milperra mechanic, the bakery, my little uncle’s corner store.
Why did I feel so strongly, in my bones, that I was never to see it again?
The thoughts quickly fled my mind as the doors swung open and I was, at last, to meet my host.