As her ancient car struggled up the hill, complaining loudly, Nora took a couple of deep breaths, finally starting to relax.

It had been a long journey-- the two hours' flight, an hour's cab ride through the hectic city to Mother's to pick up her keys and Albert, then continuing on her way immediately, across half the country, adding a four-hours' drive through busy towns and quiet villages set in the hills, their narrow roads piled with the leftovers of the first snowfall of the year, to her tiredness. But now she was finally here, in the only place that ever really felt like home to her.

Despite the freezing mist emanating from the countryside streaked with half-melted patches of snow, she rolled down the window and breathed the place in. The air had changed immediately after she had driven through the large, busy town, the last one of many standing between the city where her step-mother lived and her new home, the heavy traffic thinning into a lazy trickle even as her anxiety morphed slowly into calm, and then the first real excitement. The world here smelled of snow, pine needles and damp soil of the narrow fields lining the road on both sides. To her, this was the most beautiful scent, the perfume of happy memories.

No one had forced her to take this decision. Coming to live here after more than a decade of life she had not quite enjoyed, but had led because living in a city, working endless hours, and spending evenings with her colleagues was what everyone else did, was her own doing.

Ever since her grandmother died two years ago, leaving her the house, Nora dreamed of coming back here and making the tiny, ancient cottage her home. She was old enough to know what she wanted from life, and it wasn't the city life spent in pursuit of a career. What she desired was much simpler-- a place to live, a job that would not become her reason to live, and a man whom she would love, and who would reciprocate her feelings.

Grandma's little town seemed perfect for such life. Here she already had a house, and she was certain that she could find a job here too, eventually. As to the third thing on her list... After the last in a row of unsuccessful relationships which ended before they could properly start, Nora was starting to give up hopes. She didn't care that her two younger step-sisters were married. She didn't mind how often Mother spoke to her as if they, her perfect girls, were an example to follow. Well... she did mind, but she wasn't going to settle for what they had, she wasn't blind...

Nora always believed in love like the one she read about in books, she dreamed about meeting a man that would sweep her off her feet at first sight. Now she was beginning to think that maybe such love wasn't destined for her. But she was not going to settle for anything less. Getting married and having children did not equal having found the love of your life, your happily ever after-- her step-sisters were a perfect example of that.

Nora was sure that if she met the right man she would feel it, and would not hesitate to let herself fall in love. But no one half worth risking a broken heart had ever crossed her path, not since she was seventeen...

"You're so silly," Nora scolded herself as she dabbed furiously at a lone tear running down her cheek from under her rimless glasses, then, grabbing a rag from the passenger seat, at the windscreen of her car. The old, bright blue Volkswagen Beetle had belonged to her grandmother just like the house she had inherited, and it had been ready to pass on for years. The windscreen kept freezing on the inside in winter and the tired engine was making all kinds of strange, unsettling noises after the too long journey.

"Come one, Albert, not too far now, you know the road better than me!" She encouraged the old car.

She looked through the open window and took another deep breath, the cool air filling her lungs, clearing her mind, as she noticed that the countryside finally started to change. The flat, neverending plain encompassing the town changed into low, then higher hills, their contours blurring, then vanishing in the thickening dusk. Albert crawled slowly up the nearly empty, long, winding road, and Nora started to feel happier when she spotted her destination.

It was still quite far, but she could see the fairytale-like castle clearly now. Perched at the foot of a tall, forest-covered hill range, it was illuminated brightly against the velvety sky of the falling night. Since the owner decided to use one of its towers as a hotel, it looked much more lively. The old castle, usually forlorn and forgotten all winter, got a second chance at life.

Nora planned to drive as close to the castle as possible, then leave Albert in one of the parking lots designed for the tourists who swarmed the place each summer. After that, she would have to walk-- through a vast park up to the castle and beyond, across a sloping meadow, up to a little house as old as the castle itself, sitting on the outskirts of its grounds, at the edge of a forest-- the cottage that used to belong to her grandmother, where she had spent every holiday as she grew up. Her new home.

It had taken Nora a long time to make up her mind, gather enough courage to start a new life so different from what she was used to. But she was here now, the memories of the summer and Christmas holidays spent with her beloved grandma blossoming in her mind, bringing a smile to her lips. She had to try to make this place her own, to live it. That's why her grandma left it to her-- hoping that Nora would give it a new life, just as the old Count had given to his castle.

The first ancient houses of the little town spreading under the castle popped into view on both sides of the deserted road. It was dark now, and freezing cold. Most of the town's one thousand five hundred inhabitants were already in, there was no such thing as a rush hour in this place. Nora could see the colourful lights of their Christmas trees flickering merrily behind the frosted window panes even though it was only the beginning of December.

In a few weeks you'll be thirty and here you are, off to spend yet another Christmas alone, taking a huge step back by returning here... Nora recalled Mother pronouncing these words as she had passed her her keys, shaking her head disapprovingly.

"It's my life and only I will decide how I want to live it," Nora muttered to herself now.

Albert crawled into a large, unexpectedly full parking lot, and skidded to a stop on a thin layer of ice. Nora was surprised by the number of cars left here-- the castle must have become really popular since she had visited this place last. She sighed, she wasn't expecting to have to fight for a parking place even here, she had had enough of that in the city.

"At least it's not snowing. You'll be fine here." she promised Albert, taking off her glasses.

Nora took her keys, and grabbed her handbag from the passenger's seat. She slipped her glasses in even as she rolled up the window, then climbed out of the car.

She opened the back door, lifting the huge backpack into which she had stuffed all the necessary things for the first night, from the seat. She would get the rest of her luggage tomorrow-- the road to the cottage was still too long to carry anything else now. It was bound to be pitch-black and slippery in places. There might even be some snow on the lane leading up the slope of the meadow.

Adjusting her backpack she locked Albert, patting the old, faithful car fondly. Right now, he was her only friend in this place. Then she set off, following a tree-lined gravel path which led towards the castle across a magnificent, frost-bitten park.