ELIZA

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: CHANGE

At the beginning, I wanted to ask what he did, but then I realized that it was because of my kidnapping.

"Oh," I blurted out. "But how did they find out? You said you'd left a letter..."

"Yes," he replied. "But when you called Camila, she informed police about your abduction."

I nodded my head. So I called her after all. My sister heard me and my cry for help. I was grateful to her because she believed what I said and tried to do everything she could to find me. Unfortunately, given my current situation and the fact that I got along with Cosmo, it could have done more harm than I wanted to.

"Will you tell me what kind of forest surrounds us?" I asked, changing the subject. "And this house... It doesn't look like a hotel. Nobody is here but us."

"I told you already," Cosmo went to the cupboard and took out things for the bath. It wasn't until he did that that I remembered it was bedtime. "The locals are afraid to come here. The house is empty because someone abandoned it."

I didn't know if he was kidding me right now or not. I opened my mouth but he cut me off.

"Hoia Baciu. The name of the forest is Hoia Baciu."

When Cosmo went to the bathroom, I think it was the first time that I regretted he left me alone. I felt chills when I thought that there is a forest around me, which nobody wants to visit, and we just live here. I began to imagine such incredible things that the creativity of many writers could be worse. Of course, the name of the forest meant nothing to me, but I was glad that I finally knew it.

After fifteen minutes when he returned, I felt relieved. I already thought that some aliens took him...

I washed myself in a few minutes and then ran to my bed like a torpedo. Cosmo was waiting for me there. As he slept on the couch in the hall since my awakening in Romania, he always tied my arms and legs in the evenings. So out of habit he took the ropes that he wrapped around my wrists and ankles, but finally put them back on the shelf.

"Can I believe you won't escape?" he asked warmly, looking at me with his huge, pitch-black eyes.

"To the haunted forest?" I squeaked, and although I didn't want it to sound that way, he must have thought I was scared. "Am I crazy to you?"

He smiled. Yeah. That smile of his said more than words. For him, I was definitely crazy. So there were two of us. Two madmen under one roof.

"I'm not going to run away," I promised, and that must have been enough for him, because he nodded his head before moving into the hall where his couch was located.

Somehow I fell asleep. I dreamed of Tom and Barb, only that they were not in their bodies, but in others. They were aliens who came to the planet to destroy it completely. They had a great time together while I was hanging in the cage above them. They imprisoned me and were talking about me and Cosmo. They said we're cut from the same cloth, and that we will die together because we both don't deserve to live.

I woke up at about five in the morning. I rubbed my hand over my sweaty forehead, my heart beating strongly. I knew I wouldn't sleep anymore.

Since our arrival, I had never shown any desire to help Cosmo. He was the one who cleaned, cooked, made the bed and did the laundry. He was a real master of the house, and I was an offended princess, cursing the whole world for capturing her.

I got up from the bed on tiptoe, trying to dress as silently as possible and prepare breakfast. As I found some food in the refrigerator, I prepared scrambled eggs for us and its smell woke Cosmo, because when I was about to wake him up, I heard his cheerful voice.

"What an early bird you are today," it was just after six. He was surprised because I usually slept until eight, sometimes even nine. I could see clearly that he liked my change of attitude, that I prepared something on my own.

"I had a nightmare," I said truthfully, eyeing him sarcastically. "Just because I made breakfast today doesn't mean anything. I was just hungry, don't think it will be like this every day now."

He shrugged as he took his seat at the table. The good mood in the morning probably influenced our whole day, because he decided that since I got up so early, we have to use this day for a trip. As we were in Romania, the obvious castle to visit could be the one in Bran - widely regarded as Dracula's castle. I also had the choice of watching mud volcanoes or visiting Turda.

Due to the fact that I didn't like anything related to fantasy and I didn't want to have nightmares with Vlad the Impaler, I rejected this option first, which probably surprised Cosmo. It seemed to him that since I was in Romania, the castle was something I had to see. I also gave up mud volcanoes - they were the farthest from our home. Turda, on the other hand, was the closest and it sounded interesting, so I made my decision very quickly.

It was only on the spot that I found out what was interesting about the city. Underneath it, actually. Salina Turda, which we went to, turned out to be a huge salt mine, one of the oldest in Europe. But it wasn't just a mine. As I walked down the stairs, I realized that it was also an amusement park. There was a ferris wheel, miniature golf, table tennis and pool tables and an underwater lake at the bottom.

I liked it so much that Cosmo even offered me a boat ride on the lake, but I didn't agree. It would be too romantic, so my self-preservation part was activated and it flatly refused, even though I felt like it.

When we were going up in the elevator, I heard a group of people from our country. Cosmo too, because he looked at me suspiciously, waiting for my move. But I didn't scream "the kidnapper" or anything like that. After all, he and I made an agreement, so I will keep my word. I only have twenty-seven days left and Cosmo will buy me a return ticket himself.

We drove to town for dinner. It was the first time we hadn't eaten at home. While waiting for the stew, Cosmo surprised me with the words:

"We'll change the country," he decided, reaching into his pocket for a printed map of Europe.