A/N: Well, it's taken me ages, but I finally got something up here! This is a story I wrote...about a year ago, and I've posted the original version elsewhere. I realized this is one of the very few things I've written that isn't a fanfic, so I could post it here. However, it did need a little editing, to bring it up to par with my current writing skills. I know the chapter is very short, but chapters will get longer in time!

Chapter One: Help Wanted

Transylvania, 1880

I sat there in the carriage, which rattled like the Devil as it drove me towards my new home. There was a small trunk at my feet and a bag next to me, both of which holding everything near and dear to me. But there was one thing, something most precious thing to me, that wasn’t in the bag. It was around my neck. It was a tarnished, old golden locket with my mother and father's pictures in it.

I remember, at the train station in Paris, right before I left, Mother was panicked to no end. She kept wanting to know if I had filled my new master in on my little...condition.

And all I ever told her was “Don’t worry yourself, Mother. It’s been taken care of”.

I certainly never intended for this to happen. I never intended to actually end up in a carriage heading to God only knows where to work for a man I’d never even met. But it came to a time when I had very limited choices. I could have married myself off to the first suitor that came knocking on our door, but Lord only knew what kind of vermin I could have ended up with. I could have sold myself to be a prostitute on London’s streets, or a dancer at one of the clubs, like the renown Moulin Rouge in Paris, but…I have my morals. So, that left me with only one choice: A life as a maid for a well-to-do family. It was better than any alternatives I could have thought of, and, when your family ends up in hard times, you tend to follow the old saying 'desperate times call for desperate measures.'

My father was a carpenter, who ran his own business, making-in my opinion-some of the most beautiful furniture ever. But his business fell on hard times, and the little money he made just wasn’t enough to take care of my mother, me, my twelve- and seven-year-old brothers, Michael and Eric, and my ten- and four-year-old sisters, Elizabeth and Chloe. So, in a move I once thought was brilliant, but now I really regret, I put a notice in the daily newspaper, offering myself as a servant.

That’s why I was in the carriage, on my way to God only knows where.

The driver outside was unusually silent. He was there at the train station in Bucharest, when the train arrived from Paris. He led me outside, to the waiting carriage that my new employer must have sent (why he chose for me to take a carriage from Paris to Bucharest, I will never know), put my things in, then got up front. He had yet to say one word to me.

Looking out the carriage's small window, I could see the moon. It was almost full. Only two more days, and it would be full again. I hope my new master doesn’t mind surprises, because if he did…well, he would be getting an admittedly nasty one in a few days...

Suddenly, the carriage stopped. Not just stopped-jerked to a sudden halt. I was thrown forward, and, to my misfortune, my skull slammed against the wall that separated the driver and I. Stars exploded in front of my eyes; a warm, wet fluid seemed to be trickling down my forehead. I reached up to wipe it away, and found a sticky, red fluid on my fingertips. Blood. My own blood. I had opened some sort of gash on my forehead.

Outside, I heard the driver fire a warning shot at something nearby. The something growled at the driver.

"Back, you mangy cur," the driver ordered.

"He sent me. He wants to know...” a low voice growled.

"Yes. I have her. Tell him we'll be there by sunset tomorrow at the latest, though we should have enough time to make it tonight."

My head throbbed from where I'd hit it, and I could still feel blood dripping down my face. The throbbing was driving me to annoyance. The carriage soon began to spin, making me dizzy, and my vision blurred. I feared I would pass out. God, how embarrassing, passing out like a weak woman, just from a little bump on the head.

A little bump that was still oozing blood…

The carriage door creaked open, and I heard a low chuckle. "Oh, dear. Hurt ourselves, did we, Miss Anderson?"

The first words the driver had spoken to me for about a week now. His voice was warm and kind, with just a hint of mocking humor in it. I looked to him, trying to focus on him, but his face swam before my blurred vision. The carriage rocked slightly as he climbed in, and the motion made me slump over, halfway between sitting up and lying down. I felt a pair of ice-cold, yet surprisingly comforting hands gently holding my face and probing my wound. It felt so comforting, the feeling of someone’s gently hands. I sighed, then my eyes closed, and I let myself fall into warm blackness that was ready to embrace me…