Today, I want to take you with me to three very haunted castles. I'm going to tell you about the

royal ghosts that still haunt the halls of Windsor Castle, a castle in Austria with a haunted torture

chamber that you can still visit. And I also want to tell you about the haunting of a Japanese castle

that inspired a very famous horror movie and see if you can guess which one. Welcome back to Heart Starts Pounding, our final episode of 2025. I'm Kaila Moore and I'm here with our friendly

ghost jinx who is very excited for this episode. I wanted to do something both cozy and ghosty

for the end of the year. So let's all sit by the fire and take this journey together. Now, we're going to be off next week because I'm going to have a baby. We'll see if he actually gets here on time. If he's anything like his mother, he's going to be late. But we do have some really great Patreon content to catch up on if you're looking for more. Last month, we covered the mystery of the lost colony of Roanoke. How did 118 colonists vanish from the face of the earth 400 years ago?

Over on Patreon, we're also going to be doing our wrapped episode where me, producer Matt, and producer Juno are going to talk about our favorite episodes from the year.

And I can tell you about the episodes that performed best.

And of course, there's a free

trial on Patreon and on Apple Podcasts if you want to do that. But for now, sit back, relax,

curl up by the fire. If you're in Australia or South America, maybe crank up your AC and just

pretend that it's winter. And you can join me as we visit some ghosts.

It's when your heart starts pounding.

Windsor Castle sits on a chalk cliff above the River Thames just west of London,

and it's been watching over England for nearly a thousand years. William the Conqueror

built it in 1070 as a fortress, but over the centuries it's become something more, a royal

palace, a home, a prison, and according to many who have lived there, the most haunted royal

residence in all of Britain. The castle is basically laid out in three sections,

all arranged around a massive round tower that dominates the skyline.

Now, if you're standing at the main entrance,

looking up at the castle, you've got the lower ward on your left,

the middle ward where that iconic round tower sits,

...