It's like looking at a sleeping animal across the spine of Eastern Europe.

It's thick with pine, fog, and stories that are too old to follow.

Stretching over 900 miles, this mountain chain has watched empires fall and disappear.

It is both a boundary between countries and also, some say, between worlds.

Because there, time seems to behave strangely.

There are villages you can only reach by foot or horse,

forests where compasses spin,

places where cell phone signal vanishes, and so do people.

Locals will tell you that it's the terrain, the wilderness, the weather.

But they'll say it with unease.

Because these mountains, the Carpathians, collect dark memories.

For centuries, the people who live there have spoken of shadows that walk without bodies,

of fires that burn blue in the distance,

of mountain spirits that appear as animals

and leaf behind, nothing but hoof prints and ash. They'll tell you about the Strigoi,

the undead who rise from improperly buried graves, about hidden springs that curse anyone who

drinks from them, and about places that aren't just haunted, but alive.

They're also not just legends for tourists like me. They're woven into everyday life.

Like farmers who leave out bread for spirits, or children who are taught not to whistle after dark.

And even now, in the 21st century, there are grown

men who will not climb certain peaks alone. So it's no surprise that Romania's witches

come from here. The mountains protect them, and sometimes they say, speak to them. Some were

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