Once upon a time…

There was a man with a blue beard. The blueness of his beard made him incredibly odd and ugly, and all the girls in town kinda unsubtly avoided him. He was also extremely rich, and had several houses, but even if he offered girls the best hothouse flowers they treated him like he was, idk, some kind o mass murderer or something. Weird.

Anyways, one of his neighbors was a lady with two daughters. He offered her an obscene amount of money for her to give her one of his daughters, either one, and she accepted. The girls, oddly enough, didn’t want to marry him.

They said things like “but his beard is blue!” and “but his eye twitches every time someone says something he doesn’t like!” and “but he’s had like seven wives and they’ve all vanished under mysterious circumstances!”

Which clearly are all silly reasons to not want to marry someone.

So Bluebeard decided they needed to get to know him better. He invited the girls, their mother, and several of their friends to his country house for a week of partying. They had a great time, with very few red flags raised, and the younger girl decided she might not mind being married to a guy who could throw a week-long party. Even if his beard was blue.

So at the end of the week, she agreed to marry him.

They lived happily enough for a month or so, and then he had to go on a business trip for six weeks. He gave her the keys to all the rooms, telling her what was in each one. Except for the smallest key, which went to a little closet. He ordered her to not open the closet door, or else he’d be super mad when he got back.

She was like “ok!” and off he went.

Her friends and sister came over, and they had a great time exploring the house. Each room seemed more luxurious than the last, filled with gold and diamonds. Night came, and after dinner everyone left.

The whole week went like that. She had fun during the day, but at night there was nothing to entertain her. So she started thinking about the closet door.

Finally she gave in. One dark night, she went to the closet and held up the key. She thought about her husband’s words, how he’d be angry, but curiosity won. She put the key in the lock and turned it.

It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the light. At which point she really wished they hadn’t.

In the room, in random haphazard positions, were the decomposing corpses of his previous wives.

She slammed the door shut and locked it again, but when she pulled the key out, she saw it was stained.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

She rubbed the stain, but it wouldn’t come off. So she washed it with soap, and lye, and sand, and steel wool, but nothing got the stain off the key. Not sure what else to do, she took the key off the ring and hid it under the mattress.

The next day, Bluebeard came back! She acted super happy to see him! She was just thrilled he’d returned early!

He said his business had gone so well, he hadn’t had to stay over a week. Wasn’t that wonderful? Also could he have his keys back?

She gave him the keys, but her hands trembled when she did. He saw that, and suspected something was up. He checked the ring, and asked where the little key was.

She was like “oh, I left it upstairs. Tell me about your trip!”

He did, then asked again about the key. She put it off again, but the third time he asked he insisted she bring it down.

So she went upstairs, got the key, and brought it down to him. He saw it, saw the stain, and grew furious. He pulled out his sword, telling her she was about to join the women she saw in there.

She begged for mercy, but to no avail. So instead she asked for a few minutes to say final prayers.

He said “I’ll give you half of a quarter of an hour, and no more,” and sent her to her room.

She looked out the window, knowing her sister and brothers were going to come that day, and hoped they were already at the door. Her sister was, but not her brothers. So she told her sister what was happening, and asked if she saw their brothers.

The sister said “I see the sun, and dust, and grass, which is green.”

At that point apparently the 7.5 minutes were up, and Bluebeard called for her to come down.

She called back that she wasn’t done praying, and asked her sister if their brothers were visible yet.

The sister said “I see the sun, and dust, and grass, which is green.”

…I would have screamed at the sister to go find the brothers, and stop wasting time showing off that she could tell colors, but that’s just me.

Anyways, Bluebeard called that if she didn’t come down, he was gonna come up. And she didn’t want that.

She called back, saying she was on her last prayer bead, and asked the sister what she saw.

Finally the sister said she saw two horsemen on the horizon. Knowing these must be her brothers, she opened the door and went down to Bluebeard as slowly as possible.

When she got to the room he was in, she dropped to her knees and begged him for forgiveness. But nope, there was to be no forgiveness for a woman who disobeyed her husband. He grabbed her by her hair, lifted his sword, and-

There was a knock at the door. He stopped, telling her to be quiet, and went to see who it was.

When he was far enough away, she screamed for help. Her brothers broke the door down, saw her crying on the floor, and ran Bluebeard through with their own swords. He died almost immediately.

She told them about the women in the closet, and they helped explain everything to the local police.

As Bluebeard had no children (shocker), she inherited his entire estate and all his money, and they all lived happily ever after.

----------------------------------------

Moral: If someone tells you to not open a door, don’t do it.

…Hey, waitaminute…