by Cameron Jace
“To answer you, I need to tell you something about Bluebeard that will upset you dearly.”
“What would upset me more than the fact that you’re suggested that he may kill me after getting pregnant?”
“The fact that he didn’t get you pregnant,” Alice said bluntly.
“What?” I grimaced.
“Bluebeard can’t have children.”
“Then how did he impregnate his previous wives?”
“We don’t know,” Alice said. “He is a terribly dark man. But what we do know is that he has a process, that he goes through, with his wives: he asks them not to open the door, and if they do he pretends he’s not been offended and then gets them pregnant and then…”
I didn’t need her to finish her sentence. I was fed up with speculations and ominous suggestions. I needed facts. “So you’re telling me none of his wives ever left him?”
“It’s impossible that they could have escaped.”
“Why so sure?”
“The bluebirds won’t let you. They will pick your eyes out before you leave.”
“But I left to see the Godmother.”
“That’s because he wanted you to. Every other wife had been sent to the Godmother, upon a suggestion from Tabula of course, who is only loyal to him.”
“So it’s all just a test?” My mouth was left open and my jaw hurt.
“And every wife fails it every time.”
“Why? What is the purpose of all that?”
“We’re not sure, but we know one thing,” Alice said.
I raised my head, staring right into hers. She’d better tell me something useful. “What’s that?”
“You’re special to him?”
“Stop saying that.”
“Trust me.” Alice neared me again. “He not only told Tabula you were special, but…”
“But what?”
“The last.”
“Last wife?”
Alice nodded.
“Why?”
“Somehow, you’re the one that completed his mission, prophecy, madness, whatever it is he is doing.”
I cleared my throat, wondering why a fifteen-year-old girl would be the last of Bluebeard’s wives, a man who had descended from a serial killer, who had descended from men who loved to kill their wives. Why would he stop at me?
“There is one other thing,” Alice sounded reluctant.
“What is it?”
“I will tell you but I ask you not to tell me how I know.”
I had to think it over for a minute. At the time I hadn’t known that Alice was Charmwill Glimmer’s granddaughter, sent between times and worlds to help and warn those who were pulled into the Piper’s war. But that’s a longer story I’ll leave to Alice to explain one day. What mattered to me is what she told me. It surely turned the tables on everything.
“Bluebeard is probably a tenth or fifteenth generation descendant of an evil man called the Piper, if not he is the Piper himself,” Alice explained.
“So?”
“To make the story short. The Piper is immortal. His one mission in life is find a certain song or flute that he thinks will let him rule all worlds. But he has a weakness.”
“Which is?”
“The Piper can’t rest before he gets his revenge on the seven families that escaped his wrath many, many centuries ago.”
“You’re not talking about the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin,” I snorted. “It’s a myth.”
“It’s not. It’s true. A forever war,” Alice insisted. “What matters is that the Piper has devoted his life to finding the descendants of the seven families and killing them at any price. It’s a necessity to him that they’re off the face of the world.”
“Even so, if Bluebeard works for the Piper, what does it have to do with me and the wives he has killed?”
The maids eyed me. Alice too. It was as if they wanted me to work it out for myself, without them telling me. It wasn’t hard to figure out. It answered the one question the Godmother herself failed.
How had Bluebeard chosen his wives?
I felt a knot in my heart when it came to me. I had to spell it out. Watch the maid’s eyes to see if I was right. I had to taste the answer on my tongue, though I knew it’d be bitter like most realities.
“The wives had all been descendants of those seven families,” I spelled it out, staring at Alice.
“We call them the Lost Seven,” Alice said. “But the right answer is: possible descendants. It seems like Bluebeard couldn’t tell, which makes sense, since he’s been tracking the families for centuries. They now have huge families with branches everywhere.”
“That’s some ruthless man who’d want to kill so many people.”
“Can you imagine the devotion? Can you imagine how many people he would have to kill? Women are his favorite of the Lost Seven.”
“Why?”
“They give birth,” Alice said. “There is a prophecy about a descendant of the Lost Seven bringing an end to the Piper’s reign. The strongest will be the women.”
“Then why all the games?”
“Again, we’re not sure, but maybe the door is a test of will. All Lost Seven descendants are curious women and have never been bound by a man’s obedience.”
“But you’re not sure.”
“I’m not.”
“And the pregnancy?”
“I’ve been told that he could recognize a Lost Seven descendant from her scent after getting pregnant, but it could be a myth.”
“So you’re not sure about that either?”
“No,” Alice said.
“We think he wants the make the revenge brutal,” another maid suggested. “We think he wants to kill you while pregnant so he can quench his centuries-long search for revenge.”
“I wouldn’t dismiss the idea,” Alice commented.
“So I’m destined for the same fate as the other women?” I spoke, but was mostly talking to myself. “Now that I can’t escape my castle and have a child, have fallen for his charms, and that I am descendant of the Lost Seven?”
“We’re not really sure you are,” Alice said. “None of the women were sure they were Lost Seven descendants. What we’re sure of is that you’re different. That’s why you’re last.”
“Maybe Bluebeard knows that I am the last of the Lost Seven?”
“This can’t be. The Lost Seven families were scattered all over the world. They wouldn’t happen to all live in a small town in Hungary.”
“Maybe he moves from town to town, until he can kill them all.”
“It’s possible,” Alice sighed. “It’s also possible that he only needs to kill a certain generation, since he’s rarely killed the fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers of the wives — sometimes he did, though. There is no point in dwelling on it. We need to find a way for you to…”
“Survive?” I let out a painful laugh. “Forget it. I’m just a fifteen-year-old naive girl with a troubled childhood.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Alice said. “I mean we need to find out if you can help these women?”
Her words slapped me on the face. “Are you saying they’re alive?”
“They might be.”
“Now you’re confusing me.”
“We are all confused. However, I do know something, a last resort, that if solved will unveil a lot of secrets.”
“What is it then? Tell me.”
“One of the maids overheard Bluebeard telling Tabula he has his wives trapped behind a door,” Alice said. “He never mentioned whether they were alive or dead, but he’s got them locked behind a door.”
“The only door that he’s kept secret is the one with the mirror,” I countered.
“We know, but that’s what the maid heard.”
“Did you hear anything useful then?”
Alice shrugged. “Well, she did. I don’t know how useful it is though, since you’ve heard before.”
“Spit it out.”
“The maid said Blue
beard told Tabula the door opened with a secret password.”
“At least we have a password.”
“It’s not that helpful, actually. Because the password is a word you’ve heard before.”
“Did I?”
“Of course,” Alice said. “It’s ‘door’.”
The key is door!
I spent the next three days trying to solve the puzzle. After detailed investigations, Alice told me that the maid heard Bluebeard tell Tabula, “The Key is Door.”
I argued with her several times that he may have said, “The Key is the Door.” But the maid countered and insisted on what she’d told me. Just like the Bluebird kept telling me in that weak accent. The maids also insisted that Bluebeard always referred to a ‘password’ as ‘key’. It rang true, remembering the times he mentioned, “The key to my heart” and “if I can only know the key to your mind, Erza.”
But how would it be ‘door’? It seemed naive to make the key to a door be ‘door’. Never would Bluebeard settle for such a password. There had to be something missing.
“At least we could focus on which door he meant,” Alice suggested.
“It’s the one with his portrait on it,” I said. “There is no question about it.”
“But you’ve been to that room. You only found a mirror.”
“There could be some kind of magic. Maybe things appear only after the right word is spoken. Maybe there are secret doors in the narrow walls around the mirror.”
“Then we should try saying the word ‘door’ in front of the portrait.”
“I did already, nothing happened,” I lamented. “I whispered. I yelled. I said it softly. I’ve even imitated the way the bird said it.”
“How did the bird pronounce it?”
“Doooorrrrr.”
“Like a creepy old witch?” Alice laughed.
“Not quite,” I said. “I mean when I think of it, the bird said it as if it were spelled… well… I can’t put my hands on it.”
“I have an idea,” a maid offered. “My mother is into black magic, and some of the spells need a certain word repeated over and over again for a certain period.”
“That’s not what Bluebeard did,” I said. “I remember he clamped my ears and eyes for only moments. It wasn’t long.”
“Other spells need the power of the voice,” the maid offered. “My mother had to attend rituals were tens of women called for a spirit in unison at once.”
“You think Bluebeard yelled the word and I didn't hear him?” I said.
“He is good with music,” Alice said. “I heard him sing before. He has a strong voice. We could try.”
“How do we do that?”
“The other maids will gather and shout the word,” the maid said. “We could try variants. Scream, yell, hum, maybe chant it musically like in the church.”
I said nothing. There was little I could object to. If it worked, it worked. If it didn’t, then we’d have crossed off a possibility.
The maids gathered in front of the mysterious room. Alice lined them up, row after row, like in a church. There were about fifteen of them. They could surely make a loud noise.
Then I saw a maid pull a wooden board out and lift it up toward the rest. I didn’t see what was written on it, though.
“It has the word ‘door’ written on it, in big English letters,” the maid explained. “My mother always said the power of the written word and the spoken can double the effect of a spell.”
“All right,” I said then a thought came to me.
Why did the bird say door in English? I mean it wasn’t the spoken language where I lived. Neither was it the language Bluebeard and I, or even Alice spoke. I’d learned English in my father’s library when we still ruled the region. I was privileged. Why didn’t the bird speak in my Eastern European language?
Was it possible that door was a word with a different meaning in another language? It wasn’t in mine. Those four letters didn’t make any sense to me.
Another language? How would I know for sure?
It was just a thought. One I couldn’t think about for long. I was four days away from Bluebeard’s return.
But wait. Did the maid speak English? I asked.
“They read the letters,” Alice said. “The same like your language, but they don’t read or speak English. They only know how to pronounce ‘door’ and know what it means because of the repeated incidents.
It took me a moment to think about this. Something told me the solution to the keyword was right before my eyes. I just couldn’t put a finger on it.
“Could you turn around, please?” I asked the maid
She did, still holding the wooden plate with her two hands up high.
“You’ve spelled the word wrong,” Alice told the maid. “It’s ‘door’ not ‘dore.’”
“Very sorry,” the maid lowered her head, attempting to go and rewrite it on another plate.
“Wait,” I waved a hand. “No need. It’s a different spelling, yes, but the outcome is the same. It will not make a difference with what the maid will hum.”
“But the power of the word like my mother said,” the maid began, but I stopped her.
“I know about the power of the written word, and that it better be spelled right. But we’re all missing the point here. The word door still sounds the same with different spellings.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Alice.
I tilted my head, thinking. In truth, I didn’t know what I was suggesting, except that, “The key to opening this room sounds like ‘door’ but it’s not necessarily the word itself.”
“Another meaning?” Alice wondered. “You mean in another language?”
“I don’t know many languages, but I’m thinking this is why we don’t get it. The word sounds like ‘door’ but isn’t.”
“It would explain why Bluebeard is using it. A word that is so easy and makes no sense that its true meaning would be overlooked.”
“But what does it mean?”
“My mother used to talk about magical languages and runes,” the maid went on again. “Words and vowels that don’t make sense to us.”
“But this one makes sense,” I said, thinking. “We just don’t know what it really means. Is it ‘dore’ or ‘door’ or something else?”
Four days later, and only hours before Bluebeard’s expected arrival, I still hadn’t solved the puzzle. I did attempt an escape through the forest, but the maids were right. The forest played tricks on me. Every direction I slithered through, I ended up at the same spot where I started. How did I know? I always ended by the sign that said West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
Sometimes it said West of the Sun, East of the Moon. I didn’t pay attention to that part. For all I knew the forest was mocking me; did it really matter whether it was west or east of the moon? It was an unapproachable place either way.
Back in the hallway, I sat with my hands on my chin, staring at the door, thinking about the mirror behind it. I could swear the answer was in that mirror. If I could only solve the ‘dore’ puzzle.
“He’s here,” one of the maids told me. “Master Bluebeard.”
“So soon?” I said.
“Not in the castle yet, but he’s been seen on the outskirts of town. His horses, Tabula, and the rest of his men.”
“So that’s it.” I sighed.
“We’ll try to distract him for a while,” the maid offered.
“No need,” I said. “You can only do that for how long?”
She pursed her lips and lowered her head, lacing her hands. “I really thought you’d be different.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” I mocked her— and myself. “I guess I’m nothing but a naive and troubled fifteen-year-old who got pregnant by a man who plans to kill her.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Saying what?”
“That you’ve been troubled as a child. I really can’t see how.”
It’s then when flaming flashe
s from my childhood attacked my senses. Bloody memories, so dark and evil-stained I had to bury them in my childhood grave.
Who are you really, Erza? What about yourself haven’t you told in this diary? What about your childhood have you erased from your memories? Is that why the mirror frightens you? Because it can expose you?
I shrugged, hardly swallowing whatever dumb thought was stuck in my throat. Even without remembering details, it seemed like I maybe deserved this. How many people think of themselves as good while they aren’t? I bet Bluebeard doesn’t think of himself as an evil man. Deep in his mind, he must have found that deeply flawed logical reasoning behind his doings. Be it that he was only killing Lost Sevens, avenging himself for all the hurt he’d suffered, or even doing a favor to the world by killing the descendants of those who refused to pay the piper centuries ago.
“We’re all evil inside,” I said to the maid, standing up with my back to the door. “To one degree or another.”
“You’re convinced that ‘evil is a point of view’ are you?” she said, following my gaze toward the archway opposite to the door, the only one leading to the hall with the piano.
“Where did you hear that?” I said absently. Something about the piano seemed odd. It lay just opposite to the door I wanted to open. Far away, and only accessed through the archway, but right in front of Bluebeard’s door.
“Master Bluebeard likes this phrase,” she explained. “Mostly when someone accuses him of being evil.”
Her words trickled like raindrops in the background, barely audible or noticed by my senses. I found myself slowly walking toward the piano. I walked in a straight line from the door to where Bluebeard and I had kissed.
The key is door.
Reaching the piano, I brushed the tips of my fingers upon it. An overwhelming feeling of warmness ran through me. I was close to solving the puzzle, I knew that for sure. But how?
I opened the lid covering the piano keys and stared at it.
The key is door.
The key he had said? The key!
I ran my hands upon the piano’s keys. What did he say the notes were called?
The key is door.
Do, re, me, fa, so, la, ti. Those were the keys he’d taught me. And slowly I pressed the first note: Do.
A terrible shriek escaped me. “Son of a whore,” I mumbled.
