The Grimm Prequels Book 5: (Prequels 19-24) Read online

  “What is that?” She pointed at the bottle.

  “It’s a Book of Sand.”

  At her incredulous look I continued. “I found a way to squeeze the sand into a tiny bottle,” I explained. It’s still the diary you’re looking for.”

  “How can I read it?” She sounded eager.

  “Just pour the sand on a blank sheet of paper parchment—try to avoid the rain of course.”

  A minute later we were inside the cafe, sheltered by a better roof, away from the drizzling rain. She poured the sand on a sheet of parchment she had pulled from her purse. It glittered like gold, then formed sentence after sentence to be read.

  “I’d read it as fast as you can,” I offered. “Like any Book of Sand, it will dissolve after you read it.”

  “And be gone forever?”

  “Not forever. For another hundred years.”

  “Do you want to read it with me?” she asked.

  “Read it out loud. I will listen.”

  “I can’t believe I’m going to read this diary,” she almost gasped. “Will it tell us who Bluebeard really was as well?”

  “Whatever it will tell us, I’m sure we’re not going to be the same again after we read it,” I said gloomily, and listened as the first words from the diary left her lips…

  My Grandmother’s Diary

  Dear Diary,

  Yesterday was the day when, unlike every other teenager in my small European town, I declined the Hungarian prince's proposal of marriage. That tall, dark, and handsome forty-something stranger who has an uncanny obsession with music. That strange prince for whom it is said can talk to birds and is rich enough to make God an offer to purchase the world from him. That lean and muscular man who has no well-known origins. That man with the oddly attractive blue beard.

  The peasants had said so many things about his beard. That it was hiding a scar on his chin. But why blue? Because he loves the ocean and the sky and the sea. Really? Then, perhaps he dipped it in the ink he wrote his letters with. Unbelievable assumptions and rumors were everywhere. None of them made sense.

  Except one. It didn't really make sense, but it was the closest one to having a comprehensible meaning. One of his wives—or victims—had claimed the name was misheard. It was never blue beard. It was bird. That he had only dyed his beard blue to mislead anyone from the true origins of his name.

  But even then, what did the name Bluebird mean?

  Well, that was impossible to know since that specific wife had disappeared shortly after marrying him. Like every other wife he married. Rumor had it that his wives fled away from his obsessive behavior toward them. Others claimed the wives had been killed. One after the other. Buried back in the garden of his castle. They said he called his wives birds. He loved to bury the birds in the garden, the one in the back of his mansion or castle or whatever that intimidating and huge structure on top of the mountain was called.

  They said he loved to call his wives birds. And when they died, they turned blue. So he buried his bluebirds in the garden in the back, where each wedding took place, where kings and queens of the world attended all kinds of celebratory balls.

  The garden, which he had aptly called The Bluebeard Garden – or did he mean The Bluebird Garden? No one was sure. But later, when I gave in and married him, I saw the invitation cards for the wedding. They said ‘You're invited to witness the honorable marriage of Prince Bluebeard and Princess Erza in the Bluebeard Garden.’

  I must have misjudged him. The peasants’ rumors had messed with my mind. Bluebeard was only a tortured man with too many secrets. A man who longed for a good wife, while none of those he had married before understood him. Or did I just fool myself then?

  Let us not speculate on the conclusions. For if you think stories are marked by their endings, you are absolutely wrong. This diary is all about the journey. How things came to be. It's about the tiniest of details. If the devil has ever fooled you by convincing you he was someone else, then it's because you've never paid attention to details.

  So, at the age of fifteen, I ran away from my aristocratic family. It had been a common custom for girls to get married at that age then. If you're reading this diary in more modern times, then you'd probably be calling my era either the 16th or 17th century, I am not sure exactly which.

  To disappear I had to run to the forest. I had no place else to go, or they would find me. It troubled me why my family didn't fight for me, handing me over into the arms of a possible serial murderer of women – historically, the world's first serial killer, if you know what that means. I knew Bluebeard was feared, that either parents gave him their daughters out of intimidation or being the gold diggers most people were.

  Bluebeard was rich beyond imagination. He had managed to build his castle at the top of the mountain in six days. The man possessed some kind of unholy magic.

  But I still wished my parents had fought for me. Then again, I knew why they didn't. My father had never wanted a daughter, my mother believed I was wicked like my father. An enchanting family.

  The days and nights I spent in the forest surprised me. I had assumed I could never relate to the greens, the darkness and the animals, but somehow I felt at home. I felt safer with everything that wasn't human. I felt the kindness of the darkness and the stray animals in the strangest ways.

  Every now and then, I'd hide on top of a dense tree, watching the town's hound dogs looking for me. I was surprised, listening to the searchers. They weren't the least worried about me. They feared Bluebeard's wrath in case they never found me.

  For three weeks I hid, never being seen let alone caught, and I was beginning to plan the rest of my life living in the forest.

  If only Bluebeard's castle on top of the mountain hadn't caught my eye one day.

  I spent hours staring at it, unable to fathom its structure. Was it round? Square? Oblong? I could never tell. It struck me that it was like a chameleon, changing colors each time I looked away and back. Sometimes, it seemed to look back at me. So immense was the feeling that I unconsciously took a step back.

  This wasn't just a castle. It struck me like a beast. A dragon. Sleeping. For centuries. Ready to wake up and spit fire and burn whatever surrounded it.

  What kind of castle was this?

  My fifteen-year-old curiosity pulled me closer to it. Instead of taking more steps back, I advanced, climbing up the hill, wondering if I could spot the garden in the back. If I made it that far, could I dig out the wives he had supposedly killed?

  Closer.

  Out of breath.

  Hypnotized by a greater power.

  On my way up to the top of the mountain, I saw a sign. It was made of oak wood and had been left flat on its front amidst the devil's grass. The moon above seemed fond of the battered sign, blessing it with its singular beam of white in the middle of the night. There I saw carvings on the wooden sign, but clearly someone had knocked it down for some reason. Maybe it had become useless, giving directions to a place that wasn’t there anymore.

  Or maybe someone preferred a certain place never be found.

  I tipped the sign over, curious to read it, to know of the direction it led to.

  The answer was stranger than I had expected. The sign said: East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

  Really? Well, thank you that really helped.

  "West of the moon, I can understand,” I mumbled mockingly. "But how am I supposed to find east of the sun in the middle of the night."

  I left it flat on the ground and continued my climb.

  A day later, I arrived at the castle. Not just that. I realized I’d already entered the garden.

  My steps became slower and I almost wanted to tiptoe, in case I was stepping over the dead.

  But unlike what I had in mind, the garden was enchantingly beautiful. There were almost no trees. Only roses and flowers in bundles that seemed to imitate the colors of a rainbow. Some of the flowers were unbelievably huge. They bent over my head, sheltering me and creating
some kind of shade. They smelled like a romantic fantasy. Scents I had never known existed. A pleasant feeling surged through my body, as if I were about to grow wings and levitate above the ground.

  It was impossible to think of this as a grave. Would flowers so beautiful dare to grow in such an evil place? Something didn't make sense.

  I crossed through the tunnel of flowers and was exposed to the vaster regions of the garden. Too big to take in from a few glances. But it was the colors of light pooling down that caught my attention. Where did that magnificent light come from?

  I raised my head and saw something I had never seen before. Something that most people never see in a lifetime. Something that would later confuse a lot of people about the identities of the Lost Seven—don't ask, that’s one hell of a long story.

  When I glanced upward I saw Bluebeard's garden had its own moons. Yes, moons not moon. Each moon was fixed in position lighting a different part of the garden. Different colors. Purple, white, and yellow. The moons never moved. Like lanterns dangling from invisible hooks in the sky.

  "I'd get one of those moons and place it at your feet," a voice came from behind.

  Though intimate and soothing, I was so scared that I couldn't move my feet. Eventually, I turned and faced the voice.

  It was Bluebeard.

  It wasn't the first time I'd seen him. He had been present in the town many times. All the girls, though fearing him, were curious. Devil or not, he was strikingly handsome. Looking fit and youthful for a forty-year-old. I even began doubting his spoken age. Maybe he just wanted to scare everyone by pretending to be older.

  And wait. What did he just say about placing one of these beautiful moons at my feet?

  "If you want two, I can go get two of them," he said, waving up at the light in the sky. "I assume purple is your favorite." That was true. "White your second favorite." That was true, too.

  "Is that the price you'd pay to shut my mouth?" I clamp my hands at my waist, not sure if I was overreacting or sounding childish. I was fifteen for god's sake.

  He said nothing and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  "All the poor girls you buried in this garden." I stomped a foot upon what I believed was a grave.

  He tilted his head toward the imaginary grave. "Someone is buried underneath your feet?”

  I didn't want to answer. He made it sound so comical and I didn't want to laugh.

  "I'd pull that foot back if I were you," he whispered, his voice low as if some conspiracy was happening between us. "You don't want to wake them up."

  I swallowed my barking laugh all the way down my intestines. He wasn't going to charm me into acting the fool. "How did you kill them?" I insisted.

  He leaned back, enamored not offended. Even at fifteen I could understand and clearly see what an enchanted man looked like. It was deviously beautiful that the things I said amused him.

  "I choked her." He made a serious face.

  "All of them?" I really wasn't sure if we were bantering or being serious.

  "Not at the same time, if that’s what you mean. I only have two hands."

  I cleared my throat. He was handsome but his hands were big. I could faint, imagining him using them to choke someone.

  "The last girl had a thick neck," he continued. "I had no choice but slap her with a pan."

  My eyes widened. He sounded really serious. I couldn't speak.

  "But then, she had a thick skull," he said. "So I had to kick her in the stomach."

  I was about to cry, staring at the grave beneath my feet.

  "Still, she was tough. I needed a stronger weapon."

  I made a fist with my hand, wondering if hitting him would pain me more than it'd hurt him. "What did you do, you evil beast?"

  "The usual." He shook his shoulder and clapped his hands clean. "I shot her with a rifle. I mean, why do I always forget to use it. It's easier and faster. Why does killing my wife have to be so dramatic? One shot, a shovel, and solid and fertile ground in the garden does it."

  I found myself running toward him. No plan. I wasn't even going to hurt him. Just needed to get this anger out of me and bump into him.

  He laughed, and skillfully avoided me in a fast maneuver. I flew midair with my punch and landed in the mud behind him.

  Clearing my eyes with my hands, I saw a smudged image of him laughing at me. Again, enamored, staring with two beautiful blue eyes as if nothing else existed in the world.

  This time my cheeks turned red. Confused, I looked away, about to laugh, too, when he said, "Now clean up this mess you made as I prepare our dinner, my beloved new wife."

  The other women before me hadn't been allowed to contact their families once married to him. The families had strangely approved, and a girl's marriage was the equivalent of becoming dead to her loved ones. In return, he'd promised the families a lavish life, which most of them accepted—including my father and mother.

  But I hadn't succumbed to his proposal yet. Infatuated and mesmerized I may have been, but not foolish enough to marry him. I was curious about him more than anything else. How was the killer Bluebeard such a charming and light-hearted man?

  "I'm not going to marry you," I told him across the long dinner table. He sat far away on the other side, separated by the endless food and drinks and golden chandeliers.

  "Did you say something?" He looked up from his soup.

  "You heard me. I'm not going to marry you."

  "But of course." He sipped his drink elegantly. "Because if you marry me, I will have to kill you and bury you next to the other blue birds in the garden." He winked.

  "You're not funny." I squinted at him, still swallowing all the smiles.

  "Didn't mean to be," he said. "I was trying to scare you, but you seem like a brave girl."

  The conversation was unlike what I had expected. I needed answers. I needed to uncover the personality he masked with his charms. "Why me?"

  "Why you?" He put the spoon down, interested.

  "Why do you want to marry me?"

  He considered, seeming to be impressed. "None of the other girls ever asked me this." He rubbed his chin. "I assumed they were all in it for the money and wealth."

  "Or they feared you would hurt their families if they hadn't agreed."

  "I heard that too, but it's not true." He sipped the soup again.

  "Why marry a lot of women then?"

  "I never did. I only married when one wife escaped. Never more than one at a time."

  "Why do they escape?"

  "I think it's the soup. They all hated the soup."

  "Stop it! I want real answers."

  "I wish I knew, trust me," he said. "Maybe I scared them off somehow."

  I didn't know how to respond to that. He seemed sincere, charming as usual, but I never believed him.

  "So I am just a substitute wife."

  "Actually no." He dropped the spoon, sounding serious. "I liked you the minute I entered this town."

  "Liar."

  "It's true. I wanted you as my wife, but they said you were too young, that I needed to wait for two more years."

  "You think I am still a child, and you're playing with my mind."

  "You want me prove that I like you?"

  "Prove?" I grimaced.

  "What if I show you a secret?" His eyes glimmered. "One that only I know?"

  I nodded slowly, swallowing hard. I had a feeling he was going to show me the women he had killed.

  Bluebeard took me by the hand, out of the castle and into the garden. My thoughts were reeling so strongly that I had trouble listening to his words.

  "Are you with me, Erza?" he asked.

  I shook my thoughts away and nodded.

  "See those trees scattered all around the garden?"

  I nodded again. Among the colorful flowers I saw many trees with thick roots going down into the earth. They seemed the only thing in the garden that didn't fascinate me. "What about them?"

  "What if I told you their branches are
special?"

  "How so?"

  "I'll show you," he said and began whistling.

  At first, it seemed the whistling of a trained person who'd done it many times in the past. But slowly I began to listen to the beautiful tune, which he repeated with the breaths from his mouth, controlling its melodies by the twisting of his tongue. Bluebeard seemed to portray the manners of a child all of a sudden. His mastery of the whistled tune let him be free of whatever adulthood he'd been chained by.

  I was about to laugh when he began tapping his feet on the grass. The tune increased in power and smoothly blocked every useless thought in my mind from rising. I was enchanted by the melody.

  But I had to interrupt. "So?" I folded my arms. "You have childish tendencies and can play your tongue like you’re playing a flute."

  He didn't answer me and continued whistling, pointing at the trees.

  At first, I couldn't quite register the image in front of me. But there was no escaping from it. The trees were swaying to his melody, dancing like lovers in the garden, the many moons in the night sky veiled them with white magic.

  "Come on." Bluebeard took my hand again and steered me to the nearest tree branch, a wide green carpet-like stretch of leaves and wood lowered itself and we stepped upon it.

  Like some great bird's wings, it lifted off the ground. I struggled with my balance, but Bluebeard caught me in his arms. "Stay focused," he said. "You will need that once we start dancing."

  "Dancing?" I said.

  Bluebeard had stopped whistling, but his melodies still lingered in the air, like a strong scent of a beautiful presence.

  The tree branches lifted us so high toward the moons that I stopped looking down. Then, out of nowhere they wriggled underneath our feet and nudged us into the air. I let out a scream while Bluebeard continued laughing like a child, as the branches flipped us backwards in midair.

  "Hang tight," he chirped.

  After a couple of flips in the air I was surprised when we landed onto another tree branch nearby. This one was cushiony and comfortable, like a rich man's bed. Again, I struggled with my balance, but I finally managed to gain some sense of equilibrium.