Bluebeard’s Wife

Chapter 1: The Man in Black

A cool breeze whispered through the tangled, night blooming jasmine and overgrown lavender bushes that had overrun the once orderly paths of the once lavish estate. Insects lent their wails to the mournful song of frogs. There; the man in black floated through the mist that had gathered at the hems of the thickets in midnight’s garden like rotting wedding lace. The windowed doors flung open of their own accord, allowing him entrance into the vacant study that had once belonged to Grand-pére. The man in black’s stride was unhurried, but no matter how quickly she pursued, he was still beyond reach.

The white-washed walls and winding staircases seemed to stretch and collapse as though they were lungs, breathing in the strange dust of this abandoned place. The man in black never faltered, leading her through binding passages of quiet loathing and earth-shattering desire. I must reach him; it seemed imperative to do so, though what she would want with the strange figure who both repulsed and mesmerized her, she could not rightly say. Her hands nearly grasped the long black cloak that trailed behind him like smoke but fell right through, staining her fingertips with the coal that must surely burn in the furnace of his soul.

Part of her knew this was a dream, but something else — the abject dread in her belly, the scrape and shuffle of bare…