A man and woman got married. This is how they were: The woman was pretty and had tons of friends and a big family who loved her. The man was rich with a big house, but he also had blue hair and a blue beard, which he was named after. Back then hair dye didn’t exist so everyone thought he was not normal. Blue was not natural except as the color of the sky and water, and some flowers like forgot-me-nots and rapunzels. People aren’t blue except for eyes and the veins inside them.

Anyway, neither of them could be trusted.

Bluebeard was married six times when the woman met him. He showed off his cars and houses to get her attention and she found out she liked his money so much that she could get over his ex-wives and his blue hair. Divorce and hair dye are normal now, so that was not very weird. It was even nice of her. The thing that wasn’t normal was that nobody knew what happened to the six other wives, although it probably just made them feel Bluebeard was pathetic and not that he was evil.

One morning Blue had to go on a business trip. He gave his wife the keys to the house and all the rooms before he drove away. She was allowed to open all the safes and chests and bedrooms and closets, except for one. He said to her, you can look at and take out everything except the small closet in my room.

She said OK. She invited all her friends and family over to party and look at the castle, which legally half belonged to her. They ate lots of good food on gold and silver plates and dressed up in all the expensive clothes. They went all over and looked at the safe with all his money. They probably thought he was stupid.

The woman had lots of treasure now and her friends were impressed, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the only door she was not supposed to look at, the little door in Bluebeard’s room. But she had the key and thought he would never notice, so at night she snuck up and opened it.

The closet was full of blood and guts and cut up eviscerated and mutilated body parts from ladies that were hanging on wall hooks like tinsel. These were actually Bluebeard’s ex-wives! They were all dead and the floor was a swimming pool of blood. The woman was so shocked she slipped and dropped the key. She found the key again and quickly ran out and locked the door again. But the key was magic and the blood couldn’t be washed off no matter how hard she wiped.

When Bluebeard came back home he saw right away that someone opened his closet, and there was only one suspect. He summoned the woman and screamed at her, I trusted you and you didn’t listen! Now you’ll end up like the rest of them! And he took out a big pirate sabre and promised he would cut her head off and pull all her intestines out from her neck and hang her up like the others.

She got him to give her some time in her room to pray. People used to care about that kind of thing, even pirates. But she wasn’t praying in her room, she was calling her sister and brothers who were still nearby after partying at the castle. She knew they would do more than police about this because they were family and couldn’t be paid off by Bluebeard.

Her brothers came with their own swords and clubs and hit and stabbed Bluebeard until he died.

Although lots of people say it, curiosity didn’t kill any cat. It was both of their faults what happened. But in the end the woman was lucky. She wasn’t smart and she wasn’t strong but had a whole family who cared about her and some of those people were stronger than Bluebeard. Most of the time you just have to die after you get caught making a mistake that big with a person like that. It doesn’t matter if you deserve it or not.

Bluebeard got the regular treatment. I don’t know if the key was a trick or just him being stupid, and if his exes also looked at the closet and betrayed him. But he made a mistake messing with the wrong person, even if she looked smaller and weaker. When he needed help, he had nobody, so of course he died.

Not everyone is a wife or a Bluebeard. You can be the sister and brother and just pretend you don’t exist until you need to come in with your sword. You might wait for the moment for your whole life, but if you are there when you’re needed and you aren’t a pretender and a liar, you have a better chance of living. You are the person who decides who lives and who dies when the swords come out. That’s just facts.