The Closet

As soon as the husband was gone, the wife's friends came to visit. They were very curious about the beautiful house, because they had been too frightened to come while the blue-bearded man was there. They ran through all the rooms and looked at everything — the fine furniture, the silk curtains, the gold mirrors, the beautiful paintings. They admired everything very much.

But the wife was not really enjoying herself. She could only think about the small forbidden key. The curiosity was too strong. She left her friends and went down to the ground floor alone.

She stood in front of the closet door for a moment. She thought about her husband's words. She knew it was wrong to open it. But she could not stop herself. Her hands were shaking as she put the key in the lock and turned it.

At first she could not see anything because the windows were closed. Then, slowly, she saw the floor. It was covered in blood. And along the walls were the bodies of several dead women. They were her husband's previous wives. He had murdered them all.

The wife was so terrified that she dropped the key on the floor. She picked it up, locked the door, and ran upstairs to her room. But she could not calm down. She was shaking with fear.

She looked at the key. It had blood on it. She tried to wash it off. She washed it again and again, with water, with soap, with sand. But the blood would not disappear. The key was magical. When the blood went from one side, it appeared on the other.