We met a man in the meadow today.

It was like something from one of my favorite stories, those in which an encounter with a mysterious stranger upends someone's life. Liesl and I have told many such stories while spending balmy afternoons tending our goats, dreaming of hidden worlds and far-flung adventures. Before today, I never imagined we'd meet such a stranger-someone who could change our fortunes or twist our fates.

Liesl and I had decided to weave flower crowns for each other while the goats idly grazed. We sat in the shade of our favorite twisted oak tree after gathering the wildflowers. They grew thick this late in the summer, sweetening the air with their perfume and splashing color across the green hills, stretching out to the distant mountains.

I'd woven Liesl's crown quickly, so she was wearing it when the stranger approached. My half-finished crown was still clasped in her hands. She is a better weaver than me, but it takes her longer, as she chooses each flower carefully, according to a sense about which colors and sizes look well together that I do not have.

The man approached us on a beautiful white stallion-the sort that only the very rich keep. It had as little in common with our tired brown plow horse as a swan does a sparrow.

"Remember to curtsy, Anne," Liesl said, pulling me to my feet and smoothing her dark hair.

As he neared, I could see that the man's clothing, too, was of the finest sort. I wondered how far he had traveled in them. The velvets and silks would surely not hold up to more than a few days on horseback along our dusty and uneven roads. Perhaps he was so rich that it did not matter if his clothing wore out so soon.

My own dress was a few years old, the elbows patched and the hem rather short now. As I admired the man, I suddenly felt ungainly in my ill-fitting dress and childish to be making flower crowns-something I had never felt before. Perhaps Liesl felt it, too, as her cheeks turned rather pink.

Smiling, he dismounted his horse to speak to us. For one moment, I had the urge to run-I know not why. It vanished as he said in a deep voice, "Good day, Frauleins," and doffed his brown felt hat. A long black feather-from a raven, perhaps-stuck out from its brim.

We curtsied. Liesl dropped my unfinished flower crown in the dirt but seemed to forget about the one she wore. I looked to her for guidance, and she said to the man, "Good day, my liege. How may we serve you?"

He didn't reply right away. I suppose he was studying us as we studied him. He was older than I had at first thought, with lines around his mouth and the corners of his eyes. Perhaps my father's age, though he moved with the energy of a much younger man. He was rather round about the middle, I suspect because he could partake in rich food and wine just as he did in expensive fabrics.

The most striking thing, however-the thing that most drew the eye and made taking the whole of him in at once difficult-was his long blue beard.

It was not blue in the way that the sky or the forget-me-nots in the meadow are blue, but rather in the way that some of our goats are "red." Their coats are black as can be in the shade, but when the sun hits them, more fiery tones are revealed.

The sun was high today in the meadow, and the stranger's hair and beard shone remarkably blue. He was no wizard or warlock, of course, but it gave him a touch of the otherworldly. I didn't mean to stare, but I must have, for he said, "Ah, Fraulein, I see you've observed my most unique feature, and the one for which I am named. I am lord of a castle a few days' travel from here and in possession of a slew of grandiose names, but everyone knows me as Bluebeard. You may address me so, too. Now, what might I call you?"

His gallant manner was so different from those of the men in our village, yet it was far from the reserved, imperious way that we had heard other nobles speak on the rare occasions we'd encountered any.

"My name is Liesl, and this is my younger sister, Anne." Liesl smoothed her skirts and touched her flower crown self-consciously, as if she'd just remembered it. For a moment, I thought she might take the white-and-blue flowers from her head and drop them beside my crown in the dirt, but she clasped her hands in front of her instead.

"Well met, Liesl and Anne."

"You have a lovely horse," I said, then chided myself for saying something so inane.

His eyes flicked to me, and he nodded with a little smile before returning his attention back to Liesl. "Is there an inn nearby? I desire a hot meal and a soft bed."

Liesl described the location of the village inn, though I expected he would be disappointed with its meager offerings. Bluebeard thanked us, remounted his horse, and gave us one last appraising look before turning back onto the road.

Neither Liesl nor I spoke of the stranger after he left, though she took off her flower crown and never finished mine. When we brought the goats home, I hurried to record our meeting with Bluebeard before I forgot any details. I'd been saving this diary for months-Warner gave it to me for my last birthday, and I was afraid to touch a pen to its pages, not wanting to waste it on anything inconsequential. Now, of course, I worry that is exactly what I have done.

I had thought our silence was because Liesl and I both felt the strange weight of the exchange, the way it had felt like a beginning. The way his riches and unsettling beard felt like something from one of our stories. But now that I've written of it, I doubt myself; perhaps she said nothing of it because it meant so little. Certainly, for a lord such as him, it must have been but one uneventful moment like a thousand others he has had while riding across the land. It would not seem so fraught with meaning or change as it did to me. Oh, the marvelous things he must have seen, and how little I have.

But still, whenever I remember his gaze on me, my face flushes and something turns, low in my belly.