Hello readers!  It’s the 6th of October and 31 Scary Story Nights continues this evening with a classic tale that scared me to death as a child.  it’s called “The Black Velvet Ribbon” though I have since heard the story where the ribbon is green or red or blue.

It’s a tale of love and obsession and best told in a darkened room.  Everyone gather around, now, and let’s read this mysterious tale!

***Writer’s Note:  We here at iHorror are big proponents of responsible parenting.  Some of the stories in this series may be too much for your little ones.  Please read ahead and decide if your kids can handle this story!  If not, find another story for tonight or simply come back to see us tomorrow.  In other words, don’t blame me for your kids nightmares!***

The Black Velvet Ribbon as retold by Waylon Jordan

Matthew would never forget the day that Edwina stepped into his life.  He met her in the park as he walked along the path on a lazy and cool Sunday afternoon in October.  She wore a proper white dress with puffed sleeves and a single flower adorned her hair. Strangely, a simple black ribbon around her neck that matched the raven black locks of her hair.

Matthew was transfixed by her.  She was one of those rare women whose could take your breath away with a single smile, and before he could help it he was introducing himself.

Edwina smiled and allowed him to walk alongside her that day and told him he could call upon her at her home the following evening.  She had an extra ticket for the opera if he would like to come along.

He agreed right away and the following evening found him dressed in his best suit, knocking on the door of the home she shared with three other women.  She answered the door in a gown of deepest green, her hair pulled up in an elegant twist at the back of her head…and the same black velvet ribbon she’d worn the day before.

The evening was magical and before long they were seeing each other ever day.  It was always a marvel to him each time she opened the door.  He would bask in the glow of her smile but the presence of that simple black velvet ribbon never changed, and after a few weeks it began to eat at him.

He couldn’t say why.  It just seemed…out of place.

One night while they sat eating dinner in her favorite restaurant, he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Edwina,” he asked.  “Why do you always wear that ribbon?”

Her fingers fluttered to the ribbon for a moment but she smiled and replied, “Oh, I just like it, that’s all.”

“Why don’t you take it off?” Matthew asked.  “I’d love to see you without it, just once.”

“You wouldn’t like it if I did,” she said with a shy smile.  “So I won’t.”

He could see she wouldn’t budge and so he let it go, but from that day forward, the ribbon began to bother him more and more each time he saw it.

Several times in the course of their courtship, he would bring up the black velvet ribbon, and he would always receive the same reply.

“You wouldn’t like it if I did so I won’t,” she’d say with that same shy smile.

She wore the ribbon everywhere.  To the opera, to the theater, to the park.  No matter the color of the rest of her outfit, she was never without that black velvet ribbon.

Soon, it consumed his every thought.

Why would she wear it?

Was she hiding something?

How was it that it never even seemed to move?

Their wedding day arrived and Matthew watched his bride to be walk down the aisle to him in pristine white…marred by that black velvet ribbon.

After much feasting with friends and family, Matthew and Edwina made their way to their new home.  He carried her over the threshold and up the stairs to their bedroom before excusing himself to change.

When he returned to their bedroom, he found her in a shimmering red, silk gown staring at her reflection in the vanity as she brushed out her hair.  Quietly he crept over to the end table on his side of the bed.

He’d been planning this for weeks.

Holding the scissors behind his back he slowly stepped behind his bride and smiled down at her.

She smiled up at him.  “I love you, my dearest.”

“I love you too, darling.”

And in one swift movement, he snipped the black ribbon from her neck with the scissors.  A moment later, he let out a scream and jumped back as Edwina’s head topped from her neck onto the floor and rolled across the room.

As the head came to a rest, her eyes locked with his, and she said with perfect nonchalance, “Well, I told you that you wouldn’t like it…”

*shudder*

That story still gets me to a little bit.  I mean, seriously, when a head keeps talking after it’s been removed from a body, there’s a problem.

As I said before there are many versions of this story, but they all seem to revolve around the young man’s descent into an unhealthy fixation with the ribbon, and who could blame him, really.

Join us again tomorrow evening for another Scary Story Night and if you missed last night’s story, just click here!