We Have Always Lived in the Castle

by Shirley Jackson

“How is Julian?” Helen Clarke asked before Mrs. Wright had quite finished speaking. “How is old Julian?” “Very well, thank you. He is expecting to join us for a cup of tea this afternoon.” “Have you met Julian Blackwood?” Helen Clarke asked Mrs. Wright, and Mrs. Wright, shaking her head, began, “I would love to meet him, of course; I have heard so much—” and stopped. “He’s a touch . . . eccentric,” Helen Clarke said, smiling at Constance as though it had been a secret until now. I was thinking that if eccentric meant, as the dictionary said it did, deviating from regularity, it was Helen Clarke who was far more eccentric than Uncle Julian, with her awkward movements and her unexpected questions, and her bringing strangers here to tea; Uncle Julian lived smoothly, in a perfectly planned pattern, rounded and sleek. She ought not to call people things they’re not, I thought, remembering that I was to be kinder to Uncle Julian. “Constance, you’ve always been one of my closest friends,” she was saying now, and I wondered at her; she really could not see how Constance withdrew from such words. “I’m going to give you just a word of advice, and remember, it comes from a friend.” I must have known what she was going to say, because I was chilled; all this day had been building up to what Helen Clarke was going to say right now. I sat low in my chair and looked hard at Constance, wanting her to get up and run away, wanting her not to hear what was just about to be said, but Helen Cl...