We Have Always Lived in the Castle

by Shirley Jackson

All our land was enriched with my treasures buried in it, thickly inhabited just below the surface with my marbles and my teeth and my colored stones, all perhaps turned to jewels by now, held together under the ground in a powerful taut web which never loosened, but held fast to guard us.

I could not allow myself to be angry, and particularly not angry with Constance, but I wished Charles dead. Constance needed guarding more than ever before and if I became angry and looked aside she might very well be lost.

“My niece Mary Katherine has been a long time dead, young man. She did not survive the loss of her family; I supposed you knew that.” “What?” Charles turned furiously to Constance. “My niece Mary Katherine died in an orphanage, of neglect, during her sister’s trial for murder. But she is of very little consequence to my book, and so we will have done with her.”

“I am going to put death in all their food and watch them die.” Constance stirred, and the leaves rustled. “The way you did before?” she asked. It had never been spoken of between us, not once in six years. “Yes,” I said after a minute, “the way I did before.”