Hangsaman

by Shirley Jackson

Henry James, of whom Jackson was apparently a fan.

Natalie thought that she had never in her life lived through the month of May; it was a fable, a month non-existing, a month for maying and greenswarding, not an ordinary month full of weeks and days and probably Tuesdays and Sundays like any other month) was something that might or might not happen long after the unthinkable barriers of January and March and Valentine’s Day and Lincoln’s Birthday had been gotten past somehow.