We Have Always Lived in the Castle

by Shirley Jackson

I had buried all my baby teeth as they came out one by one, and perhaps someday they would grow as dragons.

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.