We Have Always Lived in the Castle

by Shirley Jackson

have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had.

We dealt with the small surface transient objects, the books and the flowers and the spoons, but underneath we had always a solid foundation of stable possessions.

Perhaps the Harlers thought that the unending noise drove away demons, or perhaps they were musical and found it agreeable;

so I could leave without being noticed, but it was Jim Donell and I knew at once that today I had bad luck.

Perhaps someday soon Jim Donell would die; perhaps there was already a rot growing inside him that was going to kill him.

The poor old Uncle Julian was dying and I made a firm rule to be kinder to him.

When Jim Donell thought of something to say he said it as often and in as many ways as possible, perhaps because he had very few ideas and had to wring each one dry.

Constance could put names to all the growing things, but I was content to know them by their way and place of growing, and their unfailing offers of refuge.

She was the most precious person in my world, always.

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;

"Afraid to visit here? I apologize for repeating your words, madam, but I am astonished. My niece, after all, was acquitted of murder. There could be no possible danger in visiting here *now*"

"Arsenic in the sugar," Mrs. Wright said, carried away, hopelessly lost to all decorum. "I used that sugar." Uncle Julian shook his finger at her. "I used that sugar myself, on my blackberries. Luckily," and he smiled blandly, "fate intervened.

Or consider just the mushroom family, rich as that is in tradition and deception. We were all fond of mushrooms -- my niece makes a mushroom omelette you must taste to believe, madam -- and the common death cup--"

was among them and although I deserve to die -- we all do, do we not?

Always on Wednesday mornings I went around the fence. It was necessary for me to check constantly to be sure that the wires were not broken and the gates were securely locked.

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,

On Tuesdays and Fridays I went into the village, and on Thursday, which was my most powerful day, I went into the big attic and dressed in their clothes.

"If I am spared," he always said to Constance, "I will write the book myself. If not, see that my notes are entrusted to some worthy cynic who will not be too concerned with the truth."

I would not forget my magic words; they were MELODY GLOUCESTER PEGASUS,

It was really too late, although I did not know it then; he was already on his way to the house.

"I shall commence, I think, with a slight exaggeration and go on from there into an outright lie. Constance, my dear?"

"Cousin Mary doesn't like me," Charles said again to Jonas. "I wonder if Cousin Mary knows how I get even with people who don't like me?

I was going to the summerhouse. I had not been near the summerhouse for six years,

I was pleased that she thought of the house and forgot the people outside.

"Merricat, said Constance, would you like a cup of tea?" "Merricat," said Constance, would you like to go to sleep?" "Oh, no, said Merricat, you'll poison me."

"Robinson Crusoe dressed in the skins of animals," I told her. "He had no gay cloths with a gold belt."