We Have Always Lived in the Castle

by Shirley Jackson

On Sunday mornings I examined my safeguards, the box of silver dollars I had buried by the creek, and the doll buried in the long field, and the book nailed to the tree in the pine woods; so long as they were where I had put them, nothing could get in to harm us.

Each year Constance and Uncle Julian and I had jam or preserve or pickle that Constance had made, but we never touched what belonged to the others; Constance said it would kill us if we ate it.

but the air of change was so strong that there was no avoiding it; change lay over the stairs and the kitchen and the garden like fog.

"You should have let me take him to the moon," I said.

The trees around and overhead were so thick that it was always dry inside and on Sunday morning I lay there with Jonas, listening to his stories. All cat stories start with the statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this,

I found a nest of baby snakes near the creek and killed them all; I dislike snakes and Constance had never asked me not to.

Today my winged horse is coming and I am carrying you off to the moon and on the moon we will eat rose petals." "Some rose petals are poisonous."

perhaps it would be kind to Uncle Julian today if I put a feather on the lawn at the spot where Uncle Julian's chair would go; I was not allowed to bury things in the lawn. On the moon we wore feathers in our hair, and rubies on our hands. On the moon we had gold spoons.

"Then it will take him four or five hours to get home again?" "I suppose so. When he goes." "But first he will have to walk back to the village?" "Unless you take him on your winged horse." "I don't have any winged horse," I said.

Since Charles had taken my occupation for Tuesday morning I had nothing to do. I wondered about going down to the creek, but I had no reason to suppose that the creek would even be there, since I never visited it on Tuesday mornings;

A spark from his pipe had left a tiny burn on the rose brocade of a chair in the drawing room; Constance had not yet noticed it and I thought not to tell her because I hoped that the house, injured, would reject him by itself.

I disliked having a fork pointed at me and I disliked the sound of the voice never stopping; I wished he would put food on the fork and put it into his mouth and strangle himself.

I would cover her with leaves, like children in a story, and keep her safe and warm. Perhaps I would sing to her or tell her stories; I would bring her bright fruits and berries and water in a leaf cup. Someday we would go to the moon.

Uncle Julian had believed that I was dead, and now he was dead himself; bow your heads to our beloved Mary Katherine, I thought, or you will be dead.

"They are the children of the strangers," I told her. They have no faces." "They have eyes." "Pretend they are birds. They can t see us. They don't know it yet, they don't want to believe it, but they won t ever see us again."

Julian might vanish altogether, with his papers in a box and his chair on the barricade and his toothbrush thrown away and even the smell of Uncle Julian gone from his room, but when the ground was soft Constance planted a yellow rosebush at Uncle Julian's spot on the lawn, and one night I went down to the creek and buried Uncle Julian's initialled gold pencil by the water, so the creek would always speak his name.

We were very happy, although Constance was always in terror lest one of our two cups should break, and one of us have to use a cup without a handle.