We Have Always Lived in the Castle

by Shirley Jackson

Mrs. C...

Mr. and Mrs. Carrington

“You will not ask them,” she said at last. “We do not ask from anyone. Remember that.”

“They quarrelled hatefully that last night,”

Haha

Helen Clarke

That day, which was the last time Helen Clarke ever came for tea,

Haha

Haha

Mrs. Wright,

Lucille.”

Shame to keep it hidden from the world.

Haha

Haha

“It’s spring, you’re young, you’re lovely, you have a right to be happy. Come back into the world.”

I realized now that this was the third time in one day that the subject had been touched, and three times makes it real.

Mrs. Wright was being almost hysterically polite,

“Uncle Julian

“Arsenic in the sugar,”

“Constance must start thinking about the future;

I am a survivor of the most sensational poisoning case of the century.

John Blackwood

Thomas—did

Mary Katherine,

She was a wicked, disobedient child,”

“A child should be punished for wrongdoing, but she should be made to feel that she is still loved.

It is still one of my favorite meals.

Haha ewww

Haha

Constance can put her hand upon a bewildering array of deadly substances without ever leaving home;

“She should not have been doing the cooking,” said Mrs. Wright strongly.

it was a gallant, Uncle Julian, gesture;

Haha ouch.

You will be wondering about that sugar bowl, I imagine.

My niece Constance washed it before the doctor or the police had come,

Haha

Constance said to the teapot.

Haha

Haha

“It was Constance who saw them dying around her like flies—I do beg your pardon—and never called a doctor until it was too late. She washed the sugar bowl.”

“She told the police those people deserved to die.”

although I deserve to die—we all do, do we not?—I

Haha

“She told the police that it was all her fault.”

Haha

unless we agree that Constance was a homicidal maniac—” “You have met her, madam.”

Haha

Haha

Haha one lump, or two?

I was laughing when I came back into the drawing room,

“You were teasing her, Merricat.” “A little bit, maybe. I can’t help it when people are frightened; I always want to frighten them more.”

A change was coming,

All our land was enriched with my treasures buried in it,