Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

laine

In this village the men stayed young and did the gossiping and the women aged with grey evil weariness and stood silently waiting for the men to get up and come home.

:(( i love how as the story goes on her moon expands to hold all things important to you, but quickly becomes the only escape she has

…I made a rule for myself: Never think anything more than once, and I put my hands quietly in my lap. I am living in the moon, I told myself, I have a little house all by myself on the moon.

When I was small I thought Constance was a fairy princess. … nothing had ever seemed to dim the brightness of her. She was the most precious person in my world, always.

love her little witchcraft moments and how they’re mixed with an odd child-like innocence and misunderstanding of how the world works.

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.

When we had neatened the upstairs rooms we came downstairs together, carrying our dust cloths and the broom and dustpan and mop like a pair of witches walking home.

the was so beautiful that i almost teared up.

…when the ground was soft Constance planted a yellow rose bush 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 Have Always Lived in the Castle

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