Janet Mclaughlin

“Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.”
― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?
Oh no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!”
― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“I had always buried things, even when I was small; I remember that once I quartered the long field and buried something in each quarter to make the grass grow higher as I grew taller, so I would always be able to hide there. I once buried six blue marbles in the creek bed to make the river beyond run dry. 'Here is a treasure for you to bury,' Constance used to say to me when I was small, giving me a penny, or a bright ribbon; 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.”
― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“I'm going to put death in all their food and watch them die.”
― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle