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My Name Is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I Am Eighteen Years Old, And I Live With My Sister Constance. I 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. I Dislike Washing Myself, And Dogs, And Noise. I Like My Sister Constance, And Richard Plantagenet, And Amanita Phalloides, The Death-cup Mushroom. Everyone Else In Our Family Is Dead.

-Shirley Jackson

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My Name Is Mary

Shirley Jackson

...

My Name Is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I Am Eighteen Years Old, And I Live With My Sister Constance. I 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. I Dislike Washing Myself, And Dogs, And Noise. I Like My Sister Constance, And Richard Plantagenet, And Amanita Phalloides, The Death-cup Mushroom. Everyone Else In Our Family Is Dead.

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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.

It Was One Of Those Winter Days That Suddenly Dream Of Spring, When The Sky Is Blue And Soft And Clear, And The Wind Has Dropped Its Voice And Whispers Instead Of Screaming, And The Sun Is Out And The Trees Look Surprised, And Over Everything There Is The Faintest, Palest Tint Of Green.

Can't You Make Them Stop?' I Asked Her That Day, Wondering If There Was Anything In This Woman I Could Speak To, If She Had Ever Run Joyfully Over Grass, Or Had Watched Flowers, Or Known Delight Or Love.

In The Country Of The Story The Writer Is King.

She Had Taken To Wondering Lately, During These Swift-counted Years, What Had Been Done With All Those Wasted Summer Days; How Could She Have Spent Them So Wantonly? I Am Foolish, She Told Herself Early Every Summer, I Am Very Foolish; I Am Grown Up Now And Know The Values Of Things. Nothing Is Ever Really Wasted, She Believed Sensibly, Even One's Childhood, And Then Each Year, One Summer Morning, The Warm Wind Would Come Down The City Street Where She Walked And She Would Be Touched With The Little Cold Thought: I Have Let More Time Go By.

She Walked Quickly Around Her One-room Apartment. After More Than Four Years In This One Home She Knew All Its Possibilities, How It Could Put On A Sham Appearance Of Warmth And Welcome When She Needed A Place To Hide In, How It Stood Over Her In The Night When She Woke Suddenly, How It Could Relax Itself Into A Disagreeable Unmade, Badly-put-together State, Mornings Like This, Anxious To Drive Her Out And Go Back To Sleep.

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Am I Walking Toward Something I Should Be Running Away From?

So Long As You Write It Away Regularly Nothing Can Really Hurt You.

Gossip Says She Hanged Herself From The Turret On The Tower, But When You Have A House Like Hill House With A Tower And A Turret, Gossip Would Hardly Allow You To Hang Yourself Anywhere Else.

Now, I Have Nothing Against The Public School System As It Is Presently Organized, Once You Allow The Humor Of Its Basic Assumption About How It Is Possible To Teach Things To Children.

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I Took My Coffee Into The Dining Room And Settled Down With The Morning Paper. A Woman In New York Had Had Twins In A Taxi. A Woman In Ohio Had Just Had Her Seventeenth Child. A Twelve-year-old Girl In Mexico Had Given Birth To A Thirteen-pound Boy. The Lead Article On The Woman's Page Was About How To Adjust The Older Child To The New Baby. I Finally Found An Account Of An Axe Murder On Page Seventeen, And Held My Coffee Cup Up To My Face To See If The Steam Might Revive Me.

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A Pretty Sight, A Lady With A Book.

[l]et My Reader Who Is Puzzled By My Awkward Explanations Close His Eyes For No More Than Two Minutes, And See If He Does Not Find Himself Suddenly Not A Compact Human Being At All, But Only A Consciousness On A Sea Of Sound And Touch . . .

February, When The Days Of Winter Seem Endless And No Amount Of Wistful Recollecting Can Bring Back Any Air Of Summer.

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