Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone o… - Shirley Jackson

…Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

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.

I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain,” said Lord Byron,