The cup of stars, The Haunting of Hill House. “Eleanor looked up, surprised; the little girl was sliding back in her chair, sullenly refusing her milk, while her father frowned and her brother giggled and her mother said calmly, ‘She wants her cup of stars.’
Indeed yes, Eleanor thought; indeed, so do I; a cup of stars, of course.
‘Her little cup,’ the mother was explaining, smiling apologetically at the waitress, who was thunderstruck at the thought that the mill’s good country milk was not rich enough for the little girl. ‘It has stars in the bottom, and she always drinks her milk from it at home. She calls it her cup of stars because she can see the stars while she drinks her milk.’ The waitress nodded, unconvinced, and the mother told the little girl, ‘You’ll have your milk from your cup of stars tonight when we get home. But just for now, just to be a very good little girl, will you take a little milk from this glass?’
Don’t do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars.”
Merricat’s jewels, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. “‘Here is 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.”
The sister’s presents, The Witch. “I bough her a rocking-horse and a doll and a million lollipops,” the man said, “and then I took her and put my hands around her neck and I pinched her and I pinched her until she was dead.””
The house with the stone lions, The Haunting of Hill House. “I could live there all alone, she thought, slowing the car to look down the winding garden path to the small blue front door with, perfectly, a white cat on the step. No one would ever find me there, either, behind all those roses, and just to make sure I would plant oleanders by the road. I will light a fire in the cool evenings and toast apples at my own hearth. I will raise white cats and sew white curtains for the windows and sometimes come out of my door to go to the store to buy cinnamon and tea and thread. People will come to me to have their fortunes told, and I will brew love potions for sad maidens; I will have a robin…”
The tooth, The Tooth. “‘Where’s my tooth?’ she asked suddenly, and the nurse laughed and said, ‘All gone. Never bother you again.’
She was back in the cubicle, and she lay down on the couch and cried, and the nurse brought her whisky in a paper cup and set it on the edge of a wash-basin.
‘God has given me blood to drink,’ she said to the nurse, and the nurse said, ‘Don’t rinse your mouth or it won’t clot.’”
The Blackwood jam jars, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. “All the Blackwood women had made food and had taken pride in adding to the great supply of food in our cellar. There were jars of jam made by great-grandmothers, with labels in thin pale writing, almost unreadable by now, and pickles made by great-aunts and vegetables put up by our grandmother, and even our mother had left behind her six jars of apple jelly. Constance had worked all her life at adding to the food in the cellar, and her rows and rows of jars were easily the handsomest, and shone among the others…
All the Blackwood women had taken the food that came from the ground and preserved it, and the deeply colored rows of jellies and pickles and bottled vegetables and fruit, maroon and amber and dark rich green stood side by side in our cellar and would stand there forever, a poem by the Blackwood women.”
[Image via Wikimedia Commons]
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Tags: books, covetousness, cup of stars, katydids and larks, shirley jackson, the haunting of hill house, we have always lived in the castle
My mother, who was the first cat, told me this.
Perfectly, a white cat! Ah, the literary seduction of spinsterhood. I’d like to request a debate, conducted entirely in quotations from various famous spinsters (Austen’s Miss Bates, Miss Marple, Miss Havisham), weighing the pros and cons of marriage, family, participation in society in general. The original opting out!
The overlap between categories book currently in my lap or my bag and books appearing in Toast headlines right this second is starting to give me the creeps.
By which I mean: thank you.
I just bought a vintage Shirley Jackson collection this weekend and I’ve been doling out the stories to myself like chocolates from a fancy box. It’s inches thick, bound in green fabric softened with age, and contains at least one novella (The Bird’s Nest) that I can’t recall reading before.
Yesterday, I found myself rubbing the soft green cover against my cheek. I looked around to see if anyone caught me, then I realized I’d just acted out a vignette worthy of a Shirley Jackson story.
I second the “thank you.” Great piece about one of my favorite neglected authors. How amazing to create an object like the cup of stars or the Tarot deck that lives forever among those who have read about it.
IMHO, Ms. Jackson’s non-fiction is worth reading as well. It makes me wish I had lived in her town so we could have hated it together.
The tarot cards, Hangsaman.
I just want to live in the Blackwood mansion. Pre- or post-fire.
Guys, have you all read this sad/amazing/brilliant thing on her life yet?
http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/nothing-like-be…
Whyyyyy do all my favorite authors have such terribly sad lives?
… and when will I finally get a TARDIS so I can go visit them and give them hugs and thank-yous?
Shirley was not the daughter she wanted.
I think every teenage girl suspects this, and I know more than a few hear it at some point–but my heart still breaks to see it written. And this!:
I do not know if the book review is good or not – and I have been so sad all morning about what you have allowed yourself to look like.
I am a Bad Reader, I think, and have not read much Shirley Jackson (other than The Lottery which traumatized me greatly at 16), but this. Wow.
‘You’ll have your milk from your cup of stars tonight when we get home. But just for now, just to be a very good little girl, will you take a little milk from this glass?’
Don’t do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars.”
That just made me start crying at my desk, out of nowhere.
And just for fun, here’s the full paragraph:
“Don’t do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don’t do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass. Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl.”
How can I download this into my daughter’s brain?
Also everyone should listen to everything Mallory says about books ever because my increased Shirley Jackson exposure came directly from her and now I’m doing (a big part of) my PhD on her*.
*Shirley Jackson, not Mallory. Probably?
This is days old, but if you have time I’d love to read a summary or excerpt or whatever of your PhD–I love Shirley Jackson, and I’m always curious to read what scholars have to say about her.
I’ve been looking for a collection of Shirley Jackson’s stories — I want them all. Is there a single volume or series that has all of her stories? Or if not, can anyone recommend a good collection?
This is the one I have, and it will get the job done: http://amzn.to/14BrkTZ
yeah, Right.
mallory ortberg, shirley jackson is my favorite author and someday you are going to kill me
I think of her every time I see a tall man in a blue suit.
Shirley Jackson’s stories are always fearsome. I really like to learn her stories and also like to tell my kids when they’re eager to hear haunting stories. Thanks.
Hi Mallory,
Shirley Jackson is a great author with amazing books. I still love them. Great for folks who like a bit of scare. Thanks for sharing.