We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Charles goes into town to gather supplies without taking down instructions for gathering library books. Constance gives Charles the keys to the house and takes advice from him about money management. This initiates an argument between Merricat and Constance, and Merricat insists that Charles doesn’t belong in the house. Constance plans to make him gingerbread when he returns.

With nothing to do, Merricat sneaks into Charles’s room and notes that Charles has been looking through their father’s things, including his jewelry box. Merricat takes an expensive watch from the box to use as a warding talisman and decides to nail it to the tree near the creek where her book fell.

Charles soon finds the watch nailed to a tree. He is furious and amazed. He keeps referring to it as something that could have been sold off for money. Later, Charles communicates through Jonas by asking the cat what would happen to Merricat if she were to get kicked out of the house.

After three days, Merricat points out that Charles’s rule about never mentioning the past is having a bad effect on Uncle Julian’s mental health. Constance repeats Charles’s philosophy that Uncle Charles and Merricat have been indulged for too long. She talks about putting Julian into a nursing home. At this, Merricat goes out to the lawn, sees that Charles is wearing her father’s watch, and asks him to leave. He refuses, suggesting that, in a month, it will be Merricat who’s been evicted from Blackwood Manor. At this intolerable suggestion, Merricat goes into her father’s room and breaks a mirror. As time passes, Charles’s appetite increases while Julian has trouble feeding himself. When Julian dribbles food onto his clothes at dinner, Charles openly mocks him. He keeps Constance constantly in the kitchen making food for him.

Merricat follows him one day as he shops in the village and observes him reading the paper and conversing with the other men. When she returns, Constance says that she will soon forbid Merricat from wandering around. In fact, she says the family should adopt “normalcy,” and Merricat should pursue “boy friends,” which sounds ridiculous to Merricat (82).

Later, Charles asks about their father’s papers and particularly about the safe in which he kept his money. Uncle Julian is angered at the suggestion that anyone would go through the papers but himself and insists on locking the papers into a box. Later, as Constance plays the piano for the family, Charles disinterestedly considers the monetary value of the knick-knacks sitting on the shelves.

On a Thursday, “my most powerful day,” Merricat decides to settle things with Charles once and for all (86). She replaces many of her father’s items with bits of leaves and broken glass and pours a pitcher of water over the place where Charles sleeps. Noting that Charles has removed their father’s watch to inexpertly mend a broken stair, Merricat finds the watch and winds it until it breaks. Nevertheless, Merricat is disturbed to hear that Charles has unearthed a box of buried silver dollars. She examines the hole left in the yard and imagines burying Charles’s head in it in addition to several other methods of execution. While she is away, Charles discovers his sopping bed and is left speechless with anger. Before lunch, the family has an argument. Uncle Julian forgets where and when he is, berates Charles for arranging his notes, and sometimes refers to him as his dead brother. Merricat begins listing several poisonous plants by their Latin names. Constance offers mild apologies to her cousin while Charles berates the family for its inefficiencies. Merricat silently basks in the glory of a job well done. However, at the suggestion that she might be sent to bed without dinner, she lashes out furiously and runs away.

Later, Merricat goes to the summerhouse for the first time in six years. “No one had ever liked the summerhouse very much,” Merricat remembers (94). Not even Jonas will follow her there, and Merricat never buries objects near the place. Once inside, she replays the table setting and conversations of her family while they were still alive and together. She misremembers conversations in which the family states that “disobedient children being sent to their beds without dinner […] must not be permitted with our Mary Katherine” (95). She imagines the family bowing their heads to her, rising when she rises, following her every cruel command.