“Shh.” I never turned; it was enough to feel them all there in back of me without looking into their flat grey faces with the hating eyes. I wish you were all dead, I thought, and longed to say it out loud.”

The Blackwoods sisters are the only surviving inhabitants of the Blackwood estate. They live secluded in a small town and are frowned upon. Merricat, is scared of the other people and wishes they would leave her, her sister and uncle Julian alone. She even wishes the town was dead and she and her sister could live on the moon. But then a nephew comes to visit and everything escalates.

I saved this particular book especially for Spooky Season as I was told this was a haunting story. And although there is nothing really supernatural about it, it does feel like it had. It’s about not wishing to grow up, choosing to live secluded because of fright of contact with other but the known world. And above that it’s about the tendency Merricat experience to kill people that threaten her secluded live. I loved this short story that speaks of themes like outcasts, how people behave towards outcasts especially under peer pressure and groups. But even more I loved how this normal story still felt so eerie and explained almost how haunted houses come into being. I also loved reading about the sisterly love and how they try to keep the angry outside world. In short, lovely story which I highly recommend to anyone interested in starting reading classics. But don’t expect a very supernatural spooky story.