The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories by Aiken Joan

Author:Aiken, Joan [Aiken, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781618731128
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Published: 2016-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

Of course the neighbors used to come and shove their oar in. Neighbors always will. “Have a child that won’t go upstairs? I’d not allow it if she were mine,” said Mrs. Oakley that lived over the way. “It’s fair daft if you ask me. I’d soon leather her out of it.” For in other people’s houses Tessie was just the same—when she got old enough to be taken out to tea. Upstairs she would not go. Anything but that.

Of course they used to try and reason with her, when she was old enough to express herself.

“Why won’t you go, Tessie? What’s the matter with upstairs? There’s nothing bad up there. Only the beds and the chests-of-drawers. What’s wrong with that?”

And Aunt Sarah used to say, laughing, “You’re nearer to heaven up there.”

But no, Tessie’d say, “It’s bad, it’s bad! Something bad is up there.” When she was very little she’d say, “Darkwoods. Darkwoods.” And, “Grandfather Moon! I’m frightened, I’m frightened!” Funny thing that, because, of the old moon itself, a-sailing in the sky, she wasn’t scared a bit, loved it dearly, and used to catch the silvery light in her hands, if she were out at night, and say that it was like tinsel falling from the sky.

Aunt Sarah was worried what would happen when Tessie started school. Suppose the school had an upstairs classroom, then what? But Uncle Fred told her not to fuss herself, not to borrow trouble; very likely the child would have got over all her nonsense by the time she was of school age, as children mostly do.

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