Shirley Jackson, whose short story “The Lottery” has been retold too many times, left us a last, remarkable story in We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and David Barnett loves it. “There isn’t a shred of the supernatural in Castle, though it feels like there is.” It feels like it because when one character goes to town, she’s greeted like this:

Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?
Oh no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!