Oh Constance, We Are So Happy.

[l]et My Reader Who Is Puzzled By My Awkward Explanations Close His Eyes For No More Than Two Minutes, And See If He Does Not Find Himself Suddenly Not A Compact Human Being At All, But Only A Consciousness On A Sea Of Sound And Touch . . .

All Cat Stories Start With This Statement: "my Mother, Who Was The First Cat, Told Me This...

I Wonder If I Could Eat A Child If I Had The Chance.' 'i Doubt If I Could Cook One,' Said Constance.

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.

My Name Is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I Am Eighteen Years Old, And I Live With My Sister Constance. I Have Often Thought That With Any Luck At All, I Could Have Been Born A Werewolf, Because The Two Middle Fingers On Both My Hands Are The Same Length, But I Have Had To Be Content With What I Had. I Dislike Washing Myself, And Dogs, And Noise. I Like My Sister Constance, And Richard Plantagenet, And Amanita Phalloides, The Death-cup Mushroom. Everyone Else In Our Family Is Dead.