Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana from its historical roots through its most recent branches.
This week, we continue with Chapter 8 of Shirley Jackson’s
The Haunting of Hill House, first published in 1959. Spoilers ahead.
“What do people really want with each other, as Nell asked me once; what use are other people?”
It’s breakfast-time on the morning after Hill House didn’t actually shake itself to splinters, and Eleanor finds she can now hear everything, all over the house. Mrs. Montague and Arthur are tired and upset, Mrs. M. because the nursery was too stuffy and Arthur because some pestilential branch kept tapping on his window. Worse, they detected no “manifestations” at all maybe better luck tonight?