I conjure and command you, O Demons, tea. They must also have skipped the above all and so many as ye are, to accept this quote. That wouldn’t have been too diffi- Book with good grace, so that whensoev- cult. The book wasn’t in print very long, er we may read it, the same being and when it was revived in the posthumous approved and recognized as in proper anthology The Magic of Shirley Jackson form and valid,you shall be constrained to (now also out of print), the conjuration had appear in comely human form when you somehow dropped by the wayside. Which are called, accordingly as the reader shall is even odder than its having been present judge.In no circumstances shall you make in the first place, since the collection was “definitely a lesser work...with an air of any attempt upon the body, soul, or spirit edited by Jackson’s husband, who once having been written on automatic pilot.” of the reader,nor inflict any harm on those described her as “the only contemporary Perhaps she was irked by the fact that Jack- who may accompany him, either by mut- writer who is a practicing amateur witch.” son could write so calmly and simply about terings, tempests, noise, scandals, nor yet That idea, that image of Shirley Jackson the human side of witchcraft: the fear and by lesion or by hindrance in the execution — the witch-writer-lady with her cats and fascination it engendered. of the commands of this Book. I conjure her Tarot deck — originated while she was Or perhaps Oppenheimer didn’t recog- you to appear immediately when the con- still young and newly successful, and has nize that the “straightforward, unadorned” juration is made, to execute without dal- outlived her by several decades now. W. G. writing Jackson employs in this work was lying all that is written and enumerated in Rogers, an AP reporter, proclaimed far more effective than any attempt at its proper place in the said Book. famously and foolishly in 1949 that “Miss pathos or sensationalism. The bare fact that — Conjuration from the Grimoire of Jackson writes not with a pen but with a Dorcas Goode, who spent months in prison Honorius broomstick.” (Later, the first mass-market after being accused of witchcraft, was not edition of The Lottery specified that her quite five years old when the allegedly tor- his is an awesome quote broom was dipped “in adders’ blood.”) In mented cried out on her is quite horrifying to start any book with. It the first (and only) full-length study of enough not to need embellishment. So is can be found, appropri- Jackson’s work, Lenemaja Friedman sadly the fact that her mother was accused on a ately enough, at the noted that “because people insist upon whim, as an afterthought, and lost her life beginning of Raising associating [Jackson] with witches and as a result of this dangerous gameplaying Demons, by Shirley demons, her true literary worth becomes by adolescents. Shirley Jackson was a wise Jackson. Jackson is bet- obscured.” enough storyteller to simply present the Tter known as the author of The Lottery and Jackson herself made a few public com- facts and let the story tell itself. Other Stories and The Haunting of Hill ments about her interest in magic early in She was also occasionally, irresistibly House, which are about the only books of her career, lived to regret them, and close- amused by the antics of the players, and hers that are consistently in print these mouthedly continued to write work steeped writer enough to see the germ of a good days. Raising Demons is firmly out of in the supernatural. People will talk, as story where someone else might see only print, and I put off searching for it when I Sappho wisely noted, and Jackson decided anecdote. In the afterword to The Witch- first fell in love with Jackson’s work for the to let them say what they wanted to — they craft, she mentions that “There are... many extremely stupid reason that I’d heard it would anyway — and let her writing speak specimens of demonic handwriting. One of was nonfiction. Given her interest in the for itself. Which doesn’t make it easy for them, signed by the demon Asmodeus, is supernatural, I figured it must be some those interested in the matter to answer so badly misspelled that it is almost arcane instruction book, or perhaps a his- with both plausibility and certainty a rea- unreadable. This was explained by point- tory of demonology. The only magic I sonable and compelling question: just what ing out that it was not necessary for a wanted was that of her voice as a writer of was the true nature of Shirley Jackson’s demon to learn to spell. His job was to tor- the strongest, most relentlessly absorbing relationship with witchcraft? ment mankind.” Funny enough, but Jack- fiction I’d ever read. So until a better- son took it one step funnier in an unpub- informed reader set me straight, I was self- hatever she denied the rare pleasure of laughing at thought of it in Jackson riffing on her four children, the her personal demons of the title. life, she kept a Jackson’s younger son was startled and level head then grimly amused as an adult to hear his when it came mother compared to Erma Bombeck by to her writing. members of a Midwest women’s club who WHer one assay at pure nonfiction (her fam- had read Demons and Jackson’s other fic- ily “memoirs” must be called fictionalized) tionalized family memoir, Life Among the was a book not about witchcraft itself, but Savages (originally subtitled An Uneasy about the people involved in hysterical Chronicle). Those ladies who lunched must accusations of it. Aimed at the younger set have skipped everything else Jackson ever but fascinating reading for any age, The wrote, which could more aptly have been Witchcraft of Salem Village is underread, compared to Kafka, or better yet to Jane underrated, and brilliant. Jackson’s biogra- Austen if she’d smoked some really strong pher, Judy Oppenheimer, dismissed it as lished story called “The Smoking Room.” and Greek, and staggering under the A young college student working on a weight of its own self-importance, would paper late one night is propositioned by the be suicide-inducing as a homework assign- devil, “a charming young man.” The stu- ment, even given that half of it is testimo- dent, apparently Jackson herself, sneers at ny from witch trials and witnesses of the bare, boring contract for her soul he ghosts. But Shirley Jackson clearly rel- offers; types up a snappier, more legalistic ished it. She read it for her own pleasure, one on the spot; and tricks him into sign- and sprinkled her short story collection The ing his own soul over to her — with an X, Lottery with excerpts from it. as he never learned to write. Just as things might have gotten ugly (it’s not nice to fool pinions have differed the devil), the housemother storms into the on her use of quota- room, demanding to know what a man is tions from Saducis- doing there, and the devil slinks defeated mus to open each sec- back to hell. One of the few genuinely tion in The Lottery: funny stories out there, and all thanks to a both the wisdom of it demonic factoid Jackson dredged up in the and whether or not it “She saith,That after their Meetings, they course of some decidedly unfunny Ohad really been her idea in the first place. all make very low Obeysances to the Devil, research. Friedman thinks not in the case of the lat- who appears in black Cloaths, and a little This detached ability to turn facts into a ter. The passages were, she insisted, “an Band. He bids them Welcome at their ripping good read supports her brother’s attempt by the publicity staff to make the coming, and brings Wine or Beer, Cakes, opinion that Jackson’s interest in witchcraft book appear mysterious and, therefore, Meat, or the like. He sits at the higher was, as he told Oppenheimer, “purely intel- more salable.” She mentions reviewers end.... They Eat, Drink, Dance and have

That idea, that image of Shirley Jackson — the witch-writer-lady with her cats and her Tarot deck — originated while she was still young and newly successful, and has outlived her by several decades now. lectual.” “She studied it like you’d study criticizing the inclusion of these strange lit- Musick. At their parting they use to say, history,” he said. “I always thought it was tle quotes as having “no real bearing on the Merry meet, merry part.” a little tongue-in-cheek.” stories,” and seems to be of the same opin- ion herself. That’s Jackson all over. Food, drink, and t was certainly serious enough — Joan Wylie Hall corrects Friedman on the company of witches. Homey and eerie intellectual enough — to push her both counts in a later dealing with Jack- all at once. Very like the first story in the through a great deal of reading son’s short fiction, noting that “the Shirley Lottery collection, “The Intoxicated”: that would have been tough going Jackson Papers contains a folder (Box 20) drink and conversation at a party where the for someone less fiercely com- with two pages of material typed by Jack- talk turns briefly extraordinary. Preceded mitted to amassing information son from the Glanvill book, including the by that passage, as it was intended to be, on the subject. I haven’t been first of the four passages cited in The Lot- the piece rings a little differently. Iable to ascertain whether she read all of tery.” The Saducismus passage is also of inter- Joseph Glanvill’s 1689 tome Saducismus She also points out that this very passage est in that the alleged witch it concerns was Triumphatus: Or, Full and Plain Evidence is omitted in later editions of the book, one Elizabeth Style, widow, accused by Concerning Witches and Apparitions or though she believes that the excerpts as merely a great deal of it, but my own they originally stood marked important defeated efforts to plow straight through divisions in the stories. stand as exhausted testimony to the I find the excluded passage interesting strength of her dedication. for two reasons. First, it bears a striking This six-hundred-page work, available similarity to Jackson’s own writing — not only in a facsimile of the original seven- in tone but in content. The quote is from teenth-century typeface in which the letter the testimony of an accused witch, describ- s looks like an f, peppered with passages of ing the goings-on in which she’s been untransliterated and untranslated Hebrew involved:

Richard Hill on behalf of his daughter Eliz- floozy Shax hires as a new secretary Hill’s presence at the tiny agency is a threat abeth Hill, an adolescent girl supposedly Daphne Hill rather than sticking slavishly to Style, since Style’s position there is tormented by the widow. These names will to the source material and crowding the entirely dependent on Shax’s good will. A sound familiar to readers of “Elizabeth,” story with too many Elizabeths. The name decade or so earlier, “there was no one the longest story in The Lottery and a piece of the judge in the real Elizabeth Style’s around to tell Elizabeth Style... that if she that Jackson had once hoped to expand to trial — Robert Hunt — is given to Style’s got the job it wasn’t worth getting.” So a novel-length work. old uncle visiting from out of town and now with Daphne Hill. But being the new The main character in “Elizabeth” is a hoping pathetically to see his dear niece. girl coming in is still better than being the familiar Jackson type: a once-ambitious The choice of names for the two women old one on the way out. woman who has not only settled for far less is significant, but it’s not immediately In the original trial, Hill was a thirteen- than she’d once dreamed of but is grateful obvious just how subtle that significance year-old girl who, for reasons we can only for even so much; vaguely bitter, apt to is. Hall takes names and roles at face value: guess at this late date, leveled accusations look down on those around her; single, “The physical torments to which Elizabeth at the older Elizabeth Style. By virtue of with little in the way of family and no close Style subjects the teenage Elizabeth Hill... being female in the seventeenth century, friends. This particular character is a sleazy parallel Miss Style’s sarcastic jibes at neither of them had much power, but Hill literary agent who makes her money not by Daphne Hill, an awkward young secre- had a little more clout than Style. She was selling others’ writing but by charging tary.” There’s more to it than that, though. young, and she had a man willing to go to naïve would-be authors for worthless edit- Daphne Hill isn’t a mere tender youth, bat for her. Style, a widow, was an easy tar- ing and rewriting. Jackson gave her the helpless before a ruthless older woman. get. name Elizabeth Style. She’s attractive to, and attracted to, Shax, It’s clear whom Jackson’s sympathies lie Style works for Robert Shax, a man who is Style’s rather lifeless and embar- with, especially for any reader of The whose surname is also the name of one of rassed lover. And though Hall mentions Witchcraft of Salem Village. Jackson’s por- Jackson’s favorite demons (and one of her Style tormenting Hill, Hill isn’t exactly all trayal of accusers and accused in Witch- favorite cats). Jackson names the young sweetness and light to Style. What’s more, craft is sensitive to all involved; but the bulk of her compassion is reserved not for the little girls who got caught up in the lying game, but for the accused, many of whom were executed simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whether or not Jackson believed in real magic, she certainly understood who were the tormented and who the tormenters when it came to witches on trial. It’s a pity Jackson wasn’t, for whatever reason, able to write the novel she had planned about Elizabeth Style. She did leave an outline behind, and so we can see that she would have expanded not only the length but also the witchy elements in the story. One day in Style’s life was to be They were typical early-career books, and analogous to a witch trial. It isn’t clear just Jackson saw them as such. “The first book how obvious Jackson would have made is the book you have to write to get back at this in the book, but she’s quite thorough in your parents; the book you always had in drawing the comparisons. Some are rather you. Once you get that out of your way, amusing, as in “Chapter 7: The torture you can start writing books,” she once told begins,” a section in which Style, a city girl her daughter, though she herself took not originally from a small town, spends an one but two books to get her childhood out evening with old friends, trying unsuccess- of her system. Both The Road Through the fully to present herself as “a successful and Wall and Hangsaman read as books an happy business woman.” Sounds like adolescent would fantasize about publish- everyone’s twentieth reunion. ing for the pleasure of having her parents Jackson also includes a chapter about die of embarrassment. Potshots are taken the “discovery of the witch’s mark”, hav- left and right at whitebread suburbia and ing a friend of a friend noticing the inept, wannabe-all-knowing parents. “entwined initials” inside Style’s ring. Pre- And yet even here there be witches. sumably, these initials are those of Style Natalie in Hangsaman is an unusual and and her employer, not merely a demon but sensitive teenager who, always careful to the devil himself in this work, and married go through the motions of ordinary exis- to someone else while stringing Style tence, dwells “fascinated” in an inner along. But the most striking chapter head- world of her own making. The beginning ings and summaries are the last two, which of the book finds her engaged in a dialogue bear reprinting in full. with “the secret voice which followed her,” “CHAPTER 14: CONFESSION AND that of an invisible police detective accus- SENTENCE: She admits total failure, and ing Natalie of murder, though we don’t yet tells her friends she will go back and keep know of whom. Natalie, pleasurably fright- house for her father. ened, can’t answer his questions satisfac- “CHAPTER 15: DEATH IN PRISON: torily and doesn’t seem to be particularly She knows it is for good.” trying to — she either knows she is guilty The storyline itself isn’t particularly or has reason to think her innocence can original. From Moll Flanders to Sister Car- never be proven. Backed into a corner, she rie and all between, female literary charac- tells herself, “Confess... if I confess I might ters seem legally required to be miserable go free.” — or worse, ruined in some way — should This makes no sense in the context of they dare to leave home and try to make a twentieth-century law, where confession life in the big bad city. Leave it to Shirley by a suspect generally guarantees anything Jackson to see such a character as a thwart- ed witch. And leave it to her, too, to have more than a smidgen of sympathy for the witch forsaken by her devil. It should be obvious by now that witch- craft held more than a passing interest for Jackson; what may not be is how permeat- ed, how soaked her work is in witchery. Take, for example, her first two novels. baptism of a “Picture in Wax, which was apologized for. When the story opens, she’s for [i.e. meant to represent] Elizabeth in extreme pain because of a tooth that’s Hill.” In another case from the same book, been troubling her for years. Why hasn’t a witch is able to sicken a woman he has she had it taken care of before? never even met “from a Town some miles Well, fear, for one. But beyond squea- off” because he knows her name. And so mishness, she seems to have neglected her- on. self in favor of her husband and children, and they seem happy to let her do just that o author becomes so until she is in debilitating pain. Her hus- married to a subject, band grudgingly sees her off at the bus sta- weaving it so relent- tion, though she’s barely able to stand up, lessly through her and instead of showing concern, expresses work, for reasons his annoyance that she hasn’t taken care of purely intellectual. the problem sooner. “You had a toothache There was an emo- on our honeymoon,” he says “accusingly.” but freedom. If we look at the witch trials Ntional drive at work when it came to witch- Two things come to mind here. The first is Jackson made a study of, though, we see craft and Shirley Jackson, perhaps like the that in Jackson’s fiction, marriage is gen- that once a witch was accused, confession attraction Houdini had to the supernatural. erally a lure for by the single and a trap for was her only chance to save her own life. “She wanted very much to find provable the married. Second, being hustled off with Pleading innocence was tantamount to sui- magic,” Jackson’s younger daughter told a huge swelling and pain that comes and cide. Jackson’s biographer. Which supports goes bears a striking resemblance to many This is subtle; Road Through the Wall is Jackson’s plundering the supernatural as a women’s childbirth experiences. This is less so in the witching respect. On a treasure trove of ideas; but what about the especially pointed given that Jackson

closed-off little street in a narrow-minded aura of menace in so many of Jackson’s wrote a rather bitterly humorous piece — suburb lives Mrs. Mack. “The children witchy works? “The Third Baby’s the Easiest,” later called her a witch, and the parents called Take “The Tooth,” an oft-anthologized reprinted in Life Among the Savages — her an unfortunate old woman, and she story from the Lottery collection. On the about giving birth to her third daughter. looked like either one, with her hair in surface, this is a tale of madness. A young In “The Third Baby,” Jackson mentions strings and her shoulders bent, and her per- wife — Clara Spencer — embarks on a taking a taxi alone to the hospital after fret- petual whimpering mutter.” One child has seemingly mundane bus journey, travelling ting and making sure that her family will a brief, reluctant conversation with her, and to the big city to see a dentist. She meets a be all right while she’s gone. Between con- is vastly relieved to be called by the wrong strange man and, soon after, loses her name, for “neighborhood lore” has it that mind. In fact, her having met the man — “a witch could not put spells on anyone if being able to perceive him, at any rate — she didn’t know their name.” And so little seems to be proof positive that she’s Mary Byrne is polite to old Mrs. Mack, already mad, since he is a magical being, “comfortable in the knowledge that some and therefore must be imaginary. Except he unfamiliar Sally would get her spell.” isn’t; and though Clara’s sanity may be Very nice. And very interesting that sub- questioned, the real question is whether she urban neighborhood lore should be so was mad to throw her lot in with the well-informed in matters arcane. In, for demonic being she meets or whether she example, the testimony of Elizabeth Style, was nuts to stay in her previous passive accused witch, it is made clear that names existence for as long as she did. are very important indeed to witches. Clara is a pale, worrying woman who When Style takes to tormenting young seems to believe, like the good fifties Miss Hill, she is able to do so with the help housewife she is, that others’ needs are to of the devil himself, who holds a mock be seen to and her own are to be ignored or “Writer,”I said. up in by this if by little else. The devil in “I’ll just put down housewife,”she said. Saducismus appears, at night, to women who are alone and vulnerable: usually wid- Infuriating, but funny. But there is noth- ows, usually older, usually poor; always ing funny about Clara Spencer’s treatment. socially undesirable, even outcasts. His Her own experience of her pain is stolen by overtures are vaguely sexual: one of the being denied, just as her name is. The things he requires from his witches is that prospect of more pain at the hands of those they “suffer him to suck their Blood.” He supposedly there to help her is denied: offers them his protection and undreamt “You know it won’t hurt, don’t you?” one riches, though that protection is little more smiling nurse asks, as “great machinery” is than the ability to harm and the occasional wheeled into the room. And then Clara is catered party, and the riches are often put under. But not before she has time to merely a sixpence. Which is still more than remind herself to “remember the metallic anyone else is offering these women. sound and taste of all of it. And the out- Which is pretty tragic. tractions, she struggles to organize and rage.” After the extraction is over, she asks Which brings us back to the definitely if communicate the myriad of household where her tooth is, and on being told it’s vaguely sexual daemon lover, and to Clara, details that her family usually gets to take been taken out, lies down and cries. All offered imaginary pearls and real coffee. for granted: very strange emotions in connection with a And a chance at a new life. A new self. dental experience. But very analogous for On leaving the dentist’s office, Clara “You’ll have to take care of the children,”I giving birth. Although in this case the per- steps into a restroom and is startled, on told my husband.“See that...” I stopped. I son being born — reborn, rather — seems looking at a mirror full of women’s faces, remember thinking with incredible clarity to be Clara herself. not to know which is hers. Then, finding it, and speed. “See that they finish their Which brings us back to witchcraft. she is angry and disappointed. She breakfast,” I said. Pajamas on the line, I Clara keeps thinking about the strange man removes the engraved barrette holding her thought, school, cats, toothbrushes. Milk- she met on the bus. Readers who know hair back and she is indignant to see that man. Overalls to be mended, laundry. “I about Jackson’s running character James she’s saddled with a tame name like Clara. ought to make a list,”I said vaguely.“Leave Harris [Footnote: See The Spook, January She throws away the barrette, along with a note for the milkman tomorrow night. 2001, “The Lottery: The Adventures of an initial pin she’d been wearing. Soap, too.We need soap.” James Harris”—Ed.] know that this is he, The importance of names to witches has the “daemon lover” she was fond of work- already been mentioned. Clara is throwing Compare this to Clara in The Tooth: ing into odd corners of stories when she hers away; now no one can control her. wasn’t giving him the center stage. In “The The devil in Saducismus often anoints “Mrs. Lang,”she said, checking on her fin- Tooth,” he takes care of Clara — which is his new recruits with oil, in a mockery of gers.“I called Mrs. Lang, I left the grocery a good thing since no one else can be both- the baptism ceremony. He doesn’t rename order on the kitchen table, you can have ered to — but his caretaking is tinged with them, but his welcoming parties are very the cold tongue for lunch and in case I magic surrealism. He tells her strange frag- like the parties thrown in honor of the don’t get back Mrs.Lang will give you din- ments of stories about a beautiful place newly born. Which Clara is. ner.The cleaner ought to come about four “even farther than Samarkand.” He asks, in Nameless and memoryless, Clara runs o’clock, I won’t be back so give him your a restaurant the bus stops at, if she wants off hand in hand with her demon-protector, brown suit and it doesn’t matter if you for- coffee, and when she nods he points “to the seeing not the city surrounding her but only get but be sure to empty the pockets.” counter in front of her where a cup of cof- hot sand under her bare feet. Perhaps not fee sat steaming. ‘Drink it quickly,’ he completely tragic, if one favors casting off Just the usual housewife’s fretting. But said.” Later he buys her food, holds her the conventional life in exchange for free- it’s more than that: both women are hustled arm to steady her on the way back to the dom; but not exactly a reassuring ending, off, alone, in pain and apprehensive, to bus, insists that she lean on him so that her either. medical professionals who will greet them head won’t rattle against the window as it It could not have seemed a happy one with condescension and neglect. did before. Later, after they’ve left the bus, for Shirley Jackson. The biggest problem Outwardly, Clara is passive and obedient he finds her again. “‘Look,’ he said as he with deals with the devil is that the devil as, having reached the dentist’s office, she passed, and he held out a handful of cheats. Riches dwindle into sixpence. Per- is shuttled from office to office and room pearls.” secuting those who persecute you, as the to room, and referred to as “lower molar” witches of Saducismus sometimes con- rather than by name. Her identity, her self- onsider all of this, and fessed they had, often means being hauled hood is taken from her, as Jackson’s is, then consider the devil more humorously, when she is checking we meet in Saducismus into the hospital: Triumphatus. He dress- es in black, always; “Occupation?” James Harris is always “Writer,”I said. in a blue suit, and can “Housewife,”she said. Cbe identified in many of the stories he pops into court or hanged. Clara Spencer sought ing it really existed, because she was not a caretaker and ended up losing her mind. stuck in the idea that something had to be Insanity was something Jackson feared empirically real in order to be emotionally greatly, and toward the end of her life her relevant. own crippling fears of ordinary things gave “I tell myself stories all day long,” she her good reason to believe she was indeed wrote in a draft for a writers’ conference going mad. Perhaps in this early story she lecture: was seeking reassurance that the journey might not be all bad, might be a bizarre I have managed to weave a fairy-tale of strike for freedom: not a housewife kid- infinite complexity around the inanimate napped by madness, but a witch who’s objects in my house, so much so that no willingly thrown herself into league with one in my family is surprised to find me the devil — the daemon lover. putting the waffle iron away on a different If that seems like a stretch, consider this: shelf because in my story it has quarreled In The Witchcraft of Salem Village, Jack- with the toaster… It looks kind of crazy,of son describes Nathaniel Hawthorne’s own course. But it does take the edge off cold retelling of the witch trials in his novel The reality. And sometimes it turns into real House of the Seven Gables. For no obvious stories. reason, Jackson mentions Hawthorne hav- ing an accused witch shout at her judges, “I Those stories were a fictional aspect of am no more a witch than you are a wizard, her life that she took perfectly seriously. and if you take away my life, God will give There’s no contradiction there. Every fic- you blood to drink!” In “The Tooth,” tion writer has to be willing to commit a Clara’s mouth is full of blood after her great deal of time and attention to, and surgery, and she says — you guessed it — invest a huge amount of faith in, what is “God has given me blood to drink.” essentially nothing more than an exercise This element of fear in many of Jack- in make-believe — no matter how “realis- son’s witchy works supports her son’s feel- tic” the story might be. Clearly make- ing that her relationship with the supernat- believe won out over “cold reality” in Jack- ural was uneasy at best. “I always believed son’s book any day of the week. she believed that she was in touch with a And just as clearly no one will ever whole ungodly assortment of demons and know what witchcraft really was for characters,” he told her biographer. “I Shirley Jackson. If it were somehow possi- don’t think it was very pleasant for her.” ble to ask her and hope for a true answer Enigmatic always, Jackson leaves us (and she valued a good story far more than with no easy answers to the question of her she did the truth — her lecture “Experience real relationship with what was probably, and Fiction,” reprinted in Come Along With next to writing, the most passionate con- Me, is ample and entertaining proof of cern of her life. Did she love magic or fear that), her reply might well depend on when it? Was witchcraft merely historically you asked her and how she was feeling that interesting for her, or was she hoping all day. Just as her writing depended on that. the time to find a spell that would work? We have her writing (if only more of it Hazarding a guess, based on her words were in print!), and we shouldn’t ask for and works and what everyone else has said more. Anyone seeking safe certainty about her, I would say: none of the above. shouldn’t be reading so enigmatic a writer No simple or clear-cut answer will suffice, anyway. ~ because she wasn’t a simple clear-cut per- son, even to herself. She could very well have had a joyful or fearful relationship Deborah Markus is a writer, but we’ll just with witchcraft without ever once believ- put down “housewife.”