We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Merricat returns for dinner, stopping on her way to admire the house and longing for the day Charles will be gone from it. When she walks in, Charles immediately confronts her and tells her a decision has been made. Constance asks her to clean up for dinner, knowing full well that her temperamental younger sister will not share a table with Charles. Merricat is pleased to find that Constance has straightened up their father’s room, and it now looks empty and unfamiliar. However, she is displeased to find that some old china has been dug out and used as an ashtray for Charles’s pipe. She throws the china into a wastepaper basket.

Merricat begins to hallucinate and imagines one of her eyes shows the world in a strange golden light while the other shows the world in muted blues. She dissociates and asks for cake from Constance and lists more poisons in Latin. As the family sits down to dinner, it becomes apparent the wastepaper basket has caught fire. As the flames engulf the upstairs, Uncle Julian insists on gathering his papers. Charles panics, and his first thought is to rescue the money in the safe.

Merricat is preternaturally calm and guides a frightened Constance past the front door to some nearby vines hanging off the porch.