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|summary=Mary Katherine Blackwood, also known as Merricat, is eighteen, and lives with her older sister Constance in the family home where ''Blackwoods had always lived''. Merricat quickly draws the reader into her world by a series of matter of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister and death cap mushrooms, and everyone else in her family is dead. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept the house ''steady against the world'', shutting out other people, and they live near a village. Merricat believes that ''The people of the village have always hated us'', and tells us that she hates them too.