"Bewitched," by Edith Wharton
First appeared in the Pictorial Review, a now defunct magazine, March 1925; in the collection Here and Beyond (1926) (on Project Gutenberg Australia); read by Tony Walker on the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast, September 20th, 2020 (listen and read Walker's interesting commentary on Substack); read marvelously by Christiana Ellis and Dave Robison for PseudoPod 738, January 3rd, 2021
7,604 words
Fascinating. Is this even really a ghost/witch/vampire story, or a bit of sordid realism? Either way, life goes on! The story of the canary is dreadful, and towards the end we get that bizarre comparison between Mrs. Rutledge's hands and the mentally ill woman's.
"It's a worm in the brain, solitude is." So true. I have seen this in myself and in an old friend.
The use of the words "Gypsies" and "swarthy" is unfortunate, but that's what you get when you plumb the public domain for gems like this one!
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