Soon, their cousin Charles Blackwood arrives, undermining Merricat’s rigid schedule. She is often shocked and disturbed when Constance suggests a change in the usual routine or curiosity about the outside world.
Her thoughts often turn to murder and mayhem, especially when her rigid schedule is undermined. Merricat buries items all over the Blackwood estate to protect the property from townspeople and bad spirits. The Blackwoods only connection to the surrounding village is through regular visits from Helen Clarke and the town’s doctor, who regularly assesses Julian’s health. Merricat is often taunted ruthlessly when she journeys to town, both by children who sing a crude nursery rhyme about her and by the gossiping adults. Though Constance was acquitted, the townspeople still strongly believe she’s guilty, and there’s palpable dislike for the Blackwoods. Merricat secures the essentials for their survival by walking into town every week for supplies and library books. Uncle Julian uses a wheelchair, so neither he nor Constance leave the family’s property. Constance now has agoraphobia and obsessively cooks and pickles foods from the family’s garden. The story is told from Merricat’s point of view, and she describes a weekly schedule of unerring regularity. Though tried, she was eventually acquitted. Constance was accused of committing the murders.
Merricat’s parents John and Ellen, her aunt Dorothy (Julian’s wife), and her younger brother Thomas died. The rest of the family, however, consumed the dessert. Constance doesn’t take sugar, so she didn’t eat any while Merricat had been sent to her room early without supper as punishment. The sugar was poisoned with arsenic, and it was used to sweeten the blackberries for dessert. What he knows is that the poisoning itself happened six years earlier while the family was having dessert. Uncle Julian, who is obsessed with the murders at Blackwood manor, relitigates them at every turn while getting no closer to an answer. Constance takes care of Merricat and Uncle Julian, who survived the poisoning but uses a wheelchair ever since. The other Blackwoods were murdered after ingesting arsenic-laced sugar. Blackwood Manor is a large family estate that houses a peculiar trio: 18-year-old Mary Katherine “Merricat” Blackwood, the protagonist her older sister Constance and Uncle Julian.
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