The Bird’s Nest by Shirley Jackson

murmured wickedly, “Someday you will not be able to get rid of me, Doctor Wrong; someday you will try to awaken
her
, and, when you think you have got back your disgusting Miss R., will find that you still have just me. And then,” she said, her voice rising and her hands at her eyes, “and then, and then, and then!”
    Fear touched me lightly, but I said, “Why, then if I find I have only you no matter who I seek, I shall have to learn to love you.” I smiled wryly at the thought of loving this monster, and I suppose she detected my expression in my voice, for she said at once, “But do you suppose I could learn to love
you,
Doctor Wrong? When you wish me evil?”
    â€œI wish no one evil, Miss R.”
    â€œThen you are a liar as well as a fool,” she said. (I note down these remarks in the interests of thoroughness; I know I am not a liar and I hope I am not a fool, and I perceived that R 3 ’s object was to enrage me; I am happy to add that although I was irked at her rudeness, I endeavored, I believe with success, to keep her from realizing it.) “I know a good deal about people,” she continued with complacency, “and when I have my eyes open all the time I will get along nicely. No one will ever suspect how long I have been a prisoner, I think.”
    I hardly dared breathe, hearing R 3 rattle along so, revealing herself more with every word; this boastful chatter made it unnecessary to question her, and I would not have interrupted her for the world.
“Now,”
she said, as one explaining an awkward position, “I can only get out when
she
is looking the other way, and then only for a little while before she comes back and shuts me in again, but someday very soon she is going to find that when she comes back and tries to—” She broke off suddenly, and chuckled. “Eavesdropping, Doctor Wrong?” she asked, “do you add poking and prying to your list of sins?”
    â€œI am trying to help my friends, Miss R.”
    â€œPlease
stop
calling me that,” she said petulantly. “I tell you, I am
not
Miss R., and I
hate
her name; she is a crybaby and a foolish stupid thing, and I certainly am not.”
    â€œWhat shall I call you, then?”
    â€œWhat do you call me in those notes? The ones you showed
her
once?”
    I was astounded at her knowing of my notes, and that Miss R. had once seen them, but I only said, “I have no name for you, since you disclaim your natural one. I have called you R 3 .”
    She made a face at me, putting out her tongue and shrugging her shoulders. “I certainly don’t choose to be called R 3 ,” she said. “You can call me Rosalita, or Charmian, or Lilith, if you like.”
    I smiled again at the thought of this grotesque creature naming herself like a princess in a fairy romance. “Do you also disclaim the name Elizabeth?” I inquired.
    â€œThat’s
her
name.”
    â€œBut,” I cried, struck with an idea, “you yourself have suggested it: ‘Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy, and Bess . . .’”
    She laughed rudely. “Elizabeth is the simple, Beth is the doctor’s darling; very well, then I choose Betsy.” And she laughed again.
    â€œWhy do you laugh?”
    â€œI was wondering about Bess,” she said, laughing.
    And so, my dear reader, was I.
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    So Betsy she was till the end of her chapter. I found that as these several different girls grew more familiar to me, and of course in the second case more dear, the names Betsy had chosen for them became easier and pleasanter to use than the cold clinical R 1 and R 2 ; R 2 consented graciously and with a smile to my plea to be allowed to address her as Beth, and I think the name suited her quiet charm. I do not know if Miss R. ever perceived that I had moved quietly away from addressing her formally, or at least from calling her “my dear Miss