Summary

This is a story of Gavin Inglis, who, before start reading, tells us that the story is incomplete, and he is still adding stuff to it.

The story is written in black Times New Roman letters and the links to other pages are indicated in blue colour and underlined. At the end of each page there is a Chinese picture, which lead us to the author` s e-mail to send him comments on story.

‘Under the Ashes’ has five different endings. The structure of the text is sometimes quite repetitive, so if you get to an end, and you want to read other parts of the story with different endings, you can go back and choose another way, but you probably find pages that you have already read. Nevertheless, the story is very interesting and the author manages to keep us involved in the disturbing atmosphere of the house.

It is difficult to summarize the story because the plot depends on which branch you choose to read, but all begins in the garden of Mrs. Kaplin` s house where the main characters, Andrew, Kirsten and the narrator meet in a stormy night.  Mrs. Kaplin died fifty years before. The narrator and the other two, seem to have powerful reasons to go to that house, because he says that  ‘It had taken years of courage to even get us to the house` s gate this evening’. On the other hand, Kirsten tells a story of a dream she had all her life about a tortured bird, which wings are curling in the flames and it falls to Earth, and she is certain that this dream has something to do with the house.

When they enter the hose they have the sensation of being constantly watched, and that the house is in some way alive, or at least there is something alive inside apart from them. In one occasion, while they are on the roof, the narrator thinks he has seen a face on the black stone line at the peak of the roof, but it melt and flow away in the rain. Kirsten also thinks there is someone sleeping on the bed, while they are in the bedroom, but she is the only one who sees it.

Before entering the house, they find a broken bicycle buried in the grass of the garden. Its frame is blackened, as if it has been on the edge of an intense fire. The fire is a constant element in the story; in fact, the narrator thinks that the rain is, paradoxically, a kind of match for the house. The narrator also tells us about a smothering wave slipping slowly after them, and a suffocating heat in some occasions while they are inside the house. Moreover, some of the different endings are related to fire.
 
 

Academic year: 2002
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
©María José Muñoz Lorente
Universitat de València Press
mamulo@alumni.uv.es