High Place

The majority of the novel’s action occurs at the Doyle family home, High Place. High Place is a dilapidated Victorian-style mansion in the old mining village of El Triunfo. Noemí travels from Mexico City to High Place to visit her cousin Catalina, who sent Noemí’s father a disturbing letter in which she mentioned hearing voices and strange images in the house. As the plot revolves around Noemí’s investigation of High Place, which appears to be playing some role in Catalina’s condition, the house is not only significant as a setting, but as an agent that acts upon the characters. Noemí begins to have strange dreams while staying at High Place and Marta Duval, a local healer, tells her that the house is haunted. The High Place grounds include a family cemetery, where mine workers who died in an epidemic are also buried. As...