Things My Wife and I Found Hidden in Our House by Kirsty Logan (Scottish Highers English): Revision Notes

Analysis: Part 2

4. Pearls

Time moves forward in the narrative. Alice's burned hand is healing, though Rain has also been injured, cutting her leg on 'a cluster of nails left inexplicably spiked through a cupboard door'. This detail connects to the folklore belief that iron repels supernatural forces, suggesting the nails served as a defence mechanism.

Rain observes that the house demands relentless work, with both women often working late, 'holding off the dark as best we could.' On a literal level, this phrase refers to working until dusk to maximise daylight hours for renovation. Symbolically, it suggests the women sense dark forces within the house and fight to keep them contained.

Rain discovers an extremely long string of pearls hidden on top of a wardrobe. She drapes them around her body playfully, surprising Alice, and they have sex in the kitchen. Afterwards, Alice remembers that her grandad once told her he had caught a kelpie, mentioning it wore 'a string of pearls around its neck.' During a kiss, Rain's teeth 'nick bloody on the inside' of her mouth—an ominous detail that foreshadows danger.

Multiple questions emerge at this point:

• Was the woman in green actually a kelpie?
• Did Alice's grandad capture her by stealing her bridle (the pearls), forcing her to 'love him forever'?
• Why did the pearls remain in gran's house long after the woman in green was exiled and the grandad died?
• Could this reveal something about who—or what—the kelpie really is?
• What connection exists between the copper horse and the pearls?

5. Hair

After renovating the bathroom, Rain relaxes in a hot bath. She notes she has 'never felt clean in this house', reminding readers of the persistent damp smell described as 'rancid and salt-heavy like old seaweed' that pervades despite thorough cleaning. Rain worries the house might be 'rotten to the core' with damp in the walls—a fear Alice previously expressed.

What follows is one of the story's most intensely described passages, using foreshadowing, imagery and strategic sentence structure. Sinking into the bath with her ears underwater, Rain hears her heartbeat sounding 'steady as footsteps, steady as hoofbeats.' This simile both creates atmosphere and foreshadows the kelpie's appearance. The hyphen after 'hoofbeats' creates a suspended pause before the next sentence begins with 'and', plunging into description of Rain's panic as the kelpie attempts to drown her: 'And then there was nothing holding me up, and I was underwater….'

The following sentence extends into a long, complex structure with repeated phrases beginning with 'and', building the sense of desperation as Rain fights an unseen attacker in the water.

Alice rescues Rain just in time. Only when recovering on the bathroom floor does Rain realise she clutches a handful of black hair 'as long as a horse's mane.' The kelpie's attacks have escalated from burning Alice's hand to attempting murder. The bathroom emerges as the focal point for the kelpie's malevolent presence—a space connected to water pipes that link the house to the outside world.

6. A glass jar

The next discovery involves a grot-covered jar hidden in the bathroom wall. The house's effects on the women intensify: Rain notes Alice hasn't 'laughed for a long time', and when Alice speaks, her voice doesn't 'sound right.'

After shaking the jar, Rain hears 'the wet press of meat' against the container's sides—a gruesome image enhanced by assonance and sibilance. Alice uses her childhood knowledge of kelpies to identify the contents as a liver: 'It's what the kelpie leaves… if you find a liver on the shore, that's how you know the kelpie has eaten someone.'

The jar wears a 'jacket of dust', implying it has been hidden for some time. However, given the couple's extensive renovations, could this dust be more recent?

7. A knife

Rain is unsurprised when they discover 'a long thin silver knife wrapped in blackened grot'. She had begun suspecting they would find 'proof' that Alice's gran killed a kelpie. The silver knife lies beneath a floorboard—the specific room is not mentioned—but the couple then searches desperately, pulling up 'just about every rotting, stinking floorboard in the house, our hands slick with blood and filth.'

This image conveys the terror the women now feel about what inhabits the house and their desperation to locate its source. The blood on their hands could come from splinters while ripping up old floorboards, though its source remains ambiguous. Rain's phrase 'rotting and stinking' reveals her growing revulsion towards the house.

Rain wonders whether Alice's gran made an error keeping the knife as 'proof, a memento', because this somehow led to 'her haunting'. The narrator appears to guide readers towards a particular interpretation: gran killed the woman in green after discovering she was a kelpie, then spent the remainder of her life attempting to ward off the vengeful spirit. However, Rain reminds us that gran's 'bathtub drowning was due to a stroke. So, I guess you can never know anything.' Known facts (the medical explanation for gran's death) mix uncertainly with unknowable supernatural elements, creating further confusion at this pivotal narrative moment.

Attempting to rid themselves of evil, Alice and Rain gather all the discovered objects and drive for hours to the seaside town where Alice's grandparents and the woman in green originally lived. They climb to the 'highest cliff' and throw everything into the sea to 'cleanse the house and ourselves'.

8. More

This final section is the shortest. Unlike previous section titles (all nouns), 'more' functions as a quantifier, suggesting the situation continues—more horror awaits.

The women return from the sea with 'hearts grown sweet', language that echoes Rain's positive exclamations at the story's beginning ('And isn't that sweet!') and suggests renewed strength in their relationship.

Upon reaching the front door, however, they find the 'doorknob was wrapped all around with layers of black hair', mirroring how Rain's fist had been 'wrapped all around with layers of hair' after nearly drowning in the bath. The story ends on this cliffhanger, with the women's hands now 'unlinked', suggesting their strength has already dissolved. The profusion of black kelpie hair ('wrapped all around'; 'layers') indicates the formidable power of the force they face once more.