Shadows in Constitución

The narrator, a middle-class woman, chooses to live in her family's old house in the dangerous Buenos Aires neighborhood of Constitución. She is both drawn to and repelled by the area's decaying beauty and its undercurrent of violence. Her daily life is a careful dance of survival, learning the rhythms and dangers of the streets, and forming wary relationships with neighbors, including Lala, a trans hairdresser, and the "dirty kid" and his addict mother who live on the corner. The city's poverty and neglect are ever-present, and the narrator's sense of safety is fragile, haunted by the knowledge that violence can erupt at any moment. The house, once a symbol of family and stability, becomes a fortress against the encroaching darkness outside.

The Vanished Child

The dirty kid, a neglected boy who begs on the subway, briefly enters the narrator's life, seeking food and comfort when his mother disappears. She feeds him and takes him for ice cream, but is ultimately rebuffed by his mother's violent paranoia. Soon after, both mother and child vanish. Days later, the neighborhood is shaken by the discovery of a decapitated boy's body, tortured and mutilated in a manner suggesting ritual or narco violence. The narrator is consumed by guilt, convinced the dead child is the dirty kid, and tormented by her own inaction. The community's silence and the police's indifference deepen the sense of helplessness, as the boundaries between victim, bystander, and perpetrator blur in the city's shadows.

Haunted Suburban Palace

In a suburban neighborhood, the narrator and her brother befriend Adela, a girl with a missing arm and a penchant for horror stories. Adela's grand house, a relic among modest homes, becomes the site of their shared fantasies and fears. The trio becomes obsessed with a nearby abandoned house, rumored to be haunted. On the first day of summer, they sneak inside, finding a surreal, buzzing interior filled with shelves of fingernails and teeth. Adela vanishes behind a locked door, never to be seen again. The police find only a gutted shell, and the children's account is dismissed as fantasy. The trauma lingers, leading to the brother's eventual suicide and the narrator's lifelong inability to escape the memory of that night and the house's unspeakable secrets.

The Burning Years

A group of girls comes of age during Argentina's economic collapse and political instability. Their lives are marked by blackouts, poverty, and a desperate search for escape through drugs, alcohol, and reckless adventures. They form intense, sometimes destructive bonds, swearing off men and embracing a nihilistic sisterhood. Their world is haunted by the specter of violence—abusive fathers, unsafe abortions, and the ever-present threat of death. The girls' experiments with drugs and the occult blur the line between reality and hallucination, culminating in a night of violence and betrayal that fractures their unity. The intoxicated years leave them scarred, their innocence lost to a world that offers little hope or safety.

The Locked Room Pact

Marco, once a vibrant young man, succumbs to a profound depression, locking himself in his room and severing contact with the outside world. His only connection is through online chat, where he becomes a green, red, or orange dot—his presence reduced to a flicker on a screen. His ex-girlfriend, the narrator, tries to reach him, but he retreats further into the digital abyss, obsessed with the deep web and its horrors. His mother, wracked with guilt, is powerless to help. The story explores the mercilessness of sadness, the limits of love, and the way technology both connects and isolates. Marco's fate remains uncertain, a ghost haunting the virtual world, as those who care for him are left with only memories and unanswered messages.

The Bonfire Rebellion

In a society plagued by femicide and domestic violence, a movement of women begins to set themselves on fire in acts of protest and defiance. The "Burning Women" refuse to be victims, turning the weapon of their oppressors into a symbol of resistance. The movement spreads, with clandestine hospitals and secret ceremonies supporting survivors. The burned women, disfigured but unbroken, challenge societal norms of beauty and victimhood. Their actions force the public to confront the reality of gendered violence, even as authorities attempt to suppress the movement. The bonfires become both a literal and metaphorical blaze, consuming old narratives and igniting a new, terrifying form of empowerment.

The Girl in the Mirror

Marcela, a quiet, unremarkable girl, becomes the center of attention when she begins to mutilate herself at school—tearing off her fingernails, cutting her face, and pulling out her hair. Her classmates are both fascinated and repelled, drawn into her unraveling. Marcela claims to be tormented by a ghostly man in a communion dress, who compels her to harm herself. The narrator, obsessed with understanding Marcela, visits her at home, only to be told that she too will one day be chosen. The story blurs the line between mental illness and supernatural possession, suggesting that trauma and violence can be contagious, passed from one vulnerable soul to another.

The Chain in the Courtyard

Paula, recovering from depression and professional disgrace, moves into a new house with her husband. She becomes convinced that a neighbor is keeping a child chained in the courtyard. Her husband dismisses her fears as delusion, but Paula's past as a failed protector of children drives her to investigate. She breaks into the neighbor's house, finding evidence of madness and decay, but no child. Later, a boy with filed teeth appears in her bedroom, brutally killing her beloved cat. The story is a meditation on guilt, the limits of empathy, and the monstrousness that can lurk behind ordinary walls, as Paula is left powerless in the face of evil.

The Priest and the River

Marina Pinat investigates the murder of two boys thrown into the polluted Riachuelo River by police. As she delves into the case, she encounters a slum haunted by environmental devastation, poverty, and a community that has turned to strange new cults. A pregnant addict claims one of the boys has returned from the water, and the local priest, driven mad by what he has witnessed, warns of an ancient evil awakened beneath the river's black surface. The story culminates in a surreal procession, as the dead boy is paraded through the slum, and Marina is left shaken, her rational worldview shattered by the forces she cannot comprehend.

The Big-Eared Runt Returns

Pablo, a tour guide in Buenos Aires, becomes obsessed with the story of Cayetano Santos Godino, the "Big-Eared Runt," a child murderer from the early 20th century. As Pablo's personal life unravels—his marriage strained by the birth of a child and his wife's postpartum fears—he begins to see the ghost of the Runt on his tours. The past bleeds into the present, as Pablo's fascination with violence and his own anxieties about fatherhood and masculinity intertwine. The Runt becomes a symbol of the darkness lurking beneath the city's surface, and of the ways in which history's horrors continue to echo in the lives of the living.

The Spiderweb Journey

The narrator and her husband travel with her cousin Natalia from Argentina to Paraguay, their journey marked by oppressive heat, poverty, and the threat of violence. The trip exposes the cracks in their relationship, as the husband's arrogance and cowardice are contrasted with Natalia's independence and resourcefulness. Stranded on the road, the narrator contemplates escape, both literal and metaphorical. The story is woven with images of insects, decay, and the supernatural, as the boundaries between the natural and human worlds blur. The journey becomes a metaphor for entrapment and the longing for freedom.

The Intoxicated Pact

Three girls navigate adolescence in a country beset by crisis, forging a bond through shared secrets, drugs, and rebellion. Their pact to reject men and embrace each other is tested by betrayal, addiction, and the encroaching dangers of adulthood. The girls' experiments with the occult and their fascination with a mysterious girl in the forest reflect their desire to escape the constraints of their environment. The story captures the intensity and fragility of female friendship, and the ways in which trauma and violence can shape, and ultimately shatter, youthful dreams.

The Skull Named Vera

The narrator finds a human skull in the street and brings it home, naming it Vera and treating it as a companion. Her boyfriend is repulsed, and their relationship deteriorates as she becomes increasingly fixated on the skull's perfection and her own desire for thinness and purity. The story explores themes of mortality, the body, and the allure of the macabre. The narrator's descent into isolation and self-starvation mirrors her longing to become as beautiful and incorruptible as Vera, shedding the burdens of flesh and human connection.

The End of Innocence

The stories' children and adolescents are repeatedly confronted with the limits of adult protection and the inevitability of loss. Whether through the disappearance of a friend, the suicide of a sibling, or the betrayal of trusted adults, innocence is shown to be both fragile and fleeting. The supernatural and the mundane intermingle, as the young protagonists are forced to navigate a world where safety is an illusion and the past is never truly buried. The end of innocence is not a single event, but a series of small deaths, each leaving its own scar.

The Procession of the Deformed

In the polluted slums along the Riachuelo, children are born with grotesque deformities, the result of environmental catastrophe and social neglect. These children become both victims and symbols, leading processions and participating in rituals that blur the line between the sacred and the profane. The community, abandoned by the state and the church, turns to new gods and new forms of worship, embracing the monstrous as a source of power and identity. The story is a meditation on the ways in which trauma and suffering can be transformed into collective action, even as they perpetuate cycles of violence and exclusion.

The Green, Red, Orange Light

The narrator's relationship with Marco, now a recluse communicating only through online status lights, becomes a metaphor for the ways in which technology mediates and distorts human connection. The deep web, with its horrors and secrets, represents both a refuge and a threat, a place where the boundaries between reality and fantasy dissolve. The story explores the loneliness of the digital age, the persistence of memory, and the longing for genuine contact in a world of avatars and algorithms. Marco's fate remains ambiguous, a question mark blinking in the darkness.

The Fire That Remains

The Burning Women movement reaches its zenith, as more women choose to set themselves alight rather than submit to violence and erasure. The bonfires become both a spectacle and a weapon, forcing society to confront the reality of gendered oppression. Survivors, disfigured but defiant, claim public space and redefine beauty and agency. The movement's leaders debate its future, questioning whether the fires will ever be enough to purge the old order. The story ends with the sense that the fire, once ignited, cannot be easily extinguished—that the scars of violence may become the seeds of a new, if uncertain, world.

Characters

The Narrator (Constitución)

The unnamed narrator of "The Dirty Kid" is a middle-class woman who chooses to live in a dangerous, decaying neighborhood, both attracted to and repelled by its rawness. Her relationships with neighbors like Lala and the dirty kid reveal her ambivalence—she is both compassionate and complicit, desiring connection but maintaining distance. Her psychological arc is one of guilt and helplessness, as she confronts the limits of her empathy and the ways in which privilege can insulate and isolate. Her development is marked by a growing awareness of her own blindness and the impossibility of true safety.

The Dirty Kid

The dirty kid is a young boy living on the streets with his addict mother, hardened by poverty and abandonment. He is both vulnerable and wary, refusing to trust or accept help from outsiders. His brief connection with the narrator is marked by a hunger for comfort, but also a deep-seated mistrust. His fate—disappearance and possible murder—serves as a catalyst for the narrator's guilt and the community's collective silence. He represents the countless invisible children lost to the city's violence and indifference.

Adela

Adela, the one-armed girl from "Adela's House," is both an object of fascination and a creator of myth. Her missing limb and love of horror stories set her apart, and her friendship with the narrator and her brother is tinged with both affection and unease. Adela's disappearance in the haunted house becomes a trauma that shapes the narrator's and her brother's lives, symbolizing the irretrievable loss of innocence and the enduring power of the unknown. Adela is both a victim and a haunting presence, her absence more powerful than her presence.

Paula

Paula, the protagonist of "The Neighbor's Courtyard," is a former social worker grappling with depression and professional failure. Her obsession with saving a possibly imaginary child reflects her unresolved guilt and her need for redemption. Paula's inability to distinguish between reality and delusion, and her ultimate powerlessness in the face of evil, highlight the limits of empathy and the dangers of unchecked trauma. Her relationship with her husband is strained by mistrust and misunderstanding, further isolating her in her quest for meaning.

Lala

Lala, the trans hairdresser in "The Dirty Kid," serves as both a source of local wisdom and a reminder of the neighborhood's dangers. Her flamboyance and resilience mask a history of marginalization and survival. Lala's relationship with the narrator is one of tough love, offering both comfort and hard truths. She embodies the complexities of identity and community in a world where safety is never guaranteed, and her presence challenges the narrator's assumptions about belonging and otherness.

Marco

Marco, the reclusive protagonist of "Green Red Orange," is a young man consumed by depression and isolation. His retreat into his room and the digital world is both a symptom and a cause of his disconnection from life. Marco's relationships—with his ex-girlfriend, his mother, and the online world—are marked by distance, ambiguity, and a longing for escape. His fascination with the deep web and its horrors reflects his internal darkness, and his fate remains unresolved, a question mark in the digital ether.

The Subway Girl

The subway girl, a burn survivor who begs on Buenos Aires' trains, becomes the unlikely catalyst for the Burning Women movement. Her disfigured body and unapologetic presence force society to confront the reality of gendered violence. She is both a victim and a revolutionary, transforming her scars into a weapon against indifference. Her method—kissing passengers, telling her story—challenges norms of beauty, pity, and agency, making her a symbol of both suffering and defiance.

Silvina

Silvina, the protagonist of "Things We Lost in the Fire," is drawn into the Burning Women movement through her mother and her own sense of outrage. She is both participant and observer, documenting the bonfires and grappling with the ethical dilemmas they pose. Silvina's journey is one of awakening, as she moves from passive complicity to active engagement, questioning the limits of solidarity and the cost of survival. Her relationships—with her mother, her ex-boyfriend, and the movement's leaders—reflect the tensions between personal safety and collective action.

Pablo

Pablo, the tour guide in "An Invocation of the Big-Eared Runt," is obsessed with the city's history of violence, particularly the story of a child murderer. His fascination with the past becomes a way of coping with his own anxieties about fatherhood, masculinity, and the fragility of family. Pablo's encounters with the ghost of the Runt blur the line between history and haunting, suggesting that the traumas of the past are never truly buried. His psychological arc is one of increasing alienation, as his personal and professional lives unravel.

Marina Pinat

Marina, the district attorney in "Under the Black Water," is a determined and principled investigator, committed to exposing police corruption and seeking justice for the marginalized. Her encounters with the supernatural and the grotesque challenge her rational worldview, forcing her to confront the limits of law and reason. Marina's psychological journey is one of disillusionment and vulnerability, as she is drawn into a world where the boundaries between victim and perpetrator, reality and nightmare, are constantly shifting.

Plot Devices

Intertwining the Supernatural with Social Realism

Mariana Enríquez's stories use supernatural elements—haunted houses, ghosts, rituals, and mutations—not as escapism, but as amplifications of real social horrors: poverty, femicide, addiction, and corruption. The supernatural is never far from the mundane, and often serves to make visible the traumas that society prefers to ignore. This device blurs the line between reality and fantasy, forcing readers to confront the ways in which horror is embedded in everyday life.

Fragmented, Multi-Voiced Narrative

The collection employs a range of narrators—children, adults, men, women, the privileged and the marginalized—each with their own voice and psychological depth. Stories are often told in retrospect, with memories and dreams intruding on the present. This fragmented structure mirrors the fractured nature of trauma and the difficulty of constructing coherent narratives in the face of violence and loss.

Symbolic Objects and Rituals

Skulls, chains, bonfires, and mutilated bodies recur throughout the stories, serving as symbols of mortality, captivity, and transformation. Rituals—whether occult ceremonies, self-immolation, or the routines of daily survival—provide both structure and menace, highlighting the ways in which individuals and communities attempt to make sense of suffering.

Foreshadowing and Ominous Atmosphere

Enríquez uses foreshadowing and carefully chosen details to create an atmosphere of unease. Innocuous events—a child's disappearance, a neighbor's odd behavior, a strange noise at night—are imbued with menace, hinting at the horrors to come. The stories often end ambiguously, leaving the reader with a lingering sense of dread and uncertainty.

The Unreliable Witness

Many narrators are unreliable, their perceptions clouded by trauma, guilt, or mental illness. This device invites readers to question the boundaries between truth and delusion, and to consider their own role as witnesses to violence. The stories implicate both characters and readers in the perpetuation of horror, challenging the comfort of distance and detachment.

Analysis

"Things We Lost in the Fire" is a masterful fusion of gothic horror and incisive social commentary, using the tools of the supernatural to illuminate the very real horrors of contemporary Argentina. Enríquez's stories are haunted by the legacies of dictatorship, economic collapse, and gendered violence, but they are also deeply personal, exploring the psychological scars left by trauma, loss, and complicity. The collection's power lies in its refusal to offer easy resolutions or to separate the monstrous from the mundane; instead, it insists that horror is woven into the fabric of everyday life, and that survival often requires both resistance and transformation. The Burning Women, with their defiant embrace of fire, embody the paradox at the heart of the book: that suffering can be both a weapon and a wound, and that the act of bearing witness—however painful—is itself a form of rebellion. Enríquez's work challenges readers to confront the darkness within and around them, and to recognize that the things we lose in the fire may be the very things that make us human.

Last updated: August 14, 2025