Excerpt from The Accidentals by Guadalupe Nettel, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I would be lying if I said that Lili wasn't a controlling wife. Even since before we got married, she had always taken charge of deciding each and every one of the important things related to our family life. She was the one who chose the suit and shoes I purchased for my wedding, the name of our daughter, and the houses we rented for the first few decades we were together. Once we had saved enough money to buy some land, she chose this neighbourhood and breezily directed the entire construction process. I'm not complaining—her tastes and mine were almost always compatible, and I must admit that for years her decisive character saved me many a headache, but it's also true that it frequently made me feel a little steamrollered. My survival strategy consisted of occupying the grey areas, those interstices which escaped my wife's tentacles due to their insignificance. Things like choosing the brand of coffee we drank and how we separated the rubbish allowed me to preserve my dignity but weren't enough to amass sufficient quantities of enthusiasm for life, nor to diminish the resentment I felt for decades of not being master of my own destiny. Perhaps this is why, when I discovered the effect that place produced in me, I decided to ignore the ban on going near it and to push my rebellion as far as possible. It wasn't easy to maintain this conviction. Several times I walked down Calle Mariposa, hoping to step across the threshold of that little door, but it was always closed. The windows too were also closed most of the time, and the frosting made it impossible to make out what was happening inside. Nothing on that external wall stood out. The stones seemed sunk into their characteristic deep and lethargic sleep. Even the colour of the wood, I fancied, was duller, as if diluted.

It was on Thursday 24 September—I remember it exactly because on that day Clara, our daughter, was going to turn thirty-one—when the first anomaly occurred. Clara was due to come round that evening to celebrate with us. I had called her first thing to say happy birthday, and we chatted casually for a few minutes. Then I spent several hours trying to focus on an insurance forecast I had to deliver to one of my clients. The work bored me, so I decided to get up from my desk. In the kitchen I found my wife, who had started making the cake she baked for our daughter every year. She had run out of vanilla extract and asked me to go to the supermarket to get some. I made a face as usual to avoid her suspicion but, deep down I was pleased to have a pretext to go out at that time of day.

The sun had begun to set, and Calle Mariposa had been painted violet once again. A man and a woman were chatting in front of the now open door. The woman had her back to me, so it was impossible to tell that much about her, except that she was slim and broad-hipped. She had straight black hair, gathered up under a red cap exactly the same colour as her blouse. The man was dressed in a similar fashion. They looked like they worked at a cinema or a chain of fast-food restaurants. From where I stood it was possible to get a glimpse of the room beyond: the orange candelabra was still dark, and next to the brick wall I thought I could make out the bed, which supported my wife's theory about the nature of the business. The man opened the boot of a car and began to unload several cardboard boxes, small ones, like the ones used for transporting books, although I thought it rather unlikely that this was what they contained. I didn't want them to see me loitering, and so I turned and headed straight to the supermarket. I bought the vanilla extract and walked back as fast as I could. The man and the woman were no longer there, but the door was still half open. The light had been switched on in the room, and the metallic balloon hanging from the wall reflected those same glimmers of light I had seen the first time. The bed, meanwhile, had vanished. In its place was a sofa, and in front of it, a little coffee table.

Excerpted from The Accidentals by Guadalupe Nettel. Copyright © 2025 by Guadalupe Nettel. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.