The light on the hill

Source: an original fiction extract.

Every evening, at precisely nine, a square of light appeared on the hill. It came from the upper window of a house that had been empty since March. Ellis could see it from the bus shelter where he waited after work. The other windows remained black. Once, he had mentioned it to the driver, who said that somebody must have left a timer on. That explanation had satisfied him until Thursday, when a shape crossed the lit square and paused. He missed his bus because he was still looking when its doors closed.

On Friday he took the path behind the shelter. He told himself that he was merely using the twenty minutes before the bus arrived. The path rose between brambles, then narrowed beside a wall. From there the house seemed much larger than it did from the road. There was no car outside. A flowerpot lay on its side by the porch, spilling a fan of dry soil across the tiles. Ellis stopped at the gate. Above him, the upper window brightened. It was only a quarter to nine.

A woman came around the side of the house carrying a watering can. Ellis had prepared no explanation for standing there. He pointed at the window and said that he had thought the house was empty. 'Mostly,' she said. She opened the gate and asked whether he would carry a bag of compost from the porch. He followed her upstairs, expecting furniture beneath dust sheets and perhaps the cold smell of rooms shut for too long. Instead, warm air met him at the landing. The door stood open on a room full of green leaves.

Seedlings covered tables, shelves and an ironing board. Lamps hung above them on a frame made from thin metal poles. The woman explained that the greenhouse at her allotment had lost its roof in the spring storm. Her sister had offered the empty room until it was repaired. She moved a lamp, and her shadow crossed the window. Ellis recognised the shape that had held him at the bus shelter. Near his elbow, a tray of young tomato plants leaned towards the light with the same determined angle. He set the compost down between two watering cans.

By the time he returned to the road, his bus had gone again. He sat beneath the shelter with a tomato plant balanced between his shoes. The woman had insisted that he take it, although he had warned her that his kitchen received little sun. Across the field, the square of light remained. It no longer seemed to be watching the road. Ellis turned his small plant so that its leaves faced the hill, then laughed at himself and moved it away from the cold edge of the bench.

Consider the whole source. Analyse how the writer structures the text to develop and then change the reader’s expectations about the house. You could consider the opening focus, the order of revelations, shifts in setting and the ending. Support your explanation with references to the source.