The Black Witches of Mexico

I was in Mexico researching a book and a writer friend told me about the black witches. I decided to go looking for one. It was in the south, in a town called Catemoco, that I finally tracked one down.

He was a snappy dresser, even down there in the middle of nowhere; a silk guayabera shirt, chunky gold rings on every finger, one of them a skull with small rubies set into the eyes.

In a candle-lit room filled with statues of Santa Muerte, he got straight down to business.

‘Is this for business or for love?’ he asked me.

I decided to play along. ‘Love,’ I said.

‘Who is this woman? Do you want her back - or do you want her dead?’

That took me off balance. ‘I don’t want anyone to die,’ I told him.

‘Give me a photograph,’ he said, putting out his hand. ‘She will come back to you.’

He smiled as if he could read my mind.

“There exists good and evil in the world,’ he said. ‘There is the devil and there is God.’

He regarded him with his magician’s nasty eye. ‘I can call forth the maldad negra and cause great harm, even death.

‘Is that what you want? Is it? All I need is a name, and a piece of their clothing or even a photograph. I can take away your bad luck and give it to someone else.

‘Or I can make a woman love you. Is that your secret desire? Come, tell me. What is it you want? I can give you anything, anything. Todo que quieres.’

I walked out.

But the idea lingered; what would have happened if I had gone along with him?

And so The Black Witch of Mexico was born.

Would you sell your soul to have anything you wanted?

From the witch markets of Mexico City to the ancient valleys along the Guatemalan border, places still haunted by the statues and ruins of the Olmecs, a man is drawn deeper into a world he doesn’t understand. He soon comes to question everything he once believed.

Are witches just superstitious nonsense? Or is there such a thing as real evil in the world?

The Black Witch of Mexico is a chilling psychological thriller where nothing is quite what it seems.

Be careful what you wish for – you might just get it.

COLIN FALCONER