Brand New Story in Issue 21 of M Brane SF
Yes! I have a new story in M Brane SF. It's called "The Nagual's Elision," and it shows the pitfalls of using things such as Facebook in a world where ancient magic and bloody ritual are alive and strong.
Seriously, this will make you think twice about using Facebook.
So, you can get issue number 21 of M Brane here, and you can even subscribe for a whole year.
And to tease you a bit, here's a teaser from "The Nagual's Elision":
The Nagual's Elision
By Cesar Torres
My son Alan and I share eyes the same shade of brown, the color of mountain earth, sprayed with narrow flecks of black. He sits across the table from me, wide shoulders hunched, anxious. My laptop's on sleep mode at the edge of the table, a black plastic wafer. Next to it, a wooden box, plain but splashed in color, its wood etched in butterfly shapes, divides the space between us. The box is nothing but a folk-art trinket one buys on the side of the road for a handful of dollars on the way to Mexico City. A father should never play favorites, is what my wife always said, but my youngest, Alan, has always been closest to my heart. I can't deny it. He is my favorite.
Dame. Dame, Alan repeats. Dame. Strange how his voice rumbles deeper when he speaks in Spanish. Let me have at it, Dad, he says. Outside the wind whips the house. It's the end of April but the temperatures still say winter. I see Rina the collie cross the neighbor's yard and a pair of pigeons dance on a light pole. Of course, Alan's eyes have not left the box once.
Before I tell you about the box, I say, you must know: no one — no one — takes a picture of a nagual.
The word nagual makes Alan bolt upright in his chair and his eyes peel back. You're still trying to spook me with the old stories, he tells me. You don't even believe in naguales.
It's all brujeria to me, son. Naguales, shamen, witch doctors, limpiadas, a bunch of bullshit. Same as the stories about some skinny Jew who came back from the dead after getting nailed to a cross. Nothing but words someone invented to hold power over someone else.
And yet, I say. And yet. Son, we cannot deny the fact that a nagual should never, under any circumstance, be photographed. You see, when you take a photo of anagual, you allow him to come through the photograph, like a secret door in a funhouse. The image — the photo — is a doorway for the nagual.
