Blog-o-ween 2023: Goddess of Filth & The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro

Well, campers, that day that we feared was just around the corner has finally come. It’s the final—

No, it’s not the final chapter. Today is the final Friday—

No, not THAT final Friday. Lemme finish, will ya?

Today is the final “Long Form Friday” for Blog-o-ween 2023. For the previous three Fridays of our month-long celebration of all things spooky and Halloweenie, we’ve taken our time with tales that were slightly longer than the usual run of short stories and oral tales. These were novellas or novelettes that could be read in a single evening or (if you were too chicken) afternoon. There was short long fiction (or was it long short fiction?) by Elizabeth Hand, Stephen Graham Jones, and Carlos Fuentes. As much as I love all of those writers and their works, I think we’ve saved the best for last, kiddies.

As a bonus (hey...this is the FINAL Long Form Friday, so we’re going all out!), you’re in for an extra-special treat, because we are highlighting not one but TWO books by the same author. Both books deal with the birth of legends. In one, it is the birth of a new urban legend; in the other, it is the rebirth of an old god. Today, we’re going to sit at the feet of Mexican-American writer V. Castro and listen as she spins the tales of the Goddess of Filth and the Queen of the Cicadas.

Goddess of Filth starts with a Saturday night séance between five friends. Lourdes, Ana, Perla, and Pauline are saying their goodbyes to their friend Fernanda, who is leaving San Antonio, Texas, for college. Hoping simply to mimic the coven from the movie The Craft, the five girls inadvertently call something from out of the past...something from out of the darkness. And we’re not talking about the return of that height of Nineties fashion, chokers!

When Lourdes calls out to the air “I want to reach a spirit. An old spirit, one from before the world was what we know today,” she gets exactly what she asks for. Returning her call is Tlazoltéotl, the Goddess of Filth, the eater of sin and the unclean. Tlazoltéotl enters Fernanda, who begins to crawl about the floor, blood dripping from between her legs, speaking Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. Packing on the “freshman fifteen” is suddenly the least of the college-bound Fernanda’s worries.

With the help of Dr. Camacho, a college professor who specializes in Aztec history and their language, the young women learn just what it is that the ancient goddess wants from Fernanda, from them, and from the world. There are, however, forces that do not believe that what is inhabiting the once meek and mild Fernanda is a force of good. Fernanda’s mother and the local priest view Tlazoltéotl as a demon possessing the young woman, and Father Moreno will do anything to exorcize that demon.

What is it that Tlazoltéotl wants? Will Fernanda ever be free of the goddess? Just what does Father Moreno have hidden away in a freezer in the church?

Moving on to a slightly longer tale (but one that you can easily read in a day or two — I mean, what else have you got going on?!), Castro’s The Queen of the Cicadas (La reina de las chicharras) is another story of possession and the rebirth of the old gods and goddesses. Here, it isn’t an innocent bit of fun that calls out to an Aztec goddess, but the violent murder of a Mexican farmworker in 1950s Texas. When the young woman Milagros is killed by the white wives of the landowners, Mictecacíhuatl, the Aztec goddess of death, hears her cries and promises her that she will be reborn. Milagros becomes a vengeful spirit, an urban legend like Candyman, Bloody Mary, or La Llorona.

Years later, on the same ranch that has now become a destination wedding-style B&B, two damaged people, Belinda and Hector, find themselves embroiled in the story of Milagros-Mictecacíhuatl. While they spend their time discovering Milagros’s story and what the return of Mictecacíhuatl will entail, Castro also gives the reader the fates of the women who murdered the young farm worker, a dive into Mexican folklore, and a look at Mexican history. It’s a lot going on in a 214-page book!

What I love about both of these books (aside from the folk horror aspects, natch) is that the return of Tlazoltéotl and Mictecacíhuatl is not presented as a bad thing. It all feels like there is a natural cycle at work. It’s just time for the goddess of filth and the goddess of death to come back and clean up this mess that (white, colonizer) humanity has made of the world. In the hands of a non-Mexican writer, these stories would be reduced to simple vengeance tales, where the horrors are committed by the goddesses and their followers. But in Castro’s hands, we have two tales of darkness and hope, where the light and the dark aren’t two mutually exclusive realms. They are forever intermingling and changing and evolving. Goddess of Filth and The Queen of the Cicadas are both incredible works of folk horror that are terrifying and heartening at the same time. I don’t know how she did it, kiddies, but she done did it!

V. Castro was born in San Antonio, Texas to Mexican-American parents, and currently lives with her family in the United Kingdom. She has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award twice — in 2021 for both of today’s stories, The Queen of the Cicadas (Superior Achievement in a Novel) and Goddess of Filth (Superior Achievement in Long Fiction). That neither of these books won the award for which they were nominated should be in no way seen as a slur on the good name of the Horror Writers Association, but let it be known that I have a strongly worded letter ready to go in my Google Drive ready to go if it happens a third time. You have been warned, HWA!

Well, I hope this final “Long Form Friday” isn’t a bittersweet one for you. We had a good run, you gotta admit. And really, let’s look on the bright side, you now have a nice, tight group of authors whose other books — some longer, some shorter — you can enjoy, too. Pick up Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand or My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. How about Inez (Instinto de Inéz) by Carlos Fuentes? And V. Castro has a new book out this year you can check out, The Haunting of Alejandra, which is about a woman haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona. All of these books are guaranteed winners, and they are guaranteed to give you...pleasant dreams? Hmmmm? Heh-heh-heh!