The Bewitching

Moreno-Garcia’s narrative presents storytelling as the mechanism by which spells of protection, healing, and strength are passed down from generation to generation. Although Alba’s supernatural power is, in part, innate, it’s suppressed by her lack of knowledge and her family's prejudice against brujeria. Her connection to the Los Pinos witches, who share their stories with her, encourages her to finally engage with and access her power—a power she ultimately uses to kill Arturo and save her family farm. In turn, Alba passes that knowledge down to successive generations of women in her family. The stories that her mother dismisses as being part of the silly lore of uneducated rural folk ultimately save her life, and Alba chooses to pass them on to her daughter because she recognizes their power. Knowledge that is written off because it comes from the working classes and is largely transmitted by women is, in the world of this novel, both important and powerful.

The novel’s three interwoven timelines emphasize the importance of storytelling as a means of preserving a legacy of female empowerment. Like Alba before her, Ginny’s supernatural abilities are only partially inherited. When she begins to suspect that she has been bewitched, she delves deeply into everything she can find on bewitchings and the paranormal.