Mexico, 1917. On a farm during the violent tumult of revolution, a more immediate threat prowls in a short, emotional story about survival by the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

She is the adventurer of the family. Her brother, the gentle dreamer. Even as they bond over folktales and hold each other close, their world has never felt so dangerous. Revolutionaries and pelones are in conflict, soldiers have turned into scavengers, and an escaped tiger has slipped up the mountain, looking for easy prey. As the darkest of legends becomes real, a young girl will do anything to save her brother’s life.

‘The Tiger Came to the Mountains’ is part of ‘Trespass’, an Amazon Original Stories collection of wild stories about animal instincts, human folly, and survival.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s twenty-eight page story kicks of the collection with a powerful piece of historical fiction.

I liked the voice of the storyteller – an old woman remembering herself as a child. The picture she drew of her family and what they went through during the revolution was clear, economically drawn and convincing. It also had the worn edges of a memory that has been recalled many times, with the pain dulled by resignation and survival, but not forgotten. 

The night that the tiger came to the mountains was a defining moment for her. A time when she confirmed, by her actions, her sense of who she was. 

Her description of the tiger was a fascinating mix of superstition, observation, awe and fear. To her, at that moment and afterwards, the tiger was more than its physical self; it was an embodiment of death: beautiful, magical, terrifying death, coming not for her but for the person she loved most. In those moments, the tiger was an elemental force, and her reaction to it would always define her.