The Witches of New York

Lena’s ghost hovers over Beatrice as she sleeps. When she wakes, Lena confirms Beatrice is a witch and tells her about the Reverend, the parsonage, and the Collectors—a pair of ghouls—who came for her body. She tells her the Collectors take the bodies of witches for their employer, the architect, Palsham. When she spells out his name, it becomes Malphas, the name of the demon the First Witch fought.

The Reverend enters and refuses to let Beatrice leave. He forces her to eat bread that smells like urine. When she cannot, he claims it confirms she is bewitched. He demands that she disrobe completely. She refuses, and he hits her head with his walking stick, making her lose consciousness. When she wakes, Townsend searches her body for what he calls the witch’s mark. When he finds a birthmark Beatrice has had all her life, he retrieves a white-hot iron rod with a double-V emblem and sits it on her mark, burning her skin.

Eleanor has been sitting in the Office of Missing Persons at the Police Headquarters for three hours and has called the two officers’ attention every 15 minutes. They, however, have mostly ignored her. Eleanor busies herself by reading the listings of missing people and notes the numerous women who’ve vanished.

Another woman, Georgina Davis, comes into the office. She speaks with the officers, bribes them with lemon drops for the new listings, and has them help Eleanor. They, along with Georgina, ask Eleanor a series of questions about Beatrice, but in the end, the officers belittle Beatrice’s disappearance.

Infuriated, Eleanor leaves. Georgina chases after her and offers to include Beatrice in her column to help spread the word. She draws Beatrice’s portrait from Eleanor’s description and offers to deliver some handbills the next day that Eleanor can distribute.

Brody returns home after talking to the hotel detective and looking for Beatrice in the streets all day. He resists the temptation to use opium, just as Alden Dashley, Judith’s husband and a member of the Unknown Philosophers, visits. He asks to use Brody’s father’s observatory to look at Jupiter’s bands. Brody accepts, and together, they look at the night sky. Brody notes that Calisto, one of Jupiter’s moons, is isolated from the rest.

At the tea shop, Eleanor recites an incantation for Beatrice’s safe return. Rumors about Beatrice’s disappearance begin to spread through the city. Beatrice, meanwhile, remains bound, gagged, and routinely abused.

On Monday morning, Mr. Withrow gives Eleanor an eviction notice from Cecil Newland, their building’s new owner. Adelaide, meanwhile, has left to visit the morgue with Brody to see if Beatrice’s body is there. Eleanor believes it’s a waste of time and would have preferred they stay together.

Georgina arrives with the handbills and offers to help distribute them. They leave, and soon after, Sister Piddock comes near the shop. She becomes gleeful when she sees the eviction notice on the door since Eleanor and Adelaide are being thrown out. She tells Reverend Townsend, who is pleased. He believes God is providing them with what they need to do His will.

Crowds gather at the morgue to see the new, unidentified bodies. Among the crowd are the Collectors and Jenny’s old roommates, Elsie and Mae, who fear Jenny has died. Bodies are rolled in, and one of them is Jenny’s. The Collectors discuss it, and while they will not collect her body, they will take her rabbit’s foot as it has magic.

Adelaide and Brody arrive. When the Collectors will not make room for them and stare openly at Adelaide, Brody intervenes, and the Collectors leave. When they’ve seen all the bodies and know Beatrice’s is not among them, they also leave the morgue. Jenny’s roommates do not claim her body or identify her for fear the police will think they killed her.

Though he believes his purging is working on Beatrice, Townsend resolves to burn the hair he sheared when he kidnapped her to cast out any remaining bewitching. In the cellar, Beatrice collects a piece of coal and writes on the wall to count the days of her incarceration. She tries to distract herself with thoughts of Christmas and whether her friends are looking for her. When she has the idea to make another witch’s ladder, Lena offers to help Beatrice curse Townsend, which isn’t Beatrice’s plan.

Townsend arrives and shows her one of the handbills Eleanor is distributing. Though Beatrice maintains that she is not bewitched by her friends, Townsend refuses to believe her. When he questions her, he eventually accuses her of hearing voices. To distract him, Beatrice follows Lena’s advice and recites the Lord’s Prayer. When he leaves, Lena gives her one of her own red hairs, which she plucked from the reverend’s jacket.

A letter from Beatrice’s aunt arrives, and Eleanor and Adelaide wonder if they should respond. Judith appears with a notice about a dead woman to confirm it isn’t Beatrice. She then offers to house them all at the Fifth Avenue Hotel despite Mrs. Stevens’s reservations. Judith then tells them of a dream she had of a new place where they all gathered to have tea. Eleanor believes it’s a sign they shouldn’t give up on finding Beatrice.

The women of Blackwell’s Island are out for their daily exercise. Brody visits to make sure Beatrice is not among them. His friend, Dr. Leonard Pitkin, confirms that Beatrice is not among the patients. Brody then remembers his promise to Andersen and requests Sophie Miles’s file. He discovers that she is the one who threw vitriol at Adelaide. Dr. Pitkin believes she will never be fit to leave the institution.

Brody leaves. Meanwhile, Sophie makes a doll that resembles Andersen. She is growing impatient with him and the delay in her escape. A voice tells her to blame Adelaide.

Convinced Beatrice has been released from evil, Townsend prepares a feast for her to break her imposed fast. When Lena wakes Beatrice as he’s making his way down to the cellar, she finds that Lena has drawn a curse on the wall ("May you fall without rising" (387)) and a large circle with a five-pointed star. Beatrice can’t destroy the evidence before Townsend sees it, and he believes Beatrice has deliberately deceived him. He drops the food and goes to retrieve his knife to kill her, while Beatrice claims the discarded embers from his pipe.

Beatrice fills an oyster shell with the embers. In the tea shop, Eleanor and Adelaide make an ESAUE square, a type of spell, to conjure a guide who will bring them to Beatrice. They perform the rite, and elsewhere, the young girl who was once taken by Townsend throws a penny in a fountain and wishes for his death. Adelaide’s mother’s ghost emerges from the water, and the girl, thinking she is Townsend, runs away. The young girl makes it to the tea shop, crying for help. She tells Eleanor and Adelaide that Townsend left her for dead because he thought she was a witch. Recognizing the guide they summoned, they have the girl take them to the parsonage.

Meanwhile, Beatrice tucks the shell and embers into her straw mattress as Townsend comes for her. In the cellar, the fire grows quickly. Beatrice and Townsend fight and struggle, and just as Beatrice slips from his grasp, he catches fire and dies. Following the ghost of her mother, Beatrice flees.

Brody receives a message from his father through the spiritoscope that Beatrice is still alive, and he runs to the tea shop. Eleanor and Adelaide make it to the burning parsonage just in time to see Beatrice emerge. They embrace and return to the tea shop. Brody arrives to tell of his father’s message, only to find Beatrice safe, fed, and finally home.

A notice announces Reverend Townsend’s death. The Collectors meet with Palsham and report Townsend’s death and Beatrice’s escape. Palsham tells them to hold off on her capture and pursue her from a distance. They give him Townsend’s pipe, which Beatrice used to set the fire. Palsham has never felt such strong magic despite the hundreds of witches he has killed.

Georgina comes to visit, inviting Eleanor to remain (perhaps more than) friends. Their other friends also visit, including the Dearlies, who bestow mostly good dreams on Beatrice. Bright determines, however, that a nightmare must be given so that Beatrice remembers that Palsham is dangerous.

With the eviction looming, Brody offers his own home to the three women. Adelaide and Beatrice convince Eleanor, and all agree. On All Hallows’ Eve, they close up their shop, bid the baker and his son farewell, and go to their new home. Beatrice and Adelaide surprise Eleanor with a new storefront—The Hermitage—where Brody’s father’s old store used to stand. It looks exactly like the tea shop in Judith’s dream. They celebrate the evening with their friends, and at midnight, they cast a special spell to mark their first All Hallows’ Eve together.

A notice details the date of the obelisk’s installment in Central Park.

Eleanor, Adelaide, and Beatrice spend Christmas with Lydia, who claims to have seen a ghost. In January, The Hermitage is doing well and has gathered more clientele from the sex workers who work in bordellos up the street. Beatrice continues her apprenticeship and begins writing her book, A Census of Astonishments. She names herself an agent of the obscure.

On January 21, they all go on a sleigh ride in Central Park and witness the test erection of the obelisk. As they watch, the gentleman who approached Beatrice at the train station taps her on the shoulder. He tells her he is leaving the next day and gives her a glowing ember that does not burn. When she looks at it, she discovers it is a stone scarab.

That night, Beatrice plans to see a woman about her alleged haunted telegraph machine. As she wonders if the girl is also a newly made witch, she writes out her advice for new witches.