The Witches of New York

The ghost of Marietta’s husband, Paran Stevens, wanders around the hotel, noting the many successful changes his wife has made to it and remembering the social challenges she faced when they married. As he searches for her, he encounters another spirit, one of the Marys who worked for the hotel eight years ago and perished in a fire along with 10 other girls. Though he never knew of them while he was alive, he’s since tried to learn their names, but they refuse to tell him. He notes that their sweet demeanors have been replaced by anger.

Elsewhere, the hotel housekeeper, Mrs. Fisher, recites their names, remembering the horror of the fire and how she had had to identify their burnt corpses at the morgue. Now, some of her workers claim they feel their spirits haunting them. Despite the Marys’ and other ghosts’ presence, however, the hotel continues to function.

Quinn Brody sits and takes notes from the newspaper in his notebook. He thinks about the limits of men’s minds when faced with the horrors of the Civil War. When he lost an arm while working as an assistant surgeon in the field, the doctors did not seem concerned with the lasting impacts of losing a limb. The doctor who diagnosed him with a phantom limb simply told him, “Don’t let it make you less of a man” (122).

Bartholomew Andersen, an old friend with whom Brody recovered at the hospital, suddenly appears, and they exchange pleasantries. Brody does not tell him he came to New York to bury his father or that he found companionship with his father’s fellow members of the Fraternal Order of the Unknown Philosophers. Andersen invites Brody for a night out, proposing to go to a ball at the psychiatric ward on Blackwell’s Island to dance with the patients there. Brody finds the idea demeaning and refuses. Andersen leaves, and Brody heads to the lobby before meeting with Adelaide and Judith.

Using a small brass compass, he finds paranormal activity in the lobby and grows excited; he is interested in the possibility of ghosts given his own experience with his phantom limb. Judith arrives, and as they talk, Brody recalls how he witnessed women being dismissed, diagnosed with hysteria at every turn, and incarcerated when he trained as an alienist. Adelaide spies on the two of them before announcing herself. She tests Brody by exposing her full face, and when he only exhibits a gentle reaction, Adelaide knows Judith is trying to match them together. Judith deliberately makes a mess and leaves them alone. After an awkward silence, Adelaide decides to prove her powers by reading Brody’s past in intimate detail.

Lucy slips a note under the tea shop door and asks for a meeting. After giving Beatrice basic instructions on running the shop, Eleanor leaves with her satchel, full of tonics and herbs that Lucy might need.

Alone, Beatrice busies herself when a woman in a hood enters the shop. She decries Adelaide and tells Beatrice to leave “Satan’s web” before departing. As Beatrice serves other customers, she finds Eleanor’s grimoire and begins to read it. Judith Dashley arrives, accompanied by a young boy and holding a large bouquet—an apology for Adelaide. She and Beatrice have tea together as the boy runs about the shop. When Judith tells her of her son Billy's death, Beatrice realizes the boy she is seeing is Billy’s ghost. She tells Judith about him and describes him to prove she truly sees him. She relays Billy’s apology and his desire that his mother not be sad. Though she cannot make him stay, she assures Judith that he is safe.

As she waits for Lucy on the balcony of The Statue of Liberty’s torch, Eleanor recalls how they met. Lucy courted her, and they shared a momentary passion despite Lucy’s engagement to someone else. When she reappeared a month before, it was to request a contraceptive. Despite her heartbreak, Eleanor chose to help her.

When Lucy arrives, she tells Eleanor she is pregnant and cannot decide what to do about it. Eleanor offers to have her stay with her, but Lucy ultimately decides she has too much to lose. In parting, Eleanor gives her a tonic to terminate her pregnancy, should she choose to do so. Alone, Eleanor watches the people in the garden. She notes the Bird Lady, who reminds her of her mother collecting paper scraps and shaping them into stars.

A page from a city guide describes Madison Square Garden and its stereopticon attraction (a sort of slide projector).

Adelaide wanders in Madison Square Park and wonders how to make the tea shop more successful. A girl approaches her and offers to read her fortune. Charmed, Adelaide entertains her. A group of Christian women pass by singing hymns, and one of them eyes the girl. Adelaide recalls her own encounter with a similar group of women as a child and decides to keep the girl away from them. She gives her money, and the girl slips into the crowd. The Bird Lady comes to sit with Adelaide and whispers that a man is coming for “her’.

Reverend Townsend, meanwhile, observes the girl who read Adelaide’s fortune and believes she is another test from God. He convinces her to follow him and the other women.

Brody sits as he contemplates his father’s home and collection of oddities, specifically his intricate “spiritoscope” and the secret message he left behind with it. Meant as a tool to detect whether a medium is lying about their power, Brody considers showing it to Adelaide, although he still feels flustered about their encounter. He writes her a letter requesting another meeting.

Alone in his room, he removes his wooden arm. When it falls to the ground, traumatic visions of the war and his convalescence surge forward. Trembling, he reaches for a precisely measured dose of opium. Under its influence, he sees the faces of his deceased wife, Nadine (a patient who escaped from a psychiatric hospital and asked for his help), a can-can girl, and Adelaide.

Another ball is organized at Blackwell’s Island. As the men arrive, Sophie Miles, the woman who threw vitriol at Adelaide, is looking for Bartholomew Andersen, whom she believes she can manipulate into helping her escape. When she finds him, she draws him into dancing and conversation.

Beatrice worriedly waits for Eleanor. When she arrives, she tells her about what happened with Judith. Eleanor declares that Beatrice is a witch. The statement leaves Beatrice unmoored, as she never believed in witches. Eleanor affirms her magic began when she made the witch’s ladder, and she tells her of the dream she had foretelling her arrival. She offers to perform a test to prove she’s a witch: She can contact her mother, Delphine, through a “dumb supper,” a ritual to summon the dead that requires inverting the traditions of a formal dinner. She makes Beatrice read the instructions for the supper, and they spend the day preparing for the ritual. Eleanor tells Beatrice that the supper was a habitual rite she held with her mother.

Bright and Twitch awaken and decide to oust Adelaide’s mother, fearing she might interfere with the supper. They convince her to leave by making her believe Adelaide is in trouble. Bright then throws graveyard dirt on the hearth fire to make the spirit lose her way back to the tea shop.

When Adelaide arrives, Eleanor enlists her help. Together, they perform the ritual, reciting and eating as needed until Delphine appears. She laughs at Perdu, whom she claims has tricked them all. She confirms that not only is Beatrice a witch, but she is to be as strong as the Bright Ones, know the Language of Dreams and the Wisdom of the Mothers, and lead the witches in the future. She gives Adelaide a pear to make her remember her magic. Then she cries out “Le Loup!"—"the wolf” in French—and disappears into the darkness.

News clippings detail that Cleopatra’s Needle is stuck on the railway while an “Egyptomania” takes hold of the city.

A week after the dumb supper, Eleanor still worries about who or what “le loup” is, despite having warded the shop against all manner of evil. Perdu, meanwhile, will not tell her who he truly is. Adelaide confirms that Judith has already told others of Beatrice’s ability to see ghosts, including her husband and Brody.

Later, Beatrice asks Eleanor to teach her about being a witch. After a conversation with Brody, Adelaide proposes that Beatrice meet him, which she accepts. When she later writes to her aunt, Beatrice is unable to tell her about being a witch. She knows too well the history of violence against women who claimed to have seen a miracle. While Eleanor chooses to remain at the shop, Adelaide and Beatrice, respectively excited and trepidatious, leave to meet Brody.

Brody sets his house in order and buys flowers to decorate, hoping Adelaide will like them. When the two women arrive, Beatrice is fascinated by Brody’s father’s collection of objects. Brody then sets about his experiment to measure Beatrice’s power to communicate with spirits. He asks her questions about her life, her parents’ deaths, and her encounters with ghosts. He then sets up the spiritoscope for her and blindfolds her. Adelaide is charged with noting the messages conveyed through Beatrice and the spiritoscope.

Even blindfolded, Beatrice can see an old man, Brody’s father, in her mind’s eye. He guides her hand to spell out a message—the exact message he left behind with the spiritoscope before he died. While Brody and Adelaide marvel at the exactitude, another spirit—Beatrice’s mother—takes hold of her hands to spell something out. However, the message is never recorded, and no one sees it.

An excerpt from Eleanor’s grimoire details how the First Witch saved humanity’s dreams by defeating a demon who wanted to know the Dearlies’ secret name so he could control them. The demon had his mouth sewn shut as punishment, and the First Witch was taught the Language of Dreams as a reward.

On the carriage ride back to the tea shop, Adelaide feels guilty for missing Beatrice’s mother’s message. Beatrice is inclined to try the spiritoscope again but wishes to discuss it with Eleanor first. At the shop, Adelaide offers to read Beatrice’s fortune and draws three cards—Prudence, Fortune, and Hope. She believes they represent her, Beatrice, and Eleanor, which bodes well for their future. However, when Perdu hops to them with a fourth card—Courage—Adelaide knows Beatrice will face a harsh challenge.

That night, Beatrice and Eleanor discuss what it means to be a witch, and Beatrice expresses doubt about being a leader or a strong witch. To see if she can understand the Language of Dreams, she accepts Eleanor’s special tea and performs the rituals that invite the Dearlies. When she falls asleep, Bright and Twitch work quickly to give Beatrice the dream they crafted for her. In it, Beatrice is flying with hundreds of witches and lands in Madison Square Park. She sees Adelaide, who demands Beatrice look through her eye socket. Through it, she sees an endless corridor of chandeliers and mirrors and herself wearing a crown of gold. Eleanor and Adelaide then ask her to follow them, but Beatrice can’t. She makes a witch’s ladder instead, and as she recites the chant, a door appears. A key around her neck burns her skin until she uses it to open the door—only to be awakened by the sound of breaking glass.

All three women and Perdu race downstairs to find a broken window and a rock with a message: “I know what you are” (234).