48 pages • 1 hour read
Claribel A. OrtegaWitchlings
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 21-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary: “Little Old Witchlings”
With only five days left to complete the Impossible Task, Seven uses a highly risky and advanced spell to make the Witchlings look like elderly women so they can attend the town council meeting. Mr. Dimblewit is the first council member to speak, and he deplores that three towns’ Uncles have been abducted. He blames Spares for the recent cuco attacks because disasters struck during the last Impossible Task in 1965. He proposes that they be sent to Pollepel Island, where murderers are imprisoned, and used as forced labor.
The Witchlings swipe Mr. Dimblewit’s scarf so they can use the memory potion on it, but the aging spell wears off before they can exit the meeting. Mr. Pepperhorn seizes Valley and calls for the Gran’s imprisonment because preventing the town’s Witchlings from using illegal spells is her responsibility. Three council members whose families were attacked by cucos are absent, so the Gran’s opponents win the vote to send her to prison. As the security guards take her away, Gran tells the Witchlings, “You are capable of so much more than you know. Stick together, remember!” (243). Seven and her parents confront Mr. Pepperhorn for mistreating Valley, and he tries to use illegal combat magic on them. None of the town’s authorities are left to stop him, and he drags Valley away. Seven reveals that she swiped one of Mr. Pepperhorn’s buttons.
Chapter 22 Summary: “A Stolen Memory”
Seven and Thorn return to their school and add Mr. Pepperhorn’s button to the memory potion. A series of memories float to the cauldron’s surface, including one in which Mr. Pepperhorn speaks to an unknown witch: “I found the book in your house, and this isn’t what we agreed on. Those notes, this plan…why did you have it? Who is B. Birch?” (249). To Seven’s surprise and disgust, the girls learn that Mr. Pepperhorn is in House Hyacinth. The memories from Mr. Dimblewit’s scarf reveal that he talked with the council members who were absent at that night’s meeting and that he left the meat the Witchlings saw in the train car for the cucos. Seven suspects that the cuco attacks are part of the Dimblewits’ plot to take away Spares’ rights. Later that night, Seven tells her mother about Mr. Pepperhorn’s abuse of Valley.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Three Days Left”
Seven and Thorn’s parents lead a group of adults working to break the Gran out of prison. Meanwhile, Seven and Thorn follow Mr. Dimblewit from his estate to the Cursed Forest. Seven hears a voice call her name and then cry, “Let us out, you evil witch!” (256). Monsters called the Shrouded attack the Witchlings, but the Uncle appears and fights them off with the Celestial Sword. Mr. Dimblewit arrives with the Hill’s new security force. He claims Valley has confessed that the Witchlings brought the Nightbeast to Ravenskill, that he is the town’s interim leader, and that the Gran will be sentenced to death for betraying the town. Mr. Dimblewit uses a hex to hold Seven and Thorn in place, but their parents use an illusion spell to conceal the children from him. Seven hears a voice inside her say, “You are capable and strong” (265). She uses an advanced spell to free herself and Thorn, and they flee.
Chapter 24 Summary: “What Happened in the Woods”
The Uncle takes Seven and Thorn to Starlight Cottage and tells them that he has been trapped in the Nightbeast’s den for the past week. Seven suspects that her argument with Valley made the monster abandon its lair with the Uncle inside. The Uncle agrees with the Witchlings that Mr. Dimblewit is the culprit, and he promises to help them once he’s rescued the Gran. He escorts Seven and Thorn home.
Chapter 25 Summary: “The Final Night”
On the Witchlings’ final night to achieve their Impossible Task, Seven brews an invisibility potion and meets Valley at Blood Rose Manor. After Seven told Fox about Mr. Pepperhorn, Fox called Mrs. Pepperhorn, and Valley’s mother kicked her husband out of the house. The town doctor, Dr. Blackwood, is going to help Valley work on processing her experiences and expressing her emotions in a healthy way. Valley found The Nightbeast Archives in her father’s library, and she suspects that there is a concealment spell on the book. Seven once again demonstrates that she can work advanced magic by revealing the hidden information. Seven and Valley realize that the Nightbeast will end its hibernation and begin hunting that very night.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Smell the Roses”
Seven and Valley hurry to the Uncle’s home, where Thorn is meant to be repairing his magical cloak. The house is deserted, and the girls find evidence of a fight. The Witchlings use the memory potion on the Uncle’s brooch. They see a shadowy figure with the magical flower the Cursed Toads were tasked with finding. Another memory shows the Uncle dragging Thorn from his house. Seven and Valley realize that he’s the traitor and follow the tracks he left into the Cursed Forest.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Behold the Nightbeast”
As Seven and Valley search for Thorn in the Cursed Forest, they identify clues that the Uncle was working against them all along. Valley hugs Seven and then hides while Seven uses jelly bean fish to lure the cucos. A cuco carries Seven to Crow’s Head Valley, and then Valley uses a poisoned blow dart to render the monster unconscious. Every witch’s name is a prophecy, and Valley sheds happy tears when she realizes that coming to this place is her destiny.
The towering Nightbeast emerges from the forest along with a cuco carrying Thorn. Filled with love and trust for her fellow Witchlings, Seven prepares for battle. Three Town Uncles emerge from the forest, and Seven realizes that they are the Cursed Toads. They used forbidden magic to take the Uncles’ places decades ago, and the real Uncles were turned into toads. The man the Witchlings knew as Rulean Pennyfeather is actually Barbatos Birch. The Gran learned their true identities, so they magically erased the entire town’s memories and burned the records. Birch and his coven want to rule the Twelve Towns, and they manipulated the Dimblewits and Mr. Pepperhorn to advance their plans. The Cursed Toads order the Nightbeast to eat the Witchlings, and the three girls fight the monster. Together, they use a wind spell to toss the Nightbeast into the mountains ringing the valley. The Uncles back the Witchlings into a dangerous river. As the current sweeps them away, Seven uses the ave to call for help.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Valley, Seven, Thorn”
Seven, Valley, and Thorn make it to the shore. They share a group hug, and Seven tells them that she is “proud of [them] and happy [they] got to be best friends” (309). Once again, they confront the Toads and the Nightbeast. Fox, Talisman, and Beefy arrive and join in the fight. Seven discovers that she can talk to animals, and she persuades the Nightbeast to defy the Toads. Thorn captures the monster in a cage made out of thorns. The Witchlings break the amulets that give the Cursed Toads power. The Gran appears and tells the defeated Toads, “You were not wrong to be angry about your fate. You went wrong when you let your anger corrupt your heart” (314). She turns them into toads.
Chapter 29 Summary: “The Long and Twisty Path”
The next morning, Poppy comes to the Salazars’ house and apologizes for the way she treated Seven. She avoided Seven because she thought the girl felt envy and hatred toward her, but Seven explains that she’s glad to be a Spare. Without going into detail, Seven tells Poppy that they were both wrong about Valley and that she’s become “a big believer in second chances” (318). The girls promise to spend more time together. That night, the Witchlings celebrate completing their Impossible Task and discovering their name prophecies. Seven now understands that she is named Seven because it took seven witches to stop the Nightbeast—the three Witchlings, Seven’s parents, Beefy, and the Gran.
Chapter 30 Summary: “The Festival of the Holly King”
Now that the Witchlings have completed their Impossible Task, they are a full-fledged coven. The Laroux family’s fashion company becomes “the most popular brand in all of Ravenskill” (324), and their bestseller is an outfit modeled after the Witchlings’ red suits. The Dimblewits are imprisoned for working with the Cursed Toads. The Gran discovers that the Toads’ amulets were powerful relics that allowed them to hex her and the Grans of Boggs Ferry and Stormville, which explains why the Boggs Ferry Gran used an illegal shush hex on her town. The Ravenskill Gran isn’t sure how the Toads acquired the relics. Another unsolved mystery is the question of who set the Nightbeast after Petal. The Twelve Towns’ Grans seal the monster in a forest so that no one can use it for evil again.
The narrative moves forward a few weeks. On the day of the winter solstice, Ravenskill throws a parade in the Witchlings’ honor. The Gran addresses the town of Ravenskill and presents each member of Seven’s coven with a rare gift. Valley receives crystal blades to complement her combat and monster-hunting skills, Thorn receives magical needles because of her tailoring skills, and Seven receives a pendant of the woods because she can speak to animals. Once she completes her training and becomes the Ravenskill Town Uncle, Seven will be the first lawfully appointed Spare to hold the position. She plans to write a newspaper article about the Impossible Task and how she became close friends with Valley and Thorn.
Epilogue Summary
Valley’s mother, Quill, divorces her husband and moves into a new home with her daughter. When Seven visits them, she discovers that Valley’s mother is the author of her favorite book series, Witches of Heartbreak Cove. Quill gives Seven some advice about her newspaper article, which she praises as a “great first effort for a future reporter” (333). She also thanks Seven for speaking out about Mr. Pepperhorn’s actions and credits the girl’s courage with giving her “the strength to leave and to start a better life for [her] and Valley” (334).
Chapter 21-Epilogue Analysis
Systems of Exclusion and Disenfranchisement figure prominently in the novel’s climax and resolution. In a plot twist, Ortega reveals that the mysterious antagonists working to strip Spares of all rights are Spares themselves. Barbatos declares, “We worked hard, harder than anyone to get this far, and Spares today just want to be handed everything” (297). With the Cursed Toads’ efforts to hold onto their ill-gotten power and prevent anyone else from their marginalized group from improving their situation, Ortega’s offer a critique of internalized discrimination. The Cursed Toads’ defeat represents a major victory for the Twelve Towns’ Spares, and Amendment S has a strong chance of passing. During the epilogue, the enthusiastic turnout for the parade in honor of the Witchlings offers hope that the Twelve Towns can become a more just and inclusive society, demonstrating that the protagonist and her allies’ actions have helped spur this social change. Despite these achievements, the narrator observes that “Seven wasn’t planning on giving up [the] battle” for Spares’ full enfranchisement and inclusion in society (322). This indicates that systems of oppression will remain a major theme for the rest of the series.
The Witchlings emerge victorious because of The Power of Cooperation and Trust. The plot to arrest and execute the Gran escalates the suspense of the novel’s final section and makes it even more essential that the Witchlings work together. At the beginning of the novel, Seven is devastated about being sorted into a coven with Valley and Thorn. In Chapter 27, the narrator describes how their relationship has transformed over the course of the story: “Seven had grown to trust both her and Thorn. To rely on them. But now, in what might be their final hour, she knew she had also learned to love them” (294). This connection gives the Witchlings strength during the climactic battle, and details like the coordinated wind spell the girls use on the Nightbeast highlight the power of cooperation. To further emphasize the importance of trust and teamwork, the narrator observes that the Witchlings’ “most important” achievement of all is that “they had become friends” (328). The novel’s happy ending celebrates the power of cooperation and trust.
Seven’s magical abilities and her pursuit of her dream career advance the theme of Self-Discovery in the Face of Adversity. In Chapter 21, the protagonist executes a complicated aging spell, “[a] spell that took witches years to perfect and that she, a Witchling and a Spare, was about to attempt” (229). This display of Seven’s great potential and skill defies the coven system’s dismissal of Spares as worthless. The protagonist also gains empowering self-knowledge by unlocking the rare power to talk to animals and realizing that her destiny is to become the next Town Uncle. In addition to embracing these discoveries about herself, Seven holds onto her long-held passion for journalism. She writes “a piece about the impossible task for the Squawking Crow” (328), even though her favorite newspaper doesn’t usually feature writing from Spares, showing that the events of the story have given her the confidence to pursue her dreams. Seven’s discoveries about herself help her to work toward a bright future despite the adversity she faces and enhance the novel’s happy ending.
The author’s use of color symbolism in these chapters reveals changing attitudes toward the coven system both within the protagonist’s personal views and in her society. Mr. Pepperhorn’s memories demonstrate that the system’s corruption extends even to the house Seven idolized: “Mr. Pepperhorn was lifting up a pendant that hung from his neck and watching as it began to glow purple. House Hyacinth” (249). This revelation challenges House Hyacinth’s claims of being “virtuous” and undermines the five covens’ purported superiority over Spares as a whole. During the epilogue, Ravenskill’s citizens buy droves of the red “stupendous Spare ensemble” modeled after the Witchlings’ suits (324). The outfits’ popularity shows that Seven, Thorn, and Valley’s courageous deeds have helped to reduce the stigma against Spares.
Ortega’s usage of names as a motif of self-discovery reaches fulfillment during the novel’s climax. Valley’s “big, genuine smile” upon realizing that her name comes from Crow’s Head Valley shows the joy that comes from self-knowledge (291). Likewise, Thorn uncovers the prophecy behind her name when she traps the Nightbeast with thorns, and Seven’s name refers to the number of witches who worked together to defeat the monster. All the Witchlings’ names come from their battle against the Nightbeast and the Cursed Toads, underlining the author’s message about Self-Discovery in the Face of Adversity.
Ortega uses foreshadowing to give clues about the novel’s resolution and the rest of the series. The mysterious voices that Seven hears coming from the Cursed Forest in Chapter 23 offer a clue that she can communicate with animals and monsters, an ability that she uses to reason with the Nightbeast during the climax. The revelation that the Uncle is really Barbatos Birch fulfills the foreshadowing of the Cursed Toads and the Uncle’s treachery. However, some mysteries remain unsolved at the end of this novel, the first installment of the Witchlings series. Seven and her allies don’t know how the Cursed Toads obtained the ancient amulets that powered their schemes or “who taught them to use such treacherous items” (323). This builds anticipation for the remaining books by suggesting that the true villainous mastermind may still be at large.
