The Witches of New York

Eleanor St. Clair is one of the novel’s protagonists. The daughter of Delphine St. Clair, an immigrant witch from France, Eleanor does her utmost to uphold her mother’s ways with their family’s familiar, the raven Perdu. Eleanor is described as having “spent her childhood learning to embrace the traditions of her ancestors: growing herbs, keeping bees, and mixing potions. She’d come from a long line of wise women that stretched back to the shores of Normandy” (18). Though she once entertained letting go of her legacy to become a nurse, her mother’s death ultimately brought her back to the fold. By the time Beatrice arrives at the tea shop, however, her powers seem to be waning.

Eleanor met Adelaide when she became her private nurse after the vitriol attack. They became close friends and began a business together, Tea and Sympathy, a tea shop where an exclusive clientele can have their fortunes read or their other needs met. Eleanor is the “tea” component of the business, as she supplies the tonics, tinctures, teas, and products that can address everything from insomnia to terminating a pregnancy. Through their business, she encounters Lucy Newland and shares a tryst with her, only to garner her husband’s ire when he discovers their affair.

Eleanor attempts to embody what her mother believes is the role of a witch, someone who attends to the “sorrows of the heart, troubles of the mind, regrets of the flesh” (19) and serves the community. When she discovers Beatrice’s powers, she becomes her mentor and educates her in her family’s magical and herbal knowledge.

Adelaide is the novel’s third protagonist. As a witch, she has the power of foresight, though she underuses it and instead relies on her fortune-telling cards. Though her father named her “Moth” and her mother wanted to name her “Ada,” Adelaide carved a new identity for herself as an adult. She chose the name “Adelaide Thom” as a mixture of both her parents’ wishes and a new sophistication that she uses to distance herself from her past.

She describes her childhood as being “from the wrong side of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic who lived on petty schemes and poppy juice” (21). She was trafficked three times as a child—the first time, by her own mother—and worked as a sideshow entertainer under the alias “Zula Moth” when she was young. For reasons that remain unclear, she provoked the ire of Sophie Miles, a fellow witch, who then attacked her by throwing a vial of vitriol on her face. Though Adelaide survived the attack, the vitriol left her with “a sinewy web of scars that ran from nose to ear, brow to chin, down the left side of her face. Where her left eye had been was a hollowed wink, a gruesome puckered dimple” (31). Typically, she keeps her face hidden, but on occasions when someone like Sister Piddock harasses her, she unveils her face like a weapon to scare them. She keeps her damaged eye in her mother’s old cherry brandy bottle.

As a result of her trauma, Adelaide does not believe herself able to love. However, throughout the novel, she develops an affection for Quinn Brody. Ambitious and daring, Adelaide also shows herself to be kindhearted and loving to marginalized figures like the Bird Lady or the young girl who read her fortune in the park. Bold in appearance, she is often targeted by the Bible League and persecuted, but she stands against them all the same. She becomes a source of inspiration for Beatrice, and by the end of the novel, she finds herself content in the life she leads with her friends and the new love she shares with Brody.

Reverend Francis Townsend is one of the secondary characters in the novel and one of the two main antagonists. A zealous preacher, Townsend sees himself as a soldier of God who is constantly being tested to enact God’s will, resist sinful temptation, and fight against the Devil. He is described as having “hair slick with oil, dark moustache neatly trimmed [and] had an intense, greedy look in his eyes that led Beatrice to think he expected her to be impressed by him” (330). Though Townsend professes to act for the good of humanity, his actions indulge his misogyny and thirst for violence. He also unknowingly contributes to the demon Malphas’s schemes by killing women he believes to be witches. He justifies Lena’s suicide, the fortune-telling girl’s battering, Jenny’s murder, and Beatrice’s kidnapping (and attempted murder) as sanctioned by God, as he believes these are opportunities to prove his devotion to the cause.

He holds a deep-seated hatred for Adelaide, and after reading about Mercy Wylde’s “salvation” by a fellow reverend, he becomes obsessed with the idea of saving Beatrice from Adelaide. As his violent tendencies get the better of him, he loses his ability to discern fact from fiction and fantasy. As such, his character exemplifies The Ignorance and Harm in Zealous Convictions. His role as a clergyman also highlights how patriarchal institutions contribute to women’s marginalization. Townsend dies in his attempt to kill Beatrice, neutralizing him as a threat in the sequel.

Dr. Quinn Brody is a secondary character, Adelaide’s love interest, and an ally to Eleanor and Beatrice. Originally an assistant surgeon during the Civil War, Brody lost his arm when a wound festered and gangrened. While convalescing at the hospital, he chose to change his profession and devoted himself to becoming an alienist (an outdated term for a psychiatrist) after being diagnosed with a phantom limb. His experience in the war left several scars—some physical, others psychological—that he chooses to treat with meticulously dosed opium. Though the drug helps, he is still prone to visions of the horrors of war and his struggles at the hospital.

Over the course of his life, Brody has lost his wife, mother, brother, and most recently, his father, an optometrist. As he sets about putting his father’s affairs in order, Brody joins his father’s Fraternal Order of the Unknown Philosophers. Through Alden Dashley and his wife, Judith, he meets Adelaide and quickly develops an attachment to her. With his experiment on ghosts and spirits, he develops a friendship with the other two women in Adelaide’s life. By the end of the story, he offers his home to them when they lose theirs. This sets up his role in the sequel to The Witches of New York.

Gideon Palsham and the two Collectors are secondary characters and the other antagonists in the narrative. The Collectors are mysterious characters who appear whenever a witch or a person carrying a magical item dies. Like their name implies, they come to collect the bodies or items for Palsham, though their reason for doing so is never disclosed. Their age is also never disclosed, but Lena’s ghost identifies them as ghouls. They previously encountered Eleanor when they attempted to collect her mother’s body, but she refused to give her to them.

Palsham is the central villain not only for Eleanor, Adelaide, and Beatrice but for witches and magical creatures in general. His true identity is Malphas, the demon who confronted Odoline in the tale of the Princess Who Wished to Be a Witch. It is hinted that he is also the demon who sought to take over dreams and fought against the First Witch; as punishment, the Dearlies sewed his mouth shut, and Palsham is described as having “the comical look of a carnival knock-down doll with a smile that had come unstitched” (402). He is also the architect who plans to have the obelisk, Cleopatra’s Needle, installed in New York. Though his end goal remains unknown, he is known to have fostered hatred against witches for a long time. By the end of the novel, his plans for Beatrice, Adelaide, and Eleanor appear nefarious but remain a mystery.

The Dearlies, Bright and Twitch, are secondary characters in the narrative and allies to Eleanor, Adelaide, and Beatrice. Often compared to angels but mischievous in nature, the Dearlies are said to originate from “an ancient order of Fay who involved themselves exclusively with the fashioning of dreams” (23). Throughout the narrative, Bright and Twitch provide cautionary and foretelling dreams to Eleanor and Beatrice to prepare them for the challenges to come. They’re also known to make pacts with other supernatural creatures, like Adelaide’s mother’s ghost, to help the witches achieve their goals.