The Whitby Witches
by Robin Jarvis
Chronicle Books, 1991 (2006 US)
296 Pages
Young Readers
Ancient secrets in a timeless town below the ruins of Whitby Abbey, the call of the Sea, spirits of the dead, witchcraft, and murder open the first of the Robin Jarvis trilogy: The Whitby Witches.
The story starts out a bit slow, then grabs you by the goose bumps and takes you for a Nantucket sleigh ride that ends with a time-storm on the ocean, a black shuck, and the Deep Ones.
Two orphans have been tossed between houses because of the fear generated by Jennet’s little brother Benjamin, who has the gift of sight. They finally land in Whitby, (the port where Dracula came ashore in England in Bram Stoker’s novel,) a guest of their Aunt Alice, who is 92 years old, but doesn’t quite act her age. She takes the children in permanently after the car accident that took their parents lives.
Part of the beautiful history of the place is the legend that St. Hilda chased out the serpents long ago, and there are to this day many fossil ammonites to be seen in the stone making up the town.
Ben turned the ammonite over in his fingers and stared intently at it… Miss Boston had told him it was incredibly old, older than the human race, in fact. Ben held it tightly. It felt safe to touch something so ancient– there was very little permanence in his turbulent life and this small, time-polished fossil was like a magic talisman, a sign that perhaps things would be different from now on.
One curious thing about their new home: Aunt Alice hosts a ladies circle each week. Jarvis introduces each of the members of Miss Boston’s friends in such a way that you don’t even realize you already know all about them by the time it is revealed that they are members of the Ladies’ Circle. One night, Ben has visions of his mother, then finds himself overwhelmed with a whole house jammed full of spirits that all seem to want his attention! Thinking fast, Jennet runs downstairs and interrupts not a canasta game, but a séance!
Jennet thinks the “Wise Women” are just interested in using Ben’s gift, but Ben has seen things in Whitby, dark things and secret things, and they soon realize the Ladies’ Circle is all that stands between them and an evil that has invaded the town searching, searching, for something…
A woman has just moved into town, taking up residence in a dilapidated house suddenly remodeled into an antique store. (Ben sees something in her attic while he is looking for a missing cat one day.) Her name is Rowena Cooper, and she soon takes over the Ladies’ Circle, to Miss Boston’s chagrin. Rowena becomes very close to Miss Banbury-Scott, a wealthy, overweight woman who owns the largest and oldest house in the town, but Prudence recognizes her from the days when she and her husband lived in Africa. She isn’t sure exactly what Rowena, (then known as Roslyn,) and another man did to get chased out of Kenya by the Maasai, but it had something to do with a big dog.
Just after Pru faces Rowena with what she knows about her, something akin to a Black Shuck (called a Barguest) pursues her through the mist. Prudence is found dead the next morning.
Meanwhile, Ben has met one of the fisher folk, or “old whalers”:
Creatures from half-forgotten stories brought home by sea-weary fishermen, remembered late in the night, if at all, when the wind howls down the chimney like the wail of the Barguest and the fire burns low. Then these childhood fancies return to haunt the aged and disturb their nodding sleep.
Her name is Nelda, and at first she is ordered to never see Ben again, their kind forbidden to interact with humans by the Deep Ones (their magical gods) …until she has a vision that he will be the one to retrieve the mythical moonkelp and relieve them of their curse.
The curse of the Deep Ones is thus, Ben: they condemned every female of our kind to die in childbirth. A bitter vengeance it is, that destroys love.
One evening while out looking for her brother, Jennet spies a Woman in White crying in the Abbey churchyard. The apparition quickly disappears. Then, on the way home, Jennet must hide from a monstrous, ragged, black dog.
Soon Miss Boston discovers that the Whitby museum has been broken into, and the only thing taken was their Hand of Glory, a magical tool that allows a house to be ransacked while the owners sleep deeply. Just as Mrs. Banbury-Scott’s was the night before her death! When Tilly’s cat discovers what turns out to be a finger, it seals the fate of a third Wise-Woman. The influence of the Ladies’ Circle wanes.
A true Hand of Glory had to be cut from a man while he was still dangling from the gallows. It then had to be pickled and dried, and the fingers set alight…
The moonkelp blooms only once in 900 years, and the Deep Ones will grant a wish to the one who returns it to them. The night comes and the players all gather– The white witch, the black witch, Fisher Folk, humans, and a half-breed. But the moonkelp is just a stepping-stone to the real power: The staff of St. Hilda!
Jarvis is a most excellent author, and you would not find any book by him to be disappointing. My favorites are still the original Deptford Mice, though I have not yet read the Wyrd Museum series, and the first of the Historical Deptford trilogy about where Jupiter comes from stands out in my mind.
Words of power challenged the spells of darkness that Irl had wrapped about the moonkelp long ages past and that blinded their eyes to it still…
Did I miss something? Who is Irl ? Was he like King Elendil in Lord of the Rings?
We are also left hanging a bit after Rowena mentions that she is scared of her master, Nathaniel. We don’t learn much about him, but a bird told me he appears in the second of the trilogy: A Warlock in Whitby.
To be critical, I think too much happens at once. There are too many deaths to process, and the end happens to abruptly. (Oops! A rock wall fell on you! You are dead. Turn to page 7 to start again.) The time travel at the end was not really necessary, although it could have been played up to be more meaningful to Whitby’s history if it was shown clearly that Rowena had some hand in each distinct tragic episode of the town’s past.
Regardless of such trivial nitpicks, this looks like a thrilling series, and I can’t wait to pick up the next book!
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