48 pages • 1-hour read
A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
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Symbols & Motifs
The Batty Hole Inn
The inn serves as a motif that demonstrates The Value of Found Family and The Healing Power of Love. After some particularly difficult guests reduced Jasmine to tears, Sera’s spell “transformed [the] inn into a flame in the dark, an outstretched hand to the ones falling over the edge and a warning to the ones pushing them” (77). These metaphors compare the inn to a welcoming candle or an offer of assistance to anyone who finds themselves overlooked by society. Because the inn is a “beacon in the dark for the lost and adrift” (27), people who long for love and acceptance make the place their permanent residence. Nicholas, a 23-year-old would-be knight, is free to wear his armor, bow to the other inhabitants, and speak of chivalry without judgment or ridicule. Matilda, an older Black lady, can fall in love with Jasmine and tend her odd garden in peace. As she says to Luke, “You and I are more alike than you think, you know. Nobody ever looked out for me either. This is the first place I’ve ever felt sheltered. This is the first place I’ve ever had space to be exactly what I am” (180). Similarly, Theo’s best friend, Alex, uses gender-neutral pronouns that are universally respected, and Malik and Elliott are welcomed with equanimity, as any couple should be.
Not only does everyone belong at the inn, but the inhabitants also soon grow to love one another deeply, and this love heals them all in individual ways. Sera reassures Nicholas that wearing his armor hurts no one; therefore, he should feel free to do it. Posy is valued and heard, and the residents make earnest efforts to understand how her autism influences her communication and behavior. Finally, Sera sacrifices her magic to protect her loved ones and recognizes that love itself is a kind of magic. Only the universally accepting ambience of the inn makes this possible, as she and the other residents feel fully sheltered and appreciated within its walls.
Sera’s Swan Pendant
Sera’s pendant, which she purchases after she loses most of her magic at the age of 15, is a motif that highlights The Inaccuracy of Self-Perception. After the young Sera resurrects Jasmine, Albert cruelly compares Sera to “a swan who ha[s] clipped her own wings” (102). Clemmie tells Sera that she has “fractured” her night sky magic, and Sera believes herself to be broken without her magical ability. This feeling makes the repaired pendant all the more fitting to her; as she says, “It was hard to tell unless you looked very closely, but there was a hairline fracture down one wing where someone had broken the swan and mended it again” (103). Only the others see that Sera is not broken at all and that her experiences—even the traumatic ones—have contributed to her strong, confident identity. Sera often fidgets with the necklace, and she takes it with her even on the night of the masquerade because she deeply associates its damaged form with her own.
Sera doesn’t understand how others see the necklace (or her) until she hands it to Nicholas as a reminder of his own strength. He never noticed the crack in the crystal, and he always thought it was a “firebird” rather than a swan because it reflects the light. His observation finally allows Sera to realize that “each time something ha[s] tried to break her, she [has] become something more” (277). When she begins to think of herself as a phoenix, “burning, dying, once, twice, a hundred times, only to […] rise out of the ashes” (277), she understands that the pendant is the final ingredient in the spell to restore her magic. She never realizes how much she has in common with the phoenix until Nicholas points it out to her.
The Adaptable Restoration Spell
The spell that adapts individual witches becomes a motif that emphasizes The Healing Power of Love and The Inaccuracy of Self-Perception. Sera must learn to see that she is worthy of love and that love itself is magical before she can figure out how to find the spell’s list of ingredients. As Luke tells her, “Rigid, literal thinking won’t cut it. These sorts of spells are like soft clay in the hands of the witch casting them” (122).
Sera fulfills the spell’s need for a “thorny heart” by choosing an artichoke from Matilda’s vegetable patch. Despite the woman’s lack of expertise, Matilda’s garden is successful because Sera lovingly tends it with her little bit of magic twice a week. Posy later points out that a hair from Clemmie’s tail will fulfill the spell’s requirement for a “strand of sunset.” The spell’s final ingredient, a “phoenix feather,” is satisfied only when Sera learns to appreciate her resilience and her ability to reinvent herself. When she stops thinking of herself as small and broken, she realizes that her swan pendant is like a phoenix feather. Thus, the adaptable spell requires objects that are meaningful to Sera, and love is what gives those objects their meaning.
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