This week we are discussing Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson, Chapters 12- 22.
Spoiler Warning!!! This post contains spoilers for Year of the Witching.
Trigger Warning!!! Child Sexual Assault
Discussion:
Jacilyn: Hello readers! Welcome to our second discussion of The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson. This week, we’ll be talking about chapters 11-22. Listen. Shit just continues to be intense in this book, and I love it. Ezra and Immanuelle are developing an alliance, but also a friendship. Ezra agrees to get Immanuelle into the library at the Haven, which is technically off limits to women, and I gotta say, they don’t seem to be doing a great job of being inconspicuous. I expected Ezra to have to smuggle Immanuelle under cover of darkness, not the two of them walking through the Haven in broad daylight.
Michaela: I was very concerned about how nonchalant he was about walking Immanuelle through the Haven. Every second of that scene I was like ‘walk faster!’ ‘be quite’ ‘oh my god its a freaking person right there’. Like my god Ezra, giving me palpitations. Ezra’s mother Esther, seemed really nice at first but then also a little sinister, not entirely sure what that is about, I’m assuming she was friends with Miriam since they would have been young brides at the same time. Their excuse of Immanuelle being there to see Leah was very weak, in my opinion, I feel it can’t possibly be normal for someone, particularly a woman, to come visit a Prophet’s wife in the Haven of all places. Also, speaking of Esther, her bruise…not even kind of surprised that the Prophet is physically abusive.
Jacilyn: Esther is a really interesting character. It is implied that she is a foreigner.. Her voice is “graced by a faint accent Immanuelle had never heard on the tongue of any Bethelan native” which is peculiar, since foreigners are not allowed in Bethel. From what I can tell, the last foreigners allowed in were those on the Outskirts. When speaking to his father, Ezra refers to the bruise as his mother’s “bruising affliction,” but the way he says it implies that he knows it’s not exactly a condition. Esther smiles when she sees Immanuelle, and again when she realizes she is Miriam’s daughter, but I wonder if that smile is one of affection or one more sinister. I think it’s clear that she doesn’t believe that Immanuelle is there to see Leah, and I think her sharpness towards Ezra at the end of their conversation might be due to wanting to protect Ezra from the Prophet’s “troubles.”
Michaela: I wondered if Esther might have been brought in from outside Bethel. The Prophet and his apostles have left Bethel but only very, very rarely so I wonder if maybe he found her out in the “heathen cities” somewhere and drew her into the cult that is Bethel. Technically the Outskirts are still Bethel so that’s why I figured Esther wasn’t from there. I think Esther along with some other characters like Martha loved Miriam very much but are very hurt by what she did and are still grieving her. Abram is another character that is still very much grieving though he doesn’t really show it until that private moment with Immanuelle, and it really touched my heart when he said “what wouldn’t I do...for you”. I expected Abram to be stone-hearted, and though he might be at times, his love for Miriam was clearly immense and so is his love for Immanuelle but living in a patriarchal society he doesn’t express it all the time. He was even making a doll house for Honor’s birthday, it’s just heartbreakingly beautiful to me. The people of Bethel need to be freed from the church of the Father so badly.
Jacilyn: Speaking of the cult aspects, there was a quote from this section that helped solidify my thoughts that this is a cult. “The Prophet’s Haven was the oldest building in all of Bethel, built in the Dark Days before their faith had scriptures or proper doctrine.”...... this furthers my idea of Bethel basically being a cult compound that has managed to last for hundreds of years. Their faith is one that has been created by man, by twisting and manipulating the tenants of many of the religions that we’re familiar with today.
In the library, Immanuelle basically confirms her suspicions that she was the catalyst for the curse of blood, and who arrives but the Prophet himself. Immanuelle witnesses a really tense interaction between Ezra and the Prophet, where the Prophet not only demands the census records for all the women in Bethel (talk about a literal witch hunt), but also calls Ezra out for his affair with Judith. You kind of get the feeling that the Prophet has eyes everywhere. I gained so much respect for Ezra in the way that he stands strong and firm in front of his father, almost openly defying him. And speaking of defying him, Ezra seems to really enjoy dancing the line between propriety and blasphemy. It’s clear that he doesn’t fully believe in the propaganda that he’s been fed his whole life.
Michaela: Even from the summary of the book my cult senses were tickling. The definition of cult is “a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object”, so simple and fits Bethel perfectly whether we’re talking about the people devoting themselves to the Prophet or the Father of Light and also their book of scriptures. 100% cult, no doubt in my mind.
Ezra definitely does not believe in any of the Bethel propaganda. He might believe in the Father of Light but he does not view him in the awe inspiring way the others of Bethel are taught to. I was very proud of Ezra for standing up for his mother and himself, I knew there was no way there wasn’t going to be tension or hatred between them. The entire concept of the son taking over from the father is almost guaranteed to cause problems in a home or Haven or even kingdom, we’ve seen it so many times in history of fathers, uncles, sons, grandsons, etc killing each other to gain power. Immanuelle even references times in the history of Bethel that that had happened. I love hearing about the history of Bethel and I want more from the witch’s points of view. Clearly everything in their history books is not going to be true, sound a little familiar to our society in the US? And then the vision Immanuelle has in the pond in the Darkwood just confirms my suspicions that David Ford was acting vengeful towards the witch’s and women in general and not for the safety of Bethel.
I don’t know that the Prophet knew about Ezra and Judith for very long, he might have suspected it but I don’t think he fully confirmed his beliefs until he found the dagger under Judith’s pillow. But he was clearly searching for something. I think Judith must have had feelings for Ezra or perhaps she just really enjoys her sexual freedom, both are understandable. But Ezra did not catch feelings, then rejected her, and I think that affected Judith badly making her a little less careful than she probably used to be which brought on her contrition punishment (something else totally messed up in this place and no one really knows what happens during it).
Jacilyn: In one of the books Immanuelle finds in the library, it mentions that David Ford, the first Prophet, executed witches in the pond by drowning. That makes me wonder if Delilah was drowned, and how she became the witch of the water. We kind of see this same thinking earlier in the chapter, when we find out that Lilith’s headless body was displayed on Haven’s gate, and was crowned with the deer skull by orders of David Fort. This lends credence to our thought that the Unholy Four appear deformed and twisted due to their “death” at the hands of the Prophet and his crusaders. Ezra even believes that the curse isn’t so much a curse, but a punishment for crimes Bethel has committed.
The information Immanuelle finds out about the Darkwood and the power of the pond is interesting, because it confirms that her blood is what prompted the curse, but it specifically says that the Darkwood demands a prayer when an offering is made, and I can’t think of Immanuelle or Lilith saying anything of the sort. Do you remember something like that? Immanuelle also finds that “those who made blood offerings to the Mother in this unholy place were often rewarded with dark power,” which is interesting to me because I’ve continued to notice instances of the wind picking up, often during times of Immanuelle feeling something strongly. My prediction is that the wind is her power, and why she continues to hear the Darkwoods speaking to her on the winds through the trees.
I agree that the Prophet didn’t know about Judith and Ezra the whole time. I think Judith held onto her relationship with Ezra so tightly as a form of coping with what I’m sure is a traumatic marriage with the Prophet. Ezra mentions that it wasn’t love for either of them later on. It is very clear that Judith is jealous of Immanuelle, though. Immanuelle may not notice it, but everyone else and their mother (literally) seems to notice the attention he gives her. I got chills when Judith is led away after confronting Immanuelle in the Haven…. I have a lot of questions about what exactly contrition entails.
Michaela: Ezra isn’t the only one who thinks that the blood and the blight are punishments and not a curse, Adrine, the girl Immanelle meets in the Outskirts thinks the same thing. I’m sure more people in the Outskirts think similarly as well and that seems like confirmation to Ezra’s theory to me.
My theory is that perhaps Lilith was making a silent prayer (or one that Immanuelle did not understand), Immanuelle has said a few times that the Darkwood calls to her on the wind and that it seems to be speaking her name. I think it’s possible that the witches don’t have to speak aloud or in English to say a prayer, the nature sounds in that moment could have been Lilith’s prayer. Also Lilith definitely triggered Immanuelle’s first menstruation, there’s no way that was just some coincidence and Immanuelle couldn’t just make it happen either. So basically my theory about the beginning of the plague is that Lilith, perhaps had been waiting for Immanuelle to come to the Darkwood for a long time, finds Immanuelle at the sacrifice pond and uses Immanuelle’s ‘first bleed’ as a sacrifice to trigger the punishment upon Bethel. Which fits in with my thoughts from our last discussion that Immanuelle isn’t a curse on Bethel but hope for the witches. I can totally see Immanuelle’s dark power being the wind, I was noticing that kept happening too. It’s too coincidental for me for it not to be something significant and of course ‘dark power’ is a relative term because it’s written from the view of a Father of Light follower so dark=bad, when really the Darkness of the Mother is viewed as protective to those who follow her. It’s fascinating to see the parallels and opposites of the Father of Light followers of Bethel and the Dark Mother followers in the Outskirts.
Ezra has for sure caught feelings for Immanuelle. I really think Immanuelle struggles to see Ezra having true feelings for her and just just friendship feelings because her entire life she’s been shoved to the side, bullied, and even told by her own family that she might never get married because of her mother and because she is different. Immanuelle has been taught to think she is unimportant and irrelevant intentionally by society and unintentionally by her family. Then her entire life she has thought that her father’s family abandoned her and didn’t want anything to do with her but really many of them have passed and her grandmother, Vera, left for her own safety. Speaking of Vera leaving, the fact that the Church publicly took credit for exiling Vera even though she had left way before they did so….just of course they were lying. what aren’t they lying about? I really hope we meet Vera not only for Immanuelle to meet her father’s family but also so that we as readers can encounter a human practicing witch, not one of the Unholy Four.
Jacilyn: It’s interesting to me that in spite of Immanuelle’s attraction to the Darkwoods and her tendency towards “blasphemous” actions, she still seems to truly believe in the church’s teachings, which Ezra even points out… “spoken like a true believer.” She seems to be simultaneously afraid of the witches and drawn to them. But it seems like Ezra is drawn to the woods as well. He says he played there as a child, and basically forces Immanuelle to let him join her when she enters the Darkwoods in her attempt to undo the blood curse.
When Immanuelle is pulled into the pond by Delilah, she sees the shapes of women and girls, and it’s pretty clear that these figures are those who have faced the persecution of David Ford and maybe even Prophets after him. At first I assumed that all of those people were drowned, but then Immanuelle sees the shapes burn as well, which alludes to being burned on the pyre. Like Immanuelle says, “They were victims, innocents slaughtered by the likes of David Ford under the guise of a holy purging.”
Ezra’s seizure and first vision interested me. He looks at Immanuelle with horror as she comes out of the pond, and I’m wondering if that’s because his vision showed her as a witch, or because his vision shows her burning as a witch. Or, perhaps both. It seems like he recognizes her eventually, but only after attempting to strangle her. By the time Immanuelle gets them out of the forest, she can’t feel Ezra’s heartbeat. For a second I actually thought that he was going to die, but I was like there’s no way that can happen yet. In the end, he ends up “fine,” as in alive, but it’s obvious that the experience was extremely traumatic for him. He could have ratted her out then, but he keeps her secret, clearly because he knows that she will be persecuted based on her ancestry. He even, finally, admits that he has feelings for her, but without saying those words. “You know why” he says, when she asks him why he destroyed her census record, therefore destroying the documentation of her father’s side of the family’s connection to witchcraft. And it broke my heart a bit, because at the end of this interaction, they both seem to feel like it was goodbye.
Michaela: I’m very interested in Ezra playing in the woods as a child and why nothing ever happened to him, especially since so many other children tend to go missing in the woods and never come back. Even now in the woods nothing happened to him until he tried to interrupt what the witches wanted Immanelle to see in the pond. I wonder if the witch’s sensed a certain type of spirit or personality in Ezra and therefore left him alone as a child because they knew he could bring good things for them with Immanuelle.
I thought that maybe Ezra wasn’t even seeing Immanuelle in his vision but someone else because when he finally came too a little bit he let go of her “in horror” of strangling her. He definitely saw something happen to Immanuelle but I think him strangling her might have been meant to be someone else. Even when Immanuelle goes to see him later he isn’t afraid of her or wanting to hurt her like he did when he was having his vision. Also, his vision was so so violent, I was not prepared for that. I had kind of thought that the Visions the Prophet’s had would be these little baby visions of potential things that could happen but really it’s just a well educated prediction. Boy was I startled to read what their visions are actually like and I was so scared for Ezra. I didn’t know if he was going to hurt himself or hurt Immauelle even more. Then she couldn’t feel his heartbeat and I just would not accept that he would die so early in the book. I’m glad he didn’t die but I agree that he is traumatized by what happened and what he saw happen to Immanuelle both in the wood and in his vision, and also whatever else he saw that he isn’t talking about.
I think Ezra saying but not really saying he loves Immanuelle was to protecting both of them because it would have made the goodbye so much harder to accept. I think whatever Ezra saw happen to Immanuelle, he thinks he can stop it by distancing himself from her. Which most likely is not going to work at all. Also, I think him putting Immanuelle in the spotlight, by saying she saved him, might come back to haunt them in some way eventually. People like the Prophet and Patience don’t seem to really believe it and I’m sure there are others as well.
Jacilyn: Yeah, his vision was incredibly violent. I wonder if all of the Prophet’s visions are like that or not. It’s clear that the Prophet is going to die soon, and Ezra will take lead, and that’s the last thing he wants to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ezra has some sort of connection to the Darkwood and the witches via his mother. Ezra and Immanuelle really do seem to be kindred souls, and the easy way that they interact with each other is honestly so charming and I just want them to be able to find happiness in each other.
We have to talk about Leah and the Prophet. When she confided to Immanuelle that the Prophet has been raping her since she was 13, I felt so incredibly disgusted and heartbroken for both Leah and Immanuelle. Immanuelle’s compassion for others and her determination to help others no matter the personal cost is really incredible. I could feel her heart breaking, along with Leah’s, as they had this conversation. And of course Ezra was ready to go and confront his father immediately once Immanuelle told him about his father’s “compulsions” as she calls them. I got chills when Immanuelle says “Promise me you’ll right the wrongs of the past.” Ezra promises.
I find it interesting that Immanuelle starts to become more interested in her father’s side of the family after learning of her heritage from Ezra. She seems to try to deny it in her own mind, but she’s obviously incredibly drawn to anything to do with the Darkwood and the Mother. She says the Darkwoods are a part of her, but she still seems to believe in the teachings of the Father. It’s such an interesting juxtaposition between those two things.
You mentioned earlier that Abram truly loved Miriam and truly loves Immanuelle, and I think that becomes very clear when Immanuelle asks him for help and permission, really, to visit the Outskirts and learn of her family. I knew it would only be a matter of time, because as we discussed last week, there are clearly connections between the Outskirts and the Darkwoods/Mother. For one, the blight doesn’t seem to have affected them at all, which almost makes me worry that the Prophet might start persecuting them for witchcraft.
Michaela: I think Immanuelle and Ezra could actually be happy together away from Bethel. Even at their young age they connect so deeply and I think that has to do with both of them having to grow up really quickly to care and protect those around them.
Leah’s confession of her past with the Prophet was so distressing, sad, disgusting, just so many emotions went through my head. Leah is the sweetest person in this entire town and she does not deserve the life that has been forced on her, especially in the name of religion. Its just horrible and clearly pedophilia is not tolerated even in Bethel because Ezra’s reaction was also disgust, anger, and surprise. Leah was obviously groomed by the Prophet and so is only now realizing it was not an okay thing to have been done to her. And Leah was so afraid to tell Immanuelle not because she thought she would be rejected by her best friend but because she knew Immanuelle would take on Leah’s burden with her because of their love for one another. It’s beautiful and sad all at once. Then Ezra’s promises were another moment of beautiful sadness.
I think Immanuelle telling the priest that she was finally ready to learn about her father’s family was more true than she realized. She is so ingrained into the cult that she couldn’t even fathom not believing in the Church and what it teaches, that includes that the people in the Outskirts are ‘sinful creatures’. Now with her own experiences in the woods, her conversations with Ezra, and everything else that has been happening she is finally starting to struggle against her belief in the Church of the Father of Light. Even though she is mostly doing it subconsciously, she is starting to feel doubt towards the Father of Light and the pull towards the Mother of Darkness. I think this book is representing religious control and the process of discovering and losing your religion so, so accurately. Some of the things Immanuelle says to herself to convince herself back into the religion has reminded me of my own thought processes when I was struggling with what I believed in. It’s very relatable and just makes me want to give Immanuelle a hug because it is such a hard thing to go through, especially when you’re doing it all alone. Ezra also seems to be going through the same journey with what he believes in and I hope that they continue to help each other with it, even if they don’t realize it's happening.
Immanuelle has definitely reached the point of her self discovering journey where she needs to know where she came from on her father’s side. I think she really wants confirmation that she isn’t evil and that witchcraft isn’t as evil as she has been taught, she needs that reassurance to figure out what to do next with everything she is going through. I think the Outskirts aren’t being affected because they pray to the Mother and my theory is that the blood plague and the blight and whatever else is to come is the Mother punishing Bethel. Just like Ezra and Adine believe. As far as the witches and the Mother are concerned the people of the Outskirts are being completely respectable towards the Darkwood and those who dwell in it. Which the priest describes the Darkwood as being the Mother’s body and that was so interesting to me and it totally made sense, especially since the Darkwood seemed to be flourishing under the blood plague. I agree that the Prophet might start punishing the people in the Outskirts because of their lack of blight. However, the Outskirts were definitely affected by the blood plague. We saw that when Immanuelle and Martha road through there to get to the Sabbath and a woman ran up to them and begged for some water. So that kind of confuses the theory that the Mother is protecting the Outskirts.
Jacilyn: So, I actually have a prediction. Ezra tells Immanuelle that he has always wanted to travel outside of Bethel. Immanuelle learns from the priest in the Outskirts that Vera is in one of the cities outside of Bethel. I am wondering if Ezra will perhaps decide to abandon his post as Prophet and smuggle Immanuelle outside of Bethel to go find Vera. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that by the end of the book, Immanuelle will be on her way to Ishmel to meet her grandmother.
I wondered the same thing about how the blood curse affected the Outskirts, but the blight hasn’t. I’ll be interested to see what happens in the Outskirts when the other curses arrive, as I’m sure they will. The Outskirts practice the same religion as the flock, but their interpretation seems to be different. They have a respect for the Mother and the woods, but they also recognize that the Darkwoods hold power and aren’t necessarily safe. I loved that the priest said of Vera “that woman knew how to bleed for what she wanted, and she always had a way with the woods. I’m sure the wilds were kind to her.” It reminds me of both Immanuelle and Miriam. The symbols that Immanuelle finds on the foundation stones of the Moore house were interesting also. Adrine said that the symbols are a part of their language, and don’t have any power on their own. It’s the intention behind them that matters, much like the offerings at the pond. The offering is nothing without the prayer, the plead, and the symbols are nothing without the intention.
Adrine also compares the curses to the purging that Prophets and the flock have done. “When your people purge, you do great harm, but you see the violence and the fire as a cure for sins that are far worse. Maybe this sickness is much the same. Maybe it’s a kind of purging, meant to root out a deeper evil.” Really, it’s all about perspective here. Each group believes that they are in the right, and that the other is the true source of evil. It seems to me like the people in the Outskirts almost find a balance between the two, the Father and the Mother.
The moment Immanuelle found the stepping stones, I had guessed that they led to the cabin in the woods that her mother spent the winter in. Once she saw the oak trees, I knew for sure. We haven’t seen much of the witches yet, and definitely not in the way that Miriam saw them, so I’m hoping that we now get to see Immanuelle interact with them in a different way. They still seem to be such mysterious players in all of this, and I’m dying to get to know them more.
Michaela: I totally agree with that theory. The second the priest said someone would have to smuggle her out I knew it would have to be Ezra. That’s just how they are together even if they think they have said goodbye, I don’t think Ezra will want her to go without him.
The symbols were truly fascinating to me (I love a good symbol). The magic in this world definitely seems to need intention behind curses, prayers, symbols, etc for them to come to be. Which adds to me not thinking Immanuelle started the plague even by accident, she never intended to sacrifice anything nor did she have an intent to punish Bethel. I loved Adrine’s parallel between the ‘curse’ and then the purges the Church has done in the past because she is totally speaking truths. I completely agree with you that is all about perspective and balance.
I’m really looking forward to having more interaction with the witches and I also kind of hope that Immanuelle gets to see a vision or a ghost of her mother so that she can meet and understand her even more than just what was in her journal. I think that the witches might end up being really sweet in some ways to Immanuelle because of Miriam. I just really want to see a side of the witches that isn’t a confusing scary encounter and not something that the Church has altered to teach people.
There was so much to unpack in these 11 chapters that I’m sure we missed something. It felt like it was just one thing after another being thrown at us and I am so here for it. I’m very excited to keep reading and see who or what we encounter next! Let us know what you all thought of all the things that have happened so far.
What did you think of Ezra’s sneaking Immanuelle into the Haven? Did you get as creeped out by the Prophet and his activities as we did? How about that vision! Let us know in the comments below!