Published in 2022, Claribel A. Ortega’s Witchlings is a middle grade fantasy novel and the first installment of the Witchlings series. Twelve-year-old Seven Salazar and her friends Thorn and Valley live in the magical town of Ravenskill. The trio are deemed Spares after not being sorted into any of the town’s powerful covens, and they must complete a perilous task to earn their places or face a fate worse than death. The novel was an instant New York Times bestseller and explores themes like The Power of Cooperation and Trust, Self-Discovery in the Face of Adversity, and Systems of Exclusion and Disenfranchisement. Ortega’s other works include the New York Times bestselling middle grade fantasy novel Ghost Squad (2020) and the graphic novel Frizzy (2022), which won the Pura Belpré Award and the Eisner Award. 

Citations in this study guide refer to the e-book edition released by Scholastic Press in 2022.

Content Warning: The source material contains depictions of domestic abuse and child abuse.

Plot Summary

Seven Salazar lives in the magical town of Ravenskill with her parents and her baby brother, Beefy. Every year, the Black Moon Ceremony sorts the 12-year-old witchlings of the Twelve Towns into covens, and three Spares are always left over. Seven hopes to be placed in House Hyacinth with her best friend, Poppy, but she, a new girl named Thorn, and a bully named Valley Pepperhorn are the Spares. Seven’s dissatisfaction with the sorting prevents the Spares from becoming witches during the ceremony, but if they remain witchlings, they’ll lose their magic. To give herself, Thorn, and Valley one last chance to become full-fledged witches, Seven invokes the Clause of the Impossible Task. The Gran who leads the town declares that Seven, Thorn, and Valley must slay a Nightbeast in three weeks. If they fail, they will be turned into toads like the last group of Spares who attempted an Impossible Task, the Cursed Toads of 1965.

Valley knows a great deal about monster hunting, and she proposes that they plant bait for the Nightbeast in the Cursed Forest. Seven doesn’t trust Valley and insists on doing things her way. Three days later, Beefy goes missing, and Seven and Thorn find the baby in the Cursed Forest. The next day, Valley proposes that the key to finding the Nightbeast will be tracking the hyena-like monsters called cucos that bring it food. Thorn reveals that her twin brother was taken by the Nightbeast, and Valley and Seven comfort her. When the Witchlings find cuco tracks, Thorn and Seven don’t feel ready to face the monsters, but Valley urges them to seize this opportunity. Valley and Seven argue over whose plan is better, and the cucos hear them. Once again, Seven doesn’t listen to Valley and sets all of the cucos on fire. With the three cucos dead or dying, the girls’ plan of following them to the Nightbeast is ruined.

The Town Gran and her second-in-command, the Town Uncle, bring the three injured Witchlings to the Gran’s home. The Gran gives Seven a ceramic bird called an ave that serves as an emergency beacon. She warns the girl that using the ave is dangerous for anyone less powerful than an Uncle. It will drain her power and may even kill her. The Gran praises Seven’s bravery and encourages her to let Thorn and Valley help her. Later that night, the Town Uncle goes missing, presumably taken by a cuco. 

The next morning, the Witchlings find the hibernating Nightbeast’s cave, but the monster eludes them after Seven casts a loud spell. Valley is furious because she warned her not to and demands to know why Seven still doesn’t trust her. Through angry tears, Seven reminds Valley that she bullied her for two years. On her way home, Seven runs into her former best friend. Poppy apologizes for ignoring Seven, but she says that they’re on different paths now.

Two days later, Valley apologizes to Seven and explains that what Seven thought were cruel pranks were actually failed attempts to befriend her. Valley also shares that her father once deprived her of food for two days but asks Seven not to tell anyone. The girls agree to cooperate from then on. Seven discovers that the towns are being attacked by cucos on the nights their councils are scheduled to vote on Amendment S, a bill that would expand Spares’ rights. The Ravenskill council is set to vote on the amendment that night.

The Witchlings leave a trail of bait from the Cursed Forest to Seven’s house to lure the cucos. A cuco sneaks into Beefy’s nursery, and the three Witchlings work together to cast the monster out of the window, killing it. The cucos attack a total of four families in Ravenskill that night, and they are all the families of council members. Seven suspects that the cucos are being controlled by someone who opposes Amendment S and wants to intimidate the council members.

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. At the meeting, a council member named Mr. Dimblewit blames the Spares for the cuco attacks and proposes that they be imprisoned and used for forced labor. The Witchlings’ aging spell wears off, and the Gran’s opponents call for her arrest because preventing the town’s Witchlings from using illegal spells is her responsibility. As the security guards take her away, Gran urges the three girls to work together. Seven and her parents confront Mr. Pepperhorn for mistreating Valley, but none of the town’s authorities remain to stop him, and he drags Valley away. 

The next day, Mr. Dimblewit 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. The Uncle appears, defends Seven and Thorn from Mr. Dimblewit, and takes them to the Gran’s home. He says that he was trapped in the Nightbeast’s lair for a week, and he promises to help them stop Mr. Dimblewit after he rescues the Gran from prison. 

Seven tells her mother that Mr. Pepperhorn is abusive to Valley, and Mrs. Salazar calls Mrs. Pepperhorn. Valley’s mother kicks her husband out of the house. Valley finds a book about the Nightbeast in her father’s library and discovers that the monster will emerge from its hibernation on the Witchlings’ last night to complete their Impossible Task. 

The Uncle kidnaps Thorn, and Seven and Valley follow them into the Cursed Forest. Fifty years ago, the Cursed Toads stole the identities of three towns’ Uncles. The Toads 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, but Seven discovers that she can talk to animals and persuades the monster to defy the Toads. The Witchlings defeat the three imposters, and the Gran turns them into toads. 

A few weeks later, the town of Ravenskill honors the three Witchlings, who are now a full-fledged coven. The Gran commends Seven, Thorn, and Valley for their courage, cooperation, and selflessness. She names Seven as Ravenskill’s next Town Uncle, the first lawfully appointed Spare to hold the position.