Chapters 17-21

Nestled within the final chapters of Benjamiah and Elizabella’s adventures in Wreathenwold have been a joyous experience that fills me with warmth. I have so much love for this story and the greater things it teaches, such as the beauty of promises, the magic of home and the power of love. I was taken to another world alongside the main character Benjamiah, where we left behind the one we knew most to wander the ever twisting landscape of Wreathenwold. I met beloved and dark characters and creatures that each come with their own unique traits that add to the richness of the story. The final character to meet was the legendary Minotaur, who is said to rule all of Wreathenwold and controls the labrythine nature of each village and neighbourhood. Upon entering The Shrouded Palace, the children found a grand library where the fiend Minotaur was napping by a crackling fireplace. He turned out to be an isolated and lonely man. He was not what the children expected to be like, especially after reading the legends and historical accounts of his beastly darkness and hunger for children. Though it was a refreshing moment knowing that the retrieval of Edwid’s fourth whisperwick, which was attached directly above the Minotaur on the ceiling, would be a more relaxed venture instead of having to battle the Minotaur for the lantern. After Benjamiah accidentally fell to the bottom of the library and woke up the sleeping Minotaur, the two had a very insightful conversation, that equally revealed more truths and more questions. The monstrous Minotaur was only a child’s fable, to keep anybody from thinking of visiting the palace. He was one of the last magi, hiding away from the world and harbouring a deadly secret.

I have learned about many of the customs and ways the people of Wreathenwold live and interact with one another and the power they give to different things. Secrets are one of them and they can be used to kill. When Benjamiah and Elizabella leave the Minotaur in his library and open Edwid’s whisperwick in another room, they recover his whispered words and combine them with the other messages to complete the poem he wrote. Though, the children soon realize Edwid’s messages he locked away in the whisperwicks were much more than a poem, they were a cursed secret that Edwid fought to protect. Now that the children knew the secret, their bodies succumbed to pain and sickness, with the secret slowly taking hold of them. During these scenes, the truth about Manfred Tarr also illuminates from the shadows quite literally. As the children are riving in pain on the ground, Manfred appears out of nowhere to them. He knew their every move and path from the beginning and it was clear that he was a bigger part of their story than they originally thought. Manfred is one of the last remaining magi, along with the Minotaur. He is also the creeping voice that first appeared to Edwid in the crack of his bedroom wall. He now managed to take his original form, rather than a whispering entity trapped within the undersides and walls of Wreathenwold. Through piecing together their knowledge and legends of the magi, the children learned that Manfred was in love with a dollcaster, who the magi do not associate with. Her name by legend was the Widow and she became a dark and powerful dollcaster, using her craft to cause grief and havoc upon Wreathenwold. Together, Manfred and the Widow ruled Wreathenwold after destroying all eleven magi, except for the Minotaur, who was only a child then. The Minotaur then grew stronger in his magic and used it to kill the Widow and trap Manfred in the outer realm and walls of their world. He was looking for a way out and the secret location where the Minotaur kept the Widow’s body. Manfred tells the children her body may be dead, but her soul is still alive and he can bring her back. That is why he needed Edwid, to receive the cursed secret that had travelled from the Minotaur’s words to Olfred Wicker’s.

The whole concept of the whisperwick lanterns crafted to keep secrets is very seamlessly told throughout the story. Edwid had hidden four of them, but that meant he had been ill during that time, for the sickness of the secret had already been in him. The biggest reveal in the story was that Edwid had passed away from the sickness. Even though he transferred the words of the secret into whisperwicks, which would have healed him and then hid them in dangerous places to ensure they were safe, the pain the secret caused him had already been too much on him. After Benjamiah and Elizabella told Manfred the secret of where the Widow’s body rests, their bodies were healed. They then shared in one of the most gripping moments of the story, where Elizabella finds Edwid’s soulbloom that Manfred had given to the children in exchange for the secret. This whole time, Benjamiah and Edwid were looking for Edwid’s lost soulbloom and Elizabella knew. The feeling of being lost is a common theme in Wreathenwold, in more ways than one. Many individuals and especially children cannot find their way back home because the world they live in was built into a labyrinth and it can’t be mapped by law. Benjamiah is lost in a world that doesn’t belong to him, or so he thinks… more on that later. And Edwid’s soulbloom may have been lost from Elizabella and her father Hansel, but Elizabella was the one who was most lost in her grief for the loss of her brother. Benjamiah was the friend she needed to help her through this journey of grief across Wreathenwold and searching for Edwid’s soulbloom.

Soulblooms are another element of the book that makes this story so special. They are the flowers of Wreathenwolder’s souls that blossom after they pass. Each flower is unique to the individual and is a testament to their character and personality. Edwid’s soulbloom was the same blue colour of his and Elizabella’s dolls, paying homage to their bond and how they are twins. They bring the flower home with them to Hansel and Benjamiah keeps the promise he made to Hansel at the beginning in returning both Edwid and Elizabella safely back to their father. Edwid was finally home. The only thing now still left unanswered was Nuisance’s story and how he came to Benjamiah. Their connection was strong, as if Benjamiah had been born a dollcaster. While I was reading and the story was coming to a gentle close, I knew two things were for sure about Nuisance: One is that Hansel knows where the doll comes from and two, it could be connected to Benjamiah’s mother. I thought of the mother being the connection because Benjamiah always talks about her being a scientist and how he is more like her than his father when it comes to magic or books. Though after his adventures with Elizabella, he learns that he is much more like his mother than he actually knew and has her magic in him. Hansel reveals how Benjamiah’s world and Wreathenwold all fits together and Benjamiah’s connection to Nuisance. He tells the child that he knows Nuisance and her original name is Cosma. Nuisance is actually a she and belongs to Benjamiah’s mother, whose original name is Eyla. She is a Wreathenwolder and Hansel’s childhood best friend. His family took her in after she became a lost child and they grew up together and lived in a bookshop. Eyla found the door to the other world that was different from Wreathenwold when Hansel’s family bookshop caught fire and she went through it. Hansel believes that it was the power of promises that brought Cosma, Elya’s doll, to Benjamiah. They promised each other when they were children that they would do anything for one another and this promise lived in Cosma. It gave Cosma the power to go through the same door Eyla went through and find Benjamiah, bringing him to Hansel and Elizabella to help bring Edwid home and heal their family.

Benjamiah returns home and Hansel keeps his promise in getting him back home. But the story of Wreathenwold and Benjamiah’s adventures in it does not end here. There is a second book in this series that I already have waiting for me to pick up in my shelf. This story has become one of my favourites and I loved the characters, the world and the illustrations. The thing I love most about the story is that it shows how magic comes in many different ways. I would like to end on a note about a certain type of magic the book characterizes perfectly. It is “a most formidable, wonderful magic, one that protects and warms and nourishes us all. They call this magic “home.”” (Lees 365). I look forward to entering this world again soon and uncovering the mysteries of Wreathenwold.