The Queen's Witch Ending Explained

If you finished The Queen's Witch and felt like the ending left you with a few questions, you're not alone. This page walks through what literally happens at the end, why it ends that way, and where each character lands, so you can sort out the closing chapters without guessing.

What Happens at the End of The Queen's Witch

At Salle on Samhain, Alysoun—formerly Elyn and Sarah—enters the Otherworld after summoning the Dark One and answering yes three times. In the transformed chapel she summons Anne Boleyn as her Third. Anne rises from the black slab but cannot be touched because an unseen barrier separates the living from the dead. Alysoun cannot summon Grandmother directly, since a mortal cannot wake the dead; only the dead can haunt the dead. She therefore bargains with Anne: if Anne wakes Frances Rowe and Joan, Alysoun will go to London and protect Princess Elizabeth with her powers. Anne calculates and nods. Grandmother appears solid and chained; Joan appears young, beautiful, and powerful. Joan throws a binding spell, which Alysoun counters, but their powers are equal.

Joan says the chains are not what hurt Grandmother. She opens a pool, freezes it into ice, and forces Alysoun to relive her malefic acts while Grandmother feels Alysoun's pleasure in causing pain: sickening Jane Boleyn, Elinor Sedlow, and Sister Beatrice; cursing Sister Joan's chamber; killing the abbey fowl; making the pact with Agnes and the Dark One; lusting after the Dark One; boiling the toad for Anne's charm that sent Mark Smeaton to his death; agreeing to kill Jane Seymour; murdering the soldier at Loveryk and the soldier at River Witham; and summoning the killing storm to save Roger. Alysoun realizes Joan and the Dark One used Agnes to arrange occasions, but the choices and joy were hers. Defeated, she collapses. Then a black, pungent Goddess mist appears and battles the Dark One; Joan cowers and Anne hides. Alysoun sees mortal reality as a pale reflection of their eternal struggle and the two as aspects of the same Being.

The battle ends abruptly. Joan now wears Grandmother's chains, Grandmother stands peaceful and fades smiling in farewell, and Joan is chained, silenced, and fades. Anne releases Alysoun from her promise, tells her not to go to Elizabeth and not to bring her daughter near 'all that,' then is drawn back into the black slab; Alysoun knows Anne will haunt Salle every May 19. Alysoun vows never to return to the church or summon her Third again, believing Grandmother is safe and she is free. She spends the rest of Samhain in the forest, wakes under an oak on All Saints' Day with Pipkin, and reflects that daughters should not know too much about their mothers. She weighs aiding Elizabeth, fearing Henry, and thinking of Roger and Cecily; the text does not name her choice, only that she makes a decision and begins walking.

The Ending, Explained

The ending resolves the quest by reversing its premise. Alysoun has pursued thrice-braided power to free Grandmother from Joan, and she repeatedly used malefic magic as justified by that goal. The ice visions reveal that this was the torment: Joan and the Dark One, using Agnes, arranged occasions, but Grandmother was forced to experience Alysoun's genuine joy in hurting and killing. Thus more malefic magic cannot save Grandmother; fighting Joan would repeat the cycle. The Goddess/Dark One battle removes Joan as tormentor without Alysoun winning a magical duel, and Grandmother's peaceful fading shows release rather than rescue. Alysoun's freedom is moral and ambiguous: she renounces returning to Salle and summoning her Third, but the boundary between malefic and beneficial magic remains thin.

Anne's bargain is the payoff of the Third/consent rule. Anne can wake the dead because she is dead and because she is Alysoun's Third; her consent is required, and she gives it only after Alysoun offers to protect Elizabeth. Anne's final release and warning not to go to Elizabeth close the mothers-and-daughters theme: Anne chooses to keep her daughter away from the magical world that destroyed her, just as the novel shows daughters cannot safely know too much about mothers. Alysoun's own mother Joan is chained, not redeemed; the ending does not claim healing for that line. Grandmother is safe, but Alysoun loses her as a presence, and her final walk is not a triumph.

The final scene explains why the book ends without a clear destination. Alysoun has been defined by a single task, and once Grandmother is safe she has no home or fixed identity: Tydd Saint Stephen holds only graves and a lost love, court is dangerous, and Roger and Cecily are uncertain. The unresolved choice among Elizabeth, Henry and revenge, and Roger and Cecily keeps the ending open while showing she is no longer driven by the old compulsion. The Goddess/Dark One vision also reframes witchcraft: the Sisterhood borrows a tiny part of a power that is neither simply good nor evil, and mortal institutions are built from fear of that power. Alysoun's vow against malefic magic is therefore a fragile resolution, not a guarantee.

Where Every Character Ends Up

Questions the Book Leaves Open

• What exactly Alysoun decides at the end—whether she goes to protect Princess Elizabeth, seeks Roger and Cecily, or pursues revenge on Henry—is not stated; she only begins walking.
• Whether Roger survives the Lincolnshire Rebellion and his plan to join Robert Aske in York, and whether Cecily and James reach Northumberland or remain safe, is left open.
• Whether Alysoun can keep her vow to renounce malefic magic, given her recognition that malefic and beneficial magic are two sides of the same blade, remains unresolved.
• The final nature and relationship of the Goddess and the Dark One are presented as a mystery beyond mortal understanding, not fully explained.
• Agnes Snayth's fate after Alysoun drags her from the burning cottage and uses her as an instrument of Joan's plan is not given in the closing chapter.
• Whether Anne Boleyn's haunting of Salle every May 19 has any further consequence is left as a closing image.