56 pages • 1 hour read
Root Magic
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 21-Author’s NoteChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary
On Thanksgiving, the twins help prepare dinner. They’re both thankful for their home.
They help bring food to people who need it. Doc and Janey reassure people who worry that Kennedy’s death means that life will be more difficult by promising they’ll all help each other. Jez notices that Jay is surprisingly quiet, and she asks what’s wrong. He asks her if she thinks she’s getting older more quickly than he is. He’s seen her help people, and he feels like he hasn’t. She tells him that they might experience different things but that it’s important that they stay close.
Soon after they eat, Jez feels her intuition kick in. Jay and Doc also feel it. They spread a mix of graveyard dirt and brick dust around the cabin and the house. They go inside to wait. They agree to handle it all together.
Then, the cabin explodes.
Chapter 22 Summary
Jay and Jez spot a police car, and they know it’s Deputy Collins. He laughs, and Janey goes into her room and emerges with a gun. She calls Doc by his legal name, John, telling him that she’ll do whatever she needs to in order to protect her family. Doc calms her down and has her put her apron on and the gun in the pocket. He says that he’ll handle it.
Deputy Collins says that he’s here for Doc. Putting his hand on his gun, he admits he used gasoline to blow up the cabin. He also says that Doc should’ve stepped in the trap he set. Doc steps up, knowing that Deputy Collins will burn their house down and go unpunished. When Doc goes outside, Deputy Collins points his gun at him, then throws Doc to the ground before starting to beat him. While he beats him, he says that Doc is stronger than Janey’s husband, whom he killed and threw in the ocean.
Jez runs out of the house. She hears a gunshot but goes toward the cabin, breaking the protective circle around it. She lays down and allows her spirit to be lifted out of her body. She cries out for help, gathering the wolf she helped earlier as well as some of its friends. When she returns to her body, she points at Deputy Collins.
The deputy comes at her with a gun. Rain pours down and Jez, terrified, thinks about the root bag she hid, begging for help. She knows the storm is not normal. Susie appears and attacks Deputy Collins. Then, the wolves attack him. They drag him off.
Jez runs over to Doc, who collapses. Susie carries Doc, and, with Jez’s arm on hers, she enters the house. Susie leaves, and they agree that they’re still friends. They clean Doc up.
Later, Jay and Jez talk about their father. Jay says the news that Deputy Collins killed him will be with him for a long time.
The next morning, the sheriff appears. Janey tells him that “justice” is what came for Deputy Collins (331). Then, the sheriff asks if it’s true that he has “got [himself] a family of witches within [his] jurisdiction” (332). Jez says yes, and Janey reminds her that they can’t tell anyone what happened.
Chapter 23 Summary
The final chapter opens by repeating that babies are typically passed over a coffin in Gullah culture. At the marsh, they hold a funeral for Daniel, even though his body is long gone. Many people still come to mourn with them. Dinah is back to normal, still moving around due to the power of Gran’s breath in the doll.
Jez notices that Janey looks calm and somewhat peaceful. Jez, Jay, Doc, and Janey all throw roses made of palmetto leaves into the water. Jez doesn’t feel alone anymore. Her family holds hands.
Author’s Note Summary
Royce explains that she wrote this novel because of her grandmother and great-aunt, both of whom were named Helen. Her great-aunt was a rootworker, but her grandmother told her to focus on school and getting a job. She adds that she wanted to show the worlds of the Gullah Geechee people, who are born into their traditions and then learned about the world outside of their culture.
Royce also explains that rootwork is not a religion but a practice. It is passed down in families. There are many variations of it. She emphasizes that rootworkers “are regular people who hold jobs, pay taxes, raise families, and are compensated for their knowledge and talents” (338-39).
This book is Royce’s way of remembering the Helens in her life and the sacrifices that they made.
Chapter 21-Author’s Note Analysis
The themes of Learning Rootwork and Gullah Traditions and Racism in the Jim Crow South come together in the novel’s climax. Rootwork ultimately triumphs over racism, as Jez uses it to defeat Deputy Collins. Royce builds tension during Deputy Collins’s visit to the house by showing that he has already gotten away with one major crime against the Turner family by murdering Daniel Turner. To some extent, this resolves the twins’ wondering about their father leaving them, but as Jay tells Jez, “I don’t know when I’m gonna feel better. I imagine it’s gonna hurt for a long time” (331). Deputy Collins also uses this knowledge to get Janey to act out so that he can arrest her if need be, but Doc calms her down just in time. This demonstrates the theme of Grappling With Grief, as the family has long wondered what happened to Daniel Turner, and now they know that he was murdered in a racially motivated crime by the very man who torments their family. Each family member grapples with grief differently, but they ultimately find peace in holding a funeral for Daniel.
Jez’s bravery during Deputy Collins’s siege of the house shows how confident she has become in her rootworking abilities. She knows that she possesses the power to save her family, something that she doubted earlier in the novel. She also uses the bonds that she has forged with other creatures—creatures that even other rootworkers in her family would have left for dead—to defeat the police officer. Working with Susie and the wolves suggests that, in the future, Jez will likely establish other connections with creatures that might chart a new path of her family’s rootworking. Jez demonstrates that there is power in comradery even when an ally comes from a different background. Additionally, Deputy Collins’s defeat at the hands of root magic is ironic because his entire goal in the novel was to destroy rootworking as a tradition. In this case, the practice triumphs over racism in the Jim Crow South. Furthermore, the “justice” that Jez enacts upon Deputy Collins shows how, despite Sheriff Edwards’s intention to get the deputy to stop, Black Americans ultimately have to be the ones to save themselves when systems fail them and their basic human and civil rights. Indeed, root magic offers a form of protective magic aided by ancestors, tradition, and love—the very opposites of blind hatred.
In ending the novel with another funeral, Royce shows that grief is still present in the Turners’ lives. They continue to mourn Gran, and now they also mourn Daniel. Yet, Jez has come to understand that “it didn’t matter that some of [the people who love her] might be gone for now. I was here, and I would remember them, always” (335). She still has her mother, Doc, and Jay, and they stand together, feeling the grief and grappling with it together. They are grounded in their Gullah heritage and in their practice of rootwork since it is a part of their identities and everyday lives.
At the end of the novel, Royce is also careful to leave some elements of the plot unresolved, which emphasizes that systemic racism is ongoing, and elements of root magic are still mysteries. While Deputy Collins is gone, the 1960s in the US is a tumultuous time for civil rights and racial equality; undoubtedly, Jez will still be teased by other students in her school who look down upon rootworking. Additionally, the magical forces present in the marsh, as well as creatures like boo-hags and haints, still exist, and Jez and her family will continue to use their practice of rootwork to protect one another and to help their community. Further, Royce uses this story as a tribute to real-life rootworkers in her own family.
Unlock all 56 pages of this Study Guide
Plus, gain access to 9,150+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: