Ellie's Pentacle Necklace

When Ellie visits Miranda in her office and first offers Miranda the healing herbal bath mixture, Miranda notices the five-pointed star around her neck that symbolizes Ellie's devotion to occult religious practice like Wicca. Within modern pagan religions, the pentacle is a common symbol often denoting the basic elemental states like air, fire, water, earth and spirit, and is borrowed from a widely-used Tarot card system. Ellie believes herself to be responsible for Briana's illness, just as she assumes that her healing bath salts have been a factor in Miranda's improved condition, reflecting Ellie's confidence in her power to cast spells and wield potions. One of the novel's many references to occult spirituality, Ellie's necklace marks her as a down-to-earth practitioner of the magic arts in a way that contrast with the comic, phantasmagoric depictions of the other important witch figures, the three drunken...