Characters Hemlock and Hedge Ruby Loren

Hazel Salem (Hazel Hedge): A Deep Dive into the Sceptic Who Became a Witch

Overview

Hazel Salem enters the story of Hemlock and Hedge as a reluctant inheritor of an apothecary, a failed writer, and a committed sceptic in a town where superstition is currency. She has spent her adult life away from Wormwood, chasing a writing career that never materialised, and returns only because her mother’s will compels her to keep the family shop open. Early chapters establish Hazel as someone who views the coven’s beliefs as folklore, not reality, and who feels guilt for not being present during her mother’s final years. That guilt drives her to accept a series of unusual conditions—pursuing witchcraft studies and joining the coven—without fully weighing the consequences. By the end of the examined chapters, Hazel has uncovered a decades-old poisoning, inherited a piece of blackmail, formed a magical bond with a talking cat, and accidentally launched the town’s first local-interest magazine. Her character embodies the tension between rational detachment and the pull of a community that refuses to be explained away.

Plot Role

Hazel functions as a reluctant detective and the reader’s sceptical lens into Wormwood’s magical underworld. After discovering a hidden envelope containing a map, a Lovers tarot card, a lemon‑cake recipe laced with wormwood, and a cryptic note hinting at her father’s identity, she sets out to investigate a 27‑year‑old baking competition. Her cover story—researching an article for a magazine called Tales from Wormwood—lets her interview the participants while probing the old mayor’s poisoning. Along the way, she inadvertently confronts Olivia Ghoul, uncovers the secret of Natalia’s paternity, and forces the truth about the “love spell” that went wrong. Hazel’s investigation also catalyses her reluctant entry into witchhood: when she attends the coven meeting and is nearly cursed, the kitten Aziraphale saves her, and the familiar bond snaps into place. This thread transforms Hazel from an outsider critic into an active participant, however unwilling, in Wormwood’s magical fabric. By the end, she has published the first issue of the magazine with the lemon‑cake recipe minus its dangerous ingredient, a move that signals she has inherited not just the shop but also the town’s quiet system of blackmail and accommodation.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Hazel’s decisions consistently reveal a character driven by guilt, curiosity, and a stubborn refusal to be either a victim or a cliché. She signs her mother’s onerous conditions out of remorse for her own absence, yet she immediately looks for a way to turn the unprofitable apothecary into something viable—adding a tea corner and blending her own herbal teas. When the envelope surfaces, she does not dismiss it as sentimental clutter; instead she methodically researches the newspaper archives, links the recipe to wormwood’s pharmacological effects, and later researches its folk symbolism. This mix of practical financial thinking and investigative thoroughness defines her.

Her scepticism is a defining trait, but it never hardens into arrogance. She frequently catches herself judging Wormwood’s residents for their beliefs, then checks that impulse. For example, after a tarot reading she berates herself for “picking holes in the town” and wonders why she is surprised the townspeople return the favour. That reflexive self‑awareness sets her apart from a purely cynical protagonist. She also shows a dry, self‑deprecating wit—musing that she is a “crazy cat lady already” when one of the kittens won’t leave her alone, or joking that the kitten’s yowl is “my thoughts exactly.” These moments keep her grounded even as the absurd piles up.

Hazel’s moral centre is tested most sharply around the issue of blackmail. She recognises that her mother used the secret of Olivia’s cake to retain power, and she knows that revealing Natalia’s paternity would shake the town. Initially, she considers telling Natalia out of empathy for the burden of not knowing one’s father. But after being attacked at the coven meeting, she withholds the truth and instead publishes the lemon cake recipe—a veiled message that lets Olivia know the arrangement continues. The text does not frame this as heroic; it is a messy, pragmatic choice that mirrors the “compound silence” theme. Hazel is not a crusader for transparency. She is someone who understands that information is power and will use it when cornered, even as she feels uneasy about it.

Chronological Arc

Hazel’s arc unfolds in four distinct stages:

  1. Return and Guilt (Chapters 1‑4) – She moves back to Wormwood, struggles with the apothecary’s accounts, and begins the tea‑shop experiment.
  2. Discovery and Investigation (Chapters 4‑6) – Finding the envelope launches her into a series of interviews and deductions. She visits the ex‑mayor, Annabelle Dukes, and Olivia Ghoul, building the puzzle piece by piece.
  3. Confrontation and Cataclysm (Chapters 6‑7) – Her visit to Olivia’s house spills the tarot cards and the secret. She decides to attend the coven meeting, where the attempted curse is broken by Aziraphale, now revealed as her familiar Hemlock. This is the moment her scepticism cracks and the magical world becomes undeniable.
  4. Self‑Reinvention (Chapters 8) – Instead of retreating, Hazel doubles down on the magazine. She publishes the recipe, secures Tristan’s advertising, and begins to receive customers at the apothecary. The final image of her with two cats, planning the October issue, shows a woman who has stopped blaming Wormwood for her stalled life and started building something of her own.

Relationships

  • Mother (Rosemary Salem) – A posthumous manipulator who left a trail of breadcrumbs that entangled Hazel in blackmail. Hazel’s feelings are a tangle of guilt, resentment, and reluctant admiration.
  • Olivia Ghoul – An adversary on two fronts: Olivia holds the secret of the cake, and Hazel one‑ups her by deducing Natalia’s paternity. Their relationship becomes a tense stalemate.
  • Natalia Ghoul – The school‑days bully becomes an unknowing rival. Hazel holds the key to Natalia’s identity but chooses silence, mirroring the previous generation’s secrecy.
  • Richard and Gareth Starbright – The ex‑mayor is indirectly Hazel’s possible father; Gareth, his son, looms as a romantic near‑miss had the truth been different. These connections underscore the small‑town intimacy of the drama.
  • Hemlock (formerly Aziraphale) – The sharp‑tongued familiar who mocks, saves, and ultimately anchors Hazel in the magical world. Their bickering adds comic relief and signals that Hazel cannot sidestep her witch heritage.
  • Hedge – The silent counterpoint to Hemlock. A stray who simply followed, he represents the uncomplicated companionship that Hazel learns to accept.

Key Decisions and Consequences

  • Accepting the will’s conditions: Leads to her feeling trapped but also to the discovery of the envelope and her eventual magical awakening.
  • Using the “Tales from Wormwood” cover: Allows her to gather information without raising immediate suspicion; later becomes her genuine business, solving her financial and creative stagnation.
  • Confronting Olivia indirectly by knocking over the tarot deck: She inadvertently reveals her knowledge, turning Olivia from a neutral party into an enemy—but one she can now blackmail.
  • Going to the coven meeting despite warnings: Nearly gets her cursed but is the catalyst for the familiar bond and the first undeniable proof of magic.
  • Publishing the lemon‑cake recipe (minus wormwood): Sends a message to Olivia that the silence will hold, while turning a symbol of the past into a commercial asset. This decision marks the point where Hazel stops reacting and starts navigating.

Theme and Symbol Connections

Hazel embodies several of the novel’s central themes:

  • Scepticism Versus the Magical (read the full analysis): She is the ultimate test case—a rationalist who must confront a talking cat and a near‑curse. Her eventual acceptance is not conversion but a pragmatic “I can’t explain this, so I’ll work with it.”
  • Inherited Secrets and Blackmail (read the full analysis): The envelope is a inheritance of power. Hazel replicates her mother’s methods, showing how silence and leverage ripple across generations.
  • Self‑Reinvention and Belonging (read the full analysis): The arc from fleeing Wormwood to finding purpose there maps her personal reinvention. The magazine becomes the vehicle for a new identity that is neither escape nor surrender.
  • The Power of Compound Silence (read the full analysis): The 27‑year gap between the cake incident and Hazel’s discovery demonstrates how withheld truth shapes relationships and power dynamics. Hazel’s choice to continue the silence makes her an active participant in the pattern.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why did Hazel Salem return to Wormwood?

Hazel returned because her mother died and left her the family home and the apothecary. The will required her to keep the shop open, pursue witchcraft studies, and join the Wormwood Coven. She agreed out of guilt for having left her mother alone while trying—and failing—to build a writing career in Inverness. She later recognised that she “hadn’t considered [she] might be signing my life away.”

2. What is the significance of the lemon cake recipe?

The recipe, handwritten and hidden in a hollow oak, was for the cake that accidentally poisoned the old mayor during a baking competition. The baker, Olivia Ghoul, had infused it with wormwood as an aphrodisiac meant for the magician Elliot Hex, but the mayor ate it instead. The hidden recipe, together with the Lovers tarot card, formed the basis of a 27‑year blackmail scheme run by Hazel’s mother. For Hazel, the recipe becomes both a clue and, later, a public‑facing symbol when she publishes it in Tales from Wormwood without the wormwood.

3. How does Hazel become bound to Hemlock?

At the coven meeting in the Ghoul residence, Natalia Ghoul and the other witches attempt to silence and curse Hazel. The kitten Aziraphale races in and claws the witches, breaking the spell. In the aftermath, the kitten speaks for the first time, revealing his true name is Hemlock and that he is her witch’s familiar. The magical bond “snaps into place” in that moment of rescue. Hazel initially screams in shock, but over the following days she accepts his presence and conversation.

4. Why does Hazel start a magazine?

She invents Tales from Wormwood as a cover story to interview the participants of the 27‑year‑old cake competition without arousing suspicion. After the investigation is over, she realises the concept could be a real business. With encouragement from Tristan the baker and a growing number of advertisers, she publishes the first issue in September, featuring the lemon‑cake recipe, and the magazine becomes her new creative focus.

5. Does Hazel discover the identity of her father?

The handwritten note in the envelope names two possibilities—Elliot Hex and Richard Starbright—but Hazel does not obtain a definitive answer in the chapters covered. Her investigation confirms that the note was related to the baking competition and that timing makes both men candidates. The ambiguity remains unresolved, though her detective work opens the door to future revelations.