Erin in The Book of Witching: Character Analysis

Overview

Erin is the modern-day counterpart to Alison Balfour in C.J. Cooke's The Book of Witching. A young mother from Glasgow who was once a grade-A student with a place at Oxford to read Politics and Philosophy, Erin's life takes a sharp turn when she becomes pregnant at seventeen, abandons her university plans, and later joins the Triskele, a pagan group the novel gradually reveals to be a coercive cult. By the time the main narrative opens in May 2024, Erin lies in a Glasgow hospital burns unit, having survived a Beltane fire ritual on the Orkney island of Gunn that killed her boyfriend Arlo. Her physical injuries—fourth-degree burns on 20 percent of her body, third-degree on another 20 percent, amputated digits, sutured eyes—are matched by a psychological fracture: she intermittently becomes Nyx, a cold, hostile identity that denies knowing her mother, her daughter, or Arlo.

Erin's arc is the novel's emotional and investigative engine. Her mother Clem's desperate attempts to understand what happened in Orkney drive the modern plot, while Erin's own fragmented testimony—when she is lucid—gradually reveals the truth about the fire, the book, and the cult. For a full overview of the novel, see the main book page.

Plot Role

Erin functions as both victim and suspect in the modern timeline. She is found barely alive on Fynhallow beach by a ranger, her hands and body charred, while Arlo's body lies nearby with bound hands. The police treat her as a person of interest in Arlo's death and Senna's disappearance, especially after her TikTok videos surface showing her discussing the Triskele, a fire ceremony, and the need to bind the Green Man's hands.

But Erin is also the novel's key to understanding the supernatural thread. The bark-bound book she acquired—The Book of Witching—refuses to be destroyed. She tells Clem she tried burning it, throwing it in a bin lorry, and sinking it in the Clyde River, and each time it returned. This leads her to contact Paul Renney, who tells her the book can only be destroyed by a fire ritual on Beltane at Fynhallow, the exact spot where a witch was burned centuries earlier. Erin's attempt to destroy the book is what causes the fire that kills Arlo and nearly kills her.

Her role is thus double: she is the modern Carrier of the book (though the Triskele elder Edina later suggests Erin was never meant to be a Carrier, which is why the book haunted her), and she is the living link between the 1594 persecution of Alison Balfour and the 2024 tragedy. The novel uses Erin's suffering to show how the patterns of witchcraft accusation and supernatural possession repeat across centuries, a connection explored further in the theme page on cyclical persecution.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Erin's defining trait is a desperate hunger for belonging. The evidence shows she met Senna online through her tarot TikToks and was drawn into the Triskele through Senna's enthusiastic recruitment. The novel presents Erin's own perspective on the cult: she felt Triskele was like coming home. She admired the feminist edge, the environmental advocacy, the emphasis on tarot and spells. She repeatedly tells herself it isn't a cult—no one asks for money, they're a community, they're a family.

But the text also shows the cult's coercive machinery. The Brother talks for five hours without stopping, telling members that everyone outside the Triskele is blind and stupid, a herd of dumb sheep. He offers scholarships that require total commitment. Erin's acceptance into this scholarship is framed as the most important first step of her entire life. The novel makes clear that Erin's vulnerability—her absent father, her abandoned Oxford place, her unplanned pregnancy—made her ripe for this kind of indoctrination, a dynamic examined in the theme page on coercive control.

Her actions show both naivety and a kind of desperate agency. She stops speaking to her best friend Bella because Bella's father is taking her to Egypt, and the reminder of her own father's absence burns her. She throws herself into the Triskele with total commitment. When the book begins haunting her, she tries everything to destroy it before finally following Paul's instructions to perform the Beltane ritual. Her decision to bind Arlo's hands—following the ritual's requirements for the Green Man figure—is the act that ultimately kills him, and the guilt of it fractures her psyche into Nyx.

Chronological Arc

Erin's story is told non-linearly, through flashbacks and her mother's recollections. The arc can be traced as follows:

Three years before the main narrative: She meets Senna online, attends her first Triskele weekender in the Trossachs, and is accepted into the Brother's scholarship program.
Around the same period: She becomes pregnant at seventeen, bombs her Highers, abandons her Oxford place, and reveals the pregnancy at a family meeting in Wetherby. Freya's father is never identified.
Two years before the main narrative: Erin approaches a Triskele gathering in the woods, nervous for the first time, but reminds herself why she came and what this means. This is her deepening initiation into the cult's world.
The year before the fire: She and Arlo have been together about a year. She makes TikTok videos about tarot and the Triskele, including one in January saying she must wait until Beltane for a fire ceremony.
April 21, 2024: She leaves Glasgow with Arlo and Senna for Orkney, anxious and scared the night before departure.
May 1, 2024 (Beltane): The fire ritual at Fynhallow goes catastrophically wrong. Arlo dies. Erin is severely burned. Senna disappears.
May 2024 (present): Erin lies in the burns unit, alternating between lucid terror and the Nyx identity. Her lucid moments reveal the truth about the fire, but she also says she doesn't care that Arlo is dead, and insists she is Nyx.

The arc shows a young woman who was already fragile—abandoned by her father, derailed by an unplanned pregnancy—being systematically drawn into a cult that exploited her need for family and purpose, and then being destroyed by the supernatural book that the cult's magic unleashed on her.

Relationships

Clem (mother): Clem is Erin's primary caregiver and the novel's emotional center. Clem raised Erin as a single mother while working two jobs and managing a serious heart condition. The novel shows Clem's guilt—she encouraged Erin to go to Orkney, telling her to go and have fun—and her desperate love. Clem is the one who recognizes that Erin isn't evil and isn't capable of murder, even as the evidence mounts against her.

Quinn (father): Erin's father is largely absent from her life. Clem describes driving Erin to Quinn's house in Wetherby for an emergency family meeting when Erin revealed her pregnancy, but Quinn has been neglectful for years. Clem reflects that Erin is so desperate for her father's love that she'll go to any lengths to achieve it. Quinn's neglect is presented as a contributing factor to Erin's vulnerability.

Freya (daughter): Erin's fifteen-month-old daughter is the anchor of her real life. Erin was anxious about leaving Freya for the Orkney trip. In her lucid moments, her first question is where Freya is. The novel uses Freya to show what Erin stands to lose—and what Nyx, who never asks about Freya, has suppressed.

Arlo (boyfriend): Arlo dies in the fire. Erin's testimony reveals she tied his hands as part of the Green Man ritual, promised him she could be trusted, and then watched the fire erupt and consume him. Her last words to him were that promise. The guilt of this is central to her psychological collapse.

Senna (friend): Senna recruited Erin into the Triskele and accompanied her to Orkney. She was on lookout at the cave mouth when the fire erupted, and she disappeared afterward. Her disappearance remains a mystery that the novel resolves in its final chapters.

Paul Renney: A man Erin contacted who knew about the Triskele and told her how to destroy the book. Clem suspects his motives, wondering if he was predatory.

The Brother: The Triskele's leader, who indoctrinates members through marathon talks and scholarships.

Key Decisions and Consequences

Joining the Triskele: Erin's decision to join the cult, facilitated by Senna, leads to her exposure to the book and the ritual that nearly kills her. The novel frames this as a consequence of her emotional vulnerability.
Attempting to destroy the book: Erin's decision to follow Paul's instructions and perform the Beltane fire ritual is the novel's central catastrophe. She binds Arlo's hands, speaks the spell, and the fire erupts, killing him. This decision is presented as both desperate and misguided—she was trying to rid herself of a supernatural burden, but the ritual's requirements cost Arlo his life.
Going to Orkney: Erin's decision to travel to Orkney, leaving Freya behind, is the immediate cause of the tragedy. She was anxious about going, and Clem encouraged her.
Suppressing the trauma into Nyx: Erin's psychological response to Arlo's death—developing the Nyx identity—is both a survival mechanism and a source of further suffering. Nyx's coldness alienates Clem and Quinn and makes Erin a suspect in the police investigation.

Themes and Symbols

Erin's story connects directly to the novel's major themes:

Coercive control and cult indoctrination: Erin's journey into the Triskele illustrates how cults exploit vulnerability. The Brother's rhetoric, the scholarship system, and the gradual isolation from her former life all mirror the coercive dynamics the novel critiques. See the theme page on coercive control and cult indoctrination.
Cyclical persecution and supernatural recurrence: Erin's suffering mirrors Alison Balfour's. Both are women accused—Alison of witchcraft in 1594, Erin of involvement in Arlo's death in 2024. The book that haunts Erin is the same book that was central to the Triskele's 16th-century rituals. See the theme page on cyclical persecution.
Maternal sacrifice and protective love: Clem's desperate attempts to save Erin—burning the notebook page, traveling to Orkney, confronting the Triskele—mirror Alison's protective love for her children in the 1594 timeline. Erin's own motherhood, her anxiety about leaving Freya, and her guilt are part of this theme. See the theme page on maternal sacrifice.
The Green Man and Beltane: Arlo's role as the Green Man, with bound hands, connects to the pagan ritual that Erin's TikTok video referenced. The symbol of the triskele—three spirals—appears throughout, from the cave ceiling at Fynhallow to the tree in Scarwell Woods.

For a full explanation of how Erin's story resolves, see the ending explained page.

Questions and Answers

1. Why did Erin join the Triskele?

Erin joined the Triskele after meeting Senna online through her tarot TikToks. Senna invited her to a weekender in the Trossachs, and Erin was drawn to the group's emphasis on nature, magic, feminism, and environmental advocacy. The novel shows that Erin's vulnerability—her absent father, her abandoned Oxford place, her unplanned pregnancy—made her receptive to the cult's promise of family and belonging. She tells herself repeatedly that it isn't a cult, that they're a family, which the text presents as a sign of her indoctrination.

2. What caused the fire that killed Arlo?

Erin's lucid testimony reveals that she and Arlo performed a fire ritual on Beltane at Fynhallow, following instructions from Paul Renney, to destroy the cursed book. Arlo knelt by the fire as the Green Man figure with his hands bound. Erin spoke the words of the spell, and the fire suddenly erupted, shooting toward Arlo and climbing up his clothes. The fire was unstoppable—sand and water didn't work—and Arlo died. Erin was also severely burned trying to save him.

3. Why does Erin become Nyx?

Erin develops the Nyx identity as a dissociative response to the trauma of watching Arlo burn to death. The novel shows her alternating between lucid terror—where she begs not to be burned, says she's been wicked, and asks about Freya—and the cold, hostile Nyx, who denies knowing anyone and says she doesn't care that Arlo is dead. Clem and Quinn interpret this as dissociation, and the text supports this reading while also suggesting the supernatural book may be influencing her.

4. What is the significance of the notebook page reading Arlo's hands need to be bound?

The notebook page, which Clem finds and burns, connects Erin to the ritual requirements. Erin's TikTok video from five months earlier shows her saying the Green Man's hands must be bound. In the ritual, Arlo played the Green Man, and Erin bound his hands as instructed. The page is evidence that the binding was premeditated as part of the ritual, not a spontaneous act of violence, which complicates the police's suspicion of Erin.

5. Is Erin responsible for Arlo's death?

The novel presents Erin as responsible in the sense that she performed the ritual that killed Arlo, but it frames her as a victim of manipulation and supernatural forces rather than a murderer. She was following Paul Renney's instructions to destroy the book, and she believed the ritual was necessary. Her last words to Arlo were a promise of trust, and she tried desperately to save him when the fire erupted. The text suggests the book itself, or the forces behind it, caused the fire to erupt uncontrollably. Erin's guilt and trauma are the real consequences.

For more discussion of Erin and other characters, see the questions and answers page.