Book of Shadows

The Book of Shadows is a magical tome owned by the Vera-Vaughn-Danso witches. The original book belonged to Marisol Vera's family in Puerto Rico before she stole it when she began to have visions of her daughters as the Charmed Ones. It would eventually be passed down to her three daughters in late 2018 after Marisol was murdered. In mid-2019, after the deaths of the Elders and the aversion of the Apocalypse by Macy Vaughn briefly taking on the power of the Source, the original book was destroyed by the Darklighter, Jimmy. A recreation of the book has been made by Mel Vera with the help of Joséfina Reyes, including pages from the original and new entries, in late 2021.

Besides information about the craft, the book contains many entries on beings from the magical community, including demons and other evil beings. It also contains many spells and recipes for potions.

History

It is unknown how old the original Book of Shadows was, but it is known that it was owned by Joséfina Reyes's side of the family in Puerto Rico before it was stolen by Marisol Vera to keep her family safe and ensure that her future daughters would have what they needed. At some point, it was enchanted by Marisol to provide a portal to the Command Center as a safety precaution for if the book was ever destroyed.

Upon Marisol's death, it was given temporarily to Whitelighter Harry Greenwood, who would later give it to Marisol's three daughters—Mel Vera, Macy Vaughn, and Maggie Vera—the Charmed Ones. A year later, the book was destroyed by Harry Greenwood's Darklighter, Jimmy, prompting the sisters and the manor's move to Seattle when they entered the portal.

Mel started to try and recreate the Book of Shadows by writing down the spells and potions she could remember from the book in her notebook. She also noted about banned spells she remembered from a list at the back of the original book, much to Harry's chagrin.

Two years after the Book of Shadows had been destroyed, Joséfina Reyes, the Charmed Ones' second cousin, broke into their manor in order to find and steal the book back. When she was caught by Mel and Maggie, she explained that Marisol had stolen the Book of Shadows when she left Puerto Rico, and that it actually belonged to her side of the family. Mel and Maggie both had to inform Joséfina that the book was gone, but when Joséfina revealed she had Macy and Jordan Chase trapped within her bag and wouldn't let them out without the book, the sisters both agreed to let Joséfina look at Mel's recreation of the book. Before they could, however, they found the spell Joséfina used to trap Macy and Jordan was destabilizing due to Jordan's curse, and if they didn't find a way to get them out, they would die. It was during this that Joséfina revealed she wasn't after the book to return it to her family but rather so she could figure out how to manifest her witch powers, as her family refused to help due to her being transgender, male-to-female, and her family believed only biological women can have powers.

A week after that, Mel revealed to Joséfina she had managed to fully recreate the book, giving it an updated cover and including Brujeria spells. She also noted that most of the pages in the new book were still blank, but Joséfina could help fill them in.

Not too long later, before Joséfina left her cousins to return to Puerto Rico to go to college, she had been working on helping Mel fill in the rest of the pages in the book, and, upon finally completing it, gave it to the Vera-Vaughn sisters as a parting gift and as thanks for helping her discover who she was as a witch. The Charmed Ones have been using the book, and Mel and Joséfina's added potions and spells, ever since.

In 2022, during a situation dealing with a group calling themselves the Unseen, which threatened the lives of the Charmed Ones' friends and family, Mel used her new time powers to bring the original Book of Shadows forward in time from a point in the past before its destruction, in order to use it to create Blindaje Dolls to protect her and her sisters' loved ones.

Later on, a troll member of the Unseen stole the original Book of Shadows in order to help him and the other members find a way to resurrect a being known as the Lost One. Fortunately, Mel, Maggie, and Kaela Danso managed to retrieve the book before they could resurrect the Lost One, albeit after learning of the events of an alternate timeline and seeing the events that could transpire if they didn't take action.

Appearance

The Book of Shadows had a dark red leather-bound cover with gold gilded edges and a gold clasp. The cover had lines that intersected each other with strange unknown symbols in them. The center had a silver triquetra in a silver circle. The pages were yellowed and looked aged.

Mel's recreation of the Book of Shadows looked similar to the original, but the cover was now green, and the pages were still white and flat due to the book being brand new. The triquetra in the center of the cover was also closer to gold in color. A thin, golden ribbon attached to the book's cover acted as a bookmark for the book. All the words and illustrations are drawn by hand.

List of the Book of Shadows Entries

Powers and Abilities

Original Book of Shadows

• Bibliomancy: The book possessed a variation of Divination, allowing it to answer any question as long the answer is written in its pages. The book could also be aware of tampering and react to it, such as forcibly shutting itself when Lucy ripped out a page and revealing to Mel and Maggie that the page was missing.
• Portal Creation: The book was installed with a specific function should the need ever rise to create a portal to the Command Center as a last resort for Marisol. When the Darklighter incinerated the Book, it created a portal that sent the sisters to the Command Center, followed by Vera Manor.

Behind the Scenes

• The prop measured 15x12 inches. Meaning it was slightly larger than the book from the original series.
• The first Vera Book of Shadows is an updated version of the Halliwell Book of Shadows with an all-new cover. By the looks of it, the Vera Book of Shadows had a lock where the Halliwell book did not. The recreated Book of Shadows has a closer appearance to the Halliwell Book of Shadows.
• There was an Easter egg where there was a page on Melinda Warren, the first witch in the Warren/Halliwell bloodline.
• Some of the filler pages featured in the book have also been used on the Lifetime series "Witches of East End." This is due to both shows sharing the same artist. Ironically, both shows share the same house and are about families of witches.

Trivia

• The Book of Shadows in the reboot is similar to the Book of Shadows in the original series. It has yellowed and aged pages like the original and serves the same purpose as the original, though it has a different cover. Mel's recreation is closer in appearance to the original series Book of Shadows but still has some differences, the main one being the color of the triquetra.
• There are various pages in the Book of Shadows that include many grammatical and/or spelling errors. Some examples of this are the Lure of Agememnon being misspelled as "Agememnon" instead of "Agamemnon", the Call to a Restless Spirit which includes a grammatically incorrect Latin incantation, or the Exorcism Ritual which, for some reason, has the Charmed Ones and the Harbinger written in all lowercase.
• According to Joséfina Reyes, the Book of Shadows originally belonged to her side of the family, before Marisol stole it when leaving Puerto Rico.^[1]
• According to Maggie, there was a page detailing a demon that harvests witches' organs to make smoothies.^[2]
• According to Harry, the book has two thousand pages. This indicates it was enchanted so that, regardless of the number of the pages inside it, its size and volume will remain the same.
• The first book was destroyed in the first episode of the second season.
  • Midway through season 3, Mel had managed to successfully recreate the Book of Shadows, putting her recollections and new spells she and her sisters and cousin found/invented into the new book.
• According to Mel, before the book was destroyed, she had read a list of spells at the back of it that were banned by the Elders, such as Absum Veri.^[3] She also wrote down her recollections of the book's pages in her notebook while trying to recreate it.

Gallery

• Original Book of Shadows
• Recreated Book of Shadows
• Behind the Scenes (Original Book)
• Behind the Scenes (Recreated Book)

Harry presents the book to the Charmed Ones

The book is destroyed

Cover

Escape 1

Escape 2

A Dalliance with the Departed

Temporal Tea

Linea de la Vida (Spanish)

Linea de la Vida (English)

References