Aster Vanissen

**Aster Vanissen** is the main protagonist of *The Witch Boy* series. He is a young man who wishes to learn witchery but was told not to because his family says that he must become a shifter due to him being a boy. But he manages to convince his family to let him practice witchery.

## Appearance

Aster is a thirteen to fourteen year old boy with tan skin, long auburn hair that is usually tied up, and black eyes.

His attire usually consists of purple as it is his favorite color. He also wears a small bone charm around his neck. As of after the beginning of *The Midwinter Witch*, Aster's nails were painted purple.

## Personality

Aster has a determined attitude when he showed a real interest in learning witchery despite what the adults, including his parents say. He is also shown to be very kind when he is shown helping Charlie, his grandmother, Sedge, and Ariel. Aster is also open minded, as shown when Sedge told him that he wanted to attend Sterling Middle School.

## Story

### *The Witch Boy*

At the beginning of the book, Aster is secretly listening in on Vervain teaching the girls witchery until she catches him. She scolds him saying that the lesson was only for the girls. Distraught, Aster leaves to his mother, Holly. When he tells her what happened, she tells him about his great uncle, Makasi, and how he had betrayed the family and said she did not want the same thing to happen to Aster. Then, Sedge invites him to play Capture The Flag with Holly encouraging him, much to Linden's dismay. During the game, Aster is secretly reading his notebook where he wrote about witchery. Suddenly, his grandmother caught him, but rather than scold him, she simply tells him to be careful. Later, Aster greets his father, Tohor, who tells Holly he returned home to help Aster find his animal form much to Aster, (who was listening in) dismay. The next day, Aster ventures out of his home and into town where he encounters a girl with a broken leg named Charlie. After seeing him use witchery, Charlie finds it fascinating which makes Aster a bit happy. Later that night, Aster and the other boys go into the woods to find animal spirits who will help them shapeshift. As Aster looked around the woods in vain, he spots Sedge talking to a strange red entity. Sensing something was wrong, Aster warned him to stay away from it, but it was too late and Sedge was taken away. As the adults go looking for Sedge, Tohor tried to ask Aster what he saw, but Aster did not know. After Juniper said that should would scry for Sedge, Aster decided to do the same in secret. When he did, he heard the entity's voice and saw its lair. The next day, Aster visits Charlie again and tells her what was going on. Charlie encourages Aster to try scrying again. Seeing what he can do, Charlie tells Aster that he was good at witchery, much to Aster's delight. When Aster came home, he learned that Tupelo and Aquila have also gone missing. The next day, Aster is listening in on a witchery lesson when he is caught by Lindon, Brome, and Cygnus. They began to bully Aster, believing he had something to do with his cousins' disappearance. Aster told them that he did not, but they did not believe him and attack him. This forced Aster to use witchery to defend himself, much to the shock of the others. Embarrassed, Aster runs into the woods where he gets lost. Then, he is attacked by a strange creature which, by looking at its eyes, Aster recognized as Sedge. Just before Sedge can attack, Aster is saved by Holly who takes Sedge to a shed where she binds him to it. When Aster asked how that worked, Holly sternly told him to go back to the house. The next day, Aster sneaks into the witchery classroom and takes a book about healing so he could heal Charlie's leg. Iris arrives and asks why Aster was there. Aster reveals that he scryed for Sedge. This lead to Iris scolding him for using witchery and kicks him out of the classroom. That night as Aster was reading the book, the entity appeared which turned out to be a monster who offered Aster a chance to shapeshift. He gave Aster a phone and put a spell on Aster to keep him from telling the rest of his family. The next day, Aster tried to tell his mother what happened the previous night, but the spell did not let him. Then, Sedge tried to tell the others what happened to him, but was too traumatized to say anything else which made Aster worried. Later, Aster told Charlie his troubles and believed that he should just give up witchery. Charlie tells him the story of how she broke her leg and told Aster not to give up. Aster then casts a spell to heal Charlie's leg. Seeing this, she complimented Aster's witchery which made him happy. Later that night, Charlie sneaks into Aster's home to help him save his cousins. Taking some of the family's magical heirlooms, Aster uses the phone to enter the monster's lair where he finds Tupelo and Aquila eating a rotting deer. Then, Aster spots a sword which was one of the family's heirlooms which was taken by Makasi which made Aster realize that the monster is Makasi. Then, Makasi tries to taste Aster's soul with his tongue, but was disgusted to find that Aster had the soul of a witch. Then, Aster used one of the artifacts to trap Makasi and escape with his cousins. When they made it back home, Makasi had followed them and chased Aster to where a trap was set by his family for the monster. When Aster successfully trapped Makasi, Grandmother revealed the truth about how Makasi's magic became corrupted. It was not because he used witchery, it was because he used witchery to make himself shapeshift. Hearing this story, the family change their minds and decide to let Aster learn witchery. Later on at Charlie's house, Aster told her the good news and thanks her for her encouragment.

## Relationships

### Holly Vanissen

Holly is Aster's mother. When he admitted to her that he wanted to learn witchery, she tried to dissuade him from it by telling him the story of her uncle, Makasi. But after hearing the truth from her mother, she started to change her mind and decided to let Aster learn witchery.

### Tohor Vanissen

Tohor is Aster's father. Tohor is very protective and very supportive of his son.

### Charlie Martin-West

Charlie is Aster's best friend. After he told her about how he wishes to practice witchery, she encouraged him to pursue it. She later helped Aster rescue his cousins from Makasi.

### Grandmother

She is Aster's maternal grandmother. Unlike most of the other adults in the family, Grandmother never warned her grandson against practicing witchery. After Makasi was captured, she explained that Makasi became corrupted because he used witchery to shapeshift and not because he was male. In *The Hidden Witch*, she agreed to teach Aster personally to fill in the gaps he had in his knowledge of witchcraft.

### Ariel Torres

When Aster and Ariel first met, she did not like him and thought Charlie would rather spend time with him than with her. (Even asked her if Aster was her boyfriend which she denied.) But after her life was in danger, Ariel trusted Aster and they became friends and even began learning together from Grandmother.

### Sedge Vanissen

Sedge is Aster's cousin. Like most of the other male cousins, Sedge did not like Aster wanting to learn witchery instead of shapeshifting, though unlike them, he never openly made fun of him. After being rescued from Makasi, Sedge (who was recovering from being mutated by Makasi) became too scared of shifting out of fear of losing control. After meeting Charlie, he decided that he wanted to go to normal school and the first person he told this to is Aster who encouraged him to do so. When Sedge had to changed into a fox to find Ariel, Aster stood by his side. He continued to support Sedge's decision to attend Sterling Middle School.

### Linden Vanissen

Linden is Aster's cousin. Like most of the other male cousins, Linden did not like Aster wanting to learn witchery instead of shapeshifting and made fun of him for it, though he was a bit more harsh than the others. When Sedge, Tupelo, and Aquila disappeared, Linden accused Aster of doing something bad to them and attacked him which forced Aster to defend himself using witchery. It is currently unknown what their relationship is like now since Aster was allowed to learn witchery.

### Juniper Vanissen

Aster is Junper's younger brother. Juniper cares about her little brother and tries to help him whenever she can.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Witchery:** Aster is learning witchery from his aunts, Vervain and Iris. He can use magic to do many things. Including the following:
	+ **Agrokinesis:** Aster can cast a spell that lets him control plant life, including making fruit grow and can control vines.
	+ **Scrying:** Aster can scry for things using certain tools, such as a silver bowl full of water and saying the name of what he is scrying for.
	+ **Healing:** Aster can heal other of certain injuries. This was shown when he healed Charlie's leg after she broke it and healed her again after she was attacked by a Fetch.
	+ **Energy Projection:** Aster has been shown to project purple energy when his cousins attacked him.
	+ **Pyrokinesis:** Aster can create fire with a spell. He was shown to do this when he lit some candles to activate a spell to capture Makasi.
* **Agility (limited):** Aster is possibly agile enough to climb tries and to windows to secretly learn witchery from his aunts.

## Trivia

* Aster is the first male witch in his family since his great uncle, Makasi.
* Aster's favorite color is purple.
* Aster does not enjoy the taste of coffee.
* Aster is possibly an LGBTQ+ character, but only Molly Knox Ostertag knows for sure. Though, there have been some subtle hints throughout the series.
	+ In *The Witch Boy*, Aster sticks his tongue out in discuss when his parents started kissing each other, through this could apply to anyone his age.
	+ In *The Hidden Witch*, he is shown to have become very close to his cousin, Sedge, after telling Aster how he felt about shifting.
	+ In *The Midwinter Witch*, Aster let Charlie and Ariel paint his nails.
* Like many of the other members of his family, Aster is named after a plant, flower, or herb.
	+ An aster is a star-shaped purple flower with a yellow center. This makes sense as Aster's favorite color is purple.
	+ The aster symbolizes love, wisdom, faith, and color. This probably fits Aster as he has love for his family and friends, seeks to learn witchery, and has faith in who is really is.