Commonly known as Mater Motley or the Hag, Thant Yeyla Carrion is Christopher Carrion's grandmother. It is hinted that she has been alive for an extraordinarily long amount of time. She is incredibly intelligent, and often knows of events occurring in Abarat before even her grandson does.
Mater Motley commands a cabal of handpicked seamstress-witches that assist and attend to her. She spends her time sewing stitchlings to help complete a plan to lay siege on the Islands of Day.
She and Christopher were the only members of the Carrion clan to have survived the fire that destroyed their mansion on Pyon. In the second book, Mater Motley is revealed to have started the fire so that she might "save" Christopher and control him. When he rejects her control, she attacks him and assumes dictatorship of Gorgossium.