The Witching Hour

Michael is not only Rowan’s romantic interest, but also a point of view character. Rice uses the limited third person for both Rowan and Michael, allowing the reader to see their thoughts. Unlike Rowan, Michael grew up in the Irish Channel district of New Orleans as the son of a fireman. His childhood memories include seeing Lasher in the garden of the First Street house. At the time of his first accidental drowning, Michael has a successful business restoring houses in San Francisco called Great Expectations, which references Michael’s favorite novel. In addition to his love of books and history, Michael has a working-class attitude and lots of Southern charm. For instance, he calls people “darlin’” (909). After drowning, Michael has the power to touch objects and get psychic visions from them. This power leads to his alcohol addiction and turns him into a recluse while living with his Aunt Vivian. It also causes the Talamasca to recruit him.

However, when Michael learns that Rowan is the person who saved him—and that she is willing to reconnect with him—he is inspired to get out of his house on Liberty Street. He is a foil to Rowan. Rowan, and the Mayfair family, are associated with the devil, whereas Michael is frequently associated with “St. Michael, the archangel” (988) and is described as angelic and innocent. After one of his long-term girlfriends has an abortion, Michael longs to have children. He wanted to name his child Chris, which is the name of Anne Rice’s son. Rowan agrees to this name for her child with Michael before Lasher possesses it. Marrying Rowan allows Michael to realize his dream of restoring the First Street house. However, his dream of having a baby is destroyed by Lasher possessing and mutating the baby.

After Lasher drowns Michael and Rowan leaves with Lasher, Michael loses the psychic power in his hands. The Mayfairs allow him to keep the house and continue to work on it, which is fulfilling for Michael. When a child sees him in the garden and mentions him to their mother, it reminds Michael of his childhood. He has become “that man” (1035) in the garden. In other words, he haunts the house after Lasher no longer haunts it. The novel ends with Michael’s diary entry about waiting for Rowan. The book he writes in was a gift from Aaron.

Aaron is a member of the Talamasca—scholars of the occult—and British. His mind-reading ability caused him to become involved with the Talamasca at a young age. Before meeting them in person, Aaron researched Rowan and Michael, as well as other Mayfairs. He is a father figure to Rowan and Michael. For instance, Aaron walks Rowan down the aisle at her wedding. Rice doesn’t use the limited third person for Aaron as she does for Michael and Rowan. Aaron’s character is conveyed through his actions and the couple’s thoughts, as well as in Aaron’s first-person entries in the Mayfair File.

In the file, Aaron records his actions in first person before meeting Rowan and Michael. Aaron spoke with Deirdre Mayfair when she was a college student and, subsequently, had Cortland Mayfair attempt to poison him. He includes his perspectives of the people he interviews, like Sister Bridget Marie, Deirdre’s teacher when she was young, and Rita Mae, who went to school with Deirdre. In addition to his research into Lasher, Aaron is able to see Lasher: “I’ve seen ‘the man’ for myself” (605) he says when the Talamasca allows him to travel to New Orleans to investigate the Mayfair case in person. Aaron also is the member of the Talamasca who learns about Michael’s psychic gift through the press and wants to recruit him to become a member.

One of Aaron’s goals is to give the Mayfair File to Rowan. He achieves this goal, as well as gives Michael access to the file. However, Aaron is unable to achieve his other goal, the mission of the Talamasca: preventing spirits like Lasher from becoming physical. Lasher haunts Aaron before he possesses Rowan’s baby because he knows about the Talamasca’s mission. Lasher tries to cause Aaron to get into car accidents, like several of the Mayfair witches’ lovers. This foreshadows how he will die in a car accident in the third installment of the Mayfair Witches series, Taltos. At the end of The Witching Hour, Aaron moves into the First Street house and helps Michael recover from his drowning in the pool.

Later in the Mayfair Witches series, Lasher is revealed to be a taltos (a term invented by Rice). In The Witches Companion, Katherine Ramsland classifies Lasher as “The incubus spirit that dominates the Mayfair family” (Ramsland, Katherine. The Witches Companion. Ballantine Books, 1996) and quotes Rice: “the promise of Lasher at the end of the hallway [...] is the promise of a good orgasm” (198). In The Witching Hour, Lasher’s story begins with Suzanne Mayfair summoning him as a spirit. She names him Lasher “for the wind which you send that lashes the grasslands, for the wind that lashes the leaves from the trees” (312). Lasher is frequently associated with wind and air. When he appears as a spirit, his “hair was softly mussed, as if by wind” (911). He also causes strong winds and storms when Mayfair witches die, symbolizing the uncontrollable power of nature.

Lasher seduces at least one witch in each generation. He has sexual relationships with various Mayfairs, including Rowan, Deirdre, and Julien. While the witches can feel his touch, Lasher cannot impregnate any of them. His goal is to become flesh. He has to possess Rowan and Michael’s baby to become physical and able to father a child (which happens in a later installment of Rice’s series). When Lasher enters Rowan’s womb, Rice describes it as a “great lashing circle” (1003) of pain. At the end of The Witching Hour, when his possession occurs, Lasher is revealed to be Michael’s antagonist. Lasher’s possession also goes against Rowan’s wishes, but she is overcome by the need to care for him after he is born and runs away with him.

The Talamasca’s file on the Mayfair Witches traces Rowan’s lineage. There are 12 generations of witches that Lasher haunts. Michael says to Rowan, “count your ancestors! The thing has waited for 13 witches, from the time of Suzanne to the present, and you are the thirteenth. Count them. Suzanne, Deborah, and Charlotte; Jeanne Louise, Angelique, and Marie Claudette; followed in Louisiana by Marguerite, Katherine, and Mary Beth. Then come Stella, Antha, Deirdre. And finally you, Rowan! [...] The thirteenth is the doorway” (890). These are not the only Mayfairs discussed in the file, which also includes their siblings and other family members.

The first member of the Mayfair family investigated by the Talamasca is “Suzanne of the Mayfair” (284), who lived in the 1600s. In Donnelaith, Scotland, she summoned and named Lasher, as well as gave birth to Deborah. Suzanne was burned as a witch.

Deborah de Montcleve lived and died in France. She was called the “Bride of Satan” (278) and had Lasher steal the emerald necklace, as well as other jewels and coins. Petyr van Abel took her to the Talamasca motherhouse in Amsterdam, but she rejected it as satanic. However, she did have sex with Petyr and had a daughter, Charlotte.

Charlotte lived in Port-au-Prince, Saint-Domingue. She established the Maye Faire plantation and, by using slave labor, began to amass the Mayfair fortune. Charlotte seduced her father, Petyr, and had a daughter named Jeanne Louise. Jeanne Louise and her brother had a daughter named Angelique. Angelique and Vincent St. Chrisophe had a daughter named Marie Claudette.

Marie Claudette moved the Mayfair family to Louisiana. She established a plantation there called Riverbend, which amassed more money for the Mayfair fortune through slave labor. She established the Mayfair legacy in 1789. Marie Claudette married Henri Marie Landry, and they had several daughters. Claire Marie had learning disabilities, so her younger sister, Marguerite, became the first designee of the legacy.

Marguerite was seen with Lasher and performed experiments with him. Lasher briefly reanimated corpses, and Marguerite kept the body parts of the corpses that Lasher transformed inside of jars in her library. Her husbands were Tyrone Clifford McNamara and Arlington Kerr. Marguerite had three children: Remy, Katherine, and Julien.

Katherine’s husband, Darcy Monahan, built a house in the Garden District of New Orleans. The Mayfair family left Riverbend, and it was destroyed by the river. Katherine was the designee of the legacy, but not a witch. Julien was the witch of this generation. He had sex with both women and men. Julien’s lover, Richard Llewellyn, spoke to the Talamasca about Julien. Julien was the last Mayfair to speak French and was half Irish. Lasher was said to look and dress like Julien. Julien and Katherine cross-dressed and went out on the town. They had a daughter named Mary Beth.

Like her mother, Mary Beth cross-dressed and went out on the town with Julien. She was known for having a large number of working-class male lovers and was rumored to have met her husband, Daniel McIntyre, while cross-dressing. Daniel knew Julien before he became involved with Mary Beth. She was also rumored to have strong occult powers and held large family gatherings. Mary Beth and Julien bought Donnelaith castle, and Mary Beth’s investments caused the Mayfair fortune to grow from millions to billions. They had several children together, including Belle, Carlotta, and Stella.

Stella—Julien and Mary Beth’s daughter—was born in 1901 and “lived the life of a flapper, or a young reckless southern belle” (498). Stella loved to throw parties and dance. She, like Julien, was bisexual. In The Witches Companion, Ramsland quotes Rice as saying “Stella was influenced by Zelda Fitzgerald” (Ramsland, Katherine. The Witches Companion. Ballantine Books, 1996). At one party, Stella gathered 13 Mayfair witches to try to bring Lasher into the physical realm. This was a misunderstanding of Lasher’s pact with the Mayfair—that it will take 13 generations, not just 13 witches, for Lasher to be incarnate. Stella also communicated with the Talamasca by writing a note on a picture they obtained. In time, Cortland and Stella had a daughter named Antha.

Cortland and Carlotta fought for custody of Antha. Cortland, Julien’s son, “takes over the role as male witch” (Ramsland, Katherine. The Witches Companion. Ballantine Books, 1996). This means he impregnated several generations of witches—Stella, Antha, and Deirdre—like Julien. Cortland tried to poison Aaron and was responsible for other homicides. He eventually fought with Lasher and was killed falling down the stairs at the First Street house. His ex-wife, Amanda, spoke to Talamasca informants about the Mayfairs. Carlotta (“Carl”) also committed and orchestrated homicides, including the deaths of Stuart and Antha. Carlotta even persuaded Lionel, Stella’s brother, to shoot her. After Stella’s death, Carlotta allowed the First Street house to fall into ruin. She was a powerful witch who rejected Lasher. When she confesses her murders to Rowan in the present narrative, Rowan uses her psychic power to kill Carlotta.

Deirdre, Antha’s daughter, was the first Mayfair that the reader of The Witching Hour encounters. Deirdre was expelled from several schools because people saw her as a minor with Lasher, who appeared to be a full-grown man. Many events from Deirdre’s life were inspired by Rice’s life, such as attending Texas Woman’s University. It is there that Aaron meets Deirdre. After Cortland raped Deirdre, Carlotta subjected Deirdre to heavy doses of psychiatric medications and shock treatments. These left her basically catatonic, which is how she is introduced in Chapter 1, through the perspective of her doctor, Dr. Petrie. Deirdre is “the woman in the rocker” (3) on the porch of the First Street house wearing a nightgown and the emerald necklace. Deirdre wanted to raise her and Cortland’s daughter, Rowan, but Carlotta made sure that Ellie Mayfair adopted Rowan and took her out of New Orleans the day that she was born. Deirdre’s death at 48 is the impetus for Rowan to return to New Orleans.