The Witching Hour

by Anne Rice

  Family legend:

  "It was all over, everyone knew it. Poor Pierce eventually managed to get over it. He studied at Columbia for a while, then entered Harvard the following year. But to the day he died no one ever mentioned Stella in his presence. And how he hated Carlotta. The only time I ever heard him speak of it, he said she was responsible. She ought to have pulled the trigger herself."

  Not only did Pierce recover, he became a highly capable lawyer, and played a major role in guiding and expanding the Mayfair fortune over the decades. He died in 1986. His son, Ryan Mayfair, born in 1936, is the backbone of Mayfair and Mayfair today. Young Pierce, Ryan's son, is at present the most promising young man in the firm.

  But those cousins who said "It was all over" were right.

  With the death of Stella, the power of the Mayfair Witches was effectively broken. Stella was the first of Deborah's gifted descendants to die young. She was the first one to die by violence. And never after would a Mayfair Witch "rule" at First Street, or assume direct management of the legacy. Indeed, the present designee is a mute catatonic and her daughter--Rowan Mayfair--is a young neurosurgeon living over two thousand miles from First Street who knows nothing of her mother, her heritage, her inheritance, or her home.

  How did it all come to this? And can any one person be blamed? These are questions over which one could agonize eternally. But before we consider them in greater detail, let us draw back and consider the position of the Talamasca after Arthur Langtry's death.

  THE STATUS OF THE INVESTIGATION IN 1929

  No autopsy was ever performed on Arthur Langtry. His remains were buried in England in the Talamasca cemetery, as he had long ago arranged for them to be. There is no evidence that he died by violence; indeed, his last letter, describing Stella's murder, indicates that he was already suffering from heart trouble. But one can say with some justification that the stress of what he saw in New Orleans took its toll. Arthur might have lived longer had he never gone there. On the other hand, he was not retired, and he might have met his death in the field on some other case.

  To the ruling council of the Talamasca, however, Arthur Langtry was another casualty of the Mayfair Witches. And Arthur's glimpse of Stuart's spirit was fully accepted by these experienced investigators as proof that Stuart had died within the Mayfair house.

  But how exactly did Stuart die, the Talamasca wanted to know. Had Carlotta done it? And if so, why?

  The outstanding argument against Carlotta as the murderer is perhaps obvious already and will become even more obvious as this narrative continues. Carlotta has been throughout her life a practicing Catholic, a scrupulously honest lawyer, and a law-abiding citizen. Her strenuous criticisms of Stella were apparently founded upon her own moral convictions, or so family, friends, and even casual observers have assumed.

  On the other hand, Carlotta is credited by scores of persons with driving Lionel to shoot Stella, for doing everything but putting the gun in his hand.

  Even if Carlotta did put the gun in Lionel's hands, such an emotional and public act as Stella's murder is a very different thing from the secret and cold-blooded killing of a stranger one hardly knows.

  Was Lionel perhaps the murderer of Stuart Townsend? What about Stella herself? And how can we rule out Lasher? If one considers this being to have a personality, a history, indeed a profile as we say in the modern world, does not the killing of Townsend more logically fit the modus operandi of the spirit than anyone else in the house?

  Unfortunately none of these theories can provide for the cover-up, and certainly there was a cover-up with employees of the St. Charles Hotel being paid to say that Stuart Townsend was never there.

  Perhaps an acceptable scenario is one which accommodates all of the suspects involved. For instance, what if Stella did invite Townsend to First Street, where he met his death through some violent intervention of Lasher. And what if a panic-stricken Stella then turned to Carlotta or Lionel or even Pierce to help her conceal the body and make sure no one at the hotel said a word?

  Unfortunately this scenario, and others like it, leaves too many unanswered questions. Why, for instance, would Carlotta have participated in such treachery? Mightn't she have used the death of Townsend to get rid of her baby sister once and for all? As for Pierce, it is highly unlikely that such an innocent young man could have become involved in such a thing. (Pierce went on to live a very respectable life.) And when we consider Lionel we must ask: if he did have knowledge of Stuart's death or disappearance, what prevented him from saying something about it when he went "stark raving mad"? He certainly said enough about everything else that happened at First Street, or so the records show.

  And lastly, we should ask--if one of these unlikely people did help Stella bury the body in the backyard, why bother to remove Townsend's belongings from the hotel and bribe the employees to say he was never there?

  Perhaps the Talamasca was wrong, in retrospect, for not pursuing the matter of Stuart further, for not demanding a full-scale investigation, for not badgering the police into doing something more. The fact is, we did push. And so did Stuart's family when they were informed of his disappearance. But as one distinguished law firm in New Orleans informed Dr. Townsend: "We have absolutely nothing to go on. You cannot prove the young man was ever here!"

  In the days that followed Stella's murder, no one was willing to "disturb" the Mayfairs with further questions about a mysterious Texan from England. And our investigators, including some of the best in the business, could never crack the silence of the hotel employees, nor get so much as a clue as to who might have paid them off. It is foolish to think the police could have done any better.

  But there is one very interesting bit of contemporary "opinion" to consider before we leave this crime unsolved; and that is the final word on the subject by Irwin Dandrich, gossiping with one of our private detectives in a French Quarter bar during the Christmas season of 1929.

  "I'll tell you the secret to understanding that family," said Dandrich, "and I've watched them for years. Not just for your queer birds in London, mind you. I've watched them the way everybody watches them--forever wondering what goes on behind those drawn blinds. The secret is realizing that Carlotta Mayfair isn't the clean-living, righteous Catholic woman she has always pretended to be. There's something mysterious and evil about that woman. She's destructive, and vengeful too. She'd rather see little Antha go mad than grow up to be like Stella. She'd rather see the place dark and deserted than see other people having fun."

  On the surface, these remarks seem simplistic, but there may be more truth to them than anyone realized at the time. To the world Carlotta Mayfair certainly did represent clean living, sanity, righteousness, and the like. From 1929, she attended Mass daily at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel on Prytania, gave generously to the church and all its organizations, and though she carried on a private war with Mayfair and Mayfair over the administration of Antha's money, she was always extremely generous with her own. She lent money freely to any and all Mayfairs who had need of it, sent modest gifts for birthdays, weddings, christenings, and graduations, attended funerals, and now and then met with cousins outside the house for lunch or tea.

  To those who had been so grievously offended by Stella, Carlotta was a good woman, the backbone of the house on First Street, the able and endlessly self-sacrificing caretaker of Stella's insane daughter, Antha, and the other dependents, Millie Dear, Nancy, and Belle.

  She was never criticized for her failure to open the house to the family, or her refusal to reinstate reunions and get-togethers of any kind. On the contrary, it was understood that "she had her hands full." No one wanted to make any demands on her. Indeed, she became a sort of sour saint to the family as the years passed.

  My opinion--for what it's worth--after forty years of studying the family, is that there is a great deal of truth to Irwin Dandrich's estimation of her. It is my personal conviction that she presents a mystery as great as that of Mary Beth or Jul
ian. And we have only scratched the surface of what goes on in that house.

  THE POSITION OF THE ORDER FURTHER CLARIFIED

  With regard to the future, it was decided by the Talamasca in 1929 that no further attempt at personal contact would be made.

  Our director, Evan Neville, believed that first and foremost we should abide by Arthur Langtry's advice, and that second, the warning from the specter of Stuart Townsend should be taken seriously. We should stay away from the Mayfairs for the time being.

  Several younger members of the council believed, however, that we must attempt to make contact with Carlotta Mayfair by mail. What harm could result from doing this, they argued, and what right had we to withhold our information from her? To what purpose had we acquired this information? We must prepare some sort of discreet digest for her of the information we had acquired. Certainly our very earliest records--Petyr van Abel's letters--should be made available to her, along with the genealogical tables we had made.

  This precipitated a furious and acrimonious debate. Older members of the order reminded the younger ones that Carlotta Mayfair was in all probability responsible for the death of Stuart Townsend, and more than likely responsible for the death of her sister, Stella. What obligation could we possibly have to such a person? Antha was the person to whom we should make our disclosure, and such a thing could not even be considered until Antha reached the age of twenty-one.

  Besides, in the absence of any guiding personal contact, how was information to be given to Carlotta Mayfair and what information could we possibly give?

  The history of the Mayfair family as it existed in 1929 was in no way ready for "outside eyes." A discreet digest would have to be prepared, with the names of witnesses and investigators thoroughly expunged from the record, and once again, what would be the purpose of giving this to Carlotta? What would she do with it? How might she use it in regard to Antha? What would be her overall reaction? And if we were going to give this history to Carlotta, why not give it also to Cortland and his brothers? Indeed, why not give it to every member of the Mayfair family? And if we did do such a thing, what would be the effects of such information upon these people? What right had we to contemplate such a spectacular intervention in their lives?

  Indeed, the nature of our history was so special, it included such bizarre and seemingly mysterious material, that no disclosure of it could be arbitrarily contemplated.

  ... And so on and on the debate raged.

  As always at such times, the rules, the goals, and the ethics of the Talamasca were completely reevaluated. We were forced to reaffirm for ourselves that the history of the Mayfair family--due to its length and its detail--was invaluable to us as scholars of the occult, and that we were going to continue to gather information on the Mayfairs, no matter what the younger members of the council said about ethics and the like. But our attempt at "contact" had been an abysmal failure. We would wait until Antha Mayfair was twenty-one, and then a careful approach would be considered, depending upon who was available within the order for such an assignment at that time.

  It also became clear as the council continued its wrangling that almost no one there--Evan Neville included--really knew the full story of the Mayfair Witches. In fact there was considerable arguing not only about what to do and how it should be done, but about what had happened and when in the Mayfair family. For the file had simply become too big and too complicated for anyone to examine effectively within a reasonable period of time.

  Obviously the Talamasca must find a member willing to take on the Mayfair Witches as a full-time assignment--someone able to study the file in detail and then make intelligent and responsible decisions about what to do in the field. And considering the tragic death of Stuart Townsend, it was determined that such a person must have first-rate scholarly credentials, as well as great field experience; indeed, he must prove his knowledge of the file by putting all of its materials into one long coherent and readable narrative. Then, and only then, would such a person be allowed to broaden his study of the Mayfair Witches by more direct investigation with a view to a contact eventually being made.

  In sum, the enormous task of translating the file into a narrative was seen as a necessary preparation for field involvement. And there was great wisdom to this approach.

  The one sad flaw in the whole plan was that such a person was not found by the order until 1953. And by that time Antha Mayfair's tragic life had come to a close. The designee of the legacy was a wan-faced twelve-year-old girl who had already been expelled from school for "talking with her invisible friend," and making flowers fly through the air, or finding lost objects, and reading minds.

  "Her name is Deirdre," said Evan Neville, his face creased with worry and sadness, "and she is growing up in that gloomy old house just the way her mother did, alone with those old women, and God only knows what they know or believe about their history, and about her powers, and about this spirit who has already been seen at the child's side."

  The young member, greatly inflamed by this and by earlier conversations, and much random reading of the Mayfair papers, decided he had better act fast.

  As I myself, obviously, am that member, I shall now pause before relating the brief and sad story of Antha Mayfair, to introduce myself.

  THE AUTHOR OF THIS NARRATIVE, AARON LIGHTNER,

  ENTERS THE PICTURE

  A complete biography of me is available under the heading Aaron Lightner. For the purposes of this narrative the following is more than sufficient.

  I was born in London in 1921. I became a full member of the order in 1943, after I had finished my studies at Oxford. But I had been working with the Talamasca since the age of seven, and living in the Motherhouse since the age of fifteen.

  Indeed, I had been brought to the attention of the order in 1928 by my English father (a Latin scholar and translator) and my American mother (a piano teacher) when I was six years old. It was a frightening telekinetic ability that precipitated their search for outside help. I could move objects just by concentrating upon them or telling them to move. And though this power was never very, strong, it proved very disturbing to those who saw examples of it.

  My concerned parents suspected that this power went along with other psychic traits, of which they had indeed seen an occasional glimpse. I was taken to several psychiatrists, on account of my strange abilities, and finally one of these said, "Take him to the Talamasca. His powers are genuine, and they are the only ones who can work with someone like this."

  The Talamasca was more than willing to discuss the question with my parents, who were greatly relieved. "If you try to crush this power in your son," Evan Neville said, "you will get nowhere with him. Indeed you place his well-being at risk. Let us work with him. Let us teach him how to control and use his psychic abilities." Reluctantly my parents agreed.

  I began to spend every Saturday at the Motherhouse outside of London, and by the age of ten I was spending weekends and summers there as well. My father and mother were frequent visitors. Indeed my father began doing translations for the Talamasca from its old crumbling Latin records in 1935, and worked with the order until his death in 1972, at which time he was a widower living in the Motherhouse. Both my parents loved the General Reference Library at the Motherhouse, and though they never sought official membership in the order, they were in a very real sense a part of it all their lives. They did not object when they saw me drawn into it, only insisting that I complete my education, and not allow my "special powers" to draw me prematurely away from "the normal world."

  My telekinetic power never became very strong, but with the aid of my friends in the order, I became keenly aware that--under certain circumstances--I could read people's thoughts. I also learned to veil my thoughts and feelings from others. I learned also how to introduce my powers to people when and where it was appropriate, and how to reserve them primarily for constructive use.

  I have never been what anyone would call a powerful psychic. Indeed my li
mited mind-reading ability serves me best in my capacity as a field investigator for the Talamasca, particularly in situations which involve jeopardy. And my telekinetic ability is seldom called upon for anything of a practical nature.

  By the time I was eighteen, I was devoted to the order's way of life and its goals. I could not easily conceive of a world without the Talamasca. My interests were the interests of the order, and I was completely compatible with its spirit. No matter where I went to school, no matter how much I traveled with my parents or with school friends, the order had become my true home.

  When I completed my studies at Oxford, I was received into full membership, but I was really a member long before then. The great witch families had always been my chosen field. I had read extensively in the history of the witchcraft persecutions. And those persons fitting our particular definition of witch were of great fascination to me.

  My first fieldwork was done in connection with a witch family in Italy, under the guidance of Elaine Barrett, who was at that time, and for many years later, the most able witch investigator in the order.

  It was she who first introduced me to the Mayfair Witches, in a casual conversation over dinner, telling me firsthand of what had happened to Petyr van Abel, Stuart Townsend, and Arthur Langtry, and inviting me to begin my reading of the Mayfair materials in my spare time. Many a night during the summer and winter of 1945 I fell asleep with the Mayfair papers all over the floor of my bedroom. I was already jotting down notes for a narrative in 1946.

  The year 1947, however, took me completely away from the Motherhouse and the File on the Mayfair Witches for work in the field with Elaine. I did not realize until later that these years provided me with precisely the field record I would need for the romance with the Mayfair Witches which would become my life's work.

  I was given the assignment formally in 1953: begin the narrative; and when it is complete in acceptable form, we will discuss sending you to New Orleans to see the inhabitants of the First Street house for yourself.