The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,235

the provisions of the will are null and void.

In the twentieth century, numerous “cousins” have received money from the legacy, primarily through Mary Beth Mayfair, and her daughter Stella, but some also through. Deirdre, the money being administered for her by Cortland Mayfair. Many of these people are now “rich,” as the bequest was frequently made in connection with investments or business ventures of which the beneficiary or her administrator approved.

The Talamasca knows today of some five hundred and fifty descendants all using the name Mayfair; easily one half of these people know the core family in New Orleans, and know something about the legacy, though they are many generations removed from their original inheritance.

Stella gathered together some four hundred Mayfairs and related families in 1927 at the house on First Street, and there is considerable evidence that she was interested in the other psychic members of the family, but the story of Stella will be related further on.

DESCENDANTS

The Talamasca has investigated numerous descendants, and found that among them mild psychic powers are common. Some exhibit exceptional psychic powers. It is also common to speak of the ancestors of Saint-Domingue as “witches” and to say that they were “lovers of the devil” and sold their souls to him, and that the devil made the family rich.

These tales are now told lightly and often with humor or with wonder and curiosity, and the majority of the descendants with whom the Talamasca has made limited contact do not really know anything concrete about their history. They do not even know the names of the “witches.” They know nothing of Suzanne or Deborah, though they do banter about statements such as “Our ancestors were burnt at the stake in Europe,” and “We have a long history of witchcraft.” They have rather vague notions about the legacy, knowing that one person is the main beneficiary of the legacy and they know the name of that one person, but not much else.

However, descendants in the New Orleans area know a great deal about the core family. They attend wakes and funerals, and were gathered together on countless occasions by Mary Beth and by Stella, as we shall see. The Talamasca possesses numerous pictures of these people, in family gatherings and singly.

Stories among all these people of seeing ghosts, of precognition, of “phone calls from the dead,” and of mild telekinesis are by no means uncommon. Mayfairs who know almost nothing of the New Orleans family have been involved in no less than ten different ghost stories contained in various published books. Three different distantly related Mayfairs have exhibited enormous powers. But there is no evidence that they understood or used these powers to any purpose. To the best of our knowledge, they have no connection to the witches, to the legacy, to the emerald necklace, or to Lasher.

There is a saying that all the Mayfairs “feel it” when the beneficiary of the legacy dies.

Descendants of the Mayfair family fear Carlotta Mayfair, the guardian of Deirdre Mayfair, the present beneficiary, and regard her as a “witch,” but the word in this case is more closely related to the vernacular term for an unpleasant woman than to anything pertaining to the supernatural.

SUMMARY OF MATERIALS

RELATING TO THE SAINT-DOMINGUE YEARS

To return to an appraisal of the family in the seventeen hundreds, it is undeniably characterized by strength, success, and wealth, by longevity and enduring relationships. And the witches of the period must be perceived as extremely successful. It can safely be assumed that they controlled Lasher completely to their satisfaction. However, we honestly do not know whether or not this is true. We simply have no evidence to the contrary. There are no specific sightings of Lasher. There is no evidence of tragedy within the family.

Accidents befalling enemies of the family, the family’s continued accumulation of jewels and gold, and the countless stories told by the slaves as to the omnipotence or infallibility of their mistresses constitute the only evidence of supernatural intervention, and none of this is reliable evidence.

Closer observation through trained investigators might have told a very different tale.

THE MAYFAIR FAMILY IN LOUISIANA

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Several days before the Haitian revolution (the only successful slave uprising in history), Marie Claudette was warned by her slaves that she and her family might be massacred. She and her children, her brother Lestan and his wife and children, and her uncle Maurice and his two sons and their wives and children escaped with apparent ease and an amazing amount of