Deborah Mayfair

Deborah Mayfair
by Shannon Clark

Made exclusively for sale at the Anne Rice Collection
Her long black hair is pulled up in back into a bun with long curls on the side. Blue glass eyes, thick lashes and a hint of a smile on her lips makes you wonder what is on her mind. Deborah is dressed in a plum velvet skirt and matching taffeta underskirt edged with gold lace trim. The bodice is laced up the back and lavished with extraordinary gold lace trim down the front. A white silk blouse with generous lace sleeves emerges from the sleeves of the dress. The Mayfair emerald, pearl earrings, and matching gold high-heel slippers complete the ensemble.

Deborah Mayfair - Also known as the Comtesse de Montcleve, she is Suzanne Mayfair’s daughter and the second of Lasher’s witches. Born in Donnelaith, Scotland, Deborah is twelve when her mother is burned at the stake as a witch in 1665. A raven-haired beauty with blue eyes, she is a “merry-begot” – a child conceived during a May festival whose father is unknown. The villagers suspect that the earl of Donnelaith fathered her, which gives her royal blood. To drive the Devil out of her, the townspeople flog her while forcing her to watch her mother die. Petyr van Abel rescues her and takes her, accompanied by Lasher, whom she views as the Devil, to Amsterdam.
Petyr wants her to stay with him at the Talamasca Motherhouse and learn about her powers: the ability to read minds, move objects, and heal others. However, she views the Talamasca members as witches and refuses. She eventually marries the artist Roelant, making him wealthy through Lasher, who brings her material riches, including an emerald she had seen at a merchant’s fair. She grows wealthy enough to have Rembrandt paint her portrait, which the Talamasca later acquires. Roelant dies and Deborah decides to marry a nobleman from France, the Comte de Montcleve. Just before she lives the city, she seduces Petyr and she conceives a daughter, Charlotte. She asks Petyr to go with her, but he insists his life is with the Talamasca.
Deborah goes to Montcleve and with her new husband has two sons, Chrétien and Phillipe. Lasher remains with her and his reading of her random thoughts causes her husband’s death. The Comte had been unfaithful to her and Lasher believed Deborah would want revenge, so he causes the man to have a fatal accident. When Deborah, the village healer, can do nothing to help her husband, the Comte’s mother declares her to be a witch. Deborah is accused of poisoning her husband and having intercourse with Satan.
A famous witch hunter, Father Louvier, presides at her trial. She is sentenced at the age of tirthy-seven, twenty-five years after she watched her mother die at the stake.
Petyr happens upon her just before she is scheduled to die. They talk in her cell and she begs him to ensure that her hands and her feet are free of bonds when she walks before the townspeople. Petyr argues with the judge about her fate, but to no avail. He watches the next day as Deborah walks forth; rather than going to the stake, she calls forth Lasher, who makes a storm that allows her to go into the church and jump to her death from the parapets. The storm kills her two sons, who had testified against her, and her mother-in-law. In a rage over Deborah’s demise, Lasher also goes back to Donnelaith and causes a fire that destroys the earl and his progeny, effectively wiping out the clan of Donnelaith.
Deborah appears again in Michael Curry’s vision after his drowning in the Pacific. At first, he does not recall the details, only that he has a mission to perform. But as he reads the story of Deborah in the Talamasca files, he becomes certain she was the one who appeared to him in the vision. However, when he sees a photograph of Rembrandt’s painting, he does not recognize her features. He sees her again in the vision he has while drowning in the pool. She is with the other deceased Mayfairs who await Lasher’s promise to bring them back to life and immortality when he becomes flesh. Deborah tells Michael he can come through with them. But again she does not look like the woman in his first vision, and this dissimilarity helps him to realize that this second vision originates with Lasher and is a lie. Indeed, Deborah is not earthbound, but has found a higher realm that has transformed her face and has made her want to help the family against Lasher. This suspicious is confirmed by Julien’s ghost a few months later.


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