Suzanne Mayfair

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Suzanne Mayfair, a fictional character mentioned in several novels by Anne Rice, namely The Witching Hour, Lasher, and Taltos, as an ancestor of the main characters, the Mayfair Witches of Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Her story begins and ends tragically in Donnelaith, Scotland, where she is a village healer. In the presence of her daughter, Deborah, she calls up a spirit named Lasher. He attaches himself to Suzanne, serving her and seducing her. Suzanne is described by her descendants as being a "simple girl", or an untintelligent woman, and they say that she really didn't know what she was doing when she was calling up this spirit that would haunt her family for centuries. She is blamed for some bad luck around the village that is undoubtedly caused by Lasher, and burned at the stake. Her daughter is saved from this fate by the fact that she is what was called a "merry-begot"; that is, she was conceived on May Day, and may in fact be the illegitimate offspring of the Earl of Donnelaith. She is taken away by a Dutch scholar named Petyr van Abel, a member of an order known as the Talamasca that is dedicated to studying all things supernatural.