The Witching Hour

In the morning, Rowan and Michael go to Destin for their honeymoon. Rowan asks Michael to keep her pregnancy a secret for a while, and he agrees. In Florida, Rowan makes plans for Mayfair Medical and for destroying Lasher. However, he appears to her when she walks on the beach alone at four o’clock in the morning, and she won’t tell Michael. She delays going back to New Orleans and has obstetrician appointments in Florida. At the end of November, Michael has to go to San Francisco to take care of his old house and office.

When Michael goes to San Francisco, Rowan returns to the First Street house, where she sees Lasher, who takes the form of her past lovers. After becoming visible exhausts him, Lasher talks to Rowan in her mind. He loves her but mainly desires to become human. Lasher admits to possessing Aaron when he is asleep and believes Aaron is a liar. He also talks about possessing the people whose body parts were in the jars. He convinces Rowan that she is the one who can make him human with the occult power she uses in surgery.

Lasher doesn’t know his own history before Suzanne and cannot speak with the dead, but he admits that Carlotta was his enemy and a powerful witch, and that his fight with Cortland resulted in his death. Lasher claims that the goal of the Talamasca is to prevent beings like him from becoming embodied. He also says he didn’t create Michael’s visions. Rowan refuses to help Lasher become incarnate unless he swears to never hurt Aaron or Michael. Lasher claims that Rowan can’t kill him, and she thinks he will take the side of her child over her. Rowan and Lasher have sex. Rowan can only think about her desire for Lasher and has sex with him many times. She ignores phone calls and thinks she hears a baby crying.

Rowan loses track of time and ignores her mail, as well as all phone calls. She talks to Lasher about the attempts to make him human by Julien, Marguerite, and other Mayfairs. One day, Rowan goes to see Aaron at the hotel bar. She admits she’s been with Lasher but hasn’t told Michael. Then, she confronts Aaron about the mission of the Talamasca. He asks her not to help Lasher, and she describes Lasher as made up of “eukaryote cells” (953). Aaron again warns her against helping Lasher. They debate the morality of Rowan’s healing powers, of helping Lasher, and of scientific works with fetuses. Aaron tries to convince her to contact Michael or stay in the hotel, but she refuses and threatens Aaron. He believes Lasher is controlling her.

In San Francisco, Michael is plagued by accidents, which is the result of Lasher meddling in Michael’s life. He empties the house and starts sending packages to Aunt Vivian. Then he starts working on moving things out of his office. When he talks to Rowan, he says he’ll be home before Christmas. Michael packs up several boxes of ornaments to take to New Orleans. Soon, Rowan stops answering his calls. After Michael’s car is broken into, he hears Julien tell him to go back to New Orleans. Michael is almost run over as he stares at Julien’s ghost in a bus window.

After this vision and near-death experience, Michael asks Mayfair and Mayfair to take over moving his things from San Francisco to New Orleans and selling his California properties. Ryan arranges for Michael to take a private plane to New Orleans. While Michael is smoking in his hotel bed, he falls asleep and almost sets the room on fire. Then, he calls Rowan and asks her to envision a white light around him as he travels home.

Rowan spends time with Beatrice as she waits for Michael’s delayed plane. After Beatrice leaves the house, Rowan tells Lasher to stop harming Michael. They debate the morality of Lasher taking over a human body. Rowan continues to dream of performing surgery on a deformed being with various people from the Mayfair file. Michael comes home, and they put up the Christmas ornaments.

On December 23rd, Michael says he is going out for preparations for the party they are holding that night. Then, he drives to Oak Haven.

While Michael is away, Rowan asks Lasher about the pact. He grants power to witches who agree to have a female child for him to follow until there are 13 generations. They debate whether or not he will remain immortal when he has a body. Lasher tells her that the dolls are a way of accessing memories, like Michael’s ability to see things when he touches them. Lasher believes that the dead do not remain, only memories do. He is not in the same place as dead humans. Rowan and Lasher have sex.

Michael meets Aaron at Oak Haven. Michael knows Rowan has been with Lasher in secret, and he tells Aaron about his vision of Julien in San Francisco. Aaron admits that Rowan threatened him and told him about Lasher. Also, Aaron believes that she has to confront Lasher on her own and suggests that Michael not talk about what he knows with her. They talk about Rowan’s discovery about the cells Lasher is made of and how he is different from ghosts and other spirits. Aaron gives Michael a St. Michael medallion. As Michael leaves to go back to New Orleans, it starts to snow.

That night, Rowan walks around the cemetery and looks at the Mayfair crypt. She talks to Lasher in her mind about being the doorway. He demands that Michael be out of the house before dark the following day.

During the Christmas party at the First Street house, Michael is internally in agony but presents a positive image to the guests. When they leave, and he comes to bed, he sees Rowan’s face change into a vicious expression while she is asleep. Michael wakes up late on Christmas Eve and can’t find Rowan. He goes to the store and buys food for dinner, but he just sits in the kitchen until Rowan arrives and tells him to leave the house. Michael is hurt and confused. Rowan slaps him and tries to push him out the door, telling him that he will die if he stays. When he resists, she injects him with a tranquilizer and has people take him to Aaron.

Once they are alone, Lasher appears in front of Rowan. At the “witching hour” (1001), he demands to take over her unborn child. She is surprised and horrified. Lasher enters Rowan and is born as her and Michael’s baby. It is deformed like the creature from her dreams of surgery, and it telepathically demands she use her occult powers to make it a complete, fully grown man. Once this is complete, he demands she stop her own bleeding, and she passes out.

When she wakes up, she sees Lasher and screams. He puts his hand over her mouth until she stops. Then, she looks at him and wants to examine him with scientific equipment. He suggests they leave and get what she wants. Lasher is overjoyed at being able to walk. He cries and kisses Rowan, and they walk upstairs.

Michael wakes up sick. A doctor tries to convince him to stay in bed, and Aaron asks him to rest. However, Michael refuses and goes to the First Street house. When he sees the newly born—but fully grown—Lasher, Michael lunges at him. Lasher laughs and runs away clumsily, saying Michael won’t kill his own child. Michael hits Lasher and starts to strangle him, but Lasher knocks Michael away. Rowan comes into the room and tries to keep them from fighting, but they continue regardless. Lasher knocks Michael into the pool. Michael has visions of Julien, Mary Beth, Charlotte, Stella, Cortland, and others. Deborah tells Michael that Lasher promised to bring all the witches back to earth. The ghosts argue, and Cortland says they killed Michael’s father.

When Michael’s consciousness returns, he is out of the pool and being helped by a fireman. Aaron is also there. Michael loses consciousness again as they go to the hospital.

When he regains consciousness again in the hospital, Michael learns that his heart stopped three times, and that all the house alarms were set off. Ryan tells him he can stay in the First Street house. Michael is heavily drugged until the new year, and he is released in February. Various Mayfairs visit him and are upset that Rowan has abandoned him. He switches bedrooms, and his Aunt Vivian comes to live with him. After Michael nearly drowns, he loses his psychic power.

The final chapter is Michael’s diary entry from Mardi Gras Night. He thinks the vision in the pool wasn’t real, but his other visions were. He waits for Rowan to return and believes that she is interested in using the science behind helping Lasher to help people. When he goes through the attic, Michael finds and reads Antha’s stories. He describes the improvements and changes in the garden, as well as the family coming by for the parade earlier that day. As he watched it pass by, he thought about how it frightened him in his childhood. When he stood in the garden, a boy with his mother called him “that man” (1035), which amused him.

The book ends with Michael’s credo. He believes in free will and the goodness of life; he also believes that people can make moral decisions, and that Rowan will come home.