First Street With Pale Yellow Paint
 |
| First Street's Egyptian Keyhole Doorway |
 |
| First Street's Egyptian Keyhole Doorway Up Close |
The symbolism of the doorway and the thirteen torment Michael Curry throughout The Witching Hour, though Rowan repeatedly advises him to forget about their meaning. Rowan herself learns partially their meaning, but doesn't learn their full meaning until it is too late.
 |
| Detail of the Front Door From the Original Plans 1 |
 |
| Detail of the Front Door From the Original Plans 2 |
The Doorway
Doorways
are what we enter and leave places through. The
symbolism of the doorway in the
Mayfair series can be partially interpreted as Lasher's means of
entering the world.
Indeed, though Carlotta did
despicable things to Rowan's forebears, she was right when she told
Rowan that Lasher wanted to
"be like us." In order for this to
happen, Lasher needs a doorway by which to enter the world.
The question throughout The Witching Hour
was, what was
the doorway? The builder of the
Mayfair Crypt must have been instructed by one of the previous witches
to put the bas-relief
of the keyhole doorway on the tomb.
Since Lasher claimed to have put the ideas for the First Street house
in Katherine's
head, it was probably Lasher who
indicated the crypt should have a doorway on it. Putting the doorway on
the crypt was
probably meant to be a covert way on
Lasher's part of indicating his plan. He certainly had no intention of
bluntly
telling his witches what he really
wanted as they could have thwarted him through their own free will.
Of
all the witches, Stella Mayfair might have come the closest
to understanding what the doorway
and the thirteen meant. She understood Lasher wanted to "come through"
and understood
that it would take thirteen witches
to do it. She just didn't know which thirteen would be the ones to
bring him through,
though she was most decidely one of
them. Her parties may also have been a way to kick up enough noise to
distract and
confuse Lasher as Marie-Claudette
had done.
The Number 13
The
number 13 has had many associations over time, many of them
ill. In Roman times, the number 13
was associated with bad omens, which is how it is used in the Lives of
the Mayfair
Witches. Hints and clues at the
thirteen are all over, most notably the Mayfair Crypt - twelve crypts,
one doorway.
The principle characters - Rowan,
Michael, Aaron Lightner, and Rowan's forebears - spend a great deal of
time trying to interpret
it's meaning, knowing it is not
good.
Once again, Wikipedia has something to say on the subject of the
number 13. Below is a link to their page, where you may read further on it.
 |
The Emerald Key From Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches
