"Now, when I say that my sister and I were witches, I mean this: we inherited from our mother - as she had from her mother - the power to communicate with the spirits, to get them to do our bidding in small and significant ways. We could feel the presence of the spirits - which are in the main invisible to human eyes - and the spirits were drawn to us.

And those with such powers as we had were greatly revered amongst our people, and sought after for advice and miricles and glimpses into the future, and occasionally for putting the spirits of the dead to rest.

What I am saying is that we were perceived as good; and we had our place in the scheme of things.

There have always been witches, as far as I know. And there are witches now, though most no longer understand what their powers are or how to use them. Then there are those known as clairvoyants or mediums, or channelers. Or even psychic detectives. It is all the same thing. These are people who for reasons we may never understand attract spirits. Spirits find them downright irresistible; and to get the notice of these people, the spirits will do all kinds of tricks."

~

"Whatever the case, ours was an old line. Our mother had been a powerful witch to whom the spirits told numerous secrets, reading men's minds as they do. And she had a great effect upon the restless spirits of the dead.

In Mekare and me, it seemed her power had been doubled, as is often true with twins. That is, each of us was twice as powerful as our mother. As for the power we had together, it was incalculable. We talked to the spirits when we were in the cradle. We were surrounded by them when we played. As twins, we developed our own secret language, which not even our mother understood. But the spirits knew it. The spirits would understand anything we said to them; they could even speak our secret language back to us.

~

Maharet
~ Dany & Dany ©2000

"Because we were witches and our mother was a witch, we alone would partake of her flesh. It was all ours by custom and right. The villagers would not assist in the feast as they might have done at any other where only two offspring were left with the obligation. No matter how long it took we would consume our mother's flesh. And the villagers would keep watch with us."

~

"Mekare was the more powerful witch; the one born first; and the one who always took the lead in things; the one who spoke out immediately; the one who acted as the older sister, as one twin invariably does. It seemed right that she should take the brain and the eyes; and I, who had always been quieter of disposition, and slower, should take the organ which was associated with deep feeling, and love - the heart."

The Queen of the Damned ~ Anne Rice

One of the red-haired twins, she is one of the First Brood of vampires and makes her first appearance in the Chronicles as Jesse's "aunt." In fact, throughout Jesse's family lineage there has always been a woman named Maharet, who pretended through the centuries to be many different women to disguise her vampirism. Maharet invites Jesse to her home in California, the Sonoma compound, and there shows her the interconnections of the Great Family.

As Jesse later discovers, Maharet is actually a vampire who was one of the first generation of vampires made when Akasha was transformed. Her body is so ancient it is as hard as stone, yet it can still breathe. Maharet did not choose to be a vampire, but as one she utilises her power to maintain a loving, nurturing consciousness of the human family that has descended from her only child - a mortal - whom Khayman fathered.

Maharet gathers together the vampires who survive Akasha's mass destruction and tells them the full story of the origins of the vampire race. The tale goes as follows: She and her twin sister, Mekare, once had been witches in a Palestinian tribal culture during the reign of the Egyptian King Enkil and his queen, Akasha. Their powers allowed them to attract spirits and make rain, and when their supernatural abilities attracted Akasha's attention, she forced them to come to her court so she could find out their secret.

Akasha punished them for being witches and subjected them to public rape by the court steward, Khayman. They were then freed. From her rape, Maharet had a baby, Miriam. Later on she and her sister were brought back to Egypt to witness how one of their spirits, Amel, had transformed Akasha and Enkil, who now reigned over their people during the night hours. When Mekare and Maharet explained to Akasha the truth about her new existence - that she was now an immortal vampire - Akasha imprisoned them, sentenced them to die, and had Maharet's eyes poked out. As Maharet lay in prison awaiting her execution, Khayman made her sister Mekare a vampire, who then passed the Dark Gift on to Maharet. But when the twins attempted to flee, they were caught. Reluctant to endanger the spirit which now occupied the twins as well as herself, Akasha decided that the best course of action to take was to separate them from one another. Taken to the eastern shore of Egypt, Maharet was sealed inside a stone coffin and set adrift. She remained in the floating coffin for ten days and nights until the coffin sank and the water that seeped through opened its lid. Maharet spent the next few millennia in search of Mekare, borrowing the eyes of her human victims so that she could see. Yet she never found anyone with any knowledge of her lost sister.

Maharet avoided Akasha until three millennia had passed, then went to view for herself how the king and queen had become living statues. A thousand years later, she located Akasha in Antioch in Marius's shrine. By plunging a dagger in Akasha's heart, she was able to ascertain the truth of her suspicion: that Akasha contained the life force of the vampires and must thus be protected.

During the gathering of immortals after Akasha has risen, Maharet lets Marius know that she is the one true immortal; it is she who has endured, fully aware and self-conscious, through six millennia without resorting to the relief of madness, silent trances, or going into the ground. She, not Akasha, is the true embodiment of Marius's notion of "continual awareness," for she keeps herself interested in life by interacting with her descendants. The character of Maharet is feminine and vulnerable, yet at the same time she exhibits a "savage simplicity" with her blunt and direct statements. Maharet relies on reason to guide and motivate her actions, rather than on insight from spirits.

After David becomes a vampire, Maharet spends time with him looking though her treasures and documents. David has the most scholarly mind of all the vampires, and this gives him the deepest appreciation for these historical records. The connection between these two gives Lestat a way, via Maharet, to send David the message that he needs him.

Lestat ends up going to Heaven and Hell with Memnoch, who claims to be the Devil. Afterward, Maharet comes to Lestat at St. Elizabeth's in New Orleans. When Lestat sees her, he believes she means to tell him to do as she has done: to take a human eye to replace his missing one. He refuses, but in fact she has come to give his missing eye back to him. It comes with a note from Memnoch that Lesat has performed well for him, implying that he was a dupe in the Devil's scheme.

As Maharet delivers this message, she binds Lestat in chains. She feels that because Lestat could do much damage as a result of his misery over this message, they must either chain or destroy him. While he is still in shock, she nails him into a windowless, bricked-up room. During Lestat's recovery, David records his tale. When he has trouble getting things right, Maharet assists him by reading Lestat's mind. Finally, she feels she can safely free Lestat. She unchains him and leaves.

"It was a very important challenge," says Rice, "to take people who were supposed to be thousands of years old and imbue them with wisdom, yet try to imagine their shortcomings. The challenge with Maharet was particularly heavy. I wanted this really wise person, yet also someone who had flaws that came from the time in which she was made a vampire."

The Vampire Companion ~ Katherine Ramsland