Salem

After a hearty breakfast of salmon and eggs benedict we stumbled upon a delightful little bookstore at the corner of Essex and Derby with a most enigmatic owner.  When I asked aloud, mostly to Max, if I could take a picture of the store a voice coming from a small space between two mighty stacks answered

"If you buy a book, you can take all the pictures you like."

 

Max ponied up and purchased World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War  by Max Brooks.  Zombies and Witches and Bookstores - oh my! 

The Comic Book Store Was Open

Not a lot of things were open in town but we were able to take a tour of the Witch museum where we learned not only the history of the famed Salem Witch trials but also about modern day witches.  We are regular people, just like you.  When you meet us, let us explain our religion the animatronic figures dressed in crushed velvet say to the crowd.  Evidently Wiccans are like old fashioned pagans.  They worship nature and "[their] religion has nothing to do with the devil".  Their tenants, as described by the figures, are 1) Do no harm   2) Do as you will   3) Everything you do comes back to you three fold.  And do not refer to them as warlocks.  That's derogatory...to people who refer to themselves as witches.    

Samantha!

All of this got me thinking about the moment when the town's leadership decided they could make a tourist destination based on their horrible Witch history.  I mean really, it's a terrible story, many innocent people were killed.  I would have loved to sit in on the meeting where the mayor said "You know, it's time we turn this whole witch thing around and make it work for us."

You have to imagine that it was a great shame for the city for some time, as well it probably should have been.  But at some point they started erecting witch museums, witch statues based on popular television, and luring in scads and scads of palm readers and fortune tellers.

However that went down, we had a delightful time in the snow filled city including a spot hitting crab roll on our way out of town.               

Witch House, which we were misled to believe was open