We all have memories of our siblings scaring us when we were little. Author Josephine Angelini shares with Hypable what it was like living near the rumored end of the road for the Salem Witches.

I grew up in Massachusetts in a town called Ashland. My house was right across the street from the forest, and on the other side of that forest is a street called Salem End Road. There’s a reason for that. The story goes that people accused of witchcraft fled Salem and came to settle in my area — hence the name “End.”

I was told a lot of stories about that forest; stories that scared the wits out of me as a child. Mostly, my big sisters were the source of this trauma. They told me that there were caves in the woods where witches had taken shelter during the winter. My sisters also told me that the witches froze to death there, and haunted it ever since. I used to lie in my bed at night, staring at the dark trees across the street. The branches would stretch shadows across my bedspread like spindly, skeletal hands trying to snatch away my spirit, just like in a cartoon. Obviously, if I let a toe out from under the protection of my witch-repelling bedspread I was a goner. It’s no wonder I used to think about those witches a lot. The thought of them had me trapped in my bed all night long, no matter how desperately I had to pee.

The whole area where I grew up just screams Halloween. The end of October is reliably cold and windy. The trees have already shed most of their blood-red leaves and the air tastes like wood-smoke. Bright orange pumpkins contrast so sharply against the steel grey of the sky they hardly need candles in them to glow. Night swallows up the lion’s share of the day and twilight falls before supper. And, the stars. They look crueler in Massachusetts. They don’t wink. They stare.

The lower the temperature gets the more you can hear the trees creaking. I don’t know if it’s because the sound carries betting in the frigid air or if the trees are feeling their age and complain more about the cold in their bones, but either way, it makes for the perfect spooky symphony. That was the backdrop for my Halloweens. My sisters and I would venture out in our masks, determined to get our candy, with a watchful eye on the forest.

Halloween became a favorite holiday of mine and not because of the candy. It became a day I could become what scared me and claim its power, rather than give it power over me. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I write about things that scare me. Trial by Fire and Firewalker are both partially set in an alternate version of Salem where witches rule the world. They are not nice witches, but they aren’t all monsters, either. The monsters are in the forest.

Now I’m the one telling scary stories. Maybe I’ll be the one to traumatize my sisters this time.