Bewitching Salem gets into the holiday spirit

The month-long Haunted Happenings are a celebration of everything eerie. SALEM, Mass. -- Stroll down Museum Place Mall in late October and you may feel you've entered another world. People wearing pointy witch hats and Dracula-like capes swirl through the pedestrian street. Shops with names like Wicked Goodz, Broom Closet and Hexline the passage. Street vendors offer fright wigs and tarot readings. It's all part of Salem's annual Halloween mania. Capitalizing on its history of 17th century witch persecution, this city 16 miles north of Boston turns itself into a celebration of the frightful and the occult during its month-long Haunted Happenings. It's all in fun, of course, but underlying Salem's present-day Halloween antics is its very real hysterical frenzy of 1692, when 20 innocent people accused of witchcraft were put to... [read full story]