In Charm's Way

Our Story

In a far away place beyond the darkest trees, beyond the chilling air, beyond the somber fall leaves, beyond the muddy road trail and beyond the grey aura around the vast forest ridden with damp fog and pits that you'd almost find in a swamp lies a tumbled down village by the name of Salem.

Where the sun never shines and the ragged, pallid villagefolk wear ghostly grey faces that tell of their sorrow and fear. For, as legend has it, Salem is home to the terrifying, macabre, sinister, cunning and even flesh-eating wicked witches.

A thousand years ago, Salem was a prosperous town founded by settlers from far off who discovered the once incredible land. One dark night, however, in the middle of winter, the villagers were woken from their beds by a baleful howling that split the night air like a woodsman's large axe. Believing it was wolves, the elders gathered their people inside the church and bolted the doors.

"We're safe in here" said Black Phillip their leader and a skilled wolf hunter at that, "The wolves cannot pass through stone walls". But there was something unnatural about the howling that made him afraid. The villagers, however, trusted Black Phillip and sang songs to drown out the baying. When it stopped, they cheered and toasted their leader for saving their lives. But when there was a knock at the door, they all froze with fear. All except Black Phillip.

"Who goes there!" bellowed Black Phillip.
"Help" came the pitiful reply, "Help us please".

"It's a trick" whispered the elders to their leader, "The wolves have disguised their voices. We mustn't let them in".

"What do you want?" shouted Black Phillip cautiously.
"We are a family of traveling gypsies" was the desperate response "The wolves have attacked our caravan and dragged off our children. In the name of god, save us before we are all killed!"

Black Phillip was unsure of what to do. If he let these gypsies in and they were wolves, he would be condemning his people to certain slaughter. But if the gypsies were telling the truth.....

Just then, a flickering red light danced in the stain glass windows of the church and the gypsies re-doubled their cries. "They have set fire to our caravan!" they wailed "We beseech you to let us in!".

"Open the doors!" commanded Black Phillip.

The villagers did as they were bid. When the bolts had been drawn back and the doors edged open, Black Phillip saw to his relief a shabby family of travellers standing outside in the snow. But the flaming caravan was nowhere to be seen.

Black Phillip realized too late that he had been deceived for just as he cried out "Beware!", the church doors were re-bolted and the gypsies were inside.

But they were not gypsies. Shedding their brightly covered clothes and even skin as if they were picking a scab, they transformed into a pack or rather group of scantily clad, snarling, seductively stunning, ravenous and drooling women. Glowing bright eyes, wet lips, sharp tooth savage monsters with the darkest of magic and from Beelzebub's bottomless pit, with powerful crushing jaws and skin that while smooth and silky, also stank to high heaven.

"We are doomed!" wept the elders as the villagers panicked and sought refuge behind the altar. "They are wolves!".

"Not wolves. For even they are afraid of us" snarled their leader, the most beautiful and yet most menacing and beastly as the others surrounded the quaking crowd, "We are much more powerful than any of them combined".

"Locked doors can't keep our magic out".

"What do you want?" asked Black Phillip bravely, pushing himself to the front.

"What we want..... is every single one of you" said their leader.

Then with a savagery unknown to the gentle people of Salem, the vile demons in women's skins butchered and tore apart every man, woman and child as they laid trapped within the desecrated church walls.

The women became known as "witches" after feasting on the flesh of the village that gave them a home.

For centuries, they terrorized people from all over the world and were dark forces never to be messed with. Snatching up children and roasting them over the fire like tender pieces of meat or chicken, stealing the souls of women and turning them into their very own which added to their numbers and cursing the men with the most deadliest of spells or even poison.

In the 17th century, all of this culminated in the now infamous Salem Witch Trials with an all-powerful (not in the magic sense) minister driving the witches out and send their horrific souls to the depths of hell, not with a ten thousand strong army but with the law itself. The tragedy is that no real witch was ever burned at the stake, for they were too smart to get caught but the aftermath had them go into hiding among the people who they had struck fear and horror into. But even today, the men and women of Salem still fear for the return of these women birthed by the Devil himself.

But this is the stuff of mythology, and as we all know witches don't really exist.

Not in Bellwood, California anyway.