1692

Prologue

I'm afraid. I've always been afraid. When I was little, I was afraid of monsters, goblins, and wayward spirits, but as I aged here in the Cove, I realized that often times the real monsters were...us.

Preachers...

Morticians...

Bell ringers...

Butlers...

Tailors....

Normal men, often committed the most harrowing of sins, and the most violent of affairs. I came to know that the real monsters don't live under my bed, beside my wardrobe, or outside my window late at night. The real monster was what was sleeping next to me.

Candle Cove was a small, quiet town a few miles North of Boston on the coast of Massachusetts. No one would be able to find the town if they chose to look for it now, when it was first conceived it was specially designed to keep outsiders out. Surround by dense forest filled with menacing wildlife, no one in colonial America at the time would dare to venture into the town.

The town itself was extremely small, a few houses were set on the top of a great cove, overlooking the ocean. The cove was large, and it was said that ghosts and witches lived in the great cave below the town. Those stories I was told as a child came more and more to life the longer I lived in Candle Cove. All the houses were situated conveniently around the immense church building, an ominous, whitewashed haven. The bell tower on top of the church was inhabited by one permanent resident, Woodsbaine Rains. I never saw the man around the town, or even the forest, he always stayed near the bell tower he lived in, and rang the enormous, cracked bell when it was time to gather for church.

The entire town was built upon the church; led by Reverend Bram Stevenson, the extreme form of Puritanism that was practiced here became our basis for everything, and Bram became god himself in our community. Any of us would follow him to the grave... and he knew it.

The most disturbing thing about Candle Cove was the weather. A thick mist would roll in from the ocean on a daily basis, and it always rained. Every once in a while the torrential weather would let up ever so slightly, and reveal a glorious blue sky, but that was only once in a blue moon.

However, the events that occurred in Candle Cove, Massachusetts from 1 October, 1692, to 5 February 1693 have forever shaped and disturbed the course of history, very few know the legend, but we all know, that year......

1692.