The Shadow Over Salem
Now that we are formally entering the Halloween season, I want to share a true story that I cannot explain. I want to begin by stating that I am often very skeptical of tales involving the paranormal, and I choose to describe this experience as “weird” over anything else. With this disclaimer out of the way, let me take you back to the early-2000s and to the infamous city of Salem, Massachusetts.
During the summers, my family would vacation in Gloucester. We’d stay in a hotel on the beach, go out to dinner every few nights for fresh seafood, and when not on the sand itself, go shopping in Rockport, or spend a day in Salem visiting the witch shops, the haunted attractions, and the historical sites. In August of 2002, we thought that it would be fun to head up to the North Shore in October to see Salem in its full seasonal glory and to participate in a haunted walking tour.
On a Friday after school, my parents, sister, and I made the drive to our usual hotel and checked in before heading to Salem for dinner and to enjoy the festivities in such a notorious setting. After eating at an Irish pub, we ventured through the cobblestone streets and into various shops, enjoyed street performances by local historians and weirdos (a latter of whom had a lifelike prop skunk upon his shoulder with which he freaked out many tourists), and explored all sorts of little crevices of the city that generally go unnoticed during the summer. We had at least an hour before the tour began, and the city was filled with a carnival atmosphere in which my sister and I in particular took great pleasure.
It was around this time that we noticed a strange restaurant. There was a party going on inside of it with what appeared to be a Roaring ’20s theme. The people were all dressed in old fashioned attire. The men wore outdated suits with wide lapels, and at least one held onto a bowler style hat, never placing it onto his head. The women were wearing flappers in red, white or black, and a few others had more elaborate dresses in white, yellow or black that resembled tighter fitting gowns. Many of the women had bobbed hair, and I remember at least one in red wearing a feathery tiara. Some in the gathering held onto masquerade masks. In the window nearest to us, a group of four (two men, two women) sat across from one another and appeared to be joking; one of the women was laughing as a waiter arrived at their table with a pad of paper. The building also had what seemed to be a small ballroom, and there were couples dancing beneath antique lighting and at least one chandelier visible behind the people smiling beside the window.
All four of us saw this and smirked. It reminded my sister and I of the sort of weird pageantry that some of the goth and emo kids at school would have done if given the time and budget so we dubbed it “the goth restaurant” and went along our way to the tour. We didn’t see any signs, so we made note of the location and decided to get the name on our way back with the intention of going there ourselves the following August.
The haunted tour of Salem was very interesting. It began in the downtown area and went through the historic cemetery, the location of the jail where the accused witches had been held awaiting trial during the hysteria, the execution sites, outside the homes of notable colonial leaders, and finished near a recently defunct state prison that was creepier than anything else. It was outside the historic witch jail that I could have sworn I felt someone touch first my right shoulder and, after I had turned, my lips. I distinctly felt two slender fingers gently caressing my face without anyone being around to do so. I do not have an explanation for this, but perhaps it was a breeze and the power of suggestion at such a dark historical site.
One of the most memorable events occurred when we were near an intersection and taking a break at the halfway point of the excursion. A van slowed and stopped near our tour group and the windows rolled down. I thought we were about to be shot, but instead a mime stuck their head out and started doing a routine to loud techno music before speeding away. We were roaring with laughter and, from that moment on, called it a “drive by miming.”
The assembly returned to the starting area and we went our separate ways as a second tour was preparing. It was still early in the night and we continued to explore the city when my father suggested that we go back to “the goth restaurant” and find its real name so we could look it up online once we returned home. We made our way through the streets and side paths until we reached the location of the ballroom, but there was nothing there.
Nothing like a restaurant or ballroom or anything in use, that is.
The building where we had seen the party just two hours earlier was blocked off with a wrought iron gate and its windows covered by boards. The fencing was padlocked and another latch was on the sealed entrance. A large red “X” was pasted onto the barricaded door, indicating that the structure had been cleared for firefighters and demolition teams.
We assumed that we had the wrong location, so we continued down the avenue to the next corner and it was a busy street full of tourists and costumed party-goers. This was obviously the wrong part of town and nothing like where we had seen the mysterious chamber. We went in another direction and came to a museum; again nowhere near the right place! My family traversed this entire section of Salem, retracing our steps from the parking garage to the Irish pub, and then to where we knew that party had been. No matter how many times we looked, the scene where we had witnessed a gathering of people in early-1920s attire was this now abandoned building.
Going into a shop before it closed, we asked about the ballroom and the owners had never heard of such a place. As we processed that, we realized something else: we had not once seen a single person dressed like that while we were out and about in the city. Where could they have gone? Further thinking about the spectacle, it dawned on my sister and I that despite all the conversations, visible laughter, and dancing, we never heard anything while watching from the window.
The four of us let out a collective “huh,” and we walked back to the parking garage. Twenty-two years later, I still have no idea what we saw that night. Was it a hole in space-time that offered us a glimpse eighty years into the past? A gathering of spirits? A convoluted troll by pranksters who occupied a derelict structure for a few hours and then returned it to its decayed state? I sometimes hear about “glitches in the Matrix” on Reddit and YouTube, and wonder if something like this qualifies.
