The Power of Fear in Salem

Did you know two little girls helped start the Salem witch trials? Betty Parris was

9. Abigail Williams was 11. One winter morning, they started convulsing,

screaming, barking like dogs. Their bodies twisted in ways that shouldn't be possible.

The town doctor examined them and couldn't explain it, so he gave Salem

the only diagnosis that made sense in 1692: witchcraft. And just like that, these girls had

power. They started pointing at people, a homeless woman, their family's slave,

a woman who didn't go to church. Every time they accused someone, they'd collapse

into violent fits, scream that invisible hands were choking them. The entire town