The Bewitching

The narrative opens in summer 1998 at Stoneridge College. Minerva Contreras remains on the stately, Victorian campus as a resident director during the summer break, ostensibly to write her thesis. She worries that she’s experiencing writer’s block and “progress has stalled” on her project (4). She is working toward a degree in English literature, specializing in horror novels set in New England, many of which were written by authors who lived, at one time, close to Stoneridge. There is even a grove of trees on campus, known as the “Witches Thicket,” that is rumored to have been the hiding place of a witch during the Salem witch trials. Salem, too, is just a short drive from Stoneridge.

When Minerva, who is from Mexico City, applied to the school, many people warned her about its harsh winters, but she’d been resolute: She wanted to tread in the footsteps of writers like HP Lovecraft, Steven King, and Beatrice Tremblay. Her own family history contains stories of witches, many of them told to her by her great-grandmother Alba. Minerva is fascinated by the connection between personal history and folklore, and she hopes to explore that idea in her thesis.