On one snowy winter day, the beautiful girl sat alone in the castle’s tall tower.  She pricked her finger while darning clothes and spilled blood onto the window sill.  She sighed, “Oh, if I could be anywhere but here.” 

As soon as her last word was spoken, appeared in the sky six beautiful witches with hair white as snow, lips red as blood, shoes black as ebony, gowns glittering in purple, silver, blue, gray, ivory, or pearl.  The witches and the girl rode on snowflakes, traveled across ocean and time, and settled into the House of Seven Gables, in the town Salem of Massachusetts.   

During the day, they slept in the gables.  At night, they rode on snowflakes up high in the sky and sprinkled staffs, notes, and clefts down onto the town below.  Their singing tore the sky, ripped the ocean, wrecked the ships that sailed ashore, and stirred the heart of a certain Nat Hawthorne, who then put their music into songs, one of which was named after the witches who lived in the House of Seven Gables. 

Then, when spring came the six witches withered in the blazing flame, while the beautiful girl ran into the woods, took refuge in a flower, and waited for snow to come, in the following winter.