The eight women arrived at my house at 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night, each carrying a bulging bag of old bones.

Our goal: to get rid of some of the skeletons in our closets – the laughably outdated, the much-loved, the shockingly boring – all of those fashions of yesteryear that, for whatever reason, we just weren’t wearing anymore.

Maybe we would trade a few items for something new-to-us. Maybe we would say goodbye to some ghosts of our former selves. But mostly, we were having this major purge-fest to shake up our wardrobes and inspire some gruesome Halloween costumes.

Salem, always a place that delivers great second-hand finds, is experiencing its own kind of paradoxical vintage fashion recession. While stores such as Value Village and Goodwill have reported steady sales, the number of clothes being dropped off at Salem locations begins to dwindle as the weather gets colder. Though the drive to buy used is through the roof, the community’s motivation to donate their old things falls off just when people might need it most.

I think that’s a horror story, especially at this time of year. Most people associate clearing out the roost with spring cleaning – but autumn is the time when people really need that warmth. October is the best month of all to shake out the skeletons in your closet and send them packing.

We didn’t harbor any disillusions that we were having a clothing swap with only altruism in mind. We wanted some stuff, and we didn’t want to pay for it.

But these skeletons deserved a worthy send-off, so we each told a story about a single item we were freeing from closet limbo.

One Salem woman told the story of her emancipation top – a slinky, pink and black number she had bought after leaving her first husband. Another brought out a personally unflattering but still pretty sexy tent dress a friend had coerced her into buying.

I brought to the table a twice-worn black trench coat from 2003. The second time I wore it, while walking home from a comedy club in New York City, a man threw a jar of hot green sauce from an upper-story window onto the sidewalk in front of me, shattering the glass and covering me in Exorcist-colored goo.

Great coat. Bad memory. It had to go.

But it was a woman from Portland who had the best skeleton story of all. Years ago, while working as a nanny for Gillian Anderson in London (yes, that one), the woman’s mom latched onto the idea that her daughter had to have “appropriate pajamas” for her new role and had sent her a puffy-sleeved, lace-necked, body-covering sheer white, Victorian-era nightgown.

Actually, it looked strangely similar to something my own mother had bought me for my wedding night.

The gown was just gorgeous, but not exactly wearable. Its owner certainly never wore it, and so, like the rest of the skeletons, the gown joined a pile on the floor, ripe for the plucking.

Can you believe any of us were able to cast off these storied garments? In the end, we donated 68 articles of clothing and five pieces of jewelry to the Salvation Army in Salem. The bag was so packed I couldn’t even carry it myself. All of us left the evening with far fewer items than we came in with.

As I dropped it off the next week, I felt a huge surge of relief and a glimmer of excitement at the possibilities for Halloween.

I’m going as Emily Dickinson’s zombie corpse. You get one guess as to what I’ll be wearing.