Week 1/Mailing 1

It seems like a lot more than 7 weeks have passed. I have learned a lot since that first day of exploration, but there is still much to learn. Here are my thoughts on everything I sent you in Mailing 1. I don't know how much time I have bought myself with Billy the gremlin before he decides to shut my electronics down again and wreak havoc on my investigation so I'll try to make it quick. To begin with, I found a picture of Nancy on the internet. Pretty girl. It's just nice to have a face to associate with the name.

The next thing I learned is a bit more about that symbol found on the wall of Patient 164's room. It's a symbol that dates back to the time of King Solomon. It was used to ward off evil spirits. It was also used to empower those who sought counsel with evil spirits. So, anyone with that tattoo either wanted protection against evil or they wanted a little extra mojo to conspire with evil. Given what we find out about certain suspects in the following weeks, it is difficult to discern what those who had the tattoo were actually using it for. People are rarely all good or all bad. These people are no different. Frederic Leclerq, for example, coached a little league baseball team for at-risk youth in his spare time. Sounds like a good guy to me. But, we also know that he was violent with at least one patient, maybe more. People are shades of gray. I'll talk more about that later.

We haven't really been able to communicate and compare notes on what we discovered from the letters and documents I've sent over the last few weeks. So, I'll take the time here to recap what I've learned from week to week. If you've already figured all this out then it might be repetitive. But, sometimes reviewing things is good. It helps the pieces of the puzzle come together a bit better.

So, where week one is concerned, here's what I have learned.

Nancy's first note contains two puzzles, and even as I try to write out what the answers to those were, it is immediately clear that Billy is still toying with me. He's letting me write and post on my blog. But, he doesn't want me to share the answers of what I found. I think I can fool him by typing the answers to the puzzles in black. You can highlight the space I will indicate and see the answer.

To begin with, the first side of her note had a series of numbered lines. There were numerous words throughout her note that were missing letters. To get the message she intended, all I had to do was go to line 1, write down the missing letter, go to the line numbered 2, write down that missing letter, and so on.

The answer I got was (To view my answer, highlight the space after the colon. You can do this by holding down the left button of your mouse and dragging across or long pressing your phone in the space after the colon and dragging it across. You can also long press the empty space after the colon, copy, and then paste into a note. You can also highlight and zoom in. Whatever works best for you. Maybe Billy won't catch on to what I'm doing here): Tick Tock is less than 42.

Next, we have Arlo's message. He talks about the Holy Trinity, which references the number 3. There is a series of letters there. He mentions needing to move backwards in order to move forward. Basically, what I had to do is take each letter in his code and move back 3 letters along the alphabet.

The result gave me this: this symbol keeps us safe from the ghosts.

It's useful information, but the way he uses the word 'us' and mentions ghosts makes me wonder if Arlo realizes he's actually dead. He doesn't seem to categorize himself as a ghost which is curious.

The last thing of note Nancy left us is the beginnings of a cipher alphabet. She lists a series of letters under her name. N, for example, translates to Z...or will at whatever point she gives us all the cipher and encodes a message using that.

Finally, I have found an image of what one sculptor believed the true form of a gremlin to be. Definitely not a little boy.

And let's not forget that EVP. Distinctly female voice rattling off a list of elements on the Periodic Table. Once I found a Periodic Table and could find the abbreviations for each element on the ghost's list, I obtained this message: investigatesunflowers

Who is the girl? What is her story? Was she a patient at Veilwood? A staff member? How did she die? Add it to the list of questions I haven't answered yet.

Oh, there are a couple of details I learned that first week that didn't make its way into my weekly mailing.

One, there are cold spots all over the sanitorium. Unnaturally cold spots that are located in places where they shouldn't be.

Two, I heard crying at night coming from Veilwood Cemetery. Nothing is creepier than being fast asleep in an old abandoned sanitorium and waking to the sound of weeping. I don't know what to make of it, but it's just one more in a list of odd occurrences that I've experienced.