"But it is strange to keep their letters for over a decade and scribble cryptic messages in the margins!"

"Right, which suggests to me that Mr Winston was afraid, not disinterested. He hardly seems to have been in much position to judge the sanity of others. But if he thought that something was watching him, and might retaliate against efforts to interact with any part of what had happened to him..."

"I wonder who these other friends of theirs were... Mrs. Winston-Rogers didn't mention remembering any notable friends of her father's."

"I imagine they might have been quite secretive."

"Up until their untimely demise under mysterious circumstances. --What might Mr. Winston have been so afraid of that he couldn't send a letter? It's clearly not something too close to him, or else he presumably would never have opened the letters at all."

"I don't know. Maybe he had some sense that merely opening the letters was unlikely to provoke a response. Still, it doesn't fit the pattern of a local haunting that you'd hear about, does it, if there are other people in other places being similarly plagued?"
 
 "I think we need more pieces." 

"I'm inclined to ask Douglas as our next step. -- assuming any asylum will let me in the doors again, which after my last few articles is not guaranteed at all."

"Lucky you're not alone, then. I'm sure one of us will be able to meet with him. --I agree that we're not going to be able to unravel this without going to Savannah."

"Does anyone know what 'nyarlathotep' means? It looks like gibberish, but all the other notes are in plain English. Douglas may know, but it would be good if we had more to go on."

"No, I haven't heard of it. Maybe it means something in another language?"

"Not a language I recognize, although there's a lot of languages I wouldn't."

"The last half almost looks Egyptian? "Hotep" is an Egyptian word, right, meaning 'be at peace', or referring to sacrifices made to deities or to the dead? I don't know whether that's coincidence, or what it would mean in a combined word like this. We could probably still try the library? See if they have anything on it?"

A few hours of library research later--

"It looks like it's a suffix used for Egyptian kings. I don't see anything here about a Nyarlathotep, but it seems like the sort of construction that might refer to some particular pharaoh. Of course it could also be a coincidence. But it's interesting."

"Huh. I can't say I immediately see the connection, but it's good to have more to work with. Maybe it'll make sense later."

In the next few days, Mordred does some research. 

Walter Winston is an almost depressingly upright and moral person, so there is almost nothing on him in the newspaper. He makes his money from pharmaceuticals and spends it endowing wings of hospitals. He tried to stay out of trouble and live a quiet, beneficial life. After his death, his holdings are in the process of being absorbed into Rogers Consolidated, the company of Mrs. Winston-Rogers's deceased husband.

If there's a code in these letters Mordred can't make head or tails of it.

Mordred cooks with his brother in the evenings, both of them casually reaching over each other in the fairly small space that is their apartment kitchen, aware of and comfortable with each other. They don't talk very much; they don't really have to.

Seeing Gale is less of a natural part of Mordred's day, and he still isn't sure how much of the weird nature of events makes sense to share, but they see a movie together after Gale gets off work and Mordred listens while Gale talks about something his friend's sister is doing and can't stop smiling.

Zoe, Lacie, and Anemone talk to Mrs. Winston-Rogers about her father, her childhood, the weird mouth things in the house, if she remembers when he started getting weird. If she can get access to his records or any more of his things that'd be neat. (Lacie asks some questions that aren't leaning in the ghostward direction, for variety.)

Mrs. Winston-Rogers remembers the odd mouth things, but otherwise doesn't have much new to add: her house was creepy but never in a way she could prove; her father was haunted by his past. She remarks that the investigators can look at her father's records if they like.

Unfortunately, they find that all of the records related to the year 1924 have been purged, except for some account books which belonged to Winston Pharmaceutical. None of the investigators can make heads or tails of them because none of them know accounting. 

Zoe stops by Ralph's place and regales him with Tales of her Adventures. She has several amusing anecdotes from various towns the circus has been through, some circus gossip, a new stunt she's been working on, and a lead on an uncommon type of car that the owner seemed possibly willing to part with. Also if he would like to do an erotic photoshoot she can get changed into something more appropriate.

Ralph "ooh"s and "ah"s at all the right parts in Zoe's circus anecdotes, is VERY excited by the lead on the cars and, yes, he would like to do a photoshoot. She feels warm and connected to her friend.

At night Anemone's gonna go find her brother, who is still hanging out with the circus, and express to him that she is going to go off on a grand adventure where she will investigate strange happenings (not to be too confident here but it's ghosts) and make sure he has everything he needs for the next few months. He's, like, sixteen now, so probably he'll be fine? But she worries sometimes.

Her brother is VERY EXCITED about the ghosts and feels like he is obviously going to do a great job here, he's sixteen he's practically an adult, Anemone doesn't have to worry about anything while she's off fighting ghosts.

Magnificence also wants to spend time with Anemone's brother. He is going to give him a gift that he found while scavenging. It's a pen.

Anemone's brother does not appreciate this gift of pen. :(

Lacie looks at her occult books to see if she can get anything. No such luck.

She does need to actually tell her brother she's flying to Savannah. She tells him and gets in a fake argument with him about it and reassures him that she is going to be fine and fills him in on the spooky activities of Mr. Winston while he covers his ears and gripes about it and he hugs her and tells her to be safe and not spend all their money.

Frank has a crush on Carrie who is amazing because she knows!!! So many things!!! About planes!!!

Carrie is politely baffled by Frank's sudden interest in taking to her to movies and out dancing. 

She takes a look at the letters and doesn't find a code either.

And then with one thing and another, they fly to Savannah.

On the flight to Savannah, Mordred types up his notes on his typewriter, then starts doing something that involves referencing several books about linguistics. He makes it quite clear he doesn't want to talk to anyone.

Anemone pulls out a journal and writes down some of the CRAZY STUFF that happened, because keeping notes is an important part of curating a collection of the bizarre and strange.

Also she makes sure Magnificence has been fed, and talks to Zoe (and anyone else who wants to join in the conversation) about ghosts and about what they expect to find in Savannah.

Zoe catches Carrie up on the house. It has weird watermark mouth ghosts!

Lacie asks Anemone what's made her so certain it's ghosts. Does she have previous ghost experience? Is she knowledgeable in ghostly matters? What are the signs?

Anemone is a big part of the reason Zoe was able to help Lacie with that ghost problem that one time, actually! She would have had no idea what to do if she didn't have Anemone to ask about it.