"What does treatment consist of for most patients?"

"A combination of psychoanalysis, medication, and cutting-edge new therapeutic techniques such as 'confrontation therapy,' where you put two people with the same delusion in the same room and let them talk to each other."

"Ooh, does that usually work?"

"Sometimes it does! We tried it on Mr. Henslowe, actually, with another patient of ours here, Mr. Aarons. Fascinating shared delusion there, I've been thinking of writing it up."

"Oh? What's their delusion?"

"Mr. Aarons was one of the 'criminals' that Mr. Henslowe and his people were after that night," Mr. Keaton says, not answering the question. "Our exam rooms have recently been renovated. Look at the lovely white-fabric padded walls."

"Is there really nothing you can tell us about Mr. Henslowe before we meet him? We're much sturdier than we may appear. Mr. Winston went through quite a lot. We are not naive to the harrowing effects of the experience they shared."

"Well, you are simply going to tell him that his friend died," Dr. Keaton says. "I see no reason why that should require knowing the details of his... delusion."

"Oh, but you see, Mrs Winston-Rogers specifically sent us to look into his situation and determine whether she could be of any help, so we'd like to have more to report to her than that."

"She cares very much about her father's old friend."

"Ah. I suppose." Lured by the combined forces of Money and Getting To Talk About His Patients, Dr. Keaton opens up. "Well, I doubt there is much she could do. Mr. Henslowe isn't allowed to leave Joy Grove by court order. When he was last out in 1933 he was obsessive and violent to himself and others. He can be signed out on temporary leave only to the company of his mother, Virginia Henslowe."

"Not that it matters, of course, we are providing him the finest care."

"I'm sure you are! But we'd like to have enough of a picture of the situation to persuade Mrs Winston-Rogers of this, since she couldn't make the trip herself."

"Perhaps she'd be interested in making his stay here more comfortable for him, if she knew how to help."

"She will be quite relieved to hear all about about your cutting edge treatments."

"Well, he has been a patient at Joy Grove since 1924. I don't know exactly what happened to those men in 1924, but whatever it was-- involving gunplay and murder and a fire-- it was too much for them to internalize. So they've concocted these elaborate stories that externalize their fear into some kind of terrible monster."

They progress to the second floor! Patients live in private but tiny rooms when they are not together in bland, off-white common areas, marred with water stains. Patients play cards, read books, and line up to receive medications in little paper cups from the dispensary. Some patients yell or hit themselves or waggle their fingers in the air or stare too long at you, but most seem either subdued or sedated.

Water stains?! Anemone looks.

Upon closer inspection some of the water stains do look rather mouth-y but nothing that couldn't be an accident.

One man, looking through the glass at her, draws his finger across his throat in the classic sign of impending death. She waves.

Well, they are guests the patients didn't invite and can't avoid. Carrie looks away politely.

The amount of... semi-violent behavior... people in this hospital are doing seems unusual, even for insane people. No one is hitting people right now, but there's more yelling and people hitting themselves than usual, and also more people who seem very very sedated.

This is super weird for a haunting though? Hauntings are supposed to be more local than this? 

This is an extremely weird haunting. You don't get identical ghosts in two different places. Something is up with this situation-- something that isn't ghosts.

 "You mentioned that two of the men here were both at the incident in 1924? Do their stories diverge much?"

"Their stories are very similar," Dr. Keaton says. "It's the most baffling shared psychosis I've ever come across in my years of medicine. They somehow came to the exact same delusion, yet before I had Aarons transferred here for confrontation therapy they hadn't been in contact with each other."

"Oh, was Mr. Aarons somewhere else previously?"

"Yes, he was at a hospital in California. He was attending graduate school at UCLA before his breakdown. Anthropology, I believe."

"You mentioned he was one of the "criminals" in the incident... what was the nature of the crime? It seems odd for someone pursuing a higher degree."

Dr. Keaton spreads his hands. "I don't know the details. The patients' memories are vague, and I am not a police officer. My business is medicine, not justice. I understand from his police record that Mr. Aarons was involved in some sort of sex cult." Dr. Keaton's tone expresses that joining a sex cult is expected behavior for an anthropologist from outside of the South.

"Has the confrontation therapy helped any?"

"Sadly, it has not. Even the most advanced therapies can't help certain refractory cases. These men are getting better, but I am afraid that neither of them will ever be right again."