Gregory Grey and the Fugitive in Helika

by Stanzin

CHAPTER 12.1

  Lesley's Diary - Tension - August 1, 1909

  The camp has gotten weirder in the last few days.

  I feel as if I’m in a dream… as if everyone but me is in some sort of secret. It began about three days ago. Everything was normal when I went to sleep the night before, yet when I woke up, things were… furtive?

  I’ll do this the easy way, and just list the things I see:

  1. Everyone seems to be losing sleep. Even Charlie, who’s usually a dead rock when asleep, is getting black circles under his eyes.

  2. Everyone seems to be fighting… I don’t mean in the broken noses sense… but everyone’s irritable and getting into the most furious rows for the dumbest reasons. I heard Linus scream into a girl’s ear off for dipping into hot water some linen that ought to have been dipped into cold… Linus never, ever screams.

  3. Everyone keeps having little accidents. Three of Bouche’s boys either cut or burned themselves making broth; six of Felina’s somehow managed to set their cleaning utilities on fire; Cassius managed to hammer his own thumb into wood… and these I remember without needing to think about it. It’s happening scores of times!

  4. Broth is bland enough as it is… for the past two days it’s been absolutely revoltingly bland.

  5. Scuffles keep breaking out around queues. I saw a man go from laughing manically to frothing-at-the-mouth angry in an instant.

  6. Almost everyone is fidgeting – biting nails, twirling hair, shaking legs or chewing tongue… and in Winnie’s case, setting straight everything that she spots or thinks is crooked.

  Take these little and loud complaints and apply them across fifteen thousand people and they’re not so little… I swear it’s getting worse every day.

  If I didn’t have anything to compare it to, I’d have lost my mind… but the Incoming are entirely normal. After two days in the camp, they seem to be losing their minds as well.

  Something in the camp has people on edge… but then why isn’t it affecting me? I’ve not screamed at anyone; I keep my hair on (what’s left of it, anyway); and I’m not accidentally stabbing my own eye like Angie did yesterday.

  It can’t be poison, because I eat what everyone else eats. Is it because I’m not Helikan?

  Or is it because I’ve got a demon that likes to keep its host healthy?

  What can I do about it?

  I tried commenting off-handedly about all this to Winnie and Emil, and she says I’m imagining things. When I pestered her about it… she actually accused me of making things up!

  So I tried to talk to Cassius. You’d think he’d jump at a chance to blame the Spooks for messing with our heads, but I might as well have told him that he actually loved the Spooks and was passive aggressively vying for their attention by being subversive.

  At least then he’d have laughed with me, instead of at me.

  But I’m almost entirely sure someone’s got the refugees of Falstead under some kind of subtle mind control.

  I don’t how they’re doing it, so I’ve no idea how to stop it.

  I’m beginning to feel very, very unsafe.

  I can’t do anything except wait and see… and turn the Incoming AWAY! Whatever design is being wrought on the camp, the fewer people that suffer from it, the better.

  Cassius’ plan is working. The charmed pamphlets work like, well, a charm. Riordan’s got no idea why so many of the incoming are suddenly so keen to stay away from the camp. He’s bullying Angie to be even more enthusiastic about selling camp life… the poor girl is so nervous that she’s begun to speak faster than people are used to listening. And of course, more people are staying away than ever, carrying a few precious letters as they leave, a few of which I may have penned to certain newspapers. I thought of including secret messages to Mother and Father, but I’ve got no idea how to do that… we really should have thought to set up a system for this.

  It’s all very thrilling.