You may have noticed that there has been a hush during Acadia’s usual weekday spot here on TYoH. It has been nearly a month since I’ve heard from him, a month since he said he was headed to Portland in search of the true story behind a gruesome mass murder that occurred on the grounds of Miskatonic University in the spring of 1927. With no response to email or calls, I reached out last week to the last person I know that had spoken to him, Merle Norbert. While in Arkham, MA, conducting research on this story, Acadia had run into Merle (fortuitously? suspiciously?) in the Arkham library. I had nearly given up hope of a reply when I received this message late last night:

Hello Ms. Halloween.

I am fairly certain that is not your real name but that hardly matters.  I doubt that Mr. Einstein’s driver’s license read: “Acadia” and that didn’t stop me from talking to him.

Or lying to him.

Now that he has been out of contact for so long, I feel like I should tell someone close to him what I know.  It might be the only bits of information that can help find him.  I will tell you now, though you have no reason to trust me, that I am telling you the 100% truth now.

The reason why any of this even matters is because the whole reason Acadia went to Portland was to find out about Alain and the package and Margaret and Herton’s alibi that wasn’t an alibi.  Fact is that I knew the story.  The person who put the letter in my hand told it to me.  The why isn’t important.  Not right now.  But suffice to say that the letter is directly related to the murders.

Herton had sent a package to his friend Alain, and that package was a statue. Herton had spent the previous year negotiating with someone in Syria for it. It was an idol. Horrible looking.  It was of The Thing that Should Not Be.

Their plan was to use the idol in a ritual to bring the…Thing to this world. The folks up at Miskatonic often had some, shall we say, unusual interests, and Herton had stumbled upon a book in the Miskatonic library one day that had no place in the regular shelves. He became intrigued, most particularly with the book’s mention of a previously unheard-of idol.

Herton had been friends with Alain for years and mentioned it to him in passing, but it was Margaret, Alain’s wife, who was the most interested.  She had an acquaintance, a pastor.  His name I do not remember but I may have access to it. I’ll look.  At any rate, this pastor had information regarding the book and the idol it referenced. He may have actually been the one  who got Herton in touch with the Syrian.

Their plan had been to bring the idol to Portland where Margaret, Alain and the pastor would join Herton to perform the ritual.  I don’t know who was the one who pushed for it.  And I don’t know the why behind any of it.  But I know all those facts are true.

Miss Halloween, I think you should know that the only reason I didn’t tell Acadia more was because I didn’t think he was going to pursue it all the way to Portland.  You see, the people who care about these matters, they never stop caring about them. And they don’t stop trying to do whatever it is they wanted to do.

So if he went to Portland looking for answers, the only people he could have possibly gotten them from were people involved in it.  Still involved in it.  And I’m willing to bet that their business is unfinished.

I think that’s all I have, but I’m happy to answer any other questions if I can.  Again, I am sorry.  I have called Acadia and written but not heard anything. I even made sure to go down to Grebbie’s this weekend so I could email you.  She’s my daughter.  I have enclosed some pictures from those days that may be of help to you, but I caution you against following in Acadia’s footsteps to Portland. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

Thank you for listening.  I hope this sheds some light and if, or I should say when, you see Acadia, please tell him I am sorry and hope he is well.

Best,

Merle Norbitt

Categories: Acadia Einstein

Tags: Acadia, creepy, Portland, The Real March Madness