Enid was looking at the wooden building surrounded by the forest and clutching the straps of her backpack. A smaller backpack also hung on her elbow, it contained her phone, a supply of snacks and papers. So far, no one has met her, and the taxi driver had to be payed half the sum in advance, because he turned out to be a suspicious dude.
Enid preferred to think that, though the more rational part of her suspected this suspicious dude that he was simply xenophobic towards outcasts and immediately realized that she was a werewolf. When she named the destination, his gaze and expression quite noticeably changed. But still his humanity, coupled with greed to some extent, won out, and he did not dare to leave the teenage girl alone, in search of another drive. Well, he obviously didn't want to lose money as well.
The trip took place in silence, which was akin to torture for Enid. The only thing that calmed her was the upcoming meeting with her uncle. Well, also possible new acquaintances in the camp, while she stays there. She had nothing to start from in this regard - no more messages.
An adult came out of the main entrance - Enid sniffed the air and realized that it was no werewolf, and not an outcast at all. The cross peeking out the unbuttoned collar of his shirt also confirmed her guess. Dark hair, light brown eyes, strong and stocky - it is quite possible that he will be able to wrest a very small werewolf who has not yet learned how to become a wolf. He didn't stand a chance against Enid.
Sinclair frowned at her thoughts, which took a strange turn -the appearance of this man for some reason touched some inner bell responsible for assessing the danger. And this bell, one might say, screamed obscenities, albeit remotely enough, which caused the origin of such thoughts, seemingly out of the blue.
"Hi," the man smiled and came closer. "John Schaefer, deputy camp director. I'm not the werewolf, but..."
"It shows," Enid blurted out and, surprised at herself, opened her eyes wide. "Uh, sorry, I am..."
The man looked at her in surprise, somehow appraisingly and suspiciously but short, as if trying to hide this assessment, and moments later he broke into a smile.
"Does this mean that you, unlike many of our guests, can already sniff it out? This is great news, it means that you are close to a breakthrough! Come on, I'll take you to the booth where you'll be living."
Enid twitched her lips in an instinctive attempt to return the smile, but the inner bell did not back off. The man jerked his head towards the entrance, but didn't go forward himself. For the inner beast, this was unacceptable.
This man was more dangerous than he let on.
Enid, at the sincere insistence of her uncle and from her own experience, of course, got used to trust such bells, and therefore was in no hurry to go in first, showing this John guy her back.
She decided to fill in the pause in the conversation in order to distract him somehow and quite possibly force him to move into the building first.
"Mr. Schaefer, what are you doing here anyway? You're a human. I understand that you are probably tired of such questions, but I'd rather hear the truth from you than guess from rumors," in the end, Enid still squeezed out a toothless smile, stared expectantly at the man and then added. "You're also religious."
John's eyes widened a little - he jerked his palm towards the chain with the cross - but suddenly the tension, that appeared in him after Enid's question, deflated and he laughed. The laughter puzzled Enid - she even tilted her head to one side, as dogs usually do. One glance in her direction and the man roared with laughter again.
"You're the first one who asked," the man squeezed out through laughter and put his hands on his hips, continuing to smile. "Well, okay, I'll answer you, but don't spread rumors yourself. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Enid shrugged, remembering that she wasn't supposed to be here for long.
"I belong to an organization that has been studying Outcasts for a very long time," the man began, and this alone made Enid tense up, so much so that the man himself noticed it and did not fail to note. "Don't worry, after peace was achieved and the governments took control of the detection and cleaning up of the most aggressive elements, our organization underwent great changes. And that's why many of its members, like me, are most often engaged in social research of your communities or some phenomena. It has long been known, and scientifically confirmed, that your existence is absolutely unscientific, no matter how strange it may sound. And I've always been interested in werewolves..."
"It was sad to find out, probably, that you will never become one of us," Enid decided to tease the man, because his speech was full of enthusiasm, but by the end there was some kind of nostalgic regret, or something. And she absolutely hit the nail on the head, because the man lost all seriousness and laughed again.
"That's not necessary, how was I to know that a bite on a full moon is just a fairy tale! I was an impressionable boy!"
"So you're studying something here?" Enid decided to clarify, in order to discuss this later with her uncle - it is very odd that he sent her to this particular camp...
There were others, much closer to his place of residence. Therefore, Enid justifiably suspected Owen of achieving several goals at once -only it was still unclear which ones.
"Not really," the man smiled toothlessly and continued with pride in his voice. "I have one theory about wolfing out ability, and I offered my expertise to the camp management last summer. Of course, I was told that I'm explaining too much... in a Christian way, but it really helped some kids."
"In a Christian way?" Sinclair felt the urge to twirl her finger at her temple, barely refrained from further comments about the genocide and other religious delights of the past.
"Yes," the man shrugged his shoulders, and a second later caught up. "But what am I, you'll find out for yourself! I'll tell everyone today or tomorrow night. There are already a dozen of you kids here, I think it will do. Tomorrow is the last day of admission to the camp, and no one else has signed up. You're the last one."
"Could you still tell me briefly, at least to understand what to expect?" Enid decided to whine a bit, realizing that she quite possibly won't stay here til tomorrow evening.
Her backpack started to slide off her elbow, and she deftly caught it, but this movement caused all her things to rattle behind her back. This caught John's attention, and judging by the expression on his face, he didn't even know what to think.
"Well, okay, I'll tell you a bit, but let's go. You must be tired of standing, you have such a huge backpack!" he turned to the entrance and started moving.
Ahead of her.
The inner beast calmed down a little, and Enid went after him.
"I didn't know what to prepare for," Enid shrugged. "Yes, and it's not too heavy, I'm a werewolf after all!"
"You really are very close to a breakthrough," the man turned around and opened the door, wanting to let the girl go ahead, but she stood rooted to the spot and squeezed the straps of the backpack. "What is it?"
"Go first," Enid said through clenched teeth, trying to overcome this seemingly irrational feeling.
He seemed to understand something, nodded briefly and showed his back.
Enid held the door open and followed.
***
Conversion camps for werewolves, called so by a strange coincidence, were rooted in the eternal concern of parents about the well-being of children, which eventually led to an attempt to control the future of these very children. And this is common - regardless of the species or even being an Outcast. But just like conversion therapy for LGBT people that Normies somehow thought up, which, by a strange coincidence, also sometimes included camps, it actually led to a variety of results that had nothing to do with a scientific approach to the issue.
You can religiously intimidate a person to the point that they will be afraid to admit any queerness even to themselves, yes, but it will work for the few, and someone would pretend to agree so that they get off the hook and continue to stay themselves. And if everything goes even further, to physical and mental violence, then there, too, the spread of reactions turns out to be completely unscientific. And those cases were about the Normies, who, compared to werewolves, are much less connected with the inner parts of themselves. Although for both, social part of life is very important.
That was exactly what Uncle Owen once told Enid about his thoughts on the matter, and if anything, he was hardly wrong. That's why, when Enid thought about how her uncle spoke about such camps, she couldn't understand why he still decided to give the go-ahead for a trip to one. Moreover, this camp wasn't that close, for that matter! Ravensdale, Washington, is relatively close to Seattle, but definitely far from California!
Perhaps it was the presence of this person that caused it.
This theory of his, it really was kinda working. And as far as Enid knew, it wasn't distributed anywhere at all.
Yes, this man relied on his Christian concepts, but if you put aside all religious indoctrination and cling to the essence, then it turned out to be quite a coherent explanation.
John believed that all the Outcasts were helped to use their abilities by the Seven Deadly Sins.
Right at this point, anybody should've stopped listening to him, really, if not for the fact that he immediately caught himself and began further clarifications, which boiled down to one small but very important amendment. The Seven Deadly Sins is a convenient concept that everyone knows about, just because of the aggressive spread of Christianity at the time, and therefore it is easy to explain what he means by its example. Yes, his ancestors thus explained the demonic origin of the Outcasts, which made it possible to put the genocide committed as a God-pleasing act.
It did not mean that he is all for that genocide and generally considers the actions of his ancestors in any way true - they were susceptible to those Deadly Sins most, for that matter. He also mumbled to himself that if he starts telling children about Tantra and unseelie roots, there will be much more problems. Enid, of course, heard this, hardly anyone who hadn't turned would've been able to, but it wasn't a challenge for her. Therefore, she mentally flagged to Google these tantra and roots of his.
John hastened to explain why he thinks this theory works at all. A few kids who looked a little further than their obvious dislike of any church concepts tried to follow his advice - and they succeeded. Greed, the desire for more, in every sense - that's what helped those young werewolves open up last summer. Pride, which, because of the pack social structure, was generally not typical of werewolves in its purest form, only hindered them, wrath in the necessary quantities was unattainable and generally unethical. That's why for the test of this Schaefer's theory, only Greed remained, as the most ethical, no matter how ridiculous and odd it seemed. It is clear that it was not about any simple desire for money.
He also called it sensual attachments, then for some reason stopped himself and nervously rubbed his cross.
While he was describing it all to her, obviously bragging about the successes of last summer - half of those who arrived on the last shift turned after a week and a half - they were walking to her booth, passing several guys, some timidly, and some joyfully greeting Enid and her company. It was clear that their expectations of a terrible conversion camp, where the inner beast would be beaten out of them, were not justified. At least for now - Enid remained legitimately suspicious.
Some, of course, looked away, as if interested in the nearest wall when she passed by, but there were just couple of such kids. And this was clearly not the fault of the camp leadership - the shift actually started tomorrow, as Sinclair understood.
There were none of Enid's usual self-confident and extremely hyperactive jerks like her brothers. Such, apparently, had no problems with turning.
She even thought maybe she woud've been like that... naive, or whatnot, if not for that incident many years ago?
When the door slammed behind John Schaefer, Sinclair got left alone, because there were more booths than there were teenagers. She put her backpack next to the closet and then sat down on the bed. Clean bed linen was folded on the bedside table, and for some reason there were three pillows.
John warned her that the means of communication would have to be handed over at a general orientation meeting, so she quickly checked for messages and answered her parents and brothers. There was still nothing from Uncle Owen, and that was annoying.
Enid slowly let go of this inexplicable sense of danger, but at the same time there was a feeling that she was definitely unneeded here. An alpha werewolf that hides under the guise of some kind of sheep that has not yet turned... Well, not exactly a sheep, yeah, but still, quite biblical.
These thoughts made Enid grin and playfully release her multicolored claws - she often did this when some sort of stress struck. This was exactly the case.
This John Schaefer guy was an extremely strange Christian with extremely strange, but most importantly seeming to be working theories about werewolves. And Enid suspected that Uncle Owen knew about it, otherwise he would have chosen some other camp. And it was worth looking at what tantra is and some roots he mentioned.
A search on Wiki made Enid blush to the tips of her ears - that's really what she didn't expect, so it was the image of a golden figure of two people clearly having sex. She even threw the phone on the bed - surprised, the claws came out on their own, and she would very much not want to pierce her brand-new iPhone with them.
It took Enid a couple of minutes to calm down, which was helped by a package of dried venison, demolished just like that.
"Phew, this John's like real odd," Enid muttered to herself, chewing the last bites. "And uncle definitely gave me a chance to finally admit to my parents who I am in this way. After all, if John was not just bragging in vain, then this is most likely an extremely effective camp... But why isn't it known to the public much?"
Enid heard footsteps about six feet from the door - someone's going to break her solitude. That's why, she quickly hid some of the dropped snacks back in her backpack - and not that she didn't like sharing, she just most likely would have to leave this place, and there's too little meat in hot dogs at gas stations for them to be anything other than a snack for fifteen minutes of metabolism, and they don't really taste like meat, really.
And Enid doubted very much that Uncle Owen would even think of taking twice as many snacks as usual when he came to get her. Recently, Sinclair began to demolish food even more thoroughly and in even larger quantities, that's why he simply did not have such information. And yes, it was kind of awkward to ask for it, especially when she could provide herself with everything she needed.
And while she was hiding her supplies and wondering why she was still here, an unknown guest reached the porch and decided to knock.