Harry dreaded the visit to the Guills as they trekked through the wilderness once again. At some level, he knew how much he was repressing himself, how much he was not allowing himself to feel, and if there was something that he couldn't avoid whenever they went over to the Guills, it was facing his emotions.
He was even afraid of what he didn't recognize he was repressing. Mr. and Mrs. Cormiers' suspicions had been averted more or less, though every once in a while, they would look at him strangely, suspecting a change in him, but how would that thin trust hold up when he was drugged entirely, vulnerable, not in control of his senses? He planned to take as little alcohol and barely touch the drug to his tongue, so he would lay on the sofa and watch the fantastic little figures that pooled into the walls instead of full-on tripping.
The walk was uncomfortable as ever, but he found that the welcome they received was not as warm as it had been all the other times. In fact, it was not welcome at all. They heard screaming coming from inside the house before they so much as stepped on the porch. They knocked a few times, feeling foolish considering the commotion coming from inside, but no one came to the door. Inside, they could hear Adelaide shouting and the Guills speaking in softer tones. It was Guidry that dared to go inside without invitation.
Inside, the room was a mess - cushions, precious stones, chairs were overturned and strewn about the floor, and in the center of the room stood Adelaide, her hair sticking out in all directions, her face red and puffed from crying, the bare sliver of her eyes crazed. She was still sobbing when she noticed they had come in. The Guills, for their part, looked deeply ashamed, and they huddled in one corner of the room, presumably to avoid Adelaide's wrath.
She pointed to the Cormiers. "Have you told them?" She asked in a hoarse voice that indicated she had been screaming for a long time. It was strange to hear her being so loud, speaking so many words. Harry realized he had barely ever heard her voice so clearly. The worst part of the whole interaction was that he suspected he knew what was going on, but he hoped with all his heart that he was wrong. The Guills looked from the Cormiers to Adelaide, the shame burrowing itself deeper and deeper into their features.
They shook their heads but didn't say anything, and Adelaide let out a choked little laugh that sounded more like someone dying. She looked at the Cormiers and Harry and gave them a twisted smile. "So you don't know, then?" She asked, her voice breaking but sounding like it was still on the verge of screaming. "Know what, sugar?" Mrs. Cormier asked in her tenderest tone, nearing Adelaide. "Don't come closer!" She bellowed, looking like she would start hurtling things at Mrs. Cormier.
She was even holding a cushion, and she pointed it at Mrs. Cormier as if it were a weapon. She stopped dead in her tracks. "What are you talking about, Addy?" Guidry asked tentatively, looking suspiciously from one person to the other, extremely wary. Adelaide gave another dry laugh, but Harry wasn't sure if it was actually a sob. "They've been lying for six months! Six months!" She bellowed, "Ren…" she said, her throat finally giving way and becoming almost a whisper. "He's dead," she concluded, dropping the cushion. Mrs. Cormier took that as her cue, and though Adelaide looked feral, she melted right into Mrs. Cormier's arms. She looked more like a child than she ever had before, shaking and full-on crying as she allowed Mrs. Cormier to comfort her.
She led her to her room with promises of a sleeping draught that would ease her pain. Harry still stood in the doorway, shocked, unsure of what to do. Once Addy was put to sleep, they all sat at the dining table, and the Guills began to do something that Harry thought seemed a lot like excusing themselves. "We wanted to tell-" Rose started to, but Mrs. Cormier cut her off, her voice steady but full of pain. "Six months?" She asked silently, echoing Adelaide. "Yes," Mr. Guills answered hoarsely. Mrs. Cormier put her head in her hands, and Harry knew that it was to conceal her tears.
He thought that he recognized a shared feeling with his caretakers - deep down, they had all known that the past months' excuses as to why Ren wasn't coming were bullshit. "What happened?" Guidry asked, his brow pulled into a deep furrow. "All we knows's what Freddy - y'know that boy he was workin' with - told us, and he ain't know much. Said some white folks got him, hell knows what for, likely nothin' at all, likely nothin' at all," Mr. Guills told him, setting his cap down and resting it on his chest.
Rose clasped her hands so tightly together they were pale. "I understand hiding it from Addy, but why not tell us?" Mrs. Cormier asked, her words cut off by her crying. Rose shook her head. "She woulda known somethin' was wrong. Can't ask y'all not to mourn, and we wasn't sure how to tell Addy yet." "Can't ask us not to mourn but won't tell us a friend died… for six months," Guidry grumbled. Mrs. Cormier placed one of her hands over his and looked at him with enough compassion in her eyes to knock out even a psychopath. "They did the best they could, Guidry," she said lowly. As was to be expected, they didn't have the usual ceremony - there was drinking on Guidry and Mr. Guills' part. Still, it wasn't the regular laid-back drinking they usually did: it was brutal and fast to erase their situation better. They had an early dinner which Addy wouldn't attend.
Mrs. Cormier tried to take some food to her room, but it was of no use. Harry wondered whether they would make their own version of a funeral, but since Ren's death was so vague, they'd likely never even be able to find his body. Throughout the evening, Harry milled around the house or paced about his room, his mind completely unfocused, thinking of nothing and everything at once. He hadn't been close enough to Ren to actually mourn him, but there was no denying that the news still somehow shocked him to his core, and it felt, for some reason that he couldn't fathom, that it was a dark omen.
His death meant more than just an unjust murder, and Harry couldn't shake off the feeling that something was coming, something dark and terrible, something that would permanently break the Cormiers' friend group if this didn't do it. He tried to decipher why he felt that way, but he came up blank time and time again.
He hovered by the window, listening to the muted sounds of life coming from the swamp, which seemed to be speaking and simultaneously silent as death. He could smell something wrong in the air, though there might be something talking to him in the depths of the darkness. He shook his head - he was being ridiculous. How could things get any worse? He decided he would call it an early night and finally get some rest one time he came to this house, so he crept over to the kitchen to get a glass of water for the night. He was always parched here.
As he neared, he could here Mrs. Cormier and Guills speaking. "… worried 'bout him. He acting off but won't tell us what's going on," came Mrs. Cormier's voice from the kitchen. Harry lingered in the hallway, pressing his back against the wall so they wouldn't see him.
There wasn't a doubt in his mind that they were talking about him. "What d'you think happen t'him?" Rose asked her, sounding just as worried. "It's that white girl he hang around with. She… depraved. Or it might be somethin' else. I keep thinking that maybe Guidry and I… we…" "You really think y'all could've rubbed it off on that kid?" Rose asked her. Harry had no idea what was going on, but he was now fully alert. Mrs. Cormier hesitated before answering. "We went against the condemnation, in some way.
We was supposed to be barren - no kids, no nothing, banished. Hell, we even thought that havin' friends like you would have some consequence. And we treat Alastor like our own, he spends too much time with us… what if we passed it on to him?" She asked, her voice cracking. "Come, now, Molly, you did your best by that boy. There ain't no place he could go, anyway." "No, I know he can't go back home. We're all that kid's ever gon' have."