okay weird route spoilers. Following the idea that Carol has enlisted Kris' help in a plan to get Dess back in some way by acting as our vessel, can you imagine her reaction to the weird route? Did Kris even tell her about everything that happened in chapter 2? Because I feel like she'd be a lot less okay with Noelle and Kris going to the festival together if they did.
Day two of Kris' possession, of The Plan, and Noelle has her experience with the dark world. With the thing that played such a large role in the loss of her first daughter. She hates it. But she allows it. It will all be worth it.
Noelle and Kris return and all seems... well? Kris is withdrawn and quiet, but that is not unusual. And Noelle is... confident. Brave, even. There is a feeling that something is wrong beneath the surface, but she has returned from the darkness alive and whole, and for Carol, that is enough.
Then it's day three, and she comes home to Kris and Susie in her house. And Noelle is even more off than yesterday. Smiling, but not quite right. But apparently, she and Kris are going to the festival together. It will be nice for her. Like old times.
The festival comes. She is busy. She does not see Kris, she does not see Noelle.
She does not see Kris. She does not see Noelle.
Does she know? Does she know somewhere, deep down as the days pass, that the THING within her friends' child is at fault? Does she know that if she had looked closer, peered deeper, she would have seen that something was Wrong Wrong Wrong with her daughter? Does she know that if she had not enlisted Kris' help to find her child, she would not have lost two more?
Does she know somehow that, just out of view, just perfectly out of view, they are still there?
