It | Part 3, Chapter 12 : Grownups (Three Uninvited Guests) | Summary

Summary

Henry Bowers has been in the Juniper Hill asylum since 1958. He is guilty of killing his father, and after "the horror in the sewers" he confesses to killing Belch, Victor, and all the other kids It killed in 1958. It plants evidence in Henry's room to support the confession, and Henry knows no one will believe the truth. He still hears the Losers' voices taunting him, along with other voices from the moon. In 1985 It comes to the asylum as Victor Criss and convinces Henry to return to Derry and get revenge on the Losers. It helps him escape by taking the form of a Doberman pinscher and frightening the guard. Henry hides by day and travels on foot at night until an unwitting driver picks him up.

Tom Rogan finds Beverly's friend Kay McCall, who gave Beverly money to get to Maine. He beats Beverly's location out of Kay, flies to Bangor, and rents a car. Kay calls the Derry Town House and leaves a message of warning and apology for Beverly.

Audra, worried about Bill, tells her producer, Freddie, to put filming on hold, at considerable risk to her career. She takes a flight from London that stops in Maine to refuel. She rents a car and checks into the hotel next to the one Tom is staying in. Their cars are parked nose to nose in adjacent parking lots.

Analysis

It's attempts to intimidate the Losers are not sufficient to push them away from their mission, so It formulates a backup plan in the form of Henry Bowers. While the "horror in the sewers" won't become clear until Chapters 21 and 22, Henry's apologies make it safe to conclude Victor and Belch died down there in 1958 and Henry was involved. Henry killed his father, and he's now in an asylum, proving the Losers were right all along: Henry is, in fact, crazy. When he hears the voice of It, or hears It speaking to him as his friends or as the moon, the voice is real. But Henry hallucinates voices as well because the Losers are not there to speak to him. He is also dangerous. The novel never reveals what happens to the unwitting driver who picks up Henry, leaving readers' imaginations to run wild with the facts they do know.

The creature doesn't seem to actively guide Tom and Audra to Maine, but their intersecting paths are too precise to be pure coincidence. Tom's propensity for violence rivals Henry's when he beats Kay so savagely she betrays her best friend's location; his car's proximity to Audra's sets up a future meeting between them, one bound to go badly.