The Secret History

Richard doesn’t describe the moment of Bunny’s murder in detail. Instead, he momentarily pauses the story he’s been telling to reflect upon the morality of the situation. He says, “But while I have never considered myself a very good person, neither can I bring myself to believe that I am a spectacularly bad one.” Bunny’s death haunts his dreams, though his description of the event is impressionistic and surreal rather than grounded in reality like the rest of his story. Richard is shocked that he was able to be convinced to help murder Bunny in such a short amount of time. Previously, he would never have thought himself capable of such an act. 

While escaping the scene of the crime, Henry’s car almost gets stuck in some mud, though Henry quickly manages to maneuver out of it. Together, the Greek students drive back to Francis’s place, where they come up with a plausible alibi for Richard. Meanwhile, it begins to snow. Henry tells Richard that, if he’s asked, he should say that he went home after leaving the Commons and then met up with the other Greek students later on. In the meantime, he tells Richard to head home, which Richard does.

As Richard walks home, the snow starts to come down hard, despite the fact it is almost Easter. Richard arrives home and tries to read but can’t focus on anything. He calls Francis and Henry, hoping they can spend time together. Henry tells him that would be unwise. Richard worries that he is going insane, so Henry recommends thinking in a different language to slow his thoughts. Richard is not satisfied with this answer, but before he can say anything, Henry hangs up the phone.

Still searching for relief from his racing thoughts, Richard seeks out Judy, who gives him what she says is a sleeping pill. During a brief conversation, Judy tells Richard that she saw Bunny earlier that day. This causes Richard to space out, though Judy doesn’t notice; instead, she continues telling Richard about her day. At the end of her monologue, Judy invites Richard to a party, and he accepts.

By the time Richard gets to the party, the pill Judy gave him starts to work. As it turns out, it is not a sleeping pill, but rather an opioid. The pill provides Richard with a sense of euphoria, and he spends his time at the party appreciating the company of people who he would normally find uninteresting. Although much of the night is a blur for Richard, he eventually ends up talking to a girl he doesn’t recognize. After a brief interaction, the two of them decide to go home together.

After having sex with the girl he does not know, Richard falls asleep and dreams that he and Charles are on a train, attempting to avoid “a mysterious third passenger.” The dream wakes him up and he finds himself still in bed with the unknown girl asleep next to him. He gets dressed and leaves in the middle of the night. As he does so, he realizes that the girl lives in the same dorm as Bunny. Still upset and not thinking clearly, Richard heads to Francis’s apartment.

Francis is alarmed by Richard’s presence but ultimately lets him in and makes him some tea. Francis tells him that so far, he hasn’t heard anything about Bunny’s disappearance. After sitting in silence for some time, Francis leans in and kisses Richard long and hard on the mouth. Richard is shocked, but he kisses Francis back. After a moment, Richard pulls away and tells Francis to stop, but Francis replies, “It’s fun[…]I promise you.” They start to move further but are quickly interrupted by a knock at the door.

Francis answers the door and finds Charles standing outside. Charles is clearly upset and drunk, but Francis lets him in anyway. Charles says that there is still no news about Bunny and that Henry is in a bad mood because of the weather. He also reminds Francis and Richard that they have Greek homework due for class the following day. Everyone attempts to sober up and complete their work, but events of the last few days still weigh heavily on their minds.

The next day in class, Julian asks about Bunny. Henry, who “seemed calm, well rested, more than he had any right to be,” says he isn’t sure where Bunny is. Julian suggests that they wait a few minutes, though, of course, Bunny never arrives. After class, Richard runs into Judy, who is angry at him because he “went home with Mona Beale.” She warns him that Mona is in a relationship with a boy who assaulted the last person he thought was flirting with Mona. Richard shrugs this off and says, “She was the one who was hitting on me.” The same night, Richard has a surreal and terrifying dream about Bunny drowning in a bathtub. When Richard wakes up, he goes to the bathroom to splash water on his face, where he begins to cry and dry heave. He wonders whether he will be able to hold himself together.

The next night, Richard goes to the twin’s house for dinner. Henry asks him to go see two movies and memorize the plot. The movies are the alibi for Henry, Francis, and the twins; they bought tickets to them and then snuck out the back before murdering Bunny. However, Henry doesn’t want to go back and watch them himself because he is afraid someone will be suspicious. Richard goes to see the movies, which turn out to be terrible, and then reports back to the others. In the meantime, Charles forges Richard’s Greek homework for him.

The next day, Marion calls Henry and asks if he’s seen Bunny. Henry tells her that he hasn’t. He reports this call to the others and says, “I just hope the weather breaks soon.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t, and the people who know Bunny, including Julian, become increasingly concerned. Not wanting to seem unconcerned, but also not wanting to go to the police, Henry gives Marion a call a few days after their first conversation and asks about Bunny. When he hangs up, he tells the others that Marion has not seen Bunny, however, someone claims to have spotted him earlier in the day. Although this obviously isn’t true, this is concerning to Henry, who would prefer that the whole affair be wrapped up as soon as possible.

The Thursday following the murder, Julian’s concern reaches a high point, and he begins pressuring his students for Bunny’s location. Henry calmly fields his questions and tells him that they do not know what’s happened to Bunny. Richard worries that Julian knows that this is a lie. That night, Francis and Henry show up in Richard’s room asking after Camilla. They think Marion and Cloke may have informed the local security about Bunny’s disappearance, and they want to use Camilla to figure out what’s happened. Richard doesn’t know where she is, so the three of them drive to the twins’ place to see if they are home.

Henry, Francis, and Richard arrive at the twins’ place to find Charles, Camilla, and Cloke. Cloke tells everyone that he’s worried because he hasn’t seen Bunny in the last few days. He knows that Bunny’s had a lot of extra money recently and he worries that Bunny may have flaunted that money to the wrong person. Cloke himself is a drug dealer, and recently Bunny rode along with him to meet his distributor. Cloke is worried that Bunny may have gone back to the distributor on his own with enough money in his pocket to wind up dead. According to Cloke, “These guys’ll chop you up and put you in a garbage bag for twenty bucks.” Henry leads Cloke to believe that this is a plausible explanation for Bunny’s disappearance.

Worried about his friend, and his own potential culpability, Cloke suggests that they break into Bunny’s apartment. Although he and Marion had previously contacted campus security to get into the apartment, security told them that they couldn’t let them in. Wanting to play along, Henry tells Charles to check out the apartment with Cloke, which he does. After Charles and Cloke leave, Henry tells the others that he thinks Cloke will realize something suspicious is going on once he sees Bunny’s apartment. He hopes that people will begin looking for Bunny the following morning.

While waiting for Charles’s return, the others pass the time by playing cards. Everyone is outwardly concerned—except Henry—and their concern only grows as time continues to pass. However, as soon as they start vocalizing their concerns, Charles returns. He asks that someone make him a drink while he explains what happened. The first thing Charles noticed upon entering the apartment is that Bunny still had the newspaper article about the murder on his desk. Charles quickly disposed of it before Cloke could see, but he worries that there are other clues in the apartment that could allow the police to connect the dots.

Cloke and Marion quickly realized that something strange is going on, so they called security, who in turn called the police. When the police arrived, they questioned everyone about Bunny’s last known whereabouts. They also performed a search of the apartment, where they found Bunny’s wallet. This discovery made everyone think something was very wrong, and one of the policemen said, “I think we’d better contact this boy’s family.” The presence of the police caused a large crowd to form, though Charles eventually managed to slip away after answering all the police’s questions. He now warns Henry and Francis that the police have their names because they were identified as Bunny’s friends. Henry isn’t disturbed by this news, but Francis starts to panic.

Henry drives Richard back to school, and the two of them check their mailboxes. There, they find faculty questionnaires asking them to review Julian. Richard watches as Henry fills out the form and notices that he’s taken 19 classes with Julian. This alarms Richard, but Henry shrugs it off. Henry leaves much of the form blank and says to Richard, “How… can I possibly make the Dean of Studies understand that there is a divinity in our midst?”

That night, Richard is wracked with nerves and is unable to sleep. He calls Camilla to make himself feel better and asks her to tell him a story. Camilla tells him about the only time she remembers seeing her father. The next morning, Camilla wakes Richard up and tells him that the police are questioning Charles and Henry. In addition, Camilla says that Bunny’s disappearance has led to a media circus all over campus. Concerned, Richard gets up and prepares for the coming day. While doing so, he runs into Judy, who offers him some kind words because she knows about Bunny’s disappearance. However, Richard is too preoccupied to care. 

When Richard goes outside, he realizes just how insane the situation has become. The media, the police, and people from the local area have flooded campus because of Bunny’s disappearance. Camilla tells Richard that the Corcoran family put up a large monetary reward for anyone who finds Bunny, which has led to the extra attention. Later, Henry tells everyone not to worry. He and Charles were both questioned by the police, but he thinks everything went fine.

On Friday, everyone drives to Julian’s house together. Richard has never been to Julian’s place and is curious to see where he lives. Indeed, the house turns out to be impressive, but unfortunately, Julian is not home, or at least, he doesn’t come to the door. On the way home, Henry drops off the twins and then he, Richard and Francis go to join Bunny’s search party. After searching for some time, people slowly begin to dissipate and so Richard, Francis, and Henry return home as well.

Henry drives everyone back to Francis’s place, where they reunite with the twins to watch the local news. On the news, a man named William Hundy is being interviewed. He is the owner of a local car shop who thinks he has information about Bunny’s whereabouts. Hundy tells the reporter that last Sunday he saw Bunny getting into a LeMans with three other men. Although this doesn’t implicate the other Greek students, Henry worries that this will cause Bunny’s disappearance to be treated as a kidnapping case, which will turn it into a criminal investigation. He is concerned that if someone looks hard enough, particularly into their bank accounts, it could mean trouble. In the middle of this conversation, Bunny’s father calls and invites everyone but Richard, whom he does not know, to dinner at his hotel.

After the others leave, Richard watches TV until he is drunk and tired enough to fall asleep. Francis wakes Richard up at six in the morning and tells him that he’s spent the entire night drinking with the Corcorans, who “were still going at it when [he] left.” As it turns out, the Corcorans are staying in what Francis describes as a “big flat [motel] with a neon sign and no room service.” He tells Richard that it was an awful experience, and that it was difficult to tell whether the Corcorans were actually concerned for their son. In addition, he tells Richard that the National Guard has been called and will be arriving shortly.

Shortly after their conversation about the Corcorans, Henry calls and tells Richard and Francis to come join the search party. Francis is exhausted and doesn’t want to go but ultimately complies. When they arrive at campus, things have gotten even more out of hand. Richard and Francis find Henry, who is “reading, with absorbed interest, a tiny, vellum-bound book written in some Near Eastern language.” Soon, Cloke shows up and tells them that he contacted his distributor, who claims not to have seen Bunny. He is worried that the others may have told the police about his initial theory of the case. Henry assures him that the topic never came up. 

The entire day is spent searching for Bunny. While looking, the Greek students run into a number of familiar faces, including Julian. Julian tells them that he briefly saw and talked to Bunny’s family, whom he clearly finds abhorrent, although he doesn’t outwardly say so. Richard believes that Julian is genuinely concerned for Bunny, though he also thinks that Julian secretly enjoys “the operatic sweep of the search.” Later in the day, two FBI agents approach the Greek students and ask Charles to come with them. This development is concerning to everyone; unfortunately, they can do nothing but wait.

After a long day of searching, everyone returns to the twins’ apartment, where they find a slightly drunk Charles. Charles reveals that he was fingerprinted and questioned by the FBI agents. Although he doesn’t think he revealed anything, it is difficult to tell. He impresses upon the others how much more intelligent the FBI agents are than the other officers they’ve dealt with. He also tells Henry that the agents had a lot of questions about his trip to Italy with Bunny, although they didn’t ask about who financed it. Ultimately, though, Charles thinks that the agents are more suspicious of Cloke than anyone else.

That night, the news runs another story featuring Mr. Hundy, who claims that the men he saw with Bunny were Arabs. The Greek students are all dumbstruck by this development, though none of them think that the FBI are taking Hundy’s story seriously. In addition, the news interviews Bunny’s mother, whose response to her son’s disappearance is rather performative. The Greek students are largely critical of her reaction, though Francis defends her. Charles says that he only does so because Mrs. Corcoran “kisses up to [him]” due to his financial background. Charles tells Richard that the Corcorans are incredibly vain and even have something they call “the Gucci Room” in their house, which is painted with Gucci stripes.

While walking home from the twins’ place, Richard is suddenly punched in the face and kicked in the ribs by a large man who yells at him to “Stay away from Mona!” The next day, Richard wakes up in pain with a black eye. On his way to class, Richard runs into Julian. When Julian asks him what happened, Richard decides to tell the truth. Julian is surprised by Richard’s truthfulness. Then, he tells Richard that the FBI talked to him the day before. At first Julian thought they came to discuss the Isrami government, whose “exiled crown princess” he tutored. Instead, they talked to Julian about Bunny and told him that Bunny was on drugs. Julian asks Richard if he thinks that this is the case, though Richard doesn’t answer.

Later, Henry tells everyone that he, too, was spoken to by the FBI. However, he feels confident that the FBI are more concerned about Cloke than anyone else. In fact, Henry spent most of the time talking with the FBI about Cloke’s drug dealing business rather than his relationship with Bunny. Richard is concerned that pointing the FBI in Cloke’s direction will come back to bite them, but Henry tells him not to worry. In the following days, the media turns Bunny’s disappearance into a story about drug dealing and drug abuse. Largely, this is because a mirror was founded in Bunny’s room with cocaine residue on it. However, everyone who knows Bunny thinks he likely stole the mirror from Laura Stora, who is also known as “the Snow Queen.” Nonetheless, this new development scares Cloke, who Judy thinks may have tried to flee.

Soon, the FBI locates Cloke and brings him back to campus. Cloke refuses to speak about the situation without an attorney. Meanwhile, the media turns on Mrs. Corcoran now that they have reason to believe that drugs were involved in Bunny’s disappearance. Mrs. Corcoran adamantly refuses to believe that her son was on drugs, which results in the headline, “MOM SEZ: NOT MY KID.”

Richard spends Monday night alone with Camilla, whom he asks, “What really happened, that night in the woods.” Camilla says that she doesn’t remember much, but she does recall a fifth person who “wasn’t always a person” walking around with them. Camilla calls this figure Dionysus. In addition, she has a clear memory of the dead man’s body. She says, “his stomach was torn open and steam was coming out of it.” Also, she tells Richard that shortly after the murder, Henry made everyone kill a piglet and let it bleed on them because “murder defiles everyone he comes into contact with. And the only way to purify blood is through blood.” Camilla assures Richard that Henry won’t perform such a ceremony again because he knows it will upset Richard. Richard leaves shortly after this conversation because Charles arrives and is annoyed that Richard is alone with his sister.

The search for Bunny continues to drag on. Richard hears a rumor that “the police had brought in a psychic, a fingerprint expert” and “a special team of bloodhounds trained at Dannemora.” More than anything else, Henry is worried about the presence of the psychic. Richard laughs this off, which annoys Henry who says, “You amaze me [. . .] You think nothing exists if you can’t see it.” That night, Charles and Richard go to dinner at a local bar where no one will recognize them. Charles is silent throughout the meal and drinks heavily.

While eating at the restaurant, Richard and Charles take notice of a television program featuring William Hundy. The program largely consists of a fight between Hundy and a middle eastern man who is offended by Hundy’s characterizations of Arabs. Before long, Hundy reveals himself to be an overt racist, as he refers to middle easterners using a bigoted slur. The outburst receives whoops of approval from a number of the people surrounding Richard and Charles. In response, the two of them decide that it would be a good time to leave.

The next day, Bunny’s body is found. Richard and Camilla jump up when they notice an ambulance parked below their window. It turns out Bunny was found by a college student named Holly Goldsmith, who was out on a walk with her dog. As Richard, Henry, and Camilla go downstairs toward the ambulance, they are bombarded with questions about Bunny from the media. Later, Henry talks to the FBI agents who questioned him and asks what they think happened. They don’t think Bunny killed himself, but they have no other leads. One of the agents starts to provide a theory, but the other cuts him off. This conversation disturbs Camilla, who begins crying. The FBI agents offer to drive her home and she accepts. Before leaving, the agents reveal that the case will be left in the hands of the local authorities because no federal crime has been committed.

As the FBI agents walk away with Camilla, they try to change the subject and make her feel better. Meanwhile, Richard starts to disassociate from his surrounds. He describes this feeling as “an incomplete dreamscape that was like a sketch for the world you knew [. . .] an amnesia-land, a kind of skewed Heaven where the old landmarks were recognizable but spaced too far apart.” While looking around, he spots a single old shoe lying on the ground; it isn’t Bunny’s but for some reason Richard doesn’t understand, it makes an impression on him.