Book Five, Chapter 59: The Thing about Werewolves

“So, what are you over here planning?” Kimberly asked after I had been sitting at the bar by myself for half an hour, piecing together a theory.

“Who says I’m planning anything?” I responded. “I’m just hanging out at the Speakeasy, like the rest of you, tying one on.”

“Your status on the red wallpaper says planning,” she said.

“Oh, right,” I said. Who even remembered that that was one of the statuses? Maybe since I was always the one planning, I never saw it on other players.

“I remember it because it’s always good to see the high-Savvy people planning things. Makes me feel safer. I assume you’re thinking about the prophecy we got from Madam Celia or the baby doll. Did you figure it out?”

Ah, yes, the fortune.

Your friends have all fallen, some here, some there;
‘Til they have risen, you’ve no friends to spare.

“You know that is what’s on my mind,” I said. “But here’s the thing—I don’t think it’s a prophecy. I don’t think it’s a fortune, and I don’t think it’s a warning.”

“It sounds like a warning,” she said.

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“If it’s not all that, what is it?” she asked.

“I think it’s a riddle, like an old-fashioned riddle where you’re talking about one thing but look like you’re talking about another,” I said. “My grandpa used to like them. Unfortunately, they’re not really in vogue—not for a long time. I think it’s because they’re too up for interpretation. You know, like, What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?“

She looked at me blankly.

“I don’t know,” Kimberly said. “What is it?”

“A human who crawls and then walks and then uses a cane as they age. That’s the Riddle of the Sphinx, but I don’t think this riddle is as universal as all that. I think this riddle is about our specific experiences, and it’s also a lot more mundane.”

She smiled, ready for me to spill the beans.

“All right, what do you think it is?”

I repeated the fortune, word for word.

“Your friends have all fallen, some here, some there;
‘Til they have risen, you’ve no friends to spare.”

I twisted in my seat to look at her straight on.

“If I’m wrong, don’t make fun of me, all right? I think the riddle is referring to rolling a strike in bowling. That was my first thought. The friends are bowling pins—they’ve all fallen because you rolled a strike, and then, ’til the machine sets them back up, you can’t roll a spare because you have no friends—no bowling pins.”

“Bowling?” she asked. “I don’t know…does that mean the omen’s at the bowling alley?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But then I looked at it again, this time without the metaphor, and I realized that it’s about the bowlers themselves—you know, our Bowlers, Grace and Reggie, and the others. They all fell in different places, one or two at a time, and now we have none of them left to spare. The bowling plus the ‘friends’—that’s what I’m thinking about. I think we’re supposed to seek out something about the Bowlers.”

Grace, her brother Reggie, her ex Jessie, their friends Bella and Dirk.

Kimberly looked excited. I figured there was something so simple about my interpretation that she really wanted it to be true; otherwise, reading that riddle at face value was pretty depressing.

She turned to the others and said, “You all, come over here.”

Her urgency was very convincing to them because soon enough, I was surrounded by everyone, drinks in hand, wanting to know what Kimberly had called them over for.

“I think Riley figured it out,” she said. “The fortune from Madam Celia.” She turned to me and said, “You’re confident you’re right, right?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to think I am.”

“Go on, tell us,” Andrew said, barely able to contain himself.

So I explained to them what I had explained to Kimberly, and while I had thought it was a silly little idea, they seemed to think it was a lot more serious than that.

“That is a simple and far more practical interpretation than I was thinking,” Andrew said.

They seemed genuinely excited. Even though I thought it was just a whack at getting the correct interpretation, they seemed to trust that I must be right for some reason. And as much as I wanted to dampen their expectations, they were talking excitedly, and Kimberly was going over her memory of how to disarm omens at the bowling alley.

They were joyful because I had given them a really straightforward heading; it was such a simple interpretation and it was so Carousel.

Antoine turned to me in the middle of their revelry and asked, “So, next up, the bowling alley?”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Nope,” I said.

And all at once, they stopped talking and just stared at me.

“And why not?” I think it was Cassie who asked.

“The crybaby,” I said.

“How does that work in?” Michael asked.

“Yeah, what about it?” Antoine asked.

“The baby doll is only useful against dangers that we are not aware of. The bowling alley has lots of omens, but we have three people here who are perfectly capable of scouting them out. Why would we be sent to pick up the baby doll if we just had to go to the bowling alley?”