“That’s weird,” Harrison mutters from the stalls.
“What’s weird?” I walk over to him.
“The stalls in this bathroom. They have writing on the locks. Like in an airplane bathroom. When you switch the lock”—he demonstrates—“it goes from ‘vacant’ to ‘occupied.’”
I purse my lips. “So? That’s not exactly uncommon.”
He shakes his head. “I was in the men’s room before I met you in the dressing room. I looked up and down the doors of those toilet stalls, seeing if there was a picture of a raven or something, and they don’t have that feature.”
“So? There probably isn’t a fainting couch either. Sometimes ladies’ restrooms are a little fancier than men’s.” But then I gasp. “My God! It’s writing!”
“Yeah. As in the writing raven.”
“I thought it meant that the raven was doing the act of writing. Not the writing itself.”
He nods. “I was thinking about this earlier. The river of tears in the riddle wasn’t referring to an actual river, or actual tears. So we have to think outside the box on the other half of the riddle as well.”
“Okay. So what could raven mean?”
“I was thinking it could be raven as in raven hair. Like the color black.” He gestures to the stall doors. “But the writing on all these locks is pink, just like everything else in this bathroom.”
“Right.” I grab my phone. “Let’s see if there are other definitions of the word.” I pull up Google and search for the definition of “raven.” Several results pull up, and I pull up a dictionary website. “Well, the first definition is the bird, obviously. Then there’s the adjective, like ‘raven black hair.’ And then…” I widen my eyes.
“Then what?”
“It’s a verb, too. ‘To raven’ means ‘to devour voraciously.’ It must be where the word ‘ravenous’ comes from.”
He taps at his chin “So we’re looking for writing that is…eating something?”
“We might be at a dead end.” I sigh and pocket my phone.
“Not necessarily.” Harrison examines the lock of the first stall, turning it to ‘occupied’ and back. He then looks at the second one for a few seconds before moving on to the third.
There’s a knock on the door. A woman’s voice I don’t recognize. “Hello? Is the bathroom closed?”
I swallow. “Just a minute. There was an incident. We’re doing some cleaning.”
“Is that Bianca in there?”
“N-No.” I lower my voice. “But how sweet of you to think I sound like her. It’s…Hilda, the custodian. I’m cleaning up. Someone got sick in here.”
“Oh, heavens. How long will it be?”
“At least ten minutes,” I say. “Maybe you could use the men’s restroom.”
“Not on your life. I’ll go ask Rouge if I can use her restroom in her office.”
“No! No! Don’t do that!” I think quickly. “If you can just wait a few minutes, we’ll be open momentarily.”
“Okay… I guess I’ll wait.”
“Great. Thank you.” I turn to Harrison. “Can you hurry it up?”
“I think I might have found something.” Harrison exits the leftmost stall, the one against the wall. “Look here.”
I cross. “Make it quick. We’ve got someone waiting.”
“I heard. But look.” He turns the lock on the stall to ‘occupied’ and points. “See here? Could these be little teeth?”
