Book Five, Chapter 75: Armed with Knowledge
~Riley~
Just because Carousel decided to redress me didn’t mean I lost access to my luggage tag or to any of the items I’d brought in my hoodie pocket.
It just meant I now had to try to find a way to squeeze my headphones out of the narrow breast pocket of my suit jacket.
I literally had to disassemble them just to get them out. Luckily, I didn’t have to try to get my Walkman out too—that would have been impossible. The pocket was made for glasses or a pen. Cell phones hadn’t been invented yet.
I only needed my headphones because those would allow me to listen in on whatever scene was On-Screen using Quiet On Set. Seeing as this storyline was shaping up to be quite research-heavy in nature, with Andrew, Lila, and me nose-deep in books, I felt the need to multitask and listen in.
And it was weird.
At first, I heard a lot of breathing. I thought it was just someone who needed to hit the gym more often, but then I realized I was listening to a dog—no, a wolf—running for, like, 30 whole seconds. As I realized that’s what I was hearing, I became afraid I was going to hear a scream afterward, but I never did.
Instead, the conversation shifted from place to place, focusing on things that were mostly irrelevant to the plot. I heard laughing and splashing. I heard people talking as they walked the trails.
Whatever Carousel was planning for all the summertime vacationers in the area, it was sure taking its time setting things up.