Why did the children talk about ending the game?

The children start talking seriously about ending the Egypt Game after they discover that someone's been writing answers on notes left for the Oracle. This is making them pretty nervous, to say the least. Previously, the Egypt Game had been just that—a game, a harmless fantasy. But the appearance of these strange written notes makes it feel uncomfortably real all of a sudden.
The children had left a question in Thoth the owl god's beak for the Oracle to answer. And sure enough, an answer is duly given; the Oracle has spoken. But the handwriting on the note is unfamiliar, and all the kids swear that they had nothing do with it. Even so, everyone's pretty sure that one of the "Egyptians" must have written the answer. Who else could've done it? Who else even knows about the game? But there's more than an element of wishful thinking going on here. The children simply have to believe that one of them wrote the answer because otherwise there might be dark, evil forces at work. And that's just way too scary to think about.