Sounding more amused than concerned, she asked, “Homicidal? Did those darling little sprites give you a hard time?”
That was it. My patience snapped. I wanted to shake some sense into her, some sibling loyalty. I settled for grabbing her arm to get her to stop dancing.
The guy she was with took hold of my wrist and squeezed until it hurt, until I let go of my sister—all the while still smiling his bland smile.
Never raising her voice—as though I was only somewhat annoying, like a mosquito's whine—Emily told him, “She's not welcome here.”
Not welcome? It was one thing to see it, another to hear it.
I tried, unsuccessfully, to wrench myself free. “Emily?” I said as he pulled on my arm, dragging me away from her and toward the door.
“Emily!” I called, but she just kept on twirling in that circle of dancers.
I caught hold of the door frame to slow down my unceremonious removal from the room.
“Stop!” I said emphatically, remembering how my dance partner had responded to a direct command. “Let go!”
Apparently, Emily's commands superseded mine.
Emily's former partner pried my fingers loose from the door frame, then he hoisted me onto his shoulder, fireman-style—rump-side up, as though this wasn't undignified enough.
“Emily!” I yelled, twisting around only to see my sister dancing with a new partner.
She'd betrayed me. She'd betrayed me and didn't even have a guilty conscience about it.
I was carried down the hall, across the festively lit porch, and down the stairs to the lawn—where I was dumped on the grass. And then Emily's strong-and-silent-type guy turned and went back inside, slamming the door behind him.
Emily couldn't just reject me like that.
I was really mad now, so I picked myself up, climbed the porch stairs, and went to open the door.
One more thing new since the last time I'd been here: the door was locked.
Chapter 8
Locked Out
I YELLED, “Emily, you're a jerk!” I pounded the door. When that got no reaction, I kicked it. Of course, that would have been a mistake even if I'd done it with my ballet-slippered foot. But with my bare toes, it was a big mistake. “Emily, I hate you!” I shouted.
I regretted the words even as they were coming out of my mouth. I didn't hate her. I greatly disliked her at this point in our lives, but “hate” was what I felt for this pink, fluffy, infuriatingly mindless game, not my sister.
Still, what was the matter with her? What could be so wrong with her life that she would choose to lose herself in a beautiful but shallow world surrounded by beautiful but shallow guys? Didn't she realize what her rejecting me—rejecting me in favor of this sugary garbage—was putting me through?
It wasn't that there was any chance she could hear me—not with that quartet playing so loudly—but I couldn't leave my “I hate you” hanging in the air.
But I wouldn't apologize for it, either.
Instead, I amended my earlier comment. “Emily,” I grumbled, “you're a selfish jerk!”
That made my heart feel better, if not my toes.
The wraparound porch put the windows—at least the ones on the ground floor—within easy reach, so I stomped my way to where I could see into the ... well, whatever it had been before, it was a ballroom now. The window wouldn't slide up or swing open, at least not from outside, so I rapped my knuckles against the glass.
That must not have been loud enough to counteract Mozart or Strauss or Sousa or whatever that music was.
I fished the butterfly coin out of my pocket and used that to tap-tap-tap on the window, figuring maybe the sharp sound would cut through the festive hubbub of Emily's party. And yes, inside, a few of the guests on the fringe of the crowd turned to look at me. I put my face up to the glass and yelled, “Emily! Emily!"
Maybe they couldn't make out my words, but surely someone would understand and fetch her.
Instead, they fetched a servant, who came over and—without so much as making eye contact—pulled the velvet drapes closed, shutting me and the other nighttime nuisances out.
Maybe it was even Emily who'd given the order. I was beginning to wonder if anything in this game happened without her say-so.
I mentally told her, You can’t get rid of me THAT easily.
The evening had gotten dim, but not yet dark, so I left the porch and scrounged around the edges of the lawn until I found a slightly-bigger-than-my-fist rock. That would make more noise than my knuckles or a coin.
I picked the rock up and returned to the window.
Whap-whap-whap.
I had expected someone to yank open the curtain to investigate, but there was no reaction.
I adjusted my hold on the rock to make sure my fingers were clear of the largest side so I could bang harder and louder.
Thunk-thunk-thunk.
Nothing. The lively music continued to play. Nobody even came to tell me I'd be in serious trouble if I broke the glass.
Well, then... All right, Emily. You asked for it.
I left the porch again, to put more distance between me and the window. This time, I flung the rock with all my might.
Thump. Yikes!
I almost made it out of the way as the rock bounced off the window and shot right back at me. There was an unbelievable pain at my right temple...
...And the next thing I knew, I was coming to, sprawled on the grass, in such intense pain, I was convinced my head was split open and my brains were spilling out onto Emily's neatly trimmed lawn.
There isn't supposed to be pain in Rasmussem games. Discomfort, sure; that's part of the realism. But most of the games have players doing all sorts of dangerous things: swordfighting and facing down alien invasions and exploring haunted houses. Stuff most normal people wouldn't do in real life for fear of death and/or maiming. Rasmussem provides a safe way to have adventures. Who would pay to experience sword thrusts or laser burns or broken bones? I could only guess that the usual game protocols regarding pain hadn't been written in yet, or maybe the technicians assumed this world was too safe for its very young players to get hurt.
Gingerly, I touched my fingertips to my head. No great gaping wound, but definitely a nasty scrape—and that on top of a huge bump. I'd heard people refer to such a bump as a goose egg, but I'd never truly appreciated that term before.
Still, it was good news that the bump had had the time to grow to that prodigious size: time had obviously passed, and that gave a happier explanation for the darkness of my surroundings. It had been dusk when I'd been ejected from the dance, and I'd been worried that I'd hit myself so hard I'd started to go blind.
The candles were still flickering in the windows of Emily's house, excepting only the one with the drawn curtain, but there was no more music drifting out into the night. The musicians—and, I could only suppose, the beautiful women and the silent men—had gone home. Whatever home meant for game characters.
I couldn't tell how much time had passed. The sky was totally dark. Well, there were stars and a full moon, but no remnant of the setting sun or hint of a rising sun.
What had they made of my unconsciousness at Rasmussem? I suspected Mom would have demanded my return, yet again, if she'd realized what had happened, regardless of the official assurances of my safety. I could just imagine the scene back there: the secret glance that passed between Ms. Bennett and Adam when they realized what the flattened readouts meant, the silent mutual acknowledgment that they shouldn't say anything to Mom. They must have figured it would take less time for me to revive on my own than for them to fetch me back, hear me tell them that no, yet again I had nothing significant to report, and then have to return me to the game. Though Adam probably had made a note about it.
I sat up, and almost fell over sideways from the dizziness. So I sat there a few more minutes, listening to the chirp of the world's loudest nighttime peepers, my arms stretched out on either side, until I didn't feel so bad
ly off balance. Fighting the urge to throw up, I struggled to my knees, then finally hauled myself to my feet.
My head still ached as though it might split open, but I staggered back up onto the porch and once again rapped my knuckles against the window.
Tap.
The sound went right through me, though I was fairly certain I wasn't being as forceful as when I'd tried it earlier.
I went with one knuckle.
tap. tap. tap.
Each tap was like a smack across the top of my head. A smack with a piece of lumber.
But I didn't rouse anybody in the house.
Holding on to the rail because there was the very real danger of my tipping over, I made my way around the porch to the next window.
Tap, tap, tap, nothing.
Then the next: Tap, tap, tap, nothing.
Then I was at the French doors that opened from the kitchen. I'd forgotten about them.
Boy, I told myself, I’ll feel like a real pinhead if those turn out to be unlocked.
My self-esteem remained intact in that regard: the doors were, in fact, Grace-proofed.
I sat down on the steps that led to the water, too dizzy to know if I was upset that I still couldn't get in or relieved that I hadn't inflicted my breaking-and-entering injury on myself pointlessly.
The water lapped against the dock, a noise that under normal circumstances would have been soothing. With my head aching the way it did, the sound felt more like metal garbage can lids clanging together.
Maybe I should go back to Rasmussem, I thought. Sure, I'd lose some time, but I could come back in a sound body. And I could tell Ms. Bennett she needed to fix the pain filters of this game. And I needed to tell her about the voiceless guys. Unquestionably they were some sort of clue. About something. Probably. Though, with my head throbbing, figuring things out was just too difficult. Besides, Emily was most likely asleep now. In Rasmussem games, you need to sleep just as surely as you do in real life. And if she hadn't wanted to talk to me when she'd been gathering flowers or dancing, she certainly wouldn't welcome being awakened in the dead of night.
Yet I kept coming back to the thought: the Rasmussem group hadn't brought me back when I'd knocked myself out, so they must consider a reset to be a waste of time.
The stars shone in the sky above, and reflected in the lake before me. I went to the water to dip my hands in, to cool my cheeks, not daring to put my fingers anywhere near my throbbing forehead.
The gondola was bobbing at the end of its tether, and despite the darkness, I could make out the shape of the gondolier standing in the bow—Prow? Which is the back?—patiently waiting to offer rides.
He was the only one here who had been nice to me.
I stood, still weaving a bit, and made my way down the dock, my footsteps thudding against the wooden slats sounding like a herd of crazed wildebeests.
"Buona notte," the gondolier greeted me. "Le piacerebbe fare un giro in gondola?"
Before I could tell him to please speak more softly, and that no, I did not want a ride in his stinking gondola, he took note of my bruised, bumped, and abraded forehead. He sucked in a breath through his teeth and made a sympathetic face as he brought his fingers to his own forehead and said in a kindly—if overly loud—voice, "Che cosa è successo?"
Our language differences didn't leave us too much common ground, but there was something I knew he understood. “Emily,” I said.
“Emily,” he said, once again kissing his fingertips to show his approval.
I tugged on his sleeve. “Emily,” I repeated. “She's in trouble.”
Well, she was.
I pointed back to the house.
“Emily. She needs help.” I indicated my head, as though what had happened to me might—without his intervention—happen to her, too. “Emily. Help.”
Whatever he made of my words, he understood my frantic tone. Nimbly, he leaped onto the dock and strode toward the house.
I followed as quickly as my pounding head permitted.
He'd already tried the French doors by the time I got there. He knocked, very loudly—oh, my aching head—very, very loudly. He pounded the flat of his palm against the wood, shaking the door in its frame, and called in that deep, serious voice guys can do: “Signorina Emily!”
"Andiamo," I told him, the word rising to the surface of my brain from who-knows-where—probably some movie or song or Italian restaurant or something. I was fairly certain it meant something along the lines of “Let's get going” or “Hurry up.” I repeated it more urgently: “Andiamo! Andiamo! Emily!”
He put his shoulder to the door and tried to crash through it the way cops do in the movies. But whatever Emily's doors and windows were made of, the door didn't break, and he bounced off the surface as surely as that rock I'd thrown.
Leaping off the porch, he stood on the lawn and bellowed up at the second floor, “Signorina Emily!” over and over, until finally my sister opened the wooden shutters of her room and stepped out onto the balcony.
She was wearing a floaty white nightgown that made her look simultaneously romantic and little-girlish.
I wanted to tell her, “Emily, I'm here to rescue you. I've brought reinforcements.” But I didn't know if that was the right thing to say, so I didn't say anything. Besides, I was intentionally standing close to the huge flowering cherry tree, kind of hoping that she wouldn't notice me, since my presence seemed to irk her.
In a voice that belied her sweet, vulnerable appearance, Emily shouted at the gondolier, “Go away!” She saw me there, too, despite the tree. She added, “Go away, both of you!” and stomped back into her room, slamming the shutters closed.
Angry, but undeterred, I thought at her: Well, this is what you get for not letting your guys speak English. To the gondolier, I said, “Emily!” and pointed up to where she'd been, then pointed to my head. “She needs our help! Andiamo!”
I don't know what he thought was going on, but clearly my insistence was convincing him that Emily needed rescuing and she needed it now.
Which was true enough, just probably not the way he thought.
He looked around, then climbed up onto the porch rail, and from there hoisted himself up into the cherry tree, whose upper branches came fairly close to her balcony.
Uh, wait a minute, I thought. I couldn't follow him that way.
“Ahm...” I called after him as he climbed up and up. I had been counting on his forcing his way in through either the front or back door, or on our being annoying enough that Emily would come out. His gaining access to her room via the tree wouldn't help me at all.
“Signorina Emily!” the gondolier called again. The branches that would support his weight were not all that close to the window, so he took a flying leap.
“Careful,” I whisper-warned him.
And he landed lightly on the balcony rail, then jumped down to the balcony itself. I guess a gondolier does have to have good equilibrium. Maybe somehow this would work after all. Maybe Emily would realize I couldn't be ignored.
The gondolier kicked in the wooden shutters.
I heard Emily yell, “Guards!”
“Emily!” I called, though my head pounded in protest.
So I don't know if the gondolier said anything as he swayed there, holding on to the window frame for support and balance. Or if Emily did. What I saw was the gondolier stagger backwards, shoved by someone in the room. A guy who could have been the same one who threw me out of the dance strode out onto the balcony. I saw the guy grab hold of the gondolier.
Pick him up off his feet.
High off his feet.
And toss him over the rail.
This was so unexpected, so unreal, I thought, He’ll land on his feet back on the branch he jumped from—like a scene from a cartoon, run backwards for comic effect.
But he didn't land on that branch.
At least, not on his feet.
And he certainly didn't land only on that branch.
He hit sev
eral as he fell, fell, fell, before his body finally landed in a crumpled heap on the ground. I went running up to him, but I didn't need to. I already knew there was no way anyone could have survived that fall.
Okay, he was only a computer-generated character, but he had been kind to me. And he had been concerned about Emily. Emily, who might well have helped to program him so that all he knew was gondoliering and being loyal to her; Emily, who now poked her head out beyond the jagged edges of the window shutter and called down to me, “Go away, Grace. I don't want you here.” She wasn't shocked, she wasn't rattled, she wasn't acting like “Oh no, this is not what I intended.”
I had thought before that she wasn't the same Emily I knew. Now I had no idea who she was.
She closed—as best she could—what was left of the shutters, leaving her guard out on the balcony, still watching me with those cold, bland eyes looking out from his pretty face.
Suddenly, I didn't want to be here, either, couldn't bear to be here. “End game,” I announced to the eavesdropping Rasmussem personnel. “Bring me back to Rasmussem.” And I sat down on the grass among the fragrant cherry blossoms that had been knocked loose as the gondolier fell, and I waited to be brought back home.
Chapter 9
Fun and Games with Phones
WHEN I TOLD everyone what Emily's dance partner/ bodyguard/hit man had done to the gondolier, Ms. Bennett said, “Nothing like that should be able to happen.”
Mom whirled on her and snapped, “Do you listen to yourself ? Do you have any idea how often you have said that?”
I saw the flash of irritation on Ms. Bennett's face. But she didn't lash out. She simply changed the topic and asked me for more details about what I'd seen at the dance.
Mom cut me off, demanding instead, “Grace, are you all right?”
I realized I was sitting there on the total immersion couch with my hand feeling my forehead. It wasn't that my head still hurt from that rebounding rock, but it shouldn't have hurt in the game, either, not that intensely, and that was yet one more thing Ms. Bennett had said simply shouldn't happen.
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