Deadly Pink

by Vivian Vande Velde

  But the thing seemed more interested in being seen than in communicating.

  In the games I've played, there's a mechanism gamers call the “Finding Rasmussem Factor.” I have no idea what the official name for it is, but it works like this: if all else fails, we're told in a not-so-subtle bit of self-aggrandizing self-promotion to go to Rasmussem. Sometimes that's a person, or it can be an artifact, or a place—someone to meet or something to get or somewhere to go to have the quest explained or to learn the more essential ins and outs of the particular game world you're playing. For most kids, it's a matter of pride not to seek Rasmussem, but in some games you absolutely cannot proceed without checking in.

  In this case, however, I didn't need to find the purpose of the game; I only needed to find Emily.

  I got off the swing. As far as I knew, the Rasmussem people hadn't programmed any changes to my personal appearance, but I saw they'd made my clothing fit in with this world. I was wearing a white floaty dress and delicate silver ballet flats. Something moved near my face in my peripheral vision, and instinctively I put my hand up. Ribbons. Cascading down from a flower crown. Of course.

  Standing in the entryway of the gazebo, I looked around.

  House.

  Lake.

  Flower garden.

  Woods.

  No Emily.

  No hint where Emily might be.

  Well, I thought, let’s not dismiss the obvious. “Emily!” I called.

  But of course it couldn't be that easy.

  I knew Ms. Bennett and Sybella would be pulling me back shortly, but that didn't mean I should just hang around here. That was a waste of time. The recall program could find me wherever I went, and I was worried about Emily. Ms. Bennett had been vague about what would happen if Emily stayed in the game too long. But international companies don't send chief technical engineers and lawyers on trivial errands.

  House, I decided. That was a limited space for me to explore.

  I stepped out of the gazebo onto the lawn. The grass was as lush and soft as green velvet, and every step released a just-mown scent.

  The house had a wraparound porch that completely encircled the place, but there were steps on this side leading to what I presumed to be the front door, complete with iridescent leaded glass.

  No doorbell, I noticed.

  No lock, either. When I turned the knob, the door opened, and I found myself in a huge foyer with slate tiles in the pastel-heathers family of color. “Emily!” I called.

  The place was too kid-friendly to have anything even remotely spooky like an echo. Despite the fact that there was no answer, I could smell sugar and cinnamon, as though someone was baking.

  A magnificent stairway curved gracefully to the upstairs rooms. As inviting as that looked, with the red carpet and the shiny wooden banisters, I decided to check the ground floor first.

  The rooms were lavishly furnished: grandfather clock in the foyer; orchids and sunflowers and rhododendrons and a pink baby grand piano in the sunroom; cupboards and buffets and a big-enough-for-state-dinners-at-the-White-House table in the dining room; floor-to-ceiling shelves in the library, accessed by a ladder that slid around on a track so that you could reach even the farthest volume on the highest shelf and then read it in one of the big comfy chairs. But no clutter or knickknacks. Nothing personal. No sign that anyone actually lived here.

  Nobody in the bright and shiny kitchen, either, despite the crystal bowl with fresh-cut flowers on the counter, and a platter of those aromatic cinnamon cookies. I took one—out of curiosity, not real hunger—and it was warm and delicious. Well, that was one thing I liked in this game.

  I had just decided I would have to go upstairs after all, when I happened to look out the kitchen window. Which wasn't hard to do. This place had more glass overlooking pretty expanses than a window manufacturer's ad. The particular view I had was of the lake. I could still see the swans, but from this vantage I also noticed a dock—a pretty, flower-festooned dock—which made me look a little farther out onto the water, and that's when I saw another swan shape, a big one. It was, in fact, a swan-shaped boat.

  The boat came complete with a man dressed like a Venetian gondolier. Can a boat shaped like a swan be, technically speaking, a gondola? Well, I couldn't call this guy a swandolier, even in my head. So, a gondolier was standing in the back of the swan gondola, and he was navigating, leisurely and gracefully moving the boat through the water with a pole that was at least twice as tall as he was.

  And there—yes, I'd been looking for her, but I couldn't believe my luck to have actually found her—was Emily. She was wearing a dress every bit as white and gauzy as my own, except she had a straw sun hat instead of a Renaissance Faire flower crown. Reclining in the front part of the boat, she was holding a book with one hand, the other hand lazily dragging in the clear Caribbean-blue-green water.

  Relieved to see her safe, I threw open the window—which, unlike every window in our house, flew open easily, not sticking for a moment. Very faintly, across the distance, I could hear the gondolier singing about Santa Lucia.

  “Emily!” I shouted.

  The warm, flower-scented breeze was blowing toward me, which was why I could hear the gondolier, despite the distance, but my voice didn't carry to them.

  I tried again, more loudly: “Emily!”

  She looked up from her book and cocked her head, obviously hearing something, but not sure what, or from where.

  “EMILY!” I screamed so hard my throat tickled.

  Which was when I felt something like a big warm fluffy blanket wrap itself around me.

  And then I was back at Rassmussem.

  Chapter 4

  Hello. Remind Me Again Why I’m Here?

  COMING OUT of a Rasmussem game is sort of like waking up alert—okay, okay, not that I have much experience with that.

  But what I'm saying is I wasn't confused, wondering where I was or whether I was dreaming. One moment I was at the window in that designer kitchen, with Emily about to look over and see me, the next I was being wrapped up in a cozy blanket, and then there I was on the total immersion couch looking up into my mother's I-will-be-brave/just-ignore-these-tears-in-my-eyes face.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. And right on top of that: “Is your sister okay? Did you see her?”

  I had known from the start that this first time, my coming and my going would be one right after the other, that I was—metaphorically speaking—simply testing the water by sticking my toe in. The fact was, I had needed to be reassured just as much as my mother that the Rasmussem equipment wasn't faulty and that I could return to reality at any time; so it was petty to blame my short visit on my mother's technophobia. That I had even found Emily so quickly in the intricacy of the game's many locales was more than anybody could have counted on.

  Still, I was frustrated, and for some reason Mom's forced courage grated on my nerves, and it was easier to be mad at her than to admit how helpless this whole situation made me feel.

  “I was,” I snapped, “about to make contact with Emily.”

  Mom's smile wavered and she blinked rapidly, but her voice didn't give away anything as she said, “How did she seem?”

  And that wasn't nearly as easy a question as it should have been.

  That note Emily had left, that simple, scary note, sounding—I tried to shy away from the thought but wasn't quick enough—disturbingly like a suicide note...

  I had expected to see her languishing. Or in a frenzy of not-enough-time-to-think activity.

  I glanced beyond my mother to Ms. Bennett and Sybella. “She's in a kids' game. She was on a gondola. Reading a book. Being sung to in Italian.”

  Mom blinked some more and managed to squeak out, “Well, that sounds nice.”

  Ms. Bennett said, “It's Land of the Golden Butterflies. We're about to begin beta testing, so it's pretty complete. Emily and several of the others have been playing, intentionally making unusual choices so we could be fairly certain the
game wouldn't crash or loop just because some little player decided to feed the unicorn food to the dolphins, or vice versa.”

  “There's unicorns and dolphins?” I asked.

  “That's what our focus groups indicate little girls like,” Sybella assured me. “And kittens. Not counting media tie-ins, those are the kinds of stuffed animals little girls most often ask for.”

  I must have rolled my eyes, because Ms. Bennett added, “And for the girls who prefer, there are also dragons and dinosaurs. We're trying to make it a pleasant experience for everyone.”

  Still... I thought.

  There's a big difference between what a ten-year-old finds pleasant and what an eighteen-year-old does. Isn't there? I mean, sure, I still have Merry the Christmas Moose on my bed, even though I'm fourteen. And, yeah, despite the fact that I claim she's a seasonal decoration, she never gets put away between January and November. But it's not like I sleep with her. Not usually. My attachment to her is more because of the memories of Grandma and Grandpa, who gave her to me, than because I fantasize about her being alive and able to talk and play.

  Ms. Bennett said, “It may have been opportunistic that Emily chose Land of the Golden Butterflies to...” She hesitated, because we weren't sure, not one hundred percent sure, what Emily's plan was. We could only surmise. And be anxious about it. Ms. Bennett finished, “...to fulfill her purposes. Even though she had access to codes to other games, that was the one her team was working on. So it may well be that she chose it because it would have been the easiest for her to modify.”

  So what Ms. Bennett was saying was that Emily had decided to lose herself in that particular game because it was there, like that guy—whoever he was—who said he'd climbed Mount Everest because it was there. But just as he'd have found another mountain to go up if Everest hadn’t been there, it was likely that Emily had made the decision to turn her back on the real world first, and then settled on how.

  “All right,” I said, antsy to get back, though I had no idea how I was supposed to talk sense into Emily. Surely she knew she couldn't stay hooked up to the equipment indefinitely. That she was risking brain injury, or even death. “Well, no insights, but at least now we know the equipment works. So send me back.”

  Ms. Bennett looked for confirmation from Mom, who whispered to me, “Be careful,” which we all took as a go-ahead.

  Sybella said, “Okay, put your head down and close your eyes and count back from one hundred by sevens.”

  Damn it.

  “One hundred,” I said.

  I pretended I'd misheard. “One hundred seven. One hundred fourteen. One hundred twenty-one. One hundred twenty-eight...”

  Oops, I was having trouble going in that direction, too. Uncertainly, I said, “One hundred thirty-two. No, one hundred thirty-five...”

  But I don't think they heard me, because by then I could hear water slapping against the dock.

  Before I even opened my eyes, I thought, Wow, last time I could see the lake from the gazebo, but I don’t think I could hear it.

  Then a voice, a male voice, very close, said, "Buon giorno. Le piacerebbe fare un giro in gondola?”

  That got my eyes open in a hurry.

  Ms. Bennett and Sybella hadn't landed me back in the gazebo; this time I was actually standing on the dock. Too late. Time had continued to pass in the game while I had spent my few minutes back at Rasmussem: Emily was no longer here. The gondolier, looking very handsome in an older-guy Mediterranean sort of way, was standing in his boat, smiling at me. I don't speak Italian, but by the way he had one hand outstretched toward me and the other indicating the seat in the gondola, I guessed he was offering me a ride. I didn't think it was a ride to someplace. When I'd seen Emily in the boat earlier, the singing and the leisurely drifting had given me the impression that she hadn't been headed anywhere in particular; just, it had seemed, taking a pleasant outing on the lake. I didn't have time for that.

  “No, thank you,” I said. In the total immersion games I've played, I've learned it never hurts to be polite, even to virtual characters. I asked, “Where's Emily?”

  The man shook his head and said, "Scusa. Non capisco.”

  “I'm looking for Emily,” I said, realizing—even as I did it—that I was raising my voice, as though he were hard of hearing, not Italian.

  He shrugged and said, "Non ho capito, ma Le potrei cantare una bella canzone. ”

  “Emily,” I practically shouted at him.

  “Emily,” he repeated, and kissed his fingertips. But that was all.

  I turned to leave him and to head back to the house, hoping that she and I had simply traded places and that I would find her in the kitchen watching me. But the gondolier said, "Signorina?”

  I turned back, though if he didn't speak English, it wouldn't do me any good even if he did know where Emily was, because I wouldn't be able to understand his explanation.

  "Delfini,” he said.

  I shook my head.

  He repeated the word and pointed out toward the middle of the lake. A pair of dolphins was leaping in the air.

  “Ah,” I said. “Lake dolphins.” No wonder kids today are confused.

  The gondolier was pointing to his boat again, then the dolphins, obviously telling me he could take me closer.

  Was he saying...? I mean, this was a fantasy game ... Could Emily have turned herself into...?

  I could have kicked myself for not having asked Ms. Bennett and Sybella what the point of this game was. I pointed to the dolphins and asked, “Emily?”

  The gondolier looked confused, then gave an expression as though my nose had suddenly broken off and was hanging on to my face by a string of snot. He smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand to indicate he had never heard anything so stupid in his life, and he repeated with exaggerated care, "DEL-FI-NI.”

  Okay. So not Emily.

  “Thanks all the same,” I said. "Grazie.” Which I think is Italian. Unless it's Spanish.

  Once more his fingers brushed my sleeve. By now he'd seen that talking to me was useless. He pointed to the tall red and white striped pole to which the gondola was tied. Another of those big sparkly butterflies had alighted on top. The gondolier made a gesture of cupping hands and indicated for me to try to catch the butterfly.

  Not wanting to miss something important, but still feeling both impatient and like a jerk, I did. For a brief moment, I felt the creature's wings flutter, tickling my palms. Then it turned cold and solid. Carefully, I unfurled my fingers, and found that the butterfly had turned into a gold coin.

  "Bene,” the gondolier congratulated me.

  I nodded my gratitude for his showing me how things worked here—since my attempt at Italian had apparently all but left him mute. Fortunately, my dress came with pockets, so I put my coin in one. Then I ran down the dock, across the lawn, and into the house through the French doors of the kitchen.

  “Emily?” I called.

  The house was as quiet and empty as on my first visit.

  I searched the ground floor even faster than I had the last time, not letting myself get distracted by wondering what was going on. Once I got back to the kitchen, I did check outside the window again, to make sure there wasn't a glitch in the program that made Emily visible on the lake only from that vantage point. The gondolier was alone, standing in his boat, patiently waiting to offer a ride and a song to whoever came by.

  Up the grand staircase to the second floor I went. There was a huge huge huge bathroom with two tubs, one an old-fashioned kind with claw feet, the other basically a shallow sunken pool tiled with lapis lazuli. The bedroom had a balcony that overlooked the lake; a dresser with a marble top and a tiltable mirror; and a canopy bed, complete with a small step stool to get up into it. The mood was little-girlish rather than bed-and-breakfast-ish, and when I saw the white furry area rug, I told myself, “Hmph!” Disgruntled by all this frilliness, I permitted myself the unkind thought, Little girls like unicorns. I wonder if that’s unicorn fur. />
  I opened a door and found a walk-in closet at least as big as our living room. There were all sorts of princess gowns, Southern-belle gowns, Renaissance gowns. Who could have guessed that Emily, who normally slouched around in jeans and hoodies, had a heart that yearned for dress-up?

  But there was no sign of her here, so I ran back downstairs.

  I threw open the French doors that took me back out to the porch, and there she was, in the garden.

  “Emily!” I called, to keep her from wandering off before I got to her.

  She heard me—I caught the quick glance in my direction—but then she looked away.

  What?

  I'd been frantic to find her, was delighted to succeed, and now she was ignoring me?

  Like all the fear I'd been feeling, all the turmoil, all the worry about what had happened and the bigger worry about how was I supposed to help—like all that was nothing?

  I suppose, I told myself with a little bit of self-pity and a good deal of bitterness, I suppose I should consider myself lucky she's only ignoring me and that she didn’t start running away from me even as her name left my lips.

  The possibility that she might not want to see me caused me to slow down, to reevaluate. I saw that she had changed out of the white linen Victorian dress she'd had on in the gondola and replaced it with a tea-length chiffon dress in shades of peach and pink. It kind of made her look like a wood nymph, which was perfect, because she'd put her book away, and now she had a wicker basket over her arm as she collected long-stemmed flowers.

  Clearly, this was very important work that required too much concentration to greet her sister, who had come, at some personal inconvenience, to rescue her.

  I ran down the porch steps and across the lawn to the flower garden, and stepped directly in front of her. Despite her lack of enthusiasm, I was ready to throw my arms around her and hug her, but she still wouldn't make eye contact.

  “Emily!” I repeated, to show her how glad I was to see her. But she was deep into snipping the stem of a blood-red amaryllis with her sparkly scissors.

  She looked more annoyed than anything else, her expression similar to the one my mother uses when our neighbors' badly trained puppy barks and jumps on her and rudely sniffs where Mom doesn't want to be sniffed.