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be like another hour for Emily. I had to believe that the longer she spent in this world, the harder it would be to get her to leave.
    And that eventually (hours and hours from now, I could only hope, and by that I was thinking real hours, not these fleeting game hours), the Rasmussem equipment would somehow fail. Ms. Bennett hadn't explained—at least not to me—what exactly that approximately-eight-hour time limit meant. Maybe that the machine/brain interface would somehow burn out Emily's brain. Or put her into an irreversible coma. Or she might starve to death. Okay, probably not that last, I reassured myself. They could always hook up an IV. Truth be told, I hadn't wanted to know—still didn't want to know—the specifics. I was scared enough already. It was sufficient that I knew I had to convince Emily to come home, whatever her reasons for wanting to lose herself here.
    While I was thinking about all that—and wondering if the Rasmussem people could read my moods and feelings (severe embarrassment: would I have to explain that I'd lost Emily mere moments after their expensive equipment had found her for me?)—I became aware of a sound. Music? It was kind of like the high notes of a harp. Or a xylophone. Or ... maybe ... a music box.
    And yet ... not.
    I made a right-hand turn and found myself in a little clearing. So, my keen instincts had led me to the exact center of the maze rather than back out. There was a pretty little park bench complete with its own canopy to provide shade, and, directly centered, a water fountain—not the kind you find in school halls and near public restrooms, but the ornamental kind, with a fat marble goldfish spouting an arc of water up into the air and down into a blue stone bowl.
    The musical noise I was hearing came from there, along with the relaxing splash of water. I took a step closer, hoping the water would look clean enough to drink, because I was hot and thirsty, as well as cranky. I suspected this world was too nice to have poison or even bacteria-infested water. But I was really hoping the only fish was the marble one. It would be hard to bring myself to drink water—even virtual water— from a bowl that had fish swimming in it—even virtual fish. My brain could tell me one thing, but my gag reflex was already making its point of view clear.
    No fish.
    Sigh of relief.
    “Hello. Welcome,” a tiny voice called out.
    “Hello, hello,” came another voice, and I knew it was another, despite the fact that it sounded just like the first, because the greetings overlapped a bit.
    I became aware of two little creatures sitting on the tail of the marble fish. They were about as tall as pencils, and beautiful. Pixies, fairies, elves—something like that. They looked human—if you didn't hold their iridescent wings and hair the color of sherbet against them.
    While my own hair was sticking to my sweaty face, occasionally stinging my eyes or getting caught in my teeth, the pixie girls' hair (one green like lime, the other a soft raspberry-purple) billowed prettily in the breeze. They also had gorgeous dresses that appeared to be made of flower petals. Sure, my dress had been okay to start with, but it had gone from being cute to being a nuisance—too much fabric for a warm day, and the grass stains would never come out of the hem. I had taken off the flower-and-ribbon crown the third or fourth time it tipped down over my eyes, and I'd left it around an urn I suspected I'd passed several times already.
    “Hello,” I answered the pixie girls.
    They giggled. Mystery solved. That had been the almost-music sound I'd heard earlier.
    “Wishes for coins,” one—or maybe it was both—of them told me.
    I remembered the butterfly coin I'd caught by the gondola. I took the coin out of my pocket. “What kind of wishes?” I asked.
    “Any kind,” the raspberry-sherbet-haired pixie giggled.
    Lime giggled, too. “Whatever you want. The more coins, the more you can wish for.”
    “I