It was a truly boring day in math class. Kit was doodling on the cover of her book. It was brown paper, easy enough to remove and redo. She’d already written, "In case of fire, throw in," on the front and was now making a crossword puzzle out of the useless vocabulary Mr. Dryasdust was throwing in our faces.

I was anticipating the weekend while daydreaming. This weekend in particular was a party weekend for the Crazys, our club. It was at Kit’s house, with the attic and the treasure trunk full of time-traveling dresses. One had already transported Kit back to the early 1800s.

The bell to go home rang and we bolted out and onto the bus. We had packed our backpacks during lunch and were carrying them since sixth set. My mother was dropping my bags for the party off later. Since there was time to kill before Jessie and Christina arrived, Kit made a suggestion.

"Sarah, do you want to go see the dresses?" she asked.

In the attic, it was light and airy, quite surprising for an attic. Kit was wearing her ruby ring, the one she’d gotten from her friend. We were all aware that there were more rings and we needed to find them. We just didn’t know how. Kit had later removed the dresses and counted them all. There were precisely 160, and all were from different places and times. Some were otherworldly, and some looked vaguely familiar. The one I chose to try on was from the witch trials of 1692, in a little town near Salem. That was a big mistake, because the moment I put it on, the world whirled and I was taken backwards in time…

I fell to the dirt road with a thump! Above me was the tree that I’d apparently fallen from. Around me were curious children and disapproving parents. They looked like they were from the 1692 witch trials, or something. I swore under my breath at the fact that I was getting hostile stares from just about all of the onlookers. It was a very cloudy day. Suddenly, out of nowhere, lightning cracked and thunder boomed as the gallows atop the hill caught fire! I shrieked, pointing, and the townspeople turned around. A baby cried, but was silenced when lightning struck the tree above, loosing a branch. The mother and child were struck to the ground, and the baby was killed.

"Witch!" came the cry from the crowd.

"What did I do?" I thought. Coincidence was probably the culprit here. Still, I knew that we Crazys all could do some little kind of magic. But it was mostly just predicting the future and that kind of simple stuff! As more people began to shout, more lightning bolts hit the landmarks: houses, barns, light posts, even the meetinghouse! I ran and ran, but I got no further from the insane townspeople. They caught up with me when I stopped to catch my breath. I was thrown into jail, an old shed behind the constable’s barn.

Night brought tormenting nightmares. The first one was that I was home again, and my parents were back together (they’ve been divorced for quite some time) and it was Christmas. But then the house caught fire! I woke up in a cold sweat then. The next one involved Kit, and she was falling into the Bottomless Pit. At first, when she landed in China, it was a funny dream, but then the dragons got her and I woke up again. The last dream involved a really big boat and me. It sank, I died, and I woke up for the last time feeling much like I had taken a dip in that lovely water. Between the nightmares and my worries, I didn’t sleep a wink. Thunderstorms continued into the night. "Must be a cold front," my weather sensible side thought. Those people would want to avenge the baby’s death, I supposed, and started praying. Maybe if I got enough support from God, he’d strike the stake with lightning before they tied me to it?

Morning came with gray skies, as yesterday. The constable’s wife lent me proper clothes and I was brought out to stand trial. Those turkeys convicted me, of course. There was no jury, no lawyer since this was a religious matter, and the judge was so biased, I thought he was the baby’s father. "Just his uncle," he reassured me. That helped a lot, knowing he was blood related to the kid and out to spill some blood from another clan, this one pretty far from a little village near Salem…

They decided, why let a witch see another sunrise, or even another sunset? "Let’s hang ‘er now!" cried one of the drunken men of the village. I gulped.

His buddy leaned over and whispered something in his ear, then clouted him on the head to make sure it stuck. "Oh, I mean, let’s burn ‘er now!" the drunkard added. My legs went weak. I could already feel the flames licking at my feet, and I was high and dry- well, wet, considering the rain. The crowd went wild and it was all they could do not to tear me limb from limb as they carried me to the village square.

"There’s going to be a bonfire!" was the whisper on the children’s lips. "A witch, a witch, they’re going to burn a witch!"

"That’s not right," I thought. "There were never any witches burned in Salem. Nineteen hanged, one pressed to death, but none burned!" Had I, then, altered the course of history? Or if I’d pleaded ill, would this never have happened?

"Oh, ‘eck," I said, borrowing an expression from Kit. One of the goodwives, Goody Two-Shoes, I think, overheard me. Mistaking Kit’s favorite profanity for a devil’s curse, she urged the town’s citizens on. Finally I was tied to a wooden post atop a wooden pile of wood.

"What do you want on your tombstone?" asked a sinister looking man. This had to be the governor of the village.

"Extra cheese, pepperoni, hold the anchovies?" I innocently joked as he lit the pile from the bottom. Slow torture was obviously their favorite pastime here. An unusual village, indeed, I thought to myself.

Just as I was feeling the heat, a grizzled old woman that looked vaguely like Stevie Nicks stepped out of the shadows. "That’s not your witch. I am the witch!"

I sighed in relief as they pounced. One stayed behind and freed me, and for my troubles, gave me a pumice ring. I turned around to watch the witch being placed on the smoking wood and tied to the post. Flames leapt up to grab the black dress. She had been working with oils- I could smell sandalwood on her- and flames, as you know, love to burn oil. No sooner had she caught fire than she disappeared into thin air! I fetched my real dress from the constable and put it on, just as the sparkle reached full power and I was taken home to 2002…