It was an ordinary day in my ordinary little world. School was ending tomorrow, and the summer would be mine. I was having a party for my best friends, the Crazys. Those invited were Jessie, Kit, Sarah, and Sarah H. Jessie was bringing her "Cats" soundtrack; Sarah H had all of her VeggieTales stuff; Sarah was bringing "Now and Then," the official movie of the Crazys; and Kit had the dresses.

Now, these dresses are no ordinary gowns. There are 160 of them, folded in one big trunk. She brought them to each party, and looked outright nervous about it, especially if we touched them. Wearing them was no problem. Just touching the fabric gave her the shakes. Which is why, whenever we wanted to inspect the fabric of one dress, we needed to be wearing it. I didn’t know why until June 23, 2002.

It was shaping up to be a boring party. That much was evident. Music was playing in the background. Sarah H was going on and on about her boyfriend, Scott Vollmer. Jessie, Sarah, Kit, and I were playing Risk. Kit was beating the pants off all of us. Then Jessie made a potentially dangerous suggestion.

"Let’s go try on the dresses!" she said. We headed to the trunk and dumped out the contents. I noticed that there were only 158 dresses.

"Kit, are two dresses supposed to be missing?" I asked. Kit didn’t seem concerned.

"Those are at the dry cleaners now," she said. She picked up one dress and ran to the bathroom. She emerged in a white chemise and a crimson velvet overdress. I recognized that one from "The Lady and the Laird," by Maura Seger. Kit, Sarah H, and I were avid romance readers. I decided to try on a pioneer costume. I changed and came out to show everyone. Just as I was twirling around, the dress began to sparkle and the world turned into a kaleidoscope of color and sound…

I’d sure ended up in a different place. All around me, ladies, wearing fine dresses, bustled about. Their dresses were wider than the doorways at home! Among all of these brightly colored women, there was one thin woman with a blue dress and white shawl on. She was too thin, and her face was paler than the fur on Eustenia the guinea pig’s back. She turned to me then.

"Help me, young one, for I surely wish to die," she rasped. She looked no more than 30 herself, yet she spoke like an old wench! "I am Ellen Fairell," she continued. "I want you to bring me home to my companions! But beware of the white-skinned and red-eyed man. He is evil…" I looked myself over from head to toe as best I could while lying in the bed. I was dressed in the same outfit as she was, only the colors were reversed- I had a blue shawl and white dress. I did, however, appear much healthier than the woman, Ellen. I supposed maybe I could do a dying person a favor. I checked Ellen and myself out of the hospital.

Just as I was about to ask where Ellen’s home was, a man ran to us. His skin was fair and his eyes crimson, but I paid no mind. "It is a sister, come to save dear Ellen!" he hailed me. "I am Obediah Banks, and this is my sister-in-law, Ellen Fairell. It is good of you to bring her to us!"

"No, little one, not him!" rasped Ellen. "Take me far from here and far from this demon!" Now, why would she be scared of her brother-in-law?

"Huh?" I thought. Boy, this man sure was living in the past. Come to think of it, so were the woman, and the nurses at the hospital…

"Oh no," I muttered. I had, somehow or another discovered the secret of the dresses.

We arrived at the Blue River Settlement at noon. There were six clapboard buildings. None of them looked able to stand up to a stiff wind, but I entered one anyway. "Now, Nellie, dearest, stay here!" said the man, lifting a length of cord. He tied the woman to the chair, which was chained to the wall. The woman grimaced miserably at the sound of the nickname. Then her face contorted in pain and she fell over, dead as a doornail. The man didn’t notice or seem to care. I was able to get a good look at the room. The calendar tapestry proclaimed that it was 1886. The man finished his business then, and led me out of the room.

"Sister, we must hear your good counsel on the word of God," were the first words from his mouth when we were outdoors again. That appealed to me, for my religion was one of the most important things in my life.

"Which words would you like to hear about?" I asked.

"Oh, none specific. How about the formation of woman from man’s rib?" asked the man. I thought at first he was kidding, but he was all too serious. "It is for disobedient Nellie," he explained. I excused myself then, saying that I wanted a good look at the other buildings.

I entered the first building on the left and found twenty females chained to walls. They were knitting, or at least, they were when I entered the room. The click-clack of their needles stopped when I ducked out, though, and I heard tiny clicks instead. I crept around to a hazy window. The women were attempting to free themselves! "What’s going on? First I see a woman get tied to a wall, and die, and now I see you!" I exclaimed.

"N-nothing is happening here, Miss… miss… what’s your name?" asked one of the women, holding a metal rasp.

"It’s Christina Bloom. Sister Christina to those who’d rather be formal," I said. "What’s going on here?" I demanded again.

"Sister, believe me when I say that reaching this decision was not an easy one to make," said the ringleader, the middle-aged black-haired woman with the rasp. "But it was a terrible misfortune that led us to this! They hurt us so badly each day! They set us to such demeaning tasks as knitting, and sewing! We are bold women, adventurous ones. And we are dying."

"D-dying?" I stammered. "How? It’s only domestic labors. You’d be similarly imprisoned as a wife!"

"No, not from the bloody work," retorted the older one, gray-blue eyes blazing. "It’s the bloody cough, the consumption that takes us one at a time. I myself am mildly afflicted! My handkerchief is stained red as a berry that comes from the currant vines that grew at my old house in England. I had to marry, I came here, and now I regret it. Do you realize that I’ve seen girls come in one day, wedded just a week earlier, and die the next day, that’s how bad it is? Me, I’ve been so lucky to be here, a widow for thirty years of my forty-seven, and never really be ill ‘til now. Never had a chance to get sick. I say we all run while we have the chance. You too, sister, you’ll regret coming here. They’ll lock you up before you can blink. They’ll call you down to the main hall, tell you they’ve found a room where you can stay and observe the ladies! They gave me the same chat, when I- that is, when I-" she faltered. "I cannot go on, young Christina. Just remember, it’s a sorry shame to be locked up. I will grab my freedom tonight."

"What is your name, please, ma’am?" I asked.

"Moira Darren," she replied. "And it’s the name I was born with, not the name they married me into!" she added stubbornly. "So carpe diem, young one, don’t resign yourself to this fate by staying here."

We all made plans to leave. But before the first element was put into action, my name was called by one of the male leaders…

"Run!" shouted Moira, urging me on. We were outside, having made our way silently out the back door. A brother saw us and gave the alarm. Moira ran herself, never stumbling for a moment, though she wore satin slippers with her white dress and blue shawl. She ripped the outfit off then, leaving her with a dark green chemise that reached the ground. We made for the hills. But three were not to make it there.

Mary Beals, the youngest at 14, was seized and thrown into the biggest burlap sack I’d ever seen. Moira was racked with coughs, and she was grabbed roughly by the arms, clouted on the head, and left for dead on the dirt path. Two girls stopped to help their fallen leader, but she waved them feebly away. I was slashed at the arm, forcing me to tend to the wounds. One of those demons slapped shackles around my feet and I was imprisoned.

"Oh, they’ve hog-tied us now, little one," whispered Moira when we were chained to the walls of an unfamiliar building. "They’ll be whipping Mary, bless her brave soul, until she submits to the shackles on the wall of the garden hut. They’ll starve her. I will be put back to work, after all, what harm is an old lady? I have already been trained; they can do naught but chain me again. You will likely be worked alongside me. Oh, pray that you don’t suffer the fate of the others…" But then she slumped her head, and did not speak another word.

"Moira?" I asked timidly. "Are you all right?"

"No, young one," she replied. "I grieve for my loss of freedom, and yours."

And so we worked, long hours that day. Suddenly, in the night, Moira began to hack and gag so that I feared her insides would come spilling out. She vomited endless streams of blood. Sweat glistened on her forehead, and her gray-black hair now had more silver than dark coal. She was taken by the same sudden illness that had befallen Ellen Fairell, I realized.

"This cannot be the consumption working, child," she gasped in the blackness. "This is the workers’ sickness, the one that kills without any warning. One of the girls who stopped to tend me must have had it. Pray, back up as far as you can. There is nothing left for you to do now, for I am dying."

I backed away slightly, just enough to convince her that I was going. She raised her head for the last time. "Leave when you can, girl, for this is no way to go!" With that her neck drooped down once more and she was silent as death. Indeed, death was her fortune that night, for only one life’s breath broke the room’s eerie quiet- mine. I wiggled my wrists and ankles in false hope. But my left ankle and my right wrist were loose!

I could not believe it. Surely there was no space left for anything, let alone air, in those tight iron loops? I tried again. Sure enough, there was a distinct wiggle in all four limbs now. Maybe if I kept going- ah! I wrenched free with a small cry only to be heard by the dead body of Moira Darren. I crept away, knowing I’d honor her passing by leaving the hell she’d endured for thirty years.

I ran until I thought my lungs would burst from all the air that was constantly shifting from them to the night. I slumped under a tree, relieved that I was gone from that horrid place. Suddenly a glow sprang up in the midnight starlight- was it coming from the village? I realized it wasn’t the settlement, but a shoe I’d dropped on my way here. The dress took on a blue sparkle, just as the world spun itself into a whirlpool of a million brilliant colors…

It was precisely 1 am when I saw Kit emerge from the basement. "Christina! You’re back! Thank God! I didn’t want to have to explain the whole time travel fiasco to your parents. Are you all right?" she asked frantically.

"None the worse for wear," I replied. "Kit, I don’t like this time travel business. Before tonight, I had never seen anyone die, much less a dead body that hadn’t been prepared for burial. Tonight I had. I never want to see it again!"

She couldn’t speak to that. She only pointed to my left ring finger. "Christina, look on your finger!" she exclaimed. I looked. It was crystal set in beaten gold, silver in the common tongue. It possessed the purest clarity, with only the slightest hint of white. It had the air of truth and hope around it. Words flashed then into my mind.

"A gift, from me to you. Take it, pass it on, and carry it always. Your friend, Lady Catherine Rose Theresa Seton."

"Kit? Who was Lady Catherine?" I asked.