Parallel [ONC 2020] // Shortlisted

Chapter Seventeen

"These dresses never looked that comfortable to me, I don't know how you could stand it," Ricky said as she helped me into my dress.

"You would be surprised. I'm too young to wear a corset so I did not have to deal with the fainting spells that often came with a corset being too tight."

"I've never been a dress person so I wouldn't feel very comfortable in one anyway."

She smiled at me in the mirror as she begun to tie the ribbon that went around my waist. It felt nice to be back in my own clothing after spending several days in something that felt far too revealing. I had missed my dress and the way it gave me that connection to my family that I thought I had lost when I found myself somewhere new. Being able to put it back on confirmed that I could be home within a very short period of time. I could be back with my mother and father and with Luke, even if he had been the cause of the disruption.

After two days of being somewhere I shouldn't have been, having to have everything explained to me more than once so that I understood it, I was finally going home. I could return to my unfinished needlepoint, to my etiquette lessons with Mother and visiting London on the weekends with Father. They may have been dull events to Ricky, but they were my life and I missed them greatly.

When I was dress, I removed the glass Ricky had given me and handed them back. Although I had never needed glasses owing to my perfect vision, I somewhat enjoyed having to wear as they became part of my disguise. Mitch had teased me at first, claiming that glasses were the worst disguises a person could wear and that in real life they would never work. I had proved him otherwise and no one seemed to recognise me as long as I wore the glasses. I almost wanted to take them home with me, but they were Ricky's and it would be improper.

"Almost done. Must be strange to know you're going home soon," she said as she brushed out my hair.

"A little. Don't tell Mitch I said this, but I have actually enjoyed some of my time here. So much has changed, and I hope I live long enough to see some of these advancements you have mentioned. I would like to see women be given more opportunities."

"Just wait, there are some huge changes coming and I'm sure you're going to get to see them."

"Do you think me going home will change what happened to Luke? Or is that one of the few things written in stone?"

"I don't know. I hope it would make a difference, so many were killed in the war I would like to think that something we did could have spared someone. But I'm no expert at something like this. We may not have changed a thing."

I hoped going home would have made a little difference in the history that I had learnt about since being here. Mitch had explained the concept of the Butterfly effect when we were first searching for a way to get me home. He said that even the smallest of things can have a dramatic impact on the future. By stepping out of one timeline and into another, I risked changing the future drastically and I didn't want that to happen. If I could return to the timeline at the exact moment I had left it then nothing should have changed.

Ricky helped me to add the finishing touches to the outfit I had been wearing when I had stepped through the door. She had brushed my hair out and pulled some of it back to tie with a blue ribbon that matched the colour of my dress. When we were done, the two of us snuck out of the room and down to the main entranceway where Mrs Likens and Mitch were standing.

Mrs Likens was the only one who hadn't seen me in my original clothing and as I descended the staircase she looked as though she had an abundance of questions to ask but didn't. Instead she watched us walk the last few steps before finally speaking.

"You left the shawl upstairs I take it?" Mrs Likens asked.

"In the wardrobe, where it had been on the night of our theatre trip, it may not be the same wardrobe, but it works nonetheless. If it doesn't get moved, it's exactly where it was. My hair is exactly the same, as is the dress. Everything on my end is exactly the same as it should be."

"Good. We have decided that I'll repeat the lines your mother said that afternoon and Ricky will be Luke seeing as she really wants to knock the clock over, and I don't want to deprive her of that."

"Are you sure this will work?"

"It better because I don't have any other options and if this doesn't work, we'll be out of ideas."

"It'll work, trust me," Ricky said.

"Are we ready?"

"As ready as we'll ever be."