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D r. Naomi Vaughn

Natural History Museum of New Englandia

Doctor of Historical Studies

Oh. My. God .

This. This was a truly unexpected find.

I was almost afraid to reach out and touch the thin plastic that had kept the creamy white, lacy fabric pristine and safe for centuries.

How had something like this survived for more than five hundred years? It should be nothing more than a disintegrating pile of threads, but here it was, right in front of me, fully intact. Perfect.

More important, though, how had it come to be in my office and not whisked away from the eyes of all of society by The New Englandia High Council of Preservation and Governance?

When the handwritten cargo manifest arrived on my desk this morning, it had hardly been legible.

It had been written in pencil, probably by some lazy intern that had been too preoccupied to get a pen, and several places had been rubbed off.

All I knew was that the contents were artifacts that were carbon dated to somewhere around the time just before the worldwide cyberwar that had changed life here on Earth as we knew it.

Not wanting to spend too much time deciphering it, I’d swept it aside and had turned back to more pressing work with the full intention of going back to it later.

I hadn’t gotten around to it before there was a knock on my door and a shout from someone outside saying I had a delivery.

Dammit. No time to prep.

When the massive crate had been rolled into my office, I’d raised an eyebrow.

Bigger than I expected, really.

After the delivery man left, I dug through the papers on my desk, searching for the detailed log that had somehow gotten buried. I narrowed my eyes as I tried once again to read it.

There was only one word that caught my eye.

Bridal.

My heart started to pound. I glanced at the door, making sure I was alone.

It was a forbidden word in my city state.

To be honest, this shipment probably would have been halted, searched, and destroyed before I could catalog any of it if even a single person had gotten wind of what it contained.

Whatever was inside that crate would never be able to be displayed or studied in the museum, and if anyone found out I had any of it in my possession, getting fired would be the least of my worries.

I’d be lucky if I survived the night.

There were stories about those who supported the ways of the old world. Some said that they just disappeared and were never heard from again. Some were apprehended by the governing council. Some wound up dead.

I swallowed heavily.

The smart thing to do would be to pretend it had never existed, to send the shipment back to where it came from before anyone got hurt.

But… I kind of wanted to see what was inside before I did that.

This was truly a piece of history. Almost everything even remotely like it had been lost long ago. I wanted to understand it. It was a part of what made me who I was, and this kind of forbidden knowledge fascinated me. I’d made a whole career out of it.

Looking over my shoulder, feeling wary, I got the almost palpable sensation that someone was watching me, even though there was no one there.

Startled to realize that my door was still open, I stepped over carefully to peek out into the hallway, checking for anyone who might have witnessed the delivery.

I breathed a sigh of relief to find it deserted and quietly eased the door shut, turning the lock as well.

Finally, I closed the blinds, giving myself complete privacy. A shiver wormed its way up my spine.

I glanced back at the large crate, walking hesitantly toward it.

I gripped the sides and turned it away from the door, grateful that it was still on the rolling cart on which it had arrived.

If anyone walked in, at least they wouldn’t be able to immediately see into the crate.

It was late enough in the day that most of the museum staff would be clocking out soon.

There weren’t many employees that stayed late on a regular basis other than me.

The only true regular was my co-worker Corinne, and even then, I usually stayed later than she did.

Apart from the security team that monitored the grounds twenty-four/seven, I was always one of the last to leave. Most of the guards knew my face by now and hardly gave me a second glance when I left the building.

With a deep breath, I summoned all the courage I could manage, and finally turned back to the crate, allowing myself to really look at the contents for the first time. I held my breath as I took hold of the plastic garment bag that lay on top.

It was heavier than I’d expected. With a soft gasp, I lifted the gown from the crate.

Thoroughly stunned, I held it there in front of me for a long moment, just staring at it.

My brain felt like it had short-circuited.

Was this just a figment of my imagination? Was it time for another cup of coffee?

It seemed utterly impossible.

It was a perfectly preserved wedding dress.

And it was real…

The whole concept of brides and weddings and marriages had been lost to the past, a backwards tradition of the old world that the new world had turned away from centuries ago, at least in New Englandia, my home city state.

There were no husbands and wives, no children brought up within a family unit.

Not anymore. Those roles were obsolete. It was for the greater good.

Domestic violence was a thing of the past. Society was more productive when it focused on work rather than everything that came with relationships of that kind.

Procreation was left up to the scientists of the world now.

There was no need for a human woman to carry a child, not when the artificial womb had been developed more than a hundred years ago.

Its utilization had eliminated any sort of common medical issues that a pregnant woman might encounter, be it an injury, sickness, a miscarriage, or premature birth.

Children were designed and created on an as-needed basis.

As a result, many various disabilities and sicknesses had been long since eliminated.

The world was a better place because of it.

That didn’t change my fascination with the past, however. If anything, it probably amplified it. There was an interesting vulnerability to the people of the past who had to scrabble their way through life subject to all the complications and dangers of illness, disease, and relationships.

I stared at the gorgeous relic, fascinated with the intricately sewn lace and bead detail.

The top of the gown was designed in an off-the-shoulder style, with long sleeves made of thin lace.

The bodice was a beautiful heart shape lined with a cream-colored material.

At the waist, there was a belt of silk with a delicately tied bow at the center of the back.

My gaze drew down to the embroidered skirt and the mountains of tulle beneath it.

The gown reminded me of the dress Cinderella had worn to the king’s ball, except white rather than blue.

I’d found a physical copy of the movie in the museum archives, a video cassette tape that I’d painstakingly repaired.

I’d watched it several times on a restored projector in secret before it had been confiscated by The Protectors, a force dedicated to keeping potentially disturbing old-world content from the public.

I still yearned to watch it again to this day, years later.

The dress was pristine. The plastic garment bag had been an effective barrier, keeping the gown safe from the elements, the extremes of nature and the invasion of insatiable insects that would have destroyed such a beautiful thing.

With a heavy sigh, I folded it back up and placed it to the side, tracing my fingers over its surface.

The crate had been shipped from somewhere in the desert southwest of what used to be the United States of America. The dust inside the box made me sneeze. The books beneath the dress were covered with a thick layer of it.

I rifled through the books inside. Many of them were falling apart. Several of the paperbacks were held together by no more than a thread. Many of them appeared to be of the romance genre, a type of book that had fallen out of favor long ago.

One book in particular caught my eye. It was wrapped in a plastic cover and there were several dainty white doilies on the front of it. I knelt on the floor and sat back on my heels, placing it in my lap before opening it to the first page.

It was a wedding album with the bride wearing the very dress I’d been holding in my hands no more than a minute ago. The woman who had worn it had been beautiful. The happiness on her face was an eloquent testimony to her joy. I traced her smile with my finger, yearning to feel joy like that.

Her long red hair was styled in a partial up-do, her tight ringlets framing her face exquisitely.

Bright green eyes shone into the camera as she locked hands with a man in a black suit beside her.

I knew enough to guess that the photos had probably been taken some time in the late 1900s or very early 2000s, but I couldn’t be certain.

I turned the page, biting my lip to keep my fascinated sigh quiet.

I gasped, seeing that the next photos appeared to be images captured from the ceremony itself.

It had been outdoors, rather than in a church like many of those referenced in my past research.

The brilliant blue of the ocean was in the background, the soft white sandy beach beneath their feet.

At least fifty chairs were organized to either side of a carpet-lined aisle.

Page after page documented the bride walking down the aisle, the exchanging of rings, the kiss that tied the two together as man and wife.

I sighed. Husband and wife.

My heart fluttered in my chest.