Overview

It's 1918, and Matty returns home to the family farm from the trenches only to find his brother Arthur dying of an unknown illness. The local doctor thinks it might be cancer, but Matty becomes convinced it's connected to the mysterious books his brother has left strewn around the house. Matty confides his suspicions in his friend Rob, who’s also come back to the farm from the Western Front.

Rob has realised something odd is happening on the farm. He’s found something that looks like a gate of some kind, something Arthur referenced in his papers and which may rest at the heart of his illness. But a gate to where?

Matty and Rob were friends before the war. Now they’re both changed by what they’ve been through. Will the mysterious energy swirling round the farm blow out the ember of attraction between them, or ignite it?

A complete 7,500 word short story set in the Lost In Time Universe. This began as a stand alone story and was then expanded into the novella Inheritance of Shadows because I couldn’t let the characters drop