This book is haunted. Not by ghosts, but by the past – shadows left behind in time. Alan Callaway thought he found M. M. Reeve’s book by accident, but he can’t afford to believe that anymore. M. M. Reeve’s story of love and tragedy opens a doorway to another world. Searching for that doorway, Alan discovers that while the past may promise a new and simpler life, it also holds many dangerous secrets. In his journey through the shadows, he will find the truth: Time travel is real and it is closer than you think.
This 10th Anniversary Collection includes a new preface and Shadows at the Sanford, the stage play by Kyle Walker that continues the story of M. M. Reeve.
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Notes from the Author:
In 2010, my wife and I moved into the Heritage Hill neighborhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As you can imagine from its name, Heritage Hill is one of the historic districts of the city, full of forgotten grandeur and Victorian houses. We moved into an old house that had been divided up into apartments long ago, its history forgotten to the housing shortages and population booms of the last century. But down the street, one house stood the test of time, embracing its history.
It was a gleaming white mansion of a house with Greek pillars flanking the front porch and a long brick walkway cutting up the expansive lawn. Shadows played on its reflective surface and its windows seemed to show glimpses of a different time. The house felt like a doorway to the past.
One day, my wife came home excited to tell me about a program she attended at the Grand Rapids Public Library. The program told the story of the house down the street – which she learned was called the Sanford House. In 1847, Samuel R. Sanford built the house, but when his wife became ill during the construction, he was forced to sell it, unfinished. The house was eventually completed, changing hands over the next 50 years until a famous colonel and his wife and children took up residence. And on March 26th, 1894, a fire engulfed the historic landmark. Thankfully, the colonel and his family were spared and the house was repaired, restoring it to its original design. In 1943, almost a hundred years after its construction, the house was placed in trust, “to be used for educational, charitable, or benevolent purposes.”
When we first moved to Heritage Hill, the Sanford House was run by Cherry Street Health Services. It is now the home to a mental health treatment center for women. This benevolent heritage kept the home from being razed to make way for a parking lot or apartment complex, forever cementing its timelessness.
It didn’t take long before a story began forming in my mind. On walks around the neighborhood, my wife and I would marvel at the house full of shadows. Our mutual love of time travel stories and movies was what brought us together when we first met at college. Since then, we enjoyed imagining the worlds that the past could hold and how to get to them. We began asking what it would be like if we were to go up to the Sanford House, open the door, and step into a different time. Eventually, I decided to answer that question.
The road to Shadows began in the same place that my interest in writing began – the theater. At Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, I had pursued a career in acting but around my junior year, my interests began swaying toward the writing aspect of the craft. Frustrated by having to squeeze myself into a character someone else wrote, I decided “Why not write my own characters.” However, by the time my characters found their voice, I discovered that it was a voice different from my own. A voice I would have had to squeeze into myself. So, my life in theater shifted to writing and directing.
My first full-length play took place in a fictionalized version of the Sanford House. A young couple new to the neighborhood discovers a doorway back to 1894, meeting the colonel and his wife. They defeat a jealous villain, escape the fire, and find their place within time. The key to discovering the doorway through time is a small book called “Shadows” written by a mysterious author named M. M. Reeve. The book explains the fundamentals and method of traveling through time. The glorified plot device became a proposed stage prop and eventually took on a life of its own.
It started as a writing exercise to flesh out the play’s theory of time travel. As I wrote it, more of the story of M. M. Reeve became clear in my mind. Before I knew it, I had written a complete novella. My play, Shadows at the Sanford enjoyed a successful run at The Dog Story Theater in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My little book was tucked away on a bookshelf and I went on to write four more plays for The University Wits Theatrical Company. But Shadows never fully left me and never found the life I wanted it to.
Over the ensuing years, I would occasionally take the book back out – editing, adding, and polishing. And when my wife and I said goodbye to Grand Rapids, Heritage Hill, and the Sanford House, we found ourselves in a small Alaskan town surrounded by mountains, glaciers, and shadows. These new shadows inspired me to dust off the story of M. M. Reeve and finally find it a home.
I hope you will enjoy stepping into the shadows as much as I have. The past holds many worlds. Imagining those worlds can open doorways to places we’ve never seen, places we want to go, places without time.
Time is everything. And nothing.
Kyle Walker
