Who We All Were

Book excerpt: In 1980, when Toby Johnson is sent away to boarding school in Oakville, Ontario, he intends to live life as a normal teenager, making friends and planning his future. A surly and fun-loving boy named Thomas quickly becomes Toby’s best friend. However, everything changes when Thomas’s young brother, Joseph, goes missing. Without any explanation, Thomas says he knows where to find him. The two boys, along with three other friends, skip town and make their way to Thunder Bay. There, on the other side of a mysterious gate, in a beautiful place suspended in time, the worst is confirmed: Joseph is dead. Overwhelmed by grief, the friends bury Joseph nearby. Decades later, now with a family of his own, Toby still finds himself haunted by dreams of the mysterious, magical place where they found and buried Joseph’s body. Having never fully processed the horrific events of that day, Toby then finds history repeating itself: his own young son, Jaxton, mysteriously vanishes while out playing. The investigators working the case cannot seem to track down the person behind the kidnapping, but Thomas knows the truth. The friends reconvene, hoping to save Jaxton from a fate similar to Joseph’s. In a race against time, they venture back into the darkness, unearthing old wounds in order to put the dreams and horror to rest at last.