Old, Persistent Spirits

Six moving short stories within very different worlds:

An old man remembers a Halloween trick played on him by his elder brother. He loved his elder brother. What a mistake. In a remote jungle on a distant planet, a brother and sister tend the ruins of an ancient temple. Old magic coils around the place, a visitor brings a dysfunctional sexuality, and a dark saviour is born. In northern Provence, in 2050, an astronaut takes leave between missions. His last mission nearly killed him. Can he want to go back into the darkness again? Two men live in an ancient lighthouse, tending the beacon even though there have been no ships for twenty years. When the old man dies, the young man abandons the lighthouse and strikes out into the surrounding wilderness, where he finds his shocking destiny. An aristocrat charters a schooner to sail to a frozen island in Antarctica. In an ice cave, high in the mountains, lies a skeleton made of solid gold and rubies. Great riches for those involved. Yet something haunts their voyage which hates grave robbers. Rural Cornwall in England seventy years in the future. The world is hotter; the climate has changed. A happy couple live out their days off-grid in a house by the sea. Yet things are not what they seem in these days of increasing automation.