Zeb’s crush on Miss Barkley was not in the least diminished by looking up at her in anticipation of her dinner plans in the field and back at her empty house that afternoon. She looked graceful and prim as she placed him gently into the oven for a little while and set about preparing to eat him. He had often dreamed of being taken to her house with her, and was now awaiting an opportunity to be taken to her dining table.

Soon Audra took him from the oven and carried him gently in her hand and set him down on a plate at the dining table. She sat down and smiled sweetly at him.

“Miss Barkley, do you love me?” he asked.

“Of course I do,” she said sweetly, “In fact I’m having this meal, because I love you in ways you never imagined as well.”

“I love you too,” said Zeb and put his arms out in search of a cuddle.

She lifted him gently to her cheek and let him embrace her soft flexible flesh and then kissed him. Then she opened her mouth as far as she could in front of him. He looked in at her perfectly even teeth and her sparkling pink tongue. It stretched out to the back of her mouth.

“You’ll have to go in there now,” she said, “Are you ready?”

“Yes Miss Barkley,” said Zeb.

“Sweet little boy,” she said, “My tummy’s waiting for you.”

She slid him slowly into her mouth and onto that captivating tongue, and eventually into her throat. Deep in her tummy he felt a tingling which, true to her word, didn’t hurt him at all.

Audra Barkley took the rest of the shrinking formula given to her by Dr Loveless and hid it out in the hills, so that nobody would ever find it, learn of its properties and guess what had happened to Zeb.

What West and Gordon did not know was that, in teaching Nick and Jarrod to alter key elements of their pasts with time travel, they had unleashed on President Lincoln’s world a concept which would be eventually known in the 21st Century as the Butterfly Effect. Nick’s and Jarrod’s wives had been saved, but time had also been altered for Zeb. He would now not move back to the mountain where his relatives lived, would never grow up to marry, would never have a son named John, and would thus never have a daughter-in-law named Olivia Walton.

Zeb Walton’s timeline had been altered dramatically.

Many decades later, in the 1930s, a woman named Olivia was still unmarried. Seeking fulfilment, she heard of an art class being taught by a newcomer to Waltons Mountain, Joshua Williams. She enrolled in the class and turned up to her first lesson, to see that the teacher was fresh out of college himself, at the age of 21. Olivia was 35 and instantly smitten with the handsome younger man. Joshua too had an overwhelming crush on Olivia.