The Inventor's Son

Chapter 4: In Which Old Dust is Stirred

THE GRAY HOUSE to which Ethan had previously referred as "The Old House" was a few streets away. Though the Stanwood family still owned it, neither Ethan nor his father had lived there in some time. The Old House became a full time laboratory for a while, until Marcus built the shed in Sophia's backyard. Since then, The Old House was simply an unkempt place filled with the residue of years of experiments and neglect.

When Ethan opened the door, he immediately became self-conscious. After all, this place was nothing like the home that Sophia kept so meticulously, but the one in which "that recluse bachelor and his sickly little boy" lived. He recalled his old bedroom was upstairs, and that most of his father's journals were in what would have been the parlor had it not been commandeered for other purposes. "If I had time, I suppose I would open the window," he mumbled.

"Master Ethan, where do you wish to begin?" Mr. Timmons asked.

"I shall go upstairs. Let's see if we have a steamer trunk here." Ethan left them and climbed the stairs, where the dust was thick enough to leave footprints. Ethan coughed when he got into his old bedroom. The coughing fit was quite bad, and he was momentarily thankful that his father wasn't around to hear it. He opened the window and looked down into the street. He tried to take in some cleaner air, but in London, that was a commodity that was difficult to come by. Nevertheless, it had to be better than what was in that room.

He'd spent most of his early childhood in that room, in that bed, in pain or weakness or near death from one ailment or another. There was a chair in the corner. It was not there for him to sit in, but for his doctor or his father, if he had to sleep in Ethan's room to supervise him during long nights filled with fevers and chills. Nowadays, if Ethan fell ill, he would try his best to nurse himself back to health, like he did this January past when he fell ill with diphtheria.

Naturally, this would not work all the time, but Ethan simply could not withstand the stress of his father losing his equilibrium on account of Ethan falling ill yet again. He'd nearly been successful when hiding his bout of influenza when he was eleven, only failing when he came down with pneumonia. At the time, his father had not been too upset that Ethan had hidden it from him, merely upset that he'd developed pneumonia.

Once he cleared his throat, Ethan continued his mission. The item his father called "the movement" lay inside a top drawer of a night stand. Ethan slid open the drawer and took it out. Unlike everything else in the house, the few pre-assembled clockwork cogs were gleaming. He had a feeling that these were to be installed into Sam. Ethan rubbed his forehead with concern. He wasn't even certain how to do such an upgrade, since his father's film never told him what to do with the movement. Perhaps his father planned to make the upgrade himself...

Since there was nothing else in that sick room that he wanted, Ethan ran to his father's bedroom. The only things of interest to him that were left in there were the small portraits of his mother and father. His mother, Jane, had died when Ethan was born. Logic told him that she died while birthing him, but both his father and Uncle Malcolm insisted that this was not true. Ethan shook the malaise of bad memories off. He had work to do, and this reflecting would have to be put on hold.

The main bulk of his packing would take place in the parlor. He quickly began throwing all of his father's journals, several of his most important books, and the sketchbooks with designs for seemingly any type of gadget that crossed his mind to build into a steamer trunk that Mr. Timmons had set there. Sam took out a red linen covered journal from the growing pile in the trunk and tugged on Ethan's sleeve to get his attention. When Ethan looked down, Sam handed Ethan the journal.

"Put it in the trunk Sam. We need to make sure all of these are packed away." Sam poked Ethan again, and Ethan growled a little bit when he turned back to Sam. "Alright, Sam, I see it! Put it in... No, Sam, I don't need it now. Ugh..." Impatiently, Ethan tossed the journal back into the trunk. Sam took it back out yet again. "What. Are. You. Doing?" Ethan groaned.