A Room in the House of the Ancestors Books One and Two

by Melody Clark

  “You don’t have enough to buy me off this battle of titans.”

  “I can’t beg for mercy?”

  Tad caped his jacket over the game table chair’s shoulders. “What is my role in my brothers’ lives again?”

  “To make them a living hell.”

  “On the nosey. With any luck, I’ll vanquish you by dinner. You take the black, I’ll take the white. London chess rules.” Tad sat down and then moved his digital chess piece. “I move first. There.”

  “So long as it’s fair and all,” Edward grumbled, surrendering to a chair at the game table. Resigned to his fate, Edward considered the digital chess display and calibrated his options from the chess movement Tad had chosen. Edward made his move. “There.”

  Beholding the digital boards, Tad’s eyebrows collided. “Wait just a damn minute. The Budapest Gambit? Why that move?”

  Edward shrugged. “I felt like it.”

  “That’s a wretched first move and you bloody well know it. You’re playing to lose. Stop it immediately.”

  “Stop judging my strategy and move your man,” Edward said.

  “Stop judging my judging your strategy and play correctly,” Tad replied, tapping the tablet to rescind Edward’s move. “Make a good one this time. I want to slay you utterly in a fair contest.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Edward said, “I have to play London rules. I have to be the black side. I have to go second. But from the get go, you have to approve my strategy?”

  “Precisely. This is Britain. Conduct yourself accordingly, brother septic.”

  “Okay, just wanted to be sure I had it right,” Edward said.

  His forehead furrowing, Eddie tilted his head to stare at the chess display one way and then the other. He pursed his lips for a few seconds, pushing back his hair. And he made his next first move.

  Tad squinted harder. “Jacob’s Toss? That does nothing!”

  “It’s a well-known time preserving strategy to let me grow my offense,” Edward replied, smiling brightly. “Stop interfering with my plan of action.”

  “You bastard,” Tad said. “That was a perfect rhetorical takedown.”

  “Eat my dust.”

  Tad looked up at him, narrowing his stare until a spark of mischief lit up his eyes. “And since that was manifestly unfair, and I can render my own stealthy sword of justice, here comes the consummate emotional manipulation ploy. Daddy loves you, Edward!”

  “You eavesdropping bastard,” Eddie said, aghast.

  “Can I help it if Maxim is a miser with paper thin walls? Now that I have suitably flummoxed you, move.”

  “It’s your move, Einstein.”

  “Oh,” Tad said ruefully, considering the tablet board again, “so it is.”

  The younger Croftdon brother considered the board for less than a second. As if an idea struck him with considerable glee, he smiled and made his move. “There you have it.”

  “Grott’s opposition? You have got to be kidding me!” Eddie snapped. “Stop playing to lose!”

  “I will when you will!”

  Edward shook his head for several seconds. “So we’re going to sit here until one of us wins by losing?”

  Tad considered the question. “Yes, I suppose we are.”

  A rustle of movement signaled Thomas’ emergence from his study. Pausing in the doorway, he watched the scene for a long moment before coughing softly and rattling his newspaper in the air.

  “Thaddeus,” Thomas said, clearing his throat. “Did no one think to apprise me of my son’s return home from hospital?”

  Tad looked around. “Of course not. We had more important rites to conduct. A matter of honor for Queen and Country. I am trying to slay Edward utterly at chess to prove myself victorious in all things.”

  Edward shrugged. “And meanwhile, I just don’t give a damn. But hi, Dad.”

  “Welcome home, son,” Thomas said, considering their tablet display. “So that’s what the argument was about.”

  “Yes, Eddie won’t let me lose,” Tad said, pouting pronouncedly.

  “No, Tad won’t let me lose,” Eddie said. “I was trying to lose first and the Toad is stealing my strategy. He forced me into a stupid chess game to prove he can beat me. I’m trying to let him win and he won’t let me.”

  Thomas listened to the entire proposition and then loured faintly in resignation. “Well, there you have me, boys. I can’t even glean the meaning of that disagreement, let alone referee the discussion.” Thomas leaned over and pressed a tablet button. The screen blanked out. “I’ll opt for jury nullification.”

  “Thank you,” Eddie said. “And in an adjudicated game, victory goes to the winning side. I hereby forfeit, thus losing.”

  “Holy shit, the bugger just won our losing game! In an entirely unethical manner, too.” Tad feigned a snarl. “J'accuse!”

  Edward extended the middle finger of his right hand. “Bite me, Zola.”

  Tad applauded wildly. “Oh, Dad, can we keep him? At last, a worthwhile opponent!”

  “I think I’ve just been insulted,” Edward replied.

  “You two are turning sibling rivalry into a full contact sport. Next I’ll be having to purchase helmets and protective gear.” Thomas tossed his newspaper aside. “It is my duty to announce that I’ve just seen Andrew, James and Wilse coming up the path. They are bringing dinner. Pizza, it appears.”

  “Edward is saved from his inevitable humiliated drubbing by the dinner bell,” Tad said, climbing out of his chair to walk toward the entry door and open it wide.

  Andrew entered and Tad said, “You saved Eddie.”

  Andrew handed over the stack of dinner boxes and bags to Thomas. He looked over at Eddie. “What’s he done now?”

  “He made me play chess,” Edward said.

  Andrew scowled over at Thaddeus before looking back at his oldest brother. “The Toad knows no pity. Anyway, Edward, welcome home.”

  Edward sank steadily into the chair that had been assigned to him. It set juxtaposed from Thomas and just beside Tad. He couldn’t help but think that placement had been purposeful. So he watched the Croftdons swarm around him, fetching things and doing ordinary tasks. They had a system – a family dance, choreographed over years. They didn’t even have to look at each other to negotiate each step. They all knew their own saltations, their own first beat in the waltz. One to one, he felt fine with each of them. When they assembled, however, he still felt totally outside the spectrum – an observer, watching through the glass. Here, he stepped wholly outside the Croftdon dance.

  He tried to strike a low posture, sinking into his chair, hoping against hope he somehow became invisible.

  James and Wilse dropped into their appointed seats. Andrew sat on the other side of Eddie, and Thomas across from all of them. Tad plunked down to Edward’s right. He reached over and yanked up on his collar to improve his posture.

  “Your grandfather is dining with friends,” Thomas announced.

  “Isn’t he always?” Tad asked. “Whenever his tweedy posh friends call, he certainly wouldn’t slum with the likes of us. Especially Eddie, which goes without saying.”

  “And yet somehow didn’t,” Andrew said, popping the wine and beginning to pour. “All that our favorite Italian place on Main had was the local hebetudinous burgundy. Nothing exciting or even inviting.”

  Tad passed out glasses to the others, except for Edward to whom he presented a bottle of water. “No hebetudinous burgundy for you, of course.”

  “I don’t need anything at all,” Edward said, “I –”

  “Ate at the clinic, I’m sure you did, a time or two,” Thomas said. “But the family meal is a daily social custom in which we all must partake. It’s our way of touching base with each other. You are family. You will eat something.”

  Edward shifted awkwardly in his chair, pulling the pizza he had been served toward him as if try
ing to hide behind it. “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s no need for that, Edward, it was just an aside,” Thomas said, as he raised his glass of burgundy. “On that note, I should like to propose a toast to Edward on his successful graduation from rehab, and to welcome him home to his family.”

  Edward smiled shyly and lifted his water bottle, his response unceremoniously unscrewing the lid. “Thanks,” he whispered dryly.

  Andrew offered his glass. “Salud and benvenuti a casa.”

  Tad picked up his. “Alla mia gloriosa vittoria negli scacchi.”

  “Not unless I let you,” Edward replied.

  Tad clunked down his wine. “What, you speak Italian, too?”

  “No, I knew scacchi meant chess, and mi gloriosa vittoria is sort of obvious,” Eddie said. “I guessed. Correctly, it seems.”

  Thomas clinked his spoon against his crystal glass. “All right, gentlemen, into your corners please before the next round. Edward, Andrew was telling me you both are working on a new system – synchrosentience or something like that?”

  Edward felt suddenly in the spotlight. He shifted uncomfortably again and sipped from his water. He wished he could somehow crawl inside the bottle. Speaking quietly, he said, “Andrew actually did most of the preliminary work on the project, with me where I was. He’d probably be a better person to address that.”

  Andrew shrugged. “Yes, I guess. Basically the idea is to directly connect people to share emotions and more complex thought processes than just concrete facts.”

  “That’s the goal,” Edward added. “There’s still a lot of information we don’t have yet.”

  “Such as a rational basis to think it is even remotely possible,” Tad said.

  “If we feel emotion,” Andrew said, “there must be some standard neurological pathway to access it. If the whole brain can process the information, then our system should be able to locate and read it, too. If the form that created the emotion is there, the sensing system can extract it. Sniffing out bread crumbs, you might say.”

  “Memory neuron morsels, with direct links to language, is one thing,” Tad said. “The abstractions are somehow connected to the brain bits. There are your sticky links – your bread crumbs, as it were. But receiving something as randomly accessible as emotion? That’s not dancing the fuckin’ angels on the head of a pin, that’s choreographing the bitches.”

  “No, it’s not,” Edward said. “We’re talking about conveying and receiving information the physical brain does every day. We have a solid hypothesis. One we can work with now.”

  “I think it sounds fascinating,” Wilse said, from the other end of the table.

  “Suck-up,” Tad shot back.

  “Shove it,” Wilse replied.

  “I agree with Wilsey,” James said. “It’s fascinating.”

  Tad smirked. “Oh, now there’s a surprise. All right, Edward, if you and Andrew get this apparatus functional, which is a gargantuan if, mind you, what could you hope to accomplish with it?”

  “Sharing insights, experiences, memories, direct emotions,” Edward said.

  “It might even have punitive applications in correctional systems, by making the perpetrator share the victim’s suffering,” Andrew added. “It would be a profound creator of empathy. Perhaps even a cure for psychopathy.”

  “And arguably the cause of a lot of problems, as we saw recently,” Tad said.

  Edward nodded with a hint of contrition. “True. That is something we need to be vigilant about. That kind of direct contact to emotions would make a person profoundly vulnerable. In a negative and positive sense.”

  “Oh, brave new world,” Thomas said, sipping from his wine. He studied the glass after he drank from it, swishing the liquid around a moment. “I don’t know, boys. I’m at the awkward age. Young enough to be fascinated – old enough to be terrified by it.”

  Edward’s eyes flashed with fresh alarm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think the concept would –”

  “Eddie, I’m joking,” Thomas said.

  “Oh, okay, I’m sorry.” He slumped back a little and sipped from his water again. “I just don’t want to offend you or go against your wishes or anything.”

  “You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me either,” Thomas said.

  “And speaking of daddy communication problems, past and present –” Tad said, smiling at Edward with hidden meaning. “I know this will probably sound naïve, but why not just communicate emotions with people the old-fashioned way, you know, by talking to them? Granted, there’s the trust issue, but couldn’t that be worked around with time and experience?”

  “Ten years versus ten minutes, and abstract acceptance versus direct experience,” Edward said. “Also, that level of communication with language could be embarrassing.”

  “And someone else might overhear things,” Tad said, his lips bending into a more pronounced smile.

  Edward set down his water again. “Yes,” he said quickly.

  “Well, people could conceivably hack into the line you’ll create, too. They could overhear things, say, like through a thin wall at an office – ”

  “Toad,” Edward said.

  “What?” Tad said. “I’m not saying anything you said. Until, you know, brothers night, after a few bitters. And the great irony is that you’re paying this week.”

  “That was a private conversation,” Edward said.

  “Oh, please,” Tad said. “It’s going to get out eventually.”

  “No, it’s not. Besides, it wasn’t that important.”

  “Then why are you so concerned about it?” Tad asked.

  “What was it?” James asked, from his end of the table. “You’ve got us all curious now.”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Wilse added.

  “It was a private conversation with my therapist,” Edward said.

  “Then it shall remain private,” Thomas said firmly. “End of discussion.”

  Edward breathed out in a condensed stream of relief. “Thank you.”

  Andrew considered his watch. “Edward, if we want to inspect the restorations on the old house south wall, we had best be about it. We don’t have but a bit of daylight remaining. And besides, that will rescue us from this conversation. Wilsey, if you are finished, fetch your camera. It’s shutter time.”

  The afternoon had outflanked most of the morning rain, but twilight had gathered the storm clouds for an evening reprise. Even the stone they walked past felt alive with a moist awareness Edward considered spooky. But the surrounding environment permitted him to inhale far better than he had in eons. It still amazed him that the burden of his life, his allergies, had been apparently lifted.

  “You know, if you ever need to discuss something about anything, I am always here,” Andrew said, as they crossed the big central and somewhat overgrown garden that lay between the new house and the old one.

  Edward peered over at him awkwardly. “You mean what Tad was talking about?”

  “Yes, that. Whatever else.”

  “It was nothing. Really. Don’t even think about it.”

  “Wait for me,” Wilse said, jogging up from behind them. He walked around to wave around his digital camera at the other men. “All I have is my old crappy camera. Not that it takes very high resolution pictures, but I’ll do my best.”

  “Which is more than we can do,” Edward said, walking carefully up the measured steps to the old house entry door.

  Edward walked inside, feeling as ever, like a guilty sinner child sneaking into a fragile cathedral of time. The light shafts tilted down from on high, the specters of dust haunting those vivid streams like phantom spiral arms into this universe. The wall that had been structurally shored up and stabilized now seemed more like a solid surface than a skeletonized one. The flat wall surface fit to both sides slickly, without any obvious demarcation.

  “A nice fit job, that,” Andrew said.

&nb
sp; Edward touched the place where the original wall connected to the rebuilt one. “I can’t see any difference. And the pictures will help us keep a visual record of what needs to be maintained.”

  “When you think about all the changes these walls must have seen,” Wilse added, stepping back for a picture. “Too bad we can’t hook up your device to them.”

  “You know, there is a theory that memory exists in all matter,” Andrew said, out of nowhere, staring up into the damaged ceiling above them – badly repaired after a 16th century fire. “At least in all cells. That if we could just peer into the atoms, we might experience the past.”

  Edward shrugged. “Hypothetically maybe.”

  “Yes, but it would be a fascinating hypothesis to test,” Andrew said.