His mother—a brilliant inventor—had been acting peculiar for days, and as the evening lengthened and his older brothers helped their mother, Oliver’s curiosity grew. He waited outside with thinning patience as metal clanked and gears rattled in the other room. Plans and blueprints of mechanisms and engines crowded every nook and cranny of their cottage home, and on those pages existed complex and brilliant designs. Oliver picked up a draft, running his thumb along the page before he set it down, wishing others could see the genius his mother was. Heaps of ideas and designs remained incomplete, and even more had been stolen from her, patented by other more recognized inventors. The clock above him chimed and Oliver realized it was almost midnight. Too much time had passed; his patience had expired. He crept up to the workshop door. A lock kept him out, but he was used to picking it from many times before. He nudged the door open and peered into the large room. Inventions occupied the floors and shelves and in the center of the room sat his mother’s worktable, covered in contraptions—his family was nowhere in sight.
