The King’s Gambit
1: Inheritance
Armies had marched past the simple large two-story home in Gettysburg, their boots trampling the grass into dirt and then mud on the third day of the battle. Soldiers, both Union and Confederate, had died in the back yard and the front yard, their final breaths drawn beneath the shade of ancient oaks.
After the fighting had ended, doctors had taken over the building to use it for a hospital. Doctors in blood-stained smocks had amputated the limbs of the wounded in the parlor and dining room. Upstairs, those who survived their surgery had laid in cots, hoping their wounds wouldn’t become infected as they struggled to recover.
Family lore said the amputated limbs had been thrown out the windows, and some poor soldier had been tasked with burying them. He had dug a shallow hole not far from the house and thrown the limbs into it. Harley Preston, the owner of the house in the 1870s, was said to have removed the bones that remained and had them buried in a grave at Soldiers National Cemetery marked “Unknown.”
While the story of the limbs in Soldiers National Cemetery couldn’t be verified, members of the Preston family had found human bones buried in the ground from time to time. When Lou Preston had been nine years old, he had dug up a section of ground, planning to bury a small box he called his treasure chest that was filled with about $40 in loose change he had saved from doing odd jobs and returning soda bottles for their deposit money. Instead of finding a safe place for his savings, he had found a human jawbone.
For weeks after, he dreamed of seeing a ghostly soldier with half a face wandering the yard looking for his lost jaw. Not finding it, he had searched for Lou to take the boy’s jaw to replace the one the soldier was missing.
Despite its rich history, the house on Wheatfield Road remained on history’s periphery, just beyond the National Park Service boundary lines that defined the hallowed battlefield.
Lou Preston stood on the front porch of his family home where he could see that ridge that rose to Little Round Top to the west. He sipped at his morning coffee, contemplating his “to do” list for the day.
Trees hid the few other nearby homes from his view. If not for the paved road, he might have been back in 1863.
The realtor had called it prime real estate. Four unsolicited offers already sat on his kitchen table, and he hadn’t even put it on the market yet. Word had gotten out somehow that Lou was thinking about selling a property that hadn’t been on the market for 160 years. He supposed the Realtor had blabbed about inspecting the property. He wondered if the federal government would become a fifth offer for the property soon.
Since 1866, when Harley Preston purchased the home after the battle that defined the town, Preston blood had flowed through the house’s veins. Five generations had somehow kept the government’s acquisitive fingers at bay, preserving the Preston family sanctuary while the National Park Service consumed neighboring properties.
Lou was the first Preston since Harley not born within these walls. Rather than calling a midwife, his mother had given birth to Lou in Gettysburg Hospital. Yet the house’s heartbeat matched his own. The floorboards creaked in familiar patterns beneath his feet, like an old song he’d known since childhood.
And now, Lou was about to silence that music forever.
The weight of 60 years pressed against Lou’s shoulders as he contemplated the “For Sale” sign he’d soon drive into the front lawn. His joints ached on cold mornings, a reminder that winter would only grow harsher. The endless cycle of shoveling snow-packed walkways and taming the aggressive summer grass had become a burden rather than a connection to his ancestors.
No wife waited for him in the parlor. No children raced through the hallways who might inherit the legacy. When his parents’ funeral processions had wound their way back from the cemetery 20 years ago, Lou had moved into the house, embracing the mortgage-free existence, relishing the history surrounding him.
But four bedrooms and 3,000 square feet of house across six acres had become an echo chamber for a solitary man. The house deserved more than his lonely footsteps. He could almost feel the disapproving gazes of his father and grandfather from the family portraits lining the staircase, their eyes following him after 160 years of Preston ownership.
Frank Parlaman’s offer had arrived like a thunderclap on a clear day. The bourbon had flowed freely at the Farnsworth House that night, loosening Lou’s tongue about possibly selling. Frank, a retired Harrisburg politician with shrewd eyes, had scribbled figures on a napkin that made Lou choke on his drink. That had been the first offer.
A week later, Frank had called with an even larger sum, the numbers dancing before Lou’s eyes like stars. The vision Frank painted—a charming bed and breakfast where tourists could sleep on hallowed ground—seemed a fitting next chapter.
The floorboards complained beneath Lou’s feet as he went back inside the house. It was time to get to work cataloging the items worth keeping. Family photographs with faded sepia faces. Yellowed documents with flowery script. Antique furnishings that had witnessed generations of Preston births, deaths, and everything in between. The rest would find new homes or fill the metal dumpster that now squatted beside the house like an expectant beast.
He had made progress over the past week and gone through the first and second floors. Only the attic remained unexplored, its closed door leading to decades—perhaps centuries—of accumulated memories. The Preston family had never been ones to discard; they preserved, they stored, they forgot.
Now the bill had come due.
The stairs to the attic groaned under his weight, protesting this intrusion into their domain. Childhood fears flickered at the edges of his consciousness—the bloated rat corpse he’d discovered at age eight still haunted the shadows of this place. Even as the homeowner, he’d avoided this space, using it only as a repository for things he couldn’t bear to face.
Plans had been made once to finish the space into additional bedrooms, but that was back when the Prestons had large families. Three of his grandfather’s siblings had died with no children. Lou’s father had been an only child and so had Lou. The extra rooms hadn’t been needed.
Rough-hewn beams crisscrossed overhead like exposed ribs. Twin windows at opposite ends offered meager illumination, barely penetrating the forest of boxes and furniture. The light switch clicked, and a single bulb cast yellow light across the forgotten collection. The sheer volume of possessions created an unintended layer of insulation against winter cold and summer heat.
Lou pushed the nearest window open, wincing at the screech of ancient hinges. The metal dumpster gaped open below, ready to consume generations of Preston possessions. He surveyed the crowded attic and the relatively small container below. One dumpster wouldn’t be enough, but he had to start somewhere.
He opened the first box, revealing clothing from the Depression era—once-fine fabrics now reduced to moth-eaten rags despite the chemical smell that still clung to them. The mothball scent mixed with dust tickled his nostrils as he hoisted the box and watched it arc through the window. It landed with a hollow thud that echoed through the yard.
An art deco lamp followed, its base cracking on impact. Then musty bedding that released a cloud of dust as it fell.
His fingers lingered on a box of photo albums, the faces within them strangers who shared his blood. He set it aside, the leather bindings cool against his palms. These would require careful examination later.
The work continued in a rhythm of discovery and disposal. Sweat trickled down Lou’s spine, soaking his shirt despite the minimal exertion. The attic air hung thick and stale, coating his tongue with the taste of decades. Two hours dissolved into the task, yet the mountain of possessions seemed barely diminished.
His watch indicated late afternoon. Muscles protesting, Lou decided to continue tomorrow. Then, in the farthest corner, partially concealed behind a broken rocking chair, he spotted it.
The chest.
Ancient oak bound with tarnished metal straps, it crouched in the shadows like a sentinel guarding forgotten secrets. Something about its presence made the air in the attic grow suddenly still.
It would change everything.
