Riddle Of The Owl - YA Fantasy

Chapter Eighteen

There was something odd about the Malluri mansion. Even from the outside Alleria could sense the tension brimming beneath the surface. The front door opened silently by a stone-faced attendant who escorted them past the foyer and down the familiar way to Mr. Malluri's study. Her parents were asked to wait outside, Alleria ventured in alone.

An overwhelming feeling of despair knocked into her as she stepped into the room. The blinds were drawn shut and in the shadowy depth of the study, Mr Malluri stood with his back to her. His shoulders hunched, his head bowed, even without seeing his face, he barely resembled himself.

"A dreadful outcome," he said, turning to face her. He looked worse than even she did, his face haggard and papery white, his voice hollow. "One of many bad outcomes, I'm afraid. My son Willum..." Mr. Malluri paused, his lips moving though he uttered no words. He ground his teeth together before trying again. "Willum has left."

"Left?" Alleria was uneasy, whatever Willum had been up to, however he was involved in all this, the fact that he left didn't bode well.

"He's moved out, went away, cut ties." Mr. Malluri stumbled into his chair, burying his face in his hands. "My son, my only son..." He looked up at Alleria, shaking his head, "And now you."

"I'm sorry." There was not much else she could say. She was sorry.

"Do you know... do you even know why I decided to sponsor you?"

Something told her she didn't really wish to know. Nevertheless, she shook her head in reply.

"It's actually..." Mr. Malluri sighed and then forced a smile. "It's actually a funny story... really, it is..." His smile became a grimace, as his shoulders shook with suppressed grief.

Alleria sat on the chair across from her patron, resting her palms on her knees as she leaned forward wearing an attentive expression. Whatever faults Mr. Malluri had, whatever his true intentions had been, he had given her something no one else would — a chance. Although she had squandered it, had failed in ways beyond imagining, she owed at least this to Mr. Malluri.

"Tell me," she said.

For a while, he was quiet, his eyes downcast, his fingers idly tapping the massive desk that stood between them. "Willum was always a very sharp boy. He took the divorce badly I'm afraid and he never seemed to have forgiven Irene for leaving... who can blame him? He rebelled. He wouldn't talk to Selma when we married. He wouldn't attend the college I designated him to. He wouldn't marry the girl."

Mr Malluri rubbed his face upon mention of the last in the list of Willum's rebellions and then he chuckled. The sound was so sudden that Alleria was taken aback for a moment. "It was over that — marriage — we had a terrible row. He's in that age where these things need some thought. You can't just go swinging that much inheritance around on a loose string." He swung his arm in the air in demonstration and then scratched his stubble-covered chin.

"After months of endless bickering, Willum stated his conditions. It would be a girl younger than him, smart enough to be accepted into the High Academy, from common background and she had to be pretty or at least palpable to the eye."

Alleria's lips parted and Mr. Malluri started laughing at her shocked expression, "He had no idea... that boy....He's stubborn, aha, very stubborn, but he underestimated his parents. Irene and I made a terrible couple, but both of us together can make the impossible true when sufficiently motivated — and our son's future, what could be a greater motivation? You should have seen Willum's face when I told him. An impossible girl like that actually did exist, and you would have made it, too..."

Click and click, the pieces came together. "It was Willum? The subjects?"

Mr. Malluri grew serious again, sighing for the hundredth time. "It was."