Chapter 2: Wammy House
The three—two men and one woman—were graduate students in physics at Princeton University. They were brilliant and competitive, but their friendship was strong, and it withstood the strains of successes and failures, contradictory politics, and fierce pride. After graduating, two of them stayed in America to pursue their doctorates. The other, Quillsh, returned to his native England to work for the government.
Quillsh forged an impressive but quiet decade-long career before vacating his position. With the savings he accrued over the years (he was well paid and fiscally scrupulous), he founded a small research and development firm. It occupied the top floor of a terrace building converted into commercial flats. As a result of his first-rate work and the prime location of Regent's Park, he became successful. When in his nostalgic moods, however, he missed the intellectual and emotional stimulation of his Princeton friends. Finally, after many months of overseas phone calls and countless letters, Quillsh's friends, the Lawliets—for now they were married—joined him in London.
One of the Lawliets and Quillsh's joint inventions was the technology for long-range phones. The phones worked if users stayed within a small geographical area, but lost connection when they strayed too far from a base station. Thus, the phones were ideal for local businesses, but impractical for personal use. Only the richest and most forward-thinking scientists and academics wanted them, and they kept the unwieldy handsets in their attachés. The long-range phone cemented Quillsh's reputation as a brilliant, avant-garde inventor, and put the Lawliets' names in the science columns of the local papers.
As is wont to happen, the Lawliets had a child. They asked Quillsh to be the boy's godfather, and he gladly accepted. The Lawliets were attentive and loving parents, but Quillsh often detected surprise when their gazes fell upon the boy. They gave the impression that they couldn't quite believe how their union could've produced such a creature, both less perfect and more miraculous than their scientific accomplishments. Like the happiest of marriages, the addition of the child didn't cause the Lawliets' devotion to each other to abate: the boy truly made them complete. They were an ideal family, even with Quillsh hanging about like a ubiquitous bachelor uncle. To the Lawliets' credit, Quillsh never felt like an interloper; he was never disdained in the way that unmarried, childless men often are. He felt the glow of their joy and was happy himself.
It happened while the child was in his nurse's care and Quillsh was at a conference in Cairo. The papers called it a senseless tragedy, but is death ever sensible or reasonable? While walking to their car after a Sunday matinée, the Lawliets were robbed and murdered. Quillsh barely had time to grieve before he was forced to deal with the legal ramifications of their deaths: at the age of forty-eight, he suddenly found himself the guardian of a two-year-old boy. Still reeling from the shock, he enrolled the boy in various classes in hopes that artistic and intellectual stimulation would compensate for his own lack of parental experience.
Quillsh then devoted the following years to giving the boy the best education his wealth could buy. The Lawliets' legacy he put aside for when the boy would come of age. From time to time, he noted the boy's progress; it was evident that the child would one day surpass his parents. Quillsh felt a vague sense of pride in his extraordinary godson. He eschewed elite schools, but paid for private lessons in languages, the arts, and athletics. In short, the boy lived to learn.
One can surmise the effects that constant learning had on the boy. Being in the company of adults for most of his days, he did not understand how to play with other children. When his nurse took him to the public parks, he refused to share his toys or allow others to play on the swings. Though he eventually learned to practise generosity and fairness, his naturally covetous temperament would persist until well into adulthood.
A breakthrough came when the boy was nine years old. Quillsh invented a technology that enabled cellular phones and other mobile devices to share a single electronic mail address and phone number. He licensed the technology to various academic and government institutions, and when his riches bordered on the obscene, he sold the patent to a holding company.
Some middle-aged multi-millionaires obtain young wives or procure professional sports teams; however, Quillsh Wammy was an anomaly amongst rich men. In 1989, he bought a handsome manor house that sat on a seven-acre estate in Richmond. It would have been less costly to build a new house exactly to his specifications, but time, as they say, was of the essence. The house was a symmetrical, broad-faced manse that had been built in Tudor times. Having undergone innumerable renovations and expansions in the four centuries of its storied existence, the mansion was nonetheless in dire need of repairs. Quillsh moved into the house, architectural defects and all.
Quillsh had passed the first three decades of his adult life as a self-made man. Now, he sought to remake himself. He became Quillsh Wammy, philanthropist and benefactor of Wammy House, an orphanage founded for a sole, secret purpose. The first few years in the mansion were disorderly, noisy, cluttered. The first clusters of children to live in the house always remembered its draughty oriels and creaky lifts, and how teachers had to shout over the noise of construction. Despite everything, the children thrived marvellously, happily. In this sea of lights, Quillsh's godson was always the brightest.
And did the child have any memories of his parents? Did he grieve for them? It couldn't be said for certain if he and Quillsh shared affections approximate to those of a father and son. Their conversations did not broach what private or delicate thoughts resided in either mind, but godfather and godson accurately, if not keenly, observed the social protocols of their kinship. As he grew, the boy's black hair and deep eyes reminded Quillsh more and more of his mother. As a young man, he became bold yet serene; quiet, but forceful when necessary; in short, he was a perfect distillation of both parents' traits. Still, even to the teachers and nurses with whom he spent most of his adolescence, some part of him was as inscrutable as a closed book. Who really knew what lurked in the chambers of that unfathomable heart?
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An annexed two-bedroom cottage served as L's retreat when he visited the orphanage. The cottage was built in the 1950s, in the mock rustic-Tudor style. Per L's wishes, the cottage's facade was never renovated. Despite their initial misgivings, visitors found that its crumbling exterior suited the disorder within. It was on this cottage's door that three children had rapped impatiently on the morning after L's return.
"Logically," L said as he poured himself a coffee, "Near must be telling the truth."
Mello, Linda, and Matt were gathered around the fireplace in the sitting room. Nestled cosily in armchairs, they carefully held steaming cups of tea in their laps. The most comfortable seat in the cottage was the overstuffed leather couch, but L had made no effort to move the stacks of books and newspapers that covered it. A quick scan told Mello that no fewer than seventeen books were scattered, some lying open, around the room.
"But how?" Mello groaned. "It doesn't make any sense. And he won't shut up about it!"
L said nothing, but sipped his coffee thoughtfully. Then he placed the cup and saucer on the table beside him, and drew up his knees. Wrapping a long arm around his shins, he propped his elbow on his armrest and chewed his thumb.
Mello sighed and eyed the plates of scones, croissants, and muffins on the coffee table. He knew that they were welcome to L's breakfast spread, though it wasn't L's style to actually offer any of it. Damn it, he didn't want to be the first one to grab a chocolate muffin.
"Perhaps he dreamed it?" Linda said. "Or maybe it was something he saw on television."
"You stated that he seems to be unaffected by illness." L dropped reached for the sugar bowl and dropped a handful of cubes into his second cup of coffee. "If he is in perfect health, Near would not mistake dreams or television programs for reality. Of this I am one-hundred-percent sure. His mind is lucid and precise."
"Well, if he's not imagining it, then he must be lying," protested Mello. "Because there's no way that what he says is real."
L stirred his coffee with a chocolate-dipped spoon. "Incorrect, Mello. You have not considered one thing. There is a zero-point-zero-three-percent chance that Near has taken leave of his senses...But I believe that Near is telling the truth."
In response, Mello grabbed a muffin off a platter and bit into it savagely.
"I think L's right," Matt drawled, "Near thinks he's telling the truth, but he's really just crazy. Ow!" He rubbed his forearm where Linda pinched him.
"Do you really think that Near found another world?" Linda asked. "L, I know you don't say anything you don't absolutely mean, but...this is impossible!"
L frowned and became intent on dissolving the chocolate in his coffee. Suddenly, he leaped from his chair and plucked a book that was wedged between the cushions of the leather couch. He flipped through the pages and intoned, "Heav'n opened wide/ Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound/ On golden hinges moving, to let forth/ The King of Glory in His powerful Word/ And Spirit coming to create more worlds." Then, he snapped the book shut and dropped it back on the couch.
"Does that suggest anything to you?" L looked at the children, one by one. Seeing there was no response, and not expecting one at any rate, he said airily, "All right then. Off you go."
Bewildered, they gaped for a moment before shuffling out, murmuring in low voices while they went. As they ran across the path that led to the main house, L formulated three theories and the statistical likelihood of each scenario. By the time they reached the south wing entrance, L had devised a test for his hypothesis.
Note: L reads from Paradise Lost, Book VII, lines 205-209.
Well, if you made it this far, thanks for reading! I welcome any and all feedback.
Writing this chapter was relatively easy; revising it and excising unnecessary content was a challenge. You wouldn't believe how much I wrote about the long-range phone invention and the Regent's Park flat. Sigh.
Next chapter: The Shinigami King