�It isn�t healthy. He�s only twelve. He deserves time to play��

He heard the mumbled arguments carried to him on slivers of light from doors left slightly ajar.

�It�s good work. It�s a calling. Nothing finer he could chose to do�Dedication and strict��

Alva knew his parents� concerns, the whys and wherefores of their reactions to his decision to take a few special classes and enter Cambridge early to follow in his father�s footsteps, but it was only his mum�s apprehensive glances when he passed through a room that made him doubt his reasoning. With a sigh, he traversed the piles of books and newspaper scraps scattered across his squeaky wooden floor to the door, which he gently closed against their disagreement.

Leisurely, humming only loudly enough to convince himself he�d stopped listening for his parents� voices, he returned to his bed. He sat with his legs crossed atop the crumpled gray sheets and lowered his head to his recently neglected paperback of Sherlock Holmes mysteries. His mum, Alva thought, should employ the sleuth�s logical aspects and see why Alva had made come to the judgment he had. No choice, really.

After a few exciting but ultimately unrewarding paragraphs he raised his head. He gazed appreciatively at the knick-knacks surrounding him; the football and the cricket bat his father had been determined he should play with, rain or shine; the picture of his grandparents, a tad austere but not uncompromising, tufts of white hair billowing round their heads like untinted cotton-candy; the little wooden crucifix his mum had tacked up beside his bed, beneath which they had prayed together when he was smaller.

Alva frowned and bit the inside of his lip. When was the last time mum had prayed with him? When dad had begun getting quieter, that�s when. He shook his head and stared inflexibly at the little wooden Jesus nailed to the cross. The thorns in the crown weren�t too good, he decided. They could have been spikier or something.

He peeked beyond his window shade and smiled at the encroaching gray mist. It was coming to the gloaming time outside- the hour for elves and faeries and shadow-figures to scurry about the bases and branches of the chestnuts and oaks. He touched the glass with the tips of his fingers, imprinting the panes. It was getting colder nights.

As he turned back to his darkening room, his stomach rumbled. Mum had forgotten about tea, again. Hesitantly he crept to his door. He strained to listen for voices through the solid wood barricade, but he could make out no sound, not so much as a murmur, nor a breath. He paused at the door only long enough to take in a draught of warm air before emerging into the chilly hallway.

Barefooted, he stealthily slunk down the passage to peek around the corner of the kitchen wall. He reasoned that as the sounds of disagreement had stopped, it was the most likely place for his mum to be. The tinkling of wind chimes interrupted the hush pervading the house.

Alva looked into the kitchen to find the rarely used side-door standing open. Uncertainly, he walked to the door and looked out. �Mum?� he asked, holding the doorknob in his clammy hand, prepared to hurl the door soundly to it�s jam should anything other than her answer.

�Alva,� she called from behind him. She looked so tired- frail and wispy, unreal and undone. Her close-cropped dark hair glistened in the tawdry yellow light of the overhead bulb. She reached out her hand to him, smiling unsteadily.

�Mum?� Alva frowned. Something was dreadfully wrong. �Where�s dad?� he asked, unmoving, clutching the doorknob in his inescapably ineffective hand.

�Gone out for a bit.� She pulled a sluggish hand across her forehead. Her steps seemed to shuffle as she came up beside him and pushed the door out of his hand and firmly closed it.

�Gone where?�

Her smile strained at his question and turned down at the edges. �To fetch Father Donall.�

Instantly Alva felt guilty. �About me, yeah?�

Glumly she nodded. �In a way. Are you hungry? I�ve forgotten tea again.�

Alva scratched uncomfortably at the nape of his neck. �A bit,� he admitted.

He watched as his mum opened the cupboard to take out a glass and a plate. �A sandwich or biscuits?� she asked.

What an odd question, he thought. He could feel his brows furrow as his stomach grumbled at him again.

�Better have both, I think,� she answered for him, trying once more to smile reassuringly at her son. Within moments, she had heaped the plate with sandwich and biscuits and filled the empty glass with thick, frothy milk. She gave the plate to him and seeing he had it firmly in his grasp, put the glass in his other hand. �Off to your room now,� she said, running her fingers through his wavy hair before motioning him away.

He was three quarters through the kitchen before she stopped him briefly with her words. �Mango, I love you.�

Alva felt the tears well up. He wanted desperately to drop plate and glass and run to her, comfort and protect her from whatever it was that had beaten her down to what had become only a shadow of his mum. Instead he continued on and without looking back told her almost flippantly, �Love you too.�