Read Online Tunnels 02, Deeper by Roderick Gordon, Brian Williams - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Roderick Gordon, Brian Williams
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face. Feeling her emotions and her sense of loss begin to rise within her again, Sarah tore her eyes away from the mother and child and moved on.
Finally she reached her destination. Sarah stood on the very same spot behind the Burrowses' house where she'd stood so many times before, hoping to catch the smallest glimpse of her son as he grew up, and away, from her.
After she'd been forced to leave him behind in the church graveyard, she'd searched high and low for him all over Highfield. For the following two and a half years, wearing sunglasses until she became acclimatized to the painful daylight, she'd combed the streets and hovered outside the local schools at the end of classes. But there was absolutely no sign of Seth anywhere. She'd widened her search radius, venturing farther and farther afield until she was wandering around the neighboring London boroughs.
Then, on a day shortly after her son's fifth birthday, she happened to be back in Highfield again when she caught sight of him outside the main post office. He was steady on his feet, running around wildly with a toy dinosaur. Already he was quite different from the child she'd left behind. Nevertheless, she had recognized him immediately; he was unmistakable with his unruly shock of white hair, precisely the same as hers, although she was now forced to use dyes to mask it.
She'd followed Seth and his new mother home from the shops to find out where they lived. Her first impulse had been to snatch him back. But it was just too dangerous with the Styx still after her. So, season after season, Sarah came back to Highfield, even if just for part of a day, desperate for the briefest sighting of her son. She'd stare at him over the length of the garden, which was like some untraversable abyss. He grew taller and his face filled out, becoming so much like hers that sometimes she thought it was her own reflection she was seeing in the glass of the French doors.
And on those occasions she yearned to call out over the tantalizingly short distance, but she never did. She couldn't. She'd often wondered how he would have reacted if she'd walked across the garden and into the house and, there, had clasped him to her. She felt her throat close up as the imagined scene unfurled before her like a preview of some television melodrama, their eyes filling with tears as they looked upon each other with startled mutual recognition. He would be mouthing the words Mother , Mother , over and over again.
But all that was history now.
And if the message from Joe Waites was to be believed, the child was now a murderer, and he had to pay for his crimes.
As if she were on a rack, Sarah was torn between the love that she had known for her son and the hollow hatred that simmered at its borders, the two extremes pulling remorselessly at her. They were both so powerful that, caught in the middle, she was plunged into a state of confusion and an utter, overpowering numbness.
Stop it! For the sake of all that's holy, snap out of it! What was happening to her? Her life, for years so controlled and disciplined, was slipping into disarray. She had to get hold of herself. She raked the nails of one hand over the back of the other, then did it again, and yet again, each time pressing harder, until she broke the skin, the stinging pain bringing a bitter relief of distraction.
* * * * *
Her son had been christened Seth in the Colony, but Topsoil somebody had renamed him Will. He had been adopted by a local couple called Burrows. While the mother, Mrs. Burrows, was a mere shadow of a woman, who spent her life ensconced in front of the television, Will had evidently fallen under the spell of his adoptive father, who worked as the curator of the local museum.
Sarah had followed Will on numerous occasions, trailing behind as he went off on his bicycle, a gleaming shovel strapped across his back. She would watch as the lonely figure, a baseball cap pulled low over his distinctive white locks,
Finally she reached her destination. Sarah stood on the very same spot behind the Burrowses' house where she'd stood so many times before, hoping to catch the smallest glimpse of her son as he grew up, and away, from her.
After she'd been forced to leave him behind in the church graveyard, she'd searched high and low for him all over Highfield. For the following two and a half years, wearing sunglasses until she became acclimatized to the painful daylight, she'd combed the streets and hovered outside the local schools at the end of classes. But there was absolutely no sign of Seth anywhere. She'd widened her search radius, venturing farther and farther afield until she was wandering around the neighboring London boroughs.
Then, on a day shortly after her son's fifth birthday, she happened to be back in Highfield again when she caught sight of him outside the main post office. He was steady on his feet, running around wildly with a toy dinosaur. Already he was quite different from the child she'd left behind. Nevertheless, she had recognized him immediately; he was unmistakable with his unruly shock of white hair, precisely the same as hers, although she was now forced to use dyes to mask it.
She'd followed Seth and his new mother home from the shops to find out where they lived. Her first impulse had been to snatch him back. But it was just too dangerous with the Styx still after her. So, season after season, Sarah came back to Highfield, even if just for part of a day, desperate for the briefest sighting of her son. She'd stare at him over the length of the garden, which was like some untraversable abyss. He grew taller and his face filled out, becoming so much like hers that sometimes she thought it was her own reflection she was seeing in the glass of the French doors.
And on those occasions she yearned to call out over the tantalizingly short distance, but she never did. She couldn't. She'd often wondered how he would have reacted if she'd walked across the garden and into the house and, there, had clasped him to her. She felt her throat close up as the imagined scene unfurled before her like a preview of some television melodrama, their eyes filling with tears as they looked upon each other with startled mutual recognition. He would be mouthing the words Mother , Mother , over and over again.
But all that was history now.
And if the message from Joe Waites was to be believed, the child was now a murderer, and he had to pay for his crimes.
As if she were on a rack, Sarah was torn between the love that she had known for her son and the hollow hatred that simmered at its borders, the two extremes pulling remorselessly at her. They were both so powerful that, caught in the middle, she was plunged into a state of confusion and an utter, overpowering numbness.
Stop it! For the sake of all that's holy, snap out of it! What was happening to her? Her life, for years so controlled and disciplined, was slipping into disarray. She had to get hold of herself. She raked the nails of one hand over the back of the other, then did it again, and yet again, each time pressing harder, until she broke the skin, the stinging pain bringing a bitter relief of distraction.
* * * * *
Her son had been christened Seth in the Colony, but Topsoil somebody had renamed him Will. He had been adopted by a local couple called Burrows. While the mother, Mrs. Burrows, was a mere shadow of a woman, who spent her life ensconced in front of the television, Will had evidently fallen under the spell of his adoptive father, who worked as the curator of the local museum.
Sarah had followed Will on numerous occasions, trailing behind as he went off on his bicycle, a gleaming shovel strapped across his back. She would watch as the lonely figure, a baseball cap pulled low over his distinctive white locks,
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