Tunnels 01, Tunnels

frames of different shapes and sizez He didn't immediately recognize any of the subjects; some were grinning preposterously, and some had the most solemn faces. They all had the same ethereal quality as the daguerreotypes -- old photographs showing the ghostlike images of people from the distant past -- that he'd seen in his father's museum in Highfield. As the old lady had asked, he reached for the largest photograph of them all, which held pride of place in the very center of the mantelpiece. Seeing that it was of Mr. Jerome and a younger version of Cal, he hesitated.
    "Yes, that's the one," the old woman confirmed.
    Will handed it to her, watching as she turned it over on her lap, unclipped the catches, and lifted off the back. There was another picture concealed within it, which she levered out with her fingernails and passed to him without comment.
    Turning it to catch the light, he studied the print closely. It showed a young woman in a white house and a long black skirt. In her arms, the woman held a small bundle. Her hair was the whitest of whites, identical to Will's, and her face was beautiful, a strong face with kind eyes and a fine bone structure, a full mouth, and a square jaw... his jaw, which he now touched involuntarily.
    "Yes," the old lady said softly, "that's Sarah, your mother. You're just like her. That was taken mere weeks after you were born."
    "Huh?" Will gasped, nearly dropping the picture.
    "Your real name is Seth... that's what you were christened. That's you she's holding."
    He felt as though his heart had stopped. He peered at the bundle. He could see it was a baby, but couldn't make out its face clearly because of the swaddling. His mind raced and his hands trembled as his feelings and thoughts bled into one another. But through all this, something definite emerged and connected , as if he'd been wrestling with a hitherto insoluble problem and suddenly discovered the answer. As if, buried deep in his subconscious, there had been a tiny question hidden away, an unadmitted suspicion that his family, Dr. and Mrs. Burrows and Rebecca, all he'd known for his life, were somehow different from him.
    He was having problems focusing on the picture and forced himself to look at it again, scouring it for details.
    "Yes," Grandma Macaulay said in a gentle voice, and he found himself nodding. However irrational it might seem, he knew, knew with absolute certainty, that what she was saying was true. That this woman in the photograph, with the monochrome and slightly blurry face, was his real mother, and that all these people he'd so recently met were his true family. He couldn't explain it even to himself; he just knew.
    His suspicions that they were trying to deceive him, and that this was all some elaborate trick, evaporated, and a tear ran down his cheek, drawing a pale, delicate line on his unwashed face. He hurriedly brushed it away with his hand. As he passed the photograph back to Grandma Macaulay, he was aware that his face was flushing.
    "Tell me what it's like up there -- Topsoil," she said, to spare him his embarrassment. He was grateful, still standing awkwardly by her chair as she put the frame together again, then held it out for him to replace on the mantelpiece.
    "Well...," he began falteringly.
    "You know, I've never seen daylight or felt the sun on my face. How doest that feel? They say it burns."
    Will, now back in his chair, looked across at her. He was staggered. "You've never seen the sun?"
    "Very few here have," Cal said, coming back into the room and squatting down on the hearth rug at his grandmother's feet. He began gently kneading the loose and rather scabby flap of skin under the cat's chin; almost at once a loud, throbbing purr filled the room.
    "Tell us, Will. Tell us what it's like," Grandma Macaulay said, her hand resting on Cal's head as he leaned against the arm of her chair.
    So Will started to tell them, a little hesitantly at first, but then, as if a torrent had been unleashed, he found he was almost babbling as he spoke about his life above. It astounded him how easy it was, and how very natural it felt, to talk to these people whom he'd only known for such a brief time. He told them about his family and his school, regaling them with stories about the excavations with his father -- or rather, the person he'd believed was his father until this moment -- and about his mother and his sister.
    "You love your Topsoiler family very much, don't you?" Grandma Macaulay