Tunnels 02, Deeper

need to sit," she gasped.
    As she did so, Sarah kneeled down before her chair, still holding her mother's hands.
    "You look well, my child," her mother said.
    Sarah fumbled for something to say in response, but was too overwrought to speak.
    "Life up there must suit you," the old lady went on. "Is it really as wicked as they tell us?"
    Sarah started to answer, but once again words failed her. She couldn't begin to explain and, at that moment, it really didn't matter to either of them, anyway. It was being together, being reunited, that counted.
    "So much has happened, Sarah." The old woman hesitated. "The Styx have been good to me. They've been sending someone to help me to services every day so I can pray for Tam's soul." She lifted her eyes to the window as if it was too painful to look at her daughter. "They told me you would be coming home, but I didn't dare believe them. It was too much to hope that I might see you again... one last time... before I die."
    "Don't talk like that, Ma, you've got a good few years in you yet," Sarah said ever so softly as she shook her mother's hands in a gentle reprimand. As her mother turned her head back toward her, Sarah looked deep into her eyes. It was heartrending to see the change, as if a light had gone out. There'd always been a vibrant sparkle to them, but now they seemed lackluster and vacant. Sarah knew that time alone had not been responsible. She know that she was partly to blame, and felt she had to account for her actions.
    "I've been the cause of so much, haven't I? I split the family. I put my sons in danger..." Sarah said, her voice trembling. She took several rapid breaths. "And I have no idea how my husband... John... feels."
    "He looks after me now," her mother said quickly. "Now that there's nobody else."
    "Oh, Ma," Sarah croaked, her speech becoming broken. "I... I didn't mean for you to be left alone... when I went... I'm so sorry--"
    "Sarah," the old lady interrupted, the tears flowing freely down her lined face as she squeezed her daughter's hands. "Don't torture yourself. You did what you thought you had to."
    "But, Tam... Tam's dead... and I just can't believe it."
    "No," the old lady said, so softly as to be barely audible against the crackle of the fire, and bowed her grief-stricken face. "Neither can I."
    "Is it true..." Sarah hesitated in midsentence, then asked the question she had been dreading to ask. "Is it true that Seth had a hand in it?"
    "Call him Will , not Seth!" her mother snapped, her head jerking toward Sarah, who jumped at the outburst. "He is not Seth, he is not your son anymore," her mother said, her swift anger tightening the sinews in her neck and making slits of her eyes. "Not after all the harm he's done."
    "Do you know that for sure?"
    Her mother became incoherent. "Joe... the Styx... the police... everyone knows it for sure!" she spluttered. "Don't you now what happened?"
    Sarah was torn between needing to know more and not wanting to upset her mother any further. "The Styx told me Will led Tam into a trap," Sarah said, pressing her mother's hands consolingly. They were tensed and rigid.
    "Just to save his own worthless hide!" the old woman spat. "But how could he?" Her head sagged, but her eyes remained fixed on Sarah. The anger seemed to desert her for that instant and was replaced with an expression of mute incomprehension. For a moment she was closer to the person Sarah remembered, the kindly old lady who had spent her whole life working so hard for her family.
    "I don't know," Sarah whispered. "They say he forced Cal to go with him."
    "He did!" In an instant, her mother had resumed the vengeful, ugly mask, hunching her already rounded shoulders in a show of anger and snatching her hands away from Sarah. "We welcomed Will back with open arms, but he'd become a foul, loathsome Topsoiler." She thumped the arm of the chair, her teeth clenched. "He fooled us... all of us, and Tam died because of him."
    "I just don't understand how... why he did that to Tam. Why would any son of mine do that?"
    "HE'S NOT YOUR SON!" her mother wailed, her small chest heaving.
    Sarah recoiled -- she'd never heard her mother yell before, not once in her whole life. And she feared for her mother's health. She was in such a state of distress, Sarah was worried that she might do herself harm.
    Then, becoming quiet again, the old woman pleaded, "Whatever you do, you must save Cal." She leaned forward, tears streaming down her wrinkled face. "You'll get