Her feet on the grit-covered floor broke the tomblike silence as she moved to a narrow stone shelf on the wall opposite the entrance. At either end of the shelf were two rusty, vertical iron prongs, with sheaths of thick hide covering their tips.
"Let there be light," she said softly. She reached out and simultaneously tugged off both the sheaths to expose a pair of luminescent orbs, which were held in place on top of each prong by flaking red iron claws.
From these glass spheres no larger than nectarines, an eerie green light burst forth with such intensity that Sarah was forced to shield her eyes. It was as if their energy had been building and building under the leather covers and they now reveled in their newfound freedom. She brushed one of the spheres with her fingertips, feeling its ice-cold surface and shuddering slightly, as if its touch conferred some sort of connection with the hidden city where such orbs were commonplace.
The pain and suffering she had endured under this very light.
She dropped her hand to the top of the shelf, sifting through the thick layer of silt covering it.
Just as she'd hoped, her hand closed on a small polyethylene bag. She smiled, snatching it up and shaking it to remove the grime. The bag was sealed with a knot, which she quickly unpicked with her cold fingers. Removing the neatly folded piece of paper from inside, she lifted it to her nose to sniff at it. It was damp and fusty. The message must have been there for several months.
She kicked herself for not coming sooner. But she rarely allowed herself to check at fewer than six-month intervals, as this "dead mailbox" procedure held its dangers for all concerned. These were the only times that she came into contact, indirect as it was, with anyone from her former life. There was always a risk, however small, that the courier could have been shadowed as he'd broken out of the Colony and emerged on the surface in Highfield. She also couldn't ignore the possibility that he might have been spotted on the journey up from London itself. Nothing could be taken for granted. The enemy was patient, sublimely patient, and calculating, and Sarah knew they would never cease in their efforts to capture and kill her. She had to beat them at their own game.
She glanced at her watch. She always varied her routes to and from the bridge, and she hadn't allowed much time for the cross-country hike to the neighboring village where she would catch the bus for the journey home. She should have been on her way, but her craving for news of her family was just too great. This piece of paper was her only connection with her mother, brother, and two sons — it was like a lifeline.
She had to know what was in it.
She smelled the note again.
It was as if there was a distinctive and unwelcome smell to the paper, rising above the mingled odors of mold and mildew in the dank chamber. It was sharp and unpleasant — it was the reek of bad news.
With a mounting sense of dread, she stared deep into the light of the nearest orb, fidgeting with the piece of paper while she fought the urge to read it. Then, appalled with herself for being so weak, she grimaced and opened it up. Standing before the stone shelf, she examined it under the green-tinged illumination.
She frowned. The first surprise was that the message wasn't in her brother's hand. The childish writing was unfamiliar to her. Tam always wrote the notes. Her premonition had been right — she knew at once that something was amiss. She flipped the page over and scanned to the end to check the signature. "Joe Waites," she spoke aloud, feeling more and more uneasy. That wasn't right; Joe occasionally acted as the courier, but the message should have been from Tam.
She bit her lip in trepidation and began to read, darting through the first lines.
"Oh, no!" she gasped, shaking her head.
She read the first side of the letter again, unable to accept what was there, telling herself that she must have misunderstood it, that it had to be some sort of mistake. But it was as clear as day; the simplistically formed words left no room for confusion. And she had no reason to doubt what it was saying — these messages were the one thing she relied on, a constant in her shifting and restless life. They gave her a reason to go on.
"No, not Tam… not Tam! " she howled.
As surely as if she had been struck, she sagged against the stone shelf, leaning heavily on it to support herself.
She took a deep, tremulous breath and forced herself to turn over the letter and read the rest, shaking her head vehemently and mumbling, "No, no, no, no… it can't be…"
As if the first page hadn't been bad enough, what was on the reverse was just too much for her to take in. With a whimper, she pushed away from the shelf and into the center of the chamber. Swaying on her feet and hugging herself, she raised her head to look unseeingly at the ceiling.
All of a sudden she had to get out. She tore through the doorway in a frantic haste. Leaving the bridge behind her, she didn't stop. As she stumbled blindly by the side of the stream, the darkness was gathering rapidly and the rain was still falling in a persistent drizzle. Not knowing or caring where she was going, she slid and slipped over the wet grass.
She hadn't gone very far when she blundered straight off the bank and into the stream, landing with a splash. She lowered to her knees, the clear waters closing around her waist. But her grief was so all-consuming, she didn't feel their icy chill. Her head swiveled on her shoulders as if she was gripped by the most intense agony.
She did something she hadn't done since the day she'd escaped Topsoil, the day she'd abandoned her two young children and husband. She began to cry, a few tears at first, and then she was unable to control herself and they gushed down her cheeks in floods, as if a dam had been broken.
She wept and wept until there was nothing left. Her face was set in a mask of stone-cold anger as she rose slowly to her feet, bracing herself against the surging flow of the stream. Her dripping hands tightened into fists and she threw them at the sky as she screamed a the top of her lungs, the raw, primeval sound rolling through the empty valley.
2
"No school tomorrow, then!" Will shouted to Chester as the Miners' Train bore them away from the Colony, hurtling deeper into the bowels of the earth.
They erupted into hysterical laughter, but this was short-lived and they soon fell silent, happy just to be reunited. As the steam engine hammered along the rails, they didn't move from the bed of the massive, open-topped train car where Will had discovered Chester hiding under a tarpaulin.
After several minutes, Will drew his legs up in front of him and rubbed his knee, which still hurt from the rather haphazard landing on the train some miles back. Noticing this, Chester shot him a questioning look, to which Will gave his friend the thumbs-up and nodded enthusiastically.
"How did you get here?" Chester shouted, trying to make himself heard over the din of the train.
"Cal and me," Will yelled back, pointing over his shoulder to indicate the front of the train, where he'd left his brother. Then Will waved upward to the tunnel roof flashing over them, "…jumped… Imago helped us."
"Huh?"
"Imago helped us!" Will repeated.
"Imago? What's that?" Chester shouted even louder, cupping his hand over his ear.
"Doesn't matter," Will mouthed, shaking his head slowly and wishing that they could both lip-read. He gave his friend a grin and shouted, "Just brilliant you're OK!"
He wanted to give Chester the impression there was nothing to be worried about, although his mind was clouded with concern for the future. He wondered if his friend was even aware that they were headed for the Deeps, a place the people of the Colony spoke of with dread.