Until the Dawn (14 page)

T
HE
ROAD
WAS
BADLY
RUTTED
and overgrown, jostling the carriage springs that squeaked and groaned with each bump. Sophie felt a little awkward being confined so tightly beside Quentin in the carriage, but she’d endure anything if she could win his agreement to transform the abandoned mill into a climate observatory.

A deep, fragrant forest surrounded them on all sides. Most of this land had been cleared when the mill was in operation sixty years ago, but forest could overtake the land quickly. Brambles thwacked against the side of the carriage, and the scent of deep, loamy soil pervaded the air.

“This is far enough,” Sophie said to Mr. Ratface, who drove the carriage. They had arrived at the promontory that jutted out toward the river, where the old mill once funneled tons of timber toward cities all over the world. Forest surrounded them on three sides, but straight ahead was a rambling old building that would have covered a city block had it been built in town. It was two stories tall, with a bank of large windows, mostly broken, running along the top floor.

“I know it looks bad from the outside, but the building is structurally sound, and it’s ideally placed to take advantage of the river.” She spoke quickly, her words tripping over one another lest he cut her off. Quentin’s face was closed and shuttered as he clung to a leather strap, gingerly stretching his good leg out the carriage door. He looked embarrassed as Mr. Ratface stepped forward to brace a shoulder beneath Quentin’s outstretched arm and gently lowered his employer to the ground. Sophie averted her gaze and waited for Quentin to adjust his clothing before turning to face him.

“Let’s go inside,” Quentin said, already heading toward the building. He was probably eager to get this over with as quickly as possible, and she scrambled for ways to make this deal look attractive to him. The lock on the door had rusted through ages ago, and Quentin was able to push the squeaking door open with ease.

It didn’t seem so bad inside. Sophie watched as Quentin waved away a gnat that pestered his face, scanning the interior of the mill with curiosity. He didn’t seem bored—rather, he seemed to be assessing the building with an architect’s eyes, perusing the timber chutes and network of flywheels overhead.

“You can see how spacious the building is,” she said. “If we clear out the band saws, there will be plenty of room for all kinds of table-sized maps. And the best thing is the miles of timber chutes through the forest. It means we already have a path cleared that will be suitable for laying telegraphic wires.”

A patter of sudden rain on the roof punctuated the silence. “I thought you said it wasn’t going to rain until this evening,” Quentin commented.

“Weather prediction is still a bit of an estimate,” she admitted, looking out the window with concern. The drops of rain were fat and heavy, indicating a healthy downpour was only moments away.

“I hate to think of Mr. Ratface getting wet. Should we ask him inside?”

“His name is simply Ratface,” Quentin replied, a hint of amusement in his voice. “I can assure you he takes it as no sign of disrespect if you call him such.”

“That can’t be his given name.”

“It is how he chooses to identify himself.” The rain was falling steadily now, fast and heavy, and it didn’t seem right to make a man stand in the rain when it was perfectly dry inside the mill.

“Nevertheless, I hope he isn’t getting wet.”

“Of course Ratface is getting wet. Ratface gets paid double what most men in his position earn, and he is glad for the work.”

Sophie darted to the door to peek outside. The rain fell so hard it looked like sheets of white. The bodyguard stood huddled beside the carriage, holding a horse blanket over his head. She didn’t care how big and scary he was, he looked absolutely pitiful hunched under that dripping blanket. Without thinking, she dashed outside, yelping as cold water spattered her hands and face and streamed into her eyes. It was so cold! She sprang around the rapidly forming puddles, and it didn’t take her long to reach Mr. Ratface.

“Come inside,” she shouted, chilly water tracing rivulets down her neck. “Come inside—you’ll drown out here!”

Mr. Ratface didn’t have to be asked again. Pushing away from the carriage, he reached out to share part of the horse blanket with her and jogged toward the safety of the mill.

Quentin looked in exasperation as Sophie dashed through the rain. All he wanted was to win her agreement to keep tutoring Pieter, but now he was stranded in the middle of nowhere during a rainstorm. Damp weather always made his leg ache down to the marrow of the bone. He took a swig of the concentrated
willow tea he kept in a flask for just such an event. It tasted like tree bark, but sometimes it helped with pain.

The door banged open and Sophie rushed inside, her skirts soaked. The air was cooling from the downpour, and she’d probably catch pneumonia and infect everyone at Dierenpark. They’d all be dead before the week was out because she couldn’t resist taking Ratface under her wing. Shrugging out of his coat, Quentin handed it over to her. “Put this on, you’re freezing.”

She laughed and brushed it away. “Let me dry out a bit first.” She bent over to squeeze water from her skirt.

“I’m sorry we left you out there to get soaked, Mr. Ratface,” she said, smiling up at him as she finished wringing her hem.

Ratface shifted uncomfortably. “Umm . . . just Ratface, ma’am.”

“I’d feel better calling you
Mr.
Ratface.”

Ratface looked at him, bewilderment apparent on his face. Then he cleared his throat and faced Sophie. “My real name is Pureheart, ma’am. I’d truly prefer it if you called me Ratface.”

Quentin spewed out a mouthful of tea, choking on laughter.

If possible, Ratface looked even more uncomfortable as he provided an explanation. “My mum was a fan of that Bible verse, the one about the pure of heart and seeing God.”

Sophie perked up. “‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God?’”

“That’s the one,” Ratface admitted. “My mum was a good woman, but to the bottom of my soul, I wish she’d given me a normal name.”

Sophie winced in sympathy. “My real name is Sophronia. I understand. But come, let me show you the mill.”

She proceeded to point out where the offices could be built and which areas would be suitable for the giant, oversized maps used by the meteorologists. She spoke in a breathless voice, a blinding smile on her face the entire time. She must be cold,
miserable, and wet, and still she smiled. Everything about Sophie was warm and cheerful, transforming this abandoned millhouse by her mere presence.

She continued rambling while he and Ratface trailed after her, but Quentin had stopped listening. Her desire to transform this abandoned mill into a climate observatory was admirable but not his problem. He was only here because it was her condition to keep mentoring Pieter. Outside, the rain poured down in sheets, and the wind buffeted the trees so hard it flipped up the silvery undersides of the leaves. They would probably be trapped here for hours.

“So you knew the rain was coming,” he interjected as she rambled about the delightful scent of freshly milled white pine.

She paused at the diversion but answered him. “The men in Washington got it wrong by half a day, but yes, I knew we were due for a bit of rain.”

“The wonders of science,” he said pointedly. “How can a good Christian like you even believe in meteorology? Shouldn’t mankind’s ability to predict the weather disprove God’s existence?”

Sophie didn’t take offense at his question. With the calm diplomacy he was coming to expect from her, she replied with a confounding mix of logic and innocence. “Climatic events are predicted by analyzing the changes in atmospheric pressure,” she replied. “God designed the rules of nature, and we are getting better at reading them. That doesn’t mean he isn’t the original author.”

“But why would the author abandon his work?” he challenged. One of his chief arguments against religion had always been the question of why God, if he existed, would show himself so plainly to some people but stay hidden from others. It seemed unfair and made no logical sense. “Your God seemed to chat quite freely with Moses and Abraham. Why not us?”

“Perhaps he is chatting, and you aren’t listening.”

Quentin lumbered over to an old bench and sat, stretching out his bad leg and wincing as the blood circulated with greater ease. “Not good enough, Miss van Riijn. There is no logic to it. If God exists, why doesn’t he simply appear and tell us what to do? Why do we have to hunt down dusty manuscripts written in languages no one reads anymore and try to guess what they mean? Why doesn’t he
prove
he exists?”

He rarely wasted time debating theology with Bible-thumpers who weren’t open to reason, but they were trapped here until this storm blew over, and it seemed as good a topic as any.

Sophie seemed a little off-kilter by the question, but after a moment of pondering, she responded. “What if the rain suddenly stopped, the clouds parted, and God appeared in the sky, glowering down at you and ordering you how to behave. You would have no choice but to believe and obey. Your decision to follow his teachings through love would be gone, and you would obey out of fear. There is a pleasing logic to it, if only you’d open your mind enough to consider it.”

He was mildly taken aback. “Are you accusing me of being closed-minded?” He was the most open-minded, forward-looking, and rational man in the world. “I have always been willing to consider anything so long as the data and facts back it up.”

“But you see
only
with your mind,” Sophie countered. “I believe God gave us many ways to experience the world . . . through seeing, hearing, touching, but also heart. When I align my thoughts and actions with the teachings of Jesus, I sense him in my heart, and the entire way I see the world shifts.”

“My heart is already too burdened keeping my broken-down body alive to worry about intercepting cryptic messages from Jesus.”

“So cynical!” Sophie teased, but she turned to gaze through the broken-out windows. The profile of her face was as lovely
as a cameo. What would it be like to see the world through Sophie’s eyes? The familiar rasp of envy trickled through him.

Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God
.

He looked away. That passage seemed tailor-made for Sophie. It wasn’t that he was ignorant of religion. Indeed, he had been exposed to too much of it as he followed his grandfather all over the world from one sacred shrine to another in a bizarre quest for enlightenment. When he was a child, they went to India in search of the Buddha. Another year his grandfather was convinced the golden fleece was real and they hopped islands in Greece in search of it. They never stayed anywhere longer than a few months, as Nickolaas was always eager to seek out whatever lay beyond the next horizon. They saw monasteries in Tibet, walked through tulip fields in Holland, and watched lions in Kenya. “Itchy feet,” his grandfather called it. No sooner had Quentin settled into their lodgings in a new city and started befriending the hotel staff than Nickolaas uprooted him to pursue the next spiritual quest.

Sometimes Portia’s family joined them on their travels, which was probably why their friendship had been so steadfast growing up. They were two rootless children who understood each other. Aside from Nickolaas, Portia had been the only constant in his life. Their friendship had meant the world to him. To this day, his memories of those faraway sights were tinged by her bittersweet memory.

Portia
. Even her name stirred a wealth of painful memories. She had died eight years ago, but he had never been tempted to remarry, for if he and Portia were unable to make a marriage work, how could he trust his judgment a second time?

He looked at Sophie, her face luminous despite the dim interior of the mill as she showed Ratface how the old debarking drum worked. In a way, she reminded him of his younger self, before illness and despair tarnished his world. Hope was
a dangerous thing, and he had long since given up toying with it. He needed to keep his distance from Sophie.

It didn’t mean he should stand in the way of her dreams. This abandoned mill was not part of the original Dierenpark estate and his grandfather wouldn’t care what Quentin did with it. There was no logical reason he should deny Sophie’s request to use it to lure the Weather Bureau here.

Sophie and Ratface were giggling over the way a squirrel huddled on a narrow ledge outside the window to keep dry. Their laughter grated on him.

“As soon as it stops raining, we are leaving,” he said, cutting off their conversation. “Use the mill however you wish, I don’t care. Just stop that infernal tittering before you suffocate the life from me.”

The instant his words left his mouth he regretted them. Why couldn’t he do something nice for Sophie without spoiling it by being mean? His leg hurt, his head pounded, and he just couldn’t tolerate her giddy optimism anymore. The dark clouds of melancholy were closing in again, choking off whatever scraps of happiness he had in his life.