Until the Dawn Read Online Free Page B

his grandfather had taught him to fear. Quentin had taken the boy onto their hotel balcony that overlooked Central Park and carefully explained there was no curse haunting their family. It all sprang from the jealous ramblings of people who took delight in the misfortunes of rich people. It had taken almost an hour, but Pieter finally relaxed enough to be willing to leave the hotel.
    Then there were the problems getting the carriages up the hill. When Quentin went to town to arrange for another carriage, some morbid tour guide filled Pieter’s head with dark tales thataroused every one of the boy’s old fears. Then Quentin had stupidly fired the servants before he’d learned where the food, the privy, or the candles were.
    At least they weren’t hungry. A pot of stew had been simmering on the stove, and it was an explosion of flavorful seasoning, tender vegetables, and succulent beef unlike anything Quentin had ever experienced. Over the years, he had dined at the finest restaurants in Europe, but nothing compared with that stew. Perhaps they were all overtired and starved, but the moment they tasted the stew it was as if they were eating ambrosia from the heavens. And that Dutch sweet cake . . . with eight hungry men, Pieter, and a governess, each of them got only a single slice of cake, but it was sublime. Tensions had eased, people relaxed, and for a few moments it had felt like he’d made the right decision.
    Then the sun started setting and Pieter’s fear of the dark made him realize they didn’t know where the lanterns were. The deepening gloom seemed ominous, but Quentin insisted they remain at Dierenpark even if they couldn’t find the lanterns. This journey to the ancestral Vandermark estate was too important to turn away before their mission was complete.
    “There is no reason to fear the dark,” Quentin reasoned. “The earth has rotated away from the sun so that the people in China and India can enjoy the light. There is nothing evil in the dark. In a few hours the sun will be back.”
    “Grandpa says that at night goblins come out of the swamps to look for children who got caught outside. They dance around in circles on the lawn.”
    “And you believe such things?”
    Pieter nodded. “That’s why mushrooms spring up in circles overnight. That’s what Grandpa said.”
    Quentin sighed. His grandfather had cared for Pieter for most of the past year while Quentin recuperated following his latestsurgery, and Nickolaas Vandermark had planted the seeds of superstition about the family curse into Pieter’s gullible mind. Nickolaas was actually Pieter’s great-grandfather, but it was a mouthful and simply easier for the boy to call him Grandpa. Pieter embraced his grandfather’s endless superstitions far too easily, and now Quentin had to undo the damage.
    “Pieter, I want you to repeat after me. If I can’t see it or touch it, it doesn’t exist.”
    Pieter did as instructed, his voice heavy with skepticism.
    “The world is a predictable and rational place,” Quentin continued. “Science can tell us precisely when the sun will rise and set. There are no goblins lurking in dark corners or hereditary curses that afflict innocent people for no earthly reason.”
    “Then why did my mother die?”
    Quentin turned away to gather his thoughts. The last thing he wanted to discuss was Portia’s death, sparked in part from her own irrational fears of the family’s curse. He had to wash these poisonous superstitions from Pieter’s mind before they ruined the boy. He had so little time remaining to guide Pieter into manhood, and he’d sit here until sunrise if it helped Pieter conquer his fears.
    “Your mother died from cholera, not because of a ridiculous curse,” he said patiently. “Repeat after me again. If I can’t see it or touch it, it doesn’t exist.” The world operated on scientific principles, and he would allow Pieter no crutch of superstition in learning how to survive in it.
    It was