Page 12 of Echoes of the Sea (Storm Tide #2)

If Kip was reading it correctly, he was supposed to view Guilford as a technologically advanced house. Perhaps during this summer season, the focus of the historical site was going to be inventions of the very early 1800s, common things that were considered new and state of the art for that era.

The fictitious keeper of this journal declared that his experiences before Guilford were comparatively simplistic. Perhaps at this time, America was less advanced than England. It fit his dual role of laboring carpenter and gentleman of leisure.

He wasn’t willing to play the part of an idiot simply to satisfy some American stereotype, but he could certainly acknowledge, when tourists were around, things that were considered state of the art in the early 1800s.

Hopefully those things would be pointed out to him.

Maybe they were recorded in the journal.

Why did the people running this place think they had to do things the hard way?

The people here are clearly surprised at my lack of understanding of these new and novel things. It is both frustrating and concerning.

I hold to my initial impression that something decidedly odd and, I begin to fear, a little duplicitous is occurring here. I hope, by continuing to record my thoughts and experiences, I will be able to sort out what it is and find either my place here or my escape.

It was not the tone Kip would have expected the entry to end on.

The man made it sound as though he were trapped and unable to leave.

Was that the note the historic site wanted to strike?

Surely people being held hostage at an estate was not such a common historical occurrence that the people running this place would want to lean into it.

Kip closed the diary and tucked it into the drawer of his bedside table.

He’d have to look through it later, perhaps when he was permitted the role that sat far closer to Tennyson.

In the meantime, he needed to go find a tool shed, which, he suspected, would not include a bandsaw or power drill.

Would he be expected to make actual, legitimate repairs around the estate, or was he going to be demonstrating an approximate idea of what would have occurred?

Whichever was the case, surely he didn’t have to actually do it until the site opened for the season.

He pulled on the heavy wool coat he’d found in the trunk, grateful for it, and made his way through the house, aiming for the back door.

He spotted a few things here and there that were indeed in need of repair.

He could see to those things as a way of demonstrating nineteenth-century techniques.

He didn’t know what any of those techniques were, but he suspected he could guess.

He suspected, in fact, that he would have to guess.

He stepped out into the cold ocean air. The weather would, he hoped, grow warmer as the summer went on.

But he suspected it would never be truly warm.

He’d often joked with Malcolm that he hadn’t been warm since moving to London for university.

He’d thawed out only when he’d spent time in California doing work in the States.

Now he had a job on an island that was, by Malcolm’s own description, prone to storms and bad weather. This job had better bring him the kind of work he actually wanted to do, or he was going to have a very hard time thinking it was worth it.

He walked along a path edging a lawn that didn’t appear to have seen a lawnmower in years probably.

Somewhere on these grounds was the outbuilding with his tools.

He hoped it wasn’t very far, otherwise he’d be lugging equipment and wood back and forth over ground he suspected was wet more often than not.

A stone wall to his right intrigued him.

They’d done some filming in some historical homes, and walls without roofs out on the grounds generally enclosed gardens.

Would this isolated, sea-surrounded house have a formal garden? It was from a time when fancy people and fancy gardens went together. Still, it felt like a mismatched combination at Guilford. He found the iron gate leading inside and decided to take a peek.

It was, in fact, a very traditional English knot garden.

Nearly all of it was overgrown and in need of attention.

But a section was neatly manicured and tended.

And in the midst of that section was Miss Archibald, kneeling on a small rug beside a flowerbed, a bonnet tied tight on her head, a heavy and serviceable coat in the style of the era buttoned against the wind.

She wore leather working gloves, so perhaps she, too, had been assigned a less than elegant job on the island in the morning hours.

Malcolm had said the site was in need of more actors and that was why he’d been able to get Kip this position. One of those actors had to be the gardener, and Kip had to be the carpenter. It seemed “understaffed” was an understatement.

He stood there, debating whether to walk over and talk to her and try to get a few questions answered.

He might have done it, too, except there was something very peaceful about watching her.

She seemed very much at home in this garden, no matter that even if she were a gardener at her actual home, she would have done so in a more modern setting with more modern tools.

And he suspected she hadn’t taken this acting job with the intention of working with plants all summer.

He was also curious about whether her limp and use of a cane was something required of her character or something real.

Damp, uneven paths through unkempt lawns was a dangerous thing for someone who wasn’t entirely steady on her feet.

He hoped she wasn’t being required to be in actual peril for a stupid summer job.

He watched her a moment longer. She really was gorgeous.

He hadn’t realized until seeing her in the book room the night before that he sort of had a thing for redheads.

Maybe it wasn’t redheads in general but this sort of soft auburn, with waving tendrils fluttering about.

And she had a few freckles, which he did know he liked. Always had.

But he knew the rules, and he knew the expectations. And he suspected the actor playing the role of Marsh really would pummel him if he created drama on set, or on site, or ... He needed to figure out how to refer to this place.

Kip stepped away from the gate and continued on the path, keeping an eye out for a tool shed that probably would look like some old, tiny outhouse or something.

He doubted there would be a sign that said Find Super Old Carpentry Tools Here.

But after a solid fifteen minutes of wandering around, seeing nothing promising, he began to wish there were a ridiculous amount of signage.

In fact, it was weird that there was no signage at all.

Surely tourists weren’t expected to simply guess how to find their various destinations when visiting the site.

They might be provided with maps or tour guides, but if there were tour guides, why had Kip not met any of them?

That was exactly who he needed to talk to.

They would know what was expected and what tourists would be told and what the owners would be looking for.

Maybe they simply hadn’t arrived yet. Maybe they also found this white-knuckle insistence on never being out of character exhausting and chose to avoid it as long as possible.

The night before, Miss Archibald—he really did need to find out what her actual name was—had told Mrs. Jagger—even if he found out what her actual name was, the idea of thinking of her as Mick Jagger’s mom was too much fun to call her anything else—that the road connecting the island to the mainland was currently underwater.

Perhaps the director of the site, the tour guides, the people with the information were in the village attached to the site.

The lighthouse keeper had rowed Kip to the island in a dinghy, but it seemed no one used boats to get to and from the village when the sea road was underwater.

Just when he was about to declare his search for the Ye Olde Hut of Tools a futile endeavor, he crossed paths with a young boy, probably ten or eleven years old, whistling as he walked down a very narrow, relatively muddy footpath.

“Boy,” Kip called out, uncertain why that was the word that popped out of his mouth. It got the kid’s attention though. “Miss Archibald asked me to do some work about the place, but I can’t find the outbuilding that has all the carpentry tools.”

The boy nodded and twitched his head in a clear command to follow him.

In 1805 or 1817 or whenever this was supposed to be, a boy of this age was meant to show a little more respect to an adult, but Kip was too tired of walking around aimlessly to bother being as in character as everyone else.

He was sticking to his accent and dialect, and that would just have to be enough for everybody.

“Are you the one Mr. Ivers brought in from the storm last night?” the boy asked. His accent sounded a great deal like everyone else’s, except Miss Archibald. And himself.

“That’s me,” he said. “And before you ask, I do not sound like I’m from around here because I am an American.”

The boy nodded. “Everywho knows that. It’s all anywho’s talk-ing about.”

Everywho . Anywho . A re-creation of the way people spoke in this area at the time they were pretending to be living in?

“And how many people does that ‘everywho’ encompass? The island doesn’t seem overly large.”

“With you here now, there’s eight of we on Guilford Island.”

Eight. That was decidedly understaffed.

“And the baby.”

Kip stopped on the path. “A baby?”