Page 18 of Echoes of the Sea (Storm Tide #2)
Kip had once been voted one of the industry’s nicest actors. But after another dinner of strange and unfamiliar food, which he once again chose to eat in his room, and another frustrating trip to the oh-so-luxurious outhouse, he was ready to have an on-set meltdown for the ages.
He didn’t grow frustrated easily. Even when he was annoyed or anxious, he worked through it quickly and moved on. But Guilford Island was starting to get on his nerves.
If he still had a phone—and electricity—he would send some very colorful descriptions of the situation Malcolm had arranged for him.
Then Malcolm would probably rent a helicopter and come get him.
It might be entertaining to watch the method-acting crowd attempt to interact with a helicopter while in character.
He didn’t want to go to the drawing room and be “Kipling Summerfield, gentleman of antique leisure.” He didn’t fully trust himself not to be frustrated, and Amelia seemed particularly in need of patience and humor at the moment.
He lit a candle on the small round table by the window in his bedchamber and plopped down in the chair next to it with the journal that had been in his costume trunk. That, at least, was meant to give him some idea of who he was supposed to be while at Guil-ford.
He flipped past the first entry he’d already read, the one about the people being strange and the writer thinking there might be others in a similar situation. It was too on the nose, but he could forgive the poor writing since it was the only reason he had any idea what was going on.
The second entry was dated the day after the first one, 350 or so years ago.
The re-enacting was supposed to be taking place a century after the journal was dated.
The set designer had a good eye for detail, but the journal’s slightly worn appearance wasn’t quite right.
It should look older. Still, the designer had also done a very believable job of writing in old-timey script.
They’d opted, in The Beau , for an only slightly outdated style so it would be easier to read. But this was Guilford Island. Authenticity was more important than anything else.
Kip had to work at deciphering it, but what else was he going to do with his time?
13 May 1692
My initial feelings of confusion, I assumed, were the result of discombobulation after having spent as long as I did in the water.
My physical disorientation, I felt safe in assuming, had also caused a mental disorientation that had lasted longer.
But I have been here a week, and I am more confused than ever.
This character, who was meant to be informing Kip’s, had also been fished from the water. But that hadn’t been planned. There was no way the director of this historical site could have guessed that would happen. It was more than strange; it was unnerving.
The questions I ask of the resident family are met with confusion. I do not think it is a matter of them not knowing the answer but rather not even understanding why I would ask the question.
Also unnervingly familiar.
When I speak to them of very ordinary and common things, they respond with more bafflement still. They cannot possibly be ignorant of the very simple things I have mentioned, and yet that is precisely how they respond.
Could it be that I am the victim of a very complex plot? I can think of nothing I have done to deserve such treatment. What could be accomplished by undertaking such treatment of a hapless traveler?
The people in this place are pleasant despite this odd behavior. The island itself is beautiful. Still, I find myself in a position of wishing to offer a warning to anyone else the cruel tides might bring to this place of mystery and confusion.
Something is very wrong on Guilford Island.
So he was supposed to feel confused and frustrated?
Why couldn’t he have just been given a character sheet?
He could at least have been given some tourist talking points and a list of open days and hours.
Maybe whoever concocted this approach had assumed Kip would arrive with a working phone and could just pull up the webpage and check those things.
17 May 1692
I am choosing to record on this day a most unsettling conversation I had with a member of the resident family.
I asked the youngest gentleman of the family, who had shown himself to be of a kind disposition and entirely in command of his faculties, what the date was.
I felt certain, despite my experiences in the sea, that I knew the date, or would be, at the very least, within a day or two of accurate.
I had asked in the hope of correcting my entries in this diary, should they be incorrect, but his answer has upended me.
He tells me it is the 21st of August—in the year 1773. He said it without hesitation, without affect. Indeed, his answer was given as though he were hardly even thinking, precisely as expected from a person being asked such a mundane question.
While I am not entirely certain of the day, I know the month to be May. Of greatest upheaval to my mind, however, is that I know the year to be 1692. I know it.
I know.
Wait, time travel? Was this historical site actually some sort of fantasy-enactment amusement park? That could actually be really fun.
But no. The amount of attention given to strict historical authenticity wouldn’t make sense. Having no bathroom facilities wasn’t a big plus for a sci-fi park.
Kip set the diary on the table beside him, thinking. A person who hadn’t time traveled but thought he had ... Was he supposed to be playing someone who was a few donuts short of a dozen? Maybe he was supposed to have sustained brain damage from nearly drowning in the sea.
But the owners of the place couldn’t have guessed he would be tossed into the ocean by a freak storm.
None of it made sense. Not a single bit of it.
Yet the entries matched so closely what he was experiencing that he couldn’t dismiss them.
The other people there were pretending to be confused by the things he said when none of it was actually confusing.
And then they pretended to be even more confused by the fact that he was confused by their confusion. Just like the journal described.
Guilford didn’t make sense as a fantasy role-play excursion.
So what was it, really?
The door to his room flew open without warning.
The sudden rush of air blew out his candle, but there was still dim light from the fire.
He hadn’t yet gotten the knack of igniting it with flint and steel, so he spent a lot of time in the evenings hoping it didn’t go out.
Again, the adherence to historical accuracy was way over the top.
Mick came bounding over to him. First, Jane the morning before, followed shortly by Amelia, and now Mick. He really needed to start locking his door.
The boy held out a wooden contraption of some sort, one easily held in one hand. “My toy is broken. You can fix it.”
“I’m only a carpenter in the mornings.”
Mick eyed him with that same look of confusion everyone here had perfected. How could he not understand the reference, even if he didn’t recognize that it was kind of a funny line? Mick must have known the dual parts that Kip had been assigned.
“That was a jest, Mick,” Kip said. He was pretty sure jest was a more historical word to say than joke . But what did he know? He was as confused as the rest of the cast was pretending to be.
He eyed the “toy” as Mick handed it over to him.
It wasn’t something he was familiar with.
Though there had been child characters on The Beau , he hadn’t paid much attention to any toys they had played with in scenes.
There were some moving parts that he suspected were meant to be flapped back and forth. One of those parts was hanging loose.
“I saw a bird,” Mick said. “But it wasn’t a gull. I usually just see gulls. I don’t know what kind of bird it was.”
“Did you try googling it?” Kip asked while he studied the toy.
“Did I what ?”
Kip rolled his eyes. Always in character, even the kids.
“The Iverses’ baby is trying to say ‘Mick.’” The boy rolled right into a new topic. “All him says now is ‘mum’ and ‘da.’”
“Maybe we can teach the baby to say ‘Kip.’ That’s an easy name.” The hanging part of the toy did seem to be the part that wasn’t working.
“Is that your name?” Mick asked. “Kip?”
He nodded. “Short for Kipling.”
Again, Mick jumped topics. “Miss looked sad tonight. I don’t like when her looks sad.”
That pulled Kip’s attention away from the misbehaving toy and back to Mick once more. “Did Miss Archibald say why she’s sad?”
He hardly knew her, and she was participating in this make-Kip-think-he’s-losing-his-mind strategy, but she hadn’t been acting when she’d confessed to being afraid of the ocean and feeling trapped in this job and having a long history of being mistreated.
“Her didn’t say. Probably her’s lonely. It’s only Mrs. Jagger, Mr. Marsh, and Jane here at the house with she.”
“Miss Archibald and Jane are the same age. They could be friends.”
Mick looked at him like he was entirely off his rocker. “A maid and the mistress of the house?”
Were they observing the social hierarchy of the nineteenth century to the point that the person selected to play the role of mistress was relegated to isolation?
The separate lives of servants and those who employed them was touched on in The Beau , but there was friendliness between those characters. And the actors themselves were friends.
“Jane says you have a drawing on your arm and on your chest, and it is not the sort of drawing that can be washed away. I told she a person didn’t have drawings like that on their skin, but her said I was too little to know.
I think her was telling tales. Why would her have ever seen your arm and chest? ”
“Because I have not yet learned to lock my door.”
The little boy sucked in a breath. “You do have a drawing that won’t wash away?”
“I’m sure you’ve heard of tattoos.” He eyed Mick, truly growing more confused at the boy’s unwillingness to break character. Children on set often slipped up during takes .
Mick shook his head. “What’s that?”
“I will not be the facilitator of your education.” Kip held the toy up. “There’s a pin missing from this hinge here; that’s why it’s not holding together. Have you seen a long, narrow piece of wood or metal, probably shaped like a cylinder?”
“What’s a cylinder?”
The boy was eleven years old. He absolutely would have learned that in school by now. Which brought up another question.
“I didn’t think school had broken for the summer holidays yet,” Kip said. An eleven-year-old actor who was working instead of being at school was supposed to be getting schooling through an on-set tutor. Was the historical site flouting that law too? “What’s the date?”
“The Iverses’ baby had his birthday a week ago. That’d make today the sixteenth of May.”
That couldn’t be right. It was the beginning of April. Maybe it was May 16 in this fantasy world they were all creating, but why change the baby’s birthday?
Kip needed to get Mick to step out of character for a minute. “How long have you worked at Guilford? Is this your first summer?”
“I told you yesterday I’ve been here years and years.”
“And do you always begin your summers here this early?”
“Summer starts when nature wants summer to start. I’m here either way.”
“You’re here year-round?” That didn’t make sense. The site wasn’t open all year.
“Where else would I go?” Mick shook his head. “You’re strange, Mr. Kip.”
I’m strange? “What’s the year?”
“You don’t know what year it is?”
“I do,” Kip said. “I’m wondering what year you are going to say it is.”
“1803.”
The site was re-creating life in 1803; that was helpful information. “What year is it really though?”
“1803.”
“I mean in reality. In real life.”
“1803.” Mick’s confusion was giving way to what almost looked like worry, exactly like it would if the year were 1803 and someone didn’t believe it.
Kip would have to suggest Malcolm recommend Mick to casting directors. The kid’s acting was incredible. Of course, he’d have to warn them the boy was unnervingly method.
“Meet me at my work cottage in the morning, and I’ll see if I have something to replace the missing pin.” He handed the toy back to Mick. “If not, I’ll have to make something to replace it.”
Mick looked partially disappointed but not entirely discouraged. “Yigh, Mr. Kip.” It wasn’t a word Kip knew, but context told him Mick had agreed to the plan.
As Mick made his way to the door once more, Kip called out to him, “Where is it you live, Mick?”
“In an attic room,” he said.
“They make you sleep in the attic?”
Mick chuckled. “Not the attic with all the old, dusty things, Mr. Kip. An attic room, where the servants would be if there were enough of they.”
“And you’re up there all alone? Who’s looking after you?”
“I look after myself.” There was an implied “duh” in that. On that cheeky remark, Mick continued out of the room.
A place with no electricity. A young family raising an infant in a house that wouldn’t pass even a basic safety inspection.
An eleven-year-old boy who didn’t seem to have any schooling, who ran wild on an island with no safety precautions, and who lived alone in a house with no one to look after him.
1803.
It was authentic to that time. Too authentic.
“The truth is staring you in the face, Kipling Summerfield. It’s right there looking at you. But this truth’s a hard thing to see.”
His eyes slid to the journal still lying on the table.
The character who had written it had insisted he’d found himself in a different year.
He’d written, using old-fashioned words and handwriting, that he had time traveled.
Even if that was supposed to be the storyline enacted this summer at the historical site, sticking to it in a way that endangered children didn’t make sense.
Something else was going on at Guilford.
“Something is very wrong on Guilford Island.” More of the journal writer’s words flooded back through his mind.
1803.
Nope.
But there was absolutely nothing modern in this place, including people’s worldview. It was almost as if they were actually in 1803.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
He snatched up the journal and tossed it into the drawer of the bedside table, then shoved the drawer closed.
Nope.
This place was weird and confusing, and he wouldn’t be sad when the summer was over. But it was just a stupid job, something he and Malcolm would laugh about later.
“The truth is staring you in the face.”
Nope.
Absolutely not .