the keeper's cottage · day 829 · dawn

Fogbound morning at the cottage

Fog clings low off the water, swallowing the lighthouse and muting the surf to a dull hiss. Kevin stands at the stove in the dim kitchen, kettle steaming, the barometer on the wall reading 1030 and falling. Jenny sits on the porch step wrapped in a blanket, one leg propped on a stool, the ankle wrapped in fresh gauze and sea-beet poultice, a sketchbook balanced on her knee.

Thick fog rolls off the water, swallowing the lighthouse and keeping the island in isolation. Kevin and Jenny begin the morning inside the cottage as the air pressure drops, signaling a change in weather.

🔧 Kevin16:15

Kettle's boiled. Mug's clean if you want it.

pour two tin mugs of coffee, set one on the porch rail beside her blanket, keep the other at the stove

💭 peek at the thought

Barometer dropping faster than I'd like. She's been on that porch since before first light — ankle's no better, maybe worse. Can't fix what I can't see, and she won't let me look proper. Coffee first. Then the radio check. Then I'll find a reason to get close enough to check that wrap.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny16:16

Thanks. The fog's thick enough to hide a ship today.

Reach for the mug, fingers wrapping around the warm ceramic, and watch the steam rise into the grey air.

💭 peek at the thought

My own is throbbing in time with the tide, a dull, heavy heat that makes the fog feel thicker.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin16:16

Supply boat's due in five days. If the fog holds, they'll wait for slack tide at the bar.

lean against the doorframe, cradle my mug, watch the fog bank over the water

💭 peek at the thought

She's deflecting. Talking weather instead of the leg. The fog's real enough — can't see the lighthouse beam, surf's a whisper — but that's not what's keeping her on the step. She's watching the water like it might bring something. Or take something.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny16:17

I hope they have the right antibiotics. The salt is getting everywhere.

Take a slow sip of the coffee, the heat grounding me, and look down at the half-finished saltbeet sketch on the page beneath my hand.

💭 peek at the thought

Five days is a long time for the ridge to hold and even longer for this infection to wait.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin16:19

Cache is sealed. Oilcloth and wax. Doxy and metronidazole both. Fourteen tablets each.

set my mug down on the porch rail, crouch beside the stool without asking, peel back the gauze edge just enough to see the wound margin

💭 peek at the thought

Salt's not the problem. The infection tracking past the poultice line is. She's naming the wrong thing — salt, fog, supply boat — anything but the red line I saw creeping toward her knee yesterday. The antibiotics in the ditch bag are fourteen days old. Buried cache. Might still work. Might not. She knows that. She's documenting the wrong war.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny16:19

Don't touch it. It's still moving up.

Pull my leg back slightly, wincing as the movement stretches the skin, and grip the blanket tighter.

💭 peek at the thought

He's looking at the red line like it's a structural crack in the dock.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin16:21

Jenny. Let me see. I'll do it right. Scalpel's sterilized. Fresh poultice ready. Pine resin in the mix this time — turpenes slow the spread. You know the protocol.

stay crouched, hands open on my knees, not reaching, waiting

💭 peek at the thought

She pulled away. Fast. The wince told me more than the gauze would've — pain above the ankle now, calf maybe. "Still moving up" means lymphangitic spread. She knows the word. She used it three days ago. Three centimeters in six hours then. Now? Could be past the knee. Fourteen days of antibiotics in the cache. We're eight days from the boat if it comes on time. If the fog lifts. If the bar holds. She won't let me debride. Won't let me look. Won't swallow the pills without water first — saw her do that yesterday, dry-swallow like pride keeps infection out. My hands are steady on engines, on hulls, on radio aerials in a gale. On this? They shake.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny16:21

I know the protocol. And I know it's angry.

Reach down and slowly peel back the edge of the gauze, exposing the red, angry skin of the infection.

💭 peek at the thought

He wants to be useful, but the island is the one winning today.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

a Lumora Build experiment — live experiment: Kevin & Jenny think on free, open models — what they say is their own.