Page 26 of Echoes of the Sea (Storm Tide #2)

Guilford didn’t have a car, obviously. It also didn’t have a horse and carriage.

Or a bike. Or scooter. Or roller skates.

And Kip discovered the sea road was long.

Walking it took probably half an hour. The ocean lapped against the edges of the damp road, reminding him that it hadn’t been uncovered for long.

He wasn’t afraid of the sea the way Amelia was, but even he was nervous.

By the time he reached the shore, he wasn’t certain he had the guts to make the walk back.

Why in the world did the owners of the historical site think they had to keep things this precarious simply because it used to be that way?

No one visiting the place would feel like their experience was ruined because they weren’t threatened with drowning.

Guilford Village looked like any number of small English villages that Kip had driven through or visited or filmed in. Except the streets weren’t paved, and there were no streetlights or cars or SPARs. There was always a SPAR.

“Historical accuracy,” no doubt. But had there been modernization that had been ripped out when the place had been turned into a historic destination? That probably hadn’t gone over well with the locals.

Which brought to mind other questions: How many here were locals who lived in the area, and how many were simply hired to enact the roles of those displaced citizens? A combination of the two would likely be a powder keg.

Time for a charm offensive. They needed help up at Guilford House, which meant convincing someone to switch roles.

If that someone would make the switch permanently, that would get Amelia off the island and away from the sea.

She could also be removed from the creepy-friend-of-her-uncle part of the story that they were just starting, which was obviously making her legitimately uncomfortable.

He saw a few people as he walked along the high street.

Some stood in the doorways of their shops, dressed precisely as they would have been more than two hundred years earlier.

Two girls, probably in their early teens, hurried across the street up ahead.

Neither had a phone in their hand, which was a strange thing.

He could hear a conversation outside a shop door as he passed; the topic was Napoleon.

Napoleon. Not a single tourist was there yet, but they were still completely in character.

And living without electricity, probably without plumbing, definitely without a SPAR or a Co-Op.

There was, however, a pub. He’d gained a great appreciation during his years in the UK for the magic of dropping into a pub when a person had a problem to solve. That problem didn’t always get fixed, but he always left feeling marginally better about the world in general.

He stepped inside, pulling off his tricorn hat. Removing his hat had become a habit during The Beau. The place didn’t look seedy, like some of the locations they’d created for the show. A nice, local haunt was a far better option for a place tourists were supposed to enjoy visiting.

Kip counted eight people sitting about the place, gabbing and nursing pints. No one looked sketchy. No one looked like they’d ever even heard of the comfort of putting on an old T-shirt and well-worn jeans.

A man built on a scale roughly that of a rhinoceros whacked a tea towel over his shoulder. “Welcome to the Rusted Anchor, stranger. What brings you to Guilford Village?”

As greetings went, it was rather brilliant.

Tourists would eat that up. Maybe they thought Kip was a visitor rather than a colleague.

It would be so much easier to just tell them, but the people working at this place were stubborn about never breaking character.

“I’ve been working up at the house on Guilford Island,” he said.

That brought everyone’s eyes to him instantly. Dramatic.

An old man in the corner, his silver hair unkempt and boasting a couple days’ worth of scruff on his face, eyed him closely. “You’ve a strange sound to your speech. Where’re you from?”

Again with insulting his accent. What was it with the people here?

“America,” he answered, still using the accent they were intent on finding unimpressive.

Understanding dawned on all their faces, and a few even ahhed. Not very subtle acting for a bunch of people who embraced group mockery of a brilliantly managed British accent.

“Don’t know how you came to be employed up there,” the tea-toweled rhinoceros said, “but us’d advise against it. The sea’s an unhappy mistress in these parts. Her can’t be hidden from on Guilford.”

“I keep hearing about the sea around here, that the people don’t like it or don’t trust it. But no one will tell me the whole of it.”

The entire pub turned to look at the old man. Of course they did. The wizened elder of the village. If they’d gone this cliché on The Beau , they would have been canceled after only a few episodes.

The Gandalf wannabe rose and slowly walked toward him.

“Every-who hereabouts knows of the Tides of Time, as them’s called over at Loftstone.

Us’ve been brought up on tales of its merciless pull.

When the storms rage, the water swirls about the islands set in the bays of this stretch of the coast—swirls and whips and forms a spinning target that sinks ships and drowns doomed souls. ”

A geographical explanation for the legends everyone kept hinting at felt odd delivered in this over-the-top style. But everything about this place was unnecessarily dramatic.

“Should the lightning turn green and should it reach the water, the tragedy is doubled.”

Green lightning. Again. It had been mentioned in the book he’d read. And he’d seen green lightning during his dunk in the sea. “I read in a book that the green lightning opens a door.”

The man’s eyes pulled wide. His voice turned even more dramatic somehow. “A door through time.”

Time travel really was the plot line, then. “Why be so dedicated to the history aspect of this place if it’s going to be a fantasy park?”

Utter confusion touched every face. This was getting ridiculous.

Sticking to the plot and never breaking character even when it caused chaos was the kind of method-acting madness that frustrated an entire production.

Kip had never been that disruptive, yet he’d been the one tossed off a show he’d been a very crucial part of.

Stay in character no matter how stupid this is.

You need this job. “Miss Archibald is working tirelessly to put the house to rights so her uncle doesn’t take away her inheritance and make her live in poverty or misery.

” It already felt too melodramatic, so he didn’t add in the bit about forcing her to marry a probably lecherous man old enough to be her father.

And all that was mixed in with time travel, apparently.

A soap opera would struggle to sell this storyline.

“Is there a reason, beyond nervousness about the Tides of Time, that the people of this village are so indifferent to the misery of a lady who is in such a dire situation not of her making or choosing?”

They had the acting instincts to look somewhat guilt-riddled.

“Her uncle sat in here for the better part of two days,” a young man said, rising from his chair. “Him didn’t seem entirely terrible of a person, but there was something in his eyes I didn’t like.”

The rhino nodded his agreement. So did the rest of the pub.

“And that man what was with he made a person’s skin crawl,” the old man added.

“That man is likely the person her uncle intends to make her marry should she fail to set Guilford to rights.” Kip watched that sink in. For all their frustrating stubbornness, they were good actors. Just the right emotions flickered over their faces.

The young man, who now stood beside re-creation-Merlin, asked, “How much is needing to be done up to the manor?”

“Quite a lot. The place isn’t crumbling, but it needs repairs. I’m only one person and not nearly enough help to see to it all in the little time Miss Archibald has to satisfy her obligations.”

The young man exchanged a look with his aged companion. Nothing was said, but plenty passed between them. A debate, he’d guess. Were they allowed to change their characters’ locations or occupations? Amelia certainly seemed to think their assignments were iron-clad.

“I’ll work a spell up at the house,” the young man said.

That earned him wide-eyed stares from around the room.

The old man shrugged. “Him’s a rare one for going a-hoop. Us’ll not talk he out of doing what him wishes.”

And Kip was the one constantly being called out for his “odd” way of speaking?

“Watch yourself, nipper,” the old man said as his younger counterpart walked toward the door. “The Tides of Time aren’t merciful.”

“Them also hasn’t any power out of the water,” was the tossed-back response. “I’ll keep dry.” He motioned Kip out of the pub with a quick flick of his chin.

Apparently, this was their new side quest. Kip inwardly shrugged. Very little would surprise him about this job anymore.

Outside on the unpaved street, he popped his hat back on. “I’m hoping you have a name and a carriage. The sea road made for a long walk.”

“I’ve a pony and cart.”

Kip nodded. “That’ll do.”

“And I’m called Smudge, if that ’ll do.”

“Smudge? I’m assuming that isn’t your actual given name.”

Smudge grinned as they walked up the street. “I’d a fondness for the mud as a small child. So ‘Smudge’ I’ve been ever since. What’re you called?”

“Kip, though my given name is Kipling, and Miss Archibald calls me Mr. Summerfield.”

He was eyed with an evaluatory expression. “You seem Quality enough for she to call you that. But you’re doing tradesmen’s work, which’d make me think I ought to call you Kip. But that don’t seem fitting.”

“Being called Kip would be a nice change,” he said. “I’m not accustomed to the formality.”

“Things’re done differently where you’re from, I suspect.”

“Yes, America is quite different.”

They reached a mews—authenticity taken to the point that Kip could smell it long before he saw it—and Smudge quickly had a pony hitched to a rickety cart. No modern shock-absorbers to ruin the effect.

“How old are you?” Kip asked as Smudge drove the cart back toward the Channel.

“Twenty-seven, though I don’t look it.”

“No, you don’t.” Kip would have guessed twenty, if that.

The wheels rolled off the mainland and onto the narrow sea road. The ebb and flow of water was somehow less overwhelming in the cart. The vehicle offered no actual protection, and he ought to have felt just as uneasy. But somehow, he didn’t.

“If you’re willing to come help at Guilford,” Kip said, “then you mustn’t believe the tales about the Tides of Time and the green lightning and all that.”

“Oh, I more than believe it. I know it to be true.” Without showing the least hesitancy nor sounding the least rehearsed, Smudge pressed on.

“My grandmother was a traveler on those tides. Her was brought here to this inlet as a young woman, said her had been some hundred fifty years ahead of where her was dropped.”

Okay. A time-travel-family backstory. That was unexpected.

“Spoke of things now and then that I couldn’t believe.

But her didn’t want to accidentally change things to come, so her kept mostly mum about it.

” A bit of sea spray misted over them. “Grandmother weren’t the most clever of women—I’m not saying her was lackwitted or any such thing; her was intelligent and had her faculties intact right to the end—but imagining fanciful things wasn’t who her was.

Her couldn’t have invented the tales her told me. Couldn’t have.”

“What tales did she tell you?”

Smudge shook his head. “I’ll not risk changing those things that’ll happen in times to come. Her warned me not to.”

“Then tell me how she came to be on the Tides of Time.” That seemed a safe enough way to sort out what Kip was meant to have experienced.

“Her said her had been out on the Channel in a boat. A storm whipped up without enough warning for returning to shore. A wave washed she into the water.”

That sounded familiar.

“Her kept sheself above water as best her could. And in the midst of it all, the green lightning struck. Her said it reached clear to the water and lit it for just a moment.”

Kip hadn’t been paying enough attention to know if that had happened during his accidental swim. He knew there had been a green lightning strike, but he didn’t know any other details.

“And when that moment was over, the boat her had been on was gone, the time of day was different, and the sea was a touch calmer. But it weren’t until her returned to the village that her knew something had happened.

Gone were the trappings her was accustomed to seeing, modern things her said us’d struggle to believe. ”

Struggle to believe didn’t begin to describe it.

“How long ago did your grandmother arrive?”

“Be’est at least forty years now.”

“And ‘now’ would be the year ... ?” He let that dangle, hoping he didn’t get the answer he expected he would.

“1803.”

1803. A consistent year.

Those answers could have been coordinated. But no one could engineer storms on the sea. And no one could change the color of the lightning. He hadn’t told anyone what he’d seen, so they couldn’t have adjusted their story afterward to match his experience.

Historical sites could be un modernized. But too much of what he’d experienced at Guilford couldn’t be manufactured. Something was decidedly wrong here. And, though he felt like an idiot even considering the outlandish explanation, he was beginning to think he might know what that “something” was.