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links were non-stop. Some enterprising person had even created an animated gif that moved between Marc saying, “Later, alligator,’ hefting that chainsaw above his head, and the big-eyed anime crocodiles pleading, Beware the Croc-nami.
    Emme found it hilarious. Apparently, anyone with an internet connection found it hilarious.
    It wasn’t as if Marc couldn’t laugh at himself. Really, he could. And often.
    The problem was his future as an actor in the industry.
    Would he ever be able to live it down? Or was he now doomed to forever be the Croc-nami guy?
    Though if knowledge of the time portal were leaked to the press, Marc could claim that it was a promotional stunt for a new movie. A time travel romp with Marc portraying a Navy SEAL turned swashbuckling pirate. It would be more believable than actually having a time portal in one’s cellar.
    Ninja Pirate 4 , anyone?
    He could only imagine the heyday that FauxPause would have with that juicy bit of news.
    Driving past the front of Duir Cottage with its jaunty flowers, Marc parked the car in the old stables and collected his groceries from the backseat, pondering the blackmail problem.
    Even if the world found out about the portal, it wasn’t as if the portal were a revolving door, allowing any passerby to stroll through. It wouldn’t work for just anyone.
    No. The portal had a mind of its own. An agenda.
    Jasmine, resident mystic and knower-of-all-things-weird-and-arcane, explained it best.
    Past and future formed an eternal now . So to the portal, time was not a river, but a vast ocean where the lives of every person who had ever lived existed simultaneously as concentric rings rippling on its surface. As if each life were a stone dropped into the water by some unseen hand. And where the expanding ring of one person became tangled with that of another, the portal provided a link, a pathway that could be traversed.
    But only those who had a connection with someone in the past could travel the portal. Therefore, as a method of transportation, the portal was decidedly unreliable. It usually just sat in the cellar, a slab of carved rock pulsing with unseen power. Marc had spent the last two years jokingly touching it, rubbing it like a lamp, tempting fate to release a genie.
    Nothing ever happened.
    Not that he expected anything would. How could he—a football-loving, martial-arts-doing, twenty-first century actor—have anything in common with a nineteenth century person? The very idea was laughable.
    Shrugging, Marc walked through the overgrown back garden to the kitchen door, balancing his groceries while he dug a key from his jacket pocket. He had the key in the lock and the door open before he noticed that the room was not as he left it.
    Nothing had been disturbed per se. The modern kitchen with its marble countertops and stainless steel appliances sat gleaming to his left. The huge, rough-hewn dining table still rested directly in front of him. And the enormous fireplace with its wingback chairs and overstuffed sofa beckoned cozily to his right. Everything in its place.
    However, the unexpected addition of a beaver top hat and old-fashioned greatcoat draped over one of the dining table chairs caught his attention. Stark and ridiculously anachronistic.
    Beyond the table, he had a clear view of the central hallway. The door down to the cellar—and the time portal—stood open. A large antique-looking wooden trunk sat in front of it.
    Every one of Marc’s senses instantly ratcheted to high alert.
    Silently, he set his keys, phone and bag of groceries on the wooden kitchen floor. Stepping fully inside, he quietly closed the door. He scanned the room, noticing no one, hearing nothing.
    Had he interrupted someone just arriving in 2014?
    The entire set-up smacked of planning. One didn’t accidentally fall through the portal with a trunk that size. No, someone had prepared to do this. And was that someone still in the cellar, bringing up more items?
    Most importantly,