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When the beloved tide clock in seaside Gullhaven falls silent, eleven-year-old Nora Finch follows lavender-scented clues into old boathouses and tidal tunnels. With Mr. Reed, Aunt Sal, Keon, and her dog Tuppence, she recovers the clock’s brass heart, faces a scheming planner, and helps the town hear itself again.
Before sunrise, the bakery windows glowed the color of peaches. Flour drifted through the warm air like dust motes in a beam of light. Nora Finch pressed her palms into the dough and felt it push back, soft and alive. The long wooden table was dusted white; her apron was already the same. Beyond the open back door, gulls called and the sea breathed against the seawall of Gullhaven.
“Listen,” Gran Elsie said, lifting her chin. From the square came a hollow, steady ringing, five notes that rose and fell like waves. The tide clock chimed the hour and turned its brass moon a sliver more. “Right on time,” Gran said. “It’s never late, not once, not since my father’s day.”
Nora wiped her wrist on her apron and stepped to the door. Across the cobbles, at the center of the square, the tide clock stood taller than the fishmonger’s awning. Its wooden case was carved with scallops and tiny boats. Behind the glass face, blue numbers swam, marked HIGH and LOW, and a small silver fish moved with the hands. A plaque on a post in front read, Please do not touch the tide clock. Town ordinance.
She loved the sound it made inside the bakery. It settled the morning into neat pieces: bake, glaze, cool, sell. Today the square was half fog and half sunlight. A dog with a rusty coat curled beneath the clock’s bench, one ear twitching. He had no collar and always seemed to know where the last crumbs fell. Gran called him Tuppence for luck.
“Rolls next,” Gran Elsie said, sliding trays into the oven. “Mind the timer.”
“I have the tide clock,” Nora said without thinking, and Gran laughed. It was the kind of joke that belonged to them. In the early hours, the clock felt like a friend who watched the door.
The door bell jingled. Mr. Reed stepped in, carrying a tin lunch pail and a long, narrow umbrella. He had a straight back and careful hands. A broken wristwatch hung on a chain at his vest, and he wore it like a memory rather than a tool. Nora liked the way he talked to machines as if they could hear him.
“How’s the sea today?” he asked.
“Smells like boiled kelp,” Gran said, handing him a warm bun with apricot jam. “In a good way.”
Mr. Reed smiled, all the thin lines around his eyes lighting. “The clock sounded crisp,” he said. “Crisp is a good sign.” He ate standing up, turning once to look through the window at the tower in the square, as if listening to something the rest of them couldn’t hear.