The Thief of Broken Toys

by Tim Lebbon

  The broken toy went into his coat pocket, and five minutes later he was making his way up the coastal path toward the cliffs.

  The storm’s growth tracked his progress up out of Skentipple. When he left his home, the rain was light, the wind gentle but starting to gust harder. The coastal path curved up and out of the village, and the higher he walked, the stronger the wind and more persistent the rain. It was as if the weather sensed the village held some semblance of civilization, and that the cliffs were the wilds.

  Ray loved walking up here. Being alone was part of it, because circumstance had made him the loner he’d always believed he was meant to be. But there was also an element of feeling closer to Toby here than anywhere, even in his home. The little boy had loved walking, adored the views, had been fascinated by nature and the wildness of that place. It had started as a toddler’s eternal interest in somewhere new, but by the time he died, Toby’s love of nature was becoming obvious. Like most kids, he was drawn to dinosaurs and the strange mysteries they represented — monsters in a world where adults said there were none — but animals he could see, hear, and sometimes touch had always held greater allure for him.

  Once, they had found a dead seagull tucked beneath a huge sprout of ferns. It had taken Ray a couple of minutes to approach, because there had been no obvious injuries. He’d seen the birds close up many times before — troubling holidaymakers for food, or crying out when their eggs had been holed in the annual cull — and he had always respected their size and aggression. But like any living thing of any size, seeing it motionless looked so wrong. There was something unearthly about a creature that should be revelling in movement being so still. He’d edged closer, reaching out his hand, Toby hanging onto his leg not in fear, but for comfort because his father was there with him. And just before he’d touched the bird, Ray thought he saw it move. But it was only an errant breeze twitching one of its complex, beautiful feathers.

  Toby had looked the same that morning when they found him. Motionless, silent, not there. He’d worn the features of their son, but he had never been so still.

  And there were so many things to collect, so many of nature’s wonders to marvel over or question, especially when you viewed the world from a child’s eyes. Toby had seen so much that Ray had always taken for granted, and Ray had been forced to buy several books just so he could keep up with his son’s demand for information. Plants and flowers needed categorizing and pressing, and Ray had made a small book-sized flower press for his boy. Small mammals needed naming, their tracks identifying, habitats understanding. Ray had learned at the same time as Toby that there were shrews, badgers, rabbits, stoats, rats, voles, moles, hedgehogs, foxes, and perhaps even deer living on the stretch of wild countryside above the village. There were birds to watch through binoculars, species identified by their type of flight or song, and the two of them had often spent hours sitting up there watching birds fishing, or dropping shells onto rocks to break them open. It had become a revelation for Ray, and in some ways he’d found himself more surprised at the variety of wildlife around them than Toby.

  Because Toby was a little boy who expected amazing things. His mind was wide open and prepared for there to be a multitude of discoveries yet to make. His sense of wonder had been alive and on fire, and Ray’s . . . perhaps that had dwindled and died with the withering effects of age. He’d often watch his son stop to root through undergrowth or examine a caterpillar beneath a magnifying glass, and grow sad at the idea that wonder was such a difficult commodity to retain. More often than not he would have simply walked on.

  Elizabeth used to complain when the two of them embarked on their expeditions during bad weather. But Mummy, Toby would wail, some of the animals only come out of their houses when they know there’s no one there. It was an incredibly mature observation for someone so young — he was acknowledging that the world existed without him, as well as with him — and Elizabeth had never complained again.

  With Toby, he had never been scared. But now he felt the wild inside him, not just all around. The cliff path at night was an alien place to Ray, one where his son no longer existed, shadows throbbed with malice, and memories flitted through the darkness like teasing ghosts.

  He paused and turned around, looking back the way he had come. He could still see a few of Skentipple’s more remote buildings, but most of the village was hidden from view behind the shoulder of the land. It was built in an inlet in the coast, a natural harbour protected from the sea by the high cliffs on either side, and from here he could see little more than its glow. Rain falling over Skentipple was set aflame by the lights, and it seemed that huge fires danced in the air.

  Elizabeth was down there somewhere. Still in the Flag and Fisherman perhaps, several drinks in and relaxing more in Jason’s company. His hand might be higher up her thigh now, little finger nestling against the place only Ray had seen and touched and tasted for the last ten years. He wondered what she thought of as she drank and laughed at the big fisherman’s jokes, whether she sometimes saw Toby watching her through the dusty windows, or heard him asking her what she was doing. Ray had never actually seen or heard his dead son, but he felt his presence everywhere. It’s your memories where he’s still alive, someone had told him shortly after his little boy’s cremation. He couldn’t even recall who she had been. An aunty, perhaps, or one of Elizabeth’s friends. Ray had been experiencing a moment of sheer panic at what they had done, destroying what little was left of Toby, and he had tortured himself for not burying the boy and allowing him the chance to fade. That wasn’t really him, the woman had said, and she had touched Ray’s forehead, thumb reaching down to smudge his tears. This is the place where he still lives.

  Not in Heaven, Ray had said, but it had not been a question. Then, and ever since, he had coveted the comfort that faith gave some people, but it had never been a part of him. It’s just a story, son, he’d told Toby. Made up.

  Sometimes he thought about Toby’s last moments, and what he had been dreaming when he died.

  He turned away from the village and continued walking. He wanted to go far enough to leave its glow behind, to a place where the only light was the occasional glimpse of the half-moon through storm clouds, speckling the wet ground in a million places and glancing from the wild waves. The ground was wet, and slippery in places where the bare path had turned muddy. This route was used extensively during tourist season, but now that the year’s end loomed, it was only the occasional hardy local who came this way, walking their dog or their lover or themselves. To his right lay the cliff’s edge, farther down the slope and shielded from him by growths of low hawthorn bushes, brambles, and the remnants of the summer’s ferns. He knew if he worked his way down lesser-trodden paths, he would draw much closer to the cliff, but he was mostly safe where he walked now.

  A gust of wind brought the scents of the sea, and rain stung the right side of his face. He heard a cough, and cleared his throat before realizing the sound had not come from him.

  Ray paused, motionless beneath the weather doing its best to set him tumbling, or rolling, or rushing back for shelter. A chill ran down his back like a drip of icy water, and he squinted as he scanned the path ahead of him. A dozen steps from where he stood, slightly uphill, a holly tree leaned toward the sea, and he remembered that directly beyond it the path veered left and down a short series of uneven, naturally formed steps. A shadow stood beneath that tree now, so still he wondered whether it was his own. But the moon was to his right, not behind him. And then the shape dropped away along the path.

  “Hey!” Ray called, because the complicit storm of rain and wind needed breaking. He stumbled ahead, slipping and almost sprawling in the mud, heart thudding and chest pulsing from the shock. When he found his feet again and paused beneath the holly, the path ahead and below him appeared empty. He moved on, stepping carefully down the rocky steps. Movement ahead drew his attention again, and as he glanced up, his foot slipped. He reached out and grasped a branch hang
ing above him, howling as several leaf spikes pierced his palm and fingers.

  The shadow moved along the path and then paused again, as if drawing him on.

  Ray let go of the branch and put his hand to his mouth. He tasted blood. It doesn’t matter, he thought. Even if it is someone, I don’t need to meet them. But something about the vague form lured him on, and he followed.

  He passed by several places that held memories of Toby, but kept his eyes on the figure. It maintained the same distance between them, however fast or slow Ray moved. Once, he started running along a stretch of path he knew to be relatively level and unhindered by protruding stones or roots. The shadow also ran.

  At last he paused, examining his stillbleeding hand in the moonlight. Rain diluted the blood and swilled it across his palm and wrist, inside the arm of his coat to stain the fabric in there.

  “Fuck you!” he shouted into the storm, and he turned around to walk back the way he had come. At home he’d build the first fire of the winter, lock all the doors, close the curtains, and his house would become his castle against the world. He would open a bottle of wine — just for a glass or two, because drinking never numbed the pain — and listen to the storm defeated against the walls. If memories came to haunt, so be it. If tears came, he would let them flow. But he could rest with the knowledge that he’d at least commenced clearing Toby’s room. Over the next few days the room would change, and as it became a spare room for visitors that never came, so he too would try to move on. He’d always hated symbolism — he prided himself on his straight thinking — but sometimes, since Toby’s death, it was the only way he could see things.

  “Have you brought me a broken toy?” a voice said.

  Ray spun around. An old man stood several feet from him along the path. His voice had carried well, though he’d spoken softly.

  “Who . . . who are you?”

  “Just an old man.” He eyed Ray up and down, expression neutral. He wore a long black raincoat with a hood pulled over his head, and he stood leaning forward slightly, right hand propped against his right knee. It was a calm pose, as opposed to a frail one.

  “What toy?” Ray asked. How did he know? What was this? He brushed his hand across his coat, feeling the uneven shape of the Ben 10 watch in his pocket.

  The old man blinked, and water gathered on his long eyelashes.

  Ray took a step forward to see the man clearer. It was an unconscious decision, and as his foot lifted and moved forward, he was assaulted by a flood of thoughts: stupid move, show him I’m not scared, he’ll be startled, who is he, what’s he doing up here, he knows about the toy but he can’t, so he doesn’t he doesn’t know, and I’m going closer even though —

  “Who are you?” Ray asked again as his foot hit the ground, and the man took a hasty step backward. His eyes grew wider, and he stood up straight. For the first time Ray noticed the walking stick, and the way the man’s pale hand was gripped around the handle. But something about his expression was false. It wasn’t quite a smile he wore, but it didn’t quite vanish, either.

  “Told you, boy. Just an old man.”

  “Out in this storm?”

  “So you going to give me the toy?”

  “I don’t recognize you from Skentipple.”

  “I don’t live down in the village,” the old man said. “Go there sometimes, but got no need to live there.” The wind continued to blow, and rain hushed down all around them, but the conversation was clear on both sides. Ray had to raise his voice, but the man seemed unconcerned.

  “So where do you live?”

  “Near enough.” He looked Ray up and down again, his gaze finally settling on the coat pocket.

  “I’ve got no toy,” Ray said, harsher than he’d intended.

  The man seemed to lose interest, turning to look out to sea at where a ship’s lights blinked on the horizon. He transferred his walking stick from his left hand to his right, and reached up to scratch his scalp. The movement lifted the hood and, facing the moon, Ray saw his face for the first time. He was extremely old, skin creased and sagging from his face. His eyes were wide and intelligent, but gravity and time had pulled down the flesh around them, giving him a permanently sad expression. A few wisps of grey hair protruded from the hood, and his chin and cheeks were white with stubble. His jaw was strong, and Ray knew for sure that he still had his own teeth.

  “You should be getting home, then,” the man said. “No need to be out on a night like this when there’s sorting to be done.”

  “Did you walk from along the cliffs?” Ray asked, nodding past the old man. It was at least three miles to the next small village, up and down treacherous and challenging paths even in bright sunlight.

  “No, son,” the old man said. “And . . . really, I can mend it. You want me to. It’ll help.”

  “I told you, I don’t have a fucking toy for you to fix! What is it with you? Don’t you just — ” A more violent gust of wind roared in, forcing rain almost horizontally before it, and Ray turned from the sea. The rain struck his back hard as driven hail, and when the gust died down and he turned back to the old man, he was just as he’d been before. Hood pulled forward a little more, perhaps. Leaning a little heavier on his cane. Ray didn’t think for a moment that the man hadn’t felt the gust, but he seemed completely unbothered by it.

  “Just keeping a promise will set you free,” the old man said, and yet again his voice carried through the storm. “Well, if you’re not me, that is.” Then he turned and walked back along the path.

  For a moment Ray considered going after him, but what could he really gain? The guy was obviously on another planet. He felt a moment of concern and responsibility — the old fool was walking along the cliffs, farther into the wild, and the storm was gathering strength — but he’d said he didn’t come from the village anyway. Maybe he had a shack out there somewhere, or a little hut hidden up on the moors. Even though Ray and Elizabeth had lived here for ten years, they were still considered newcomers by some of Skentipple’s oldest families, and perhaps this man was a village secret.

  Ray ducked from another withering blast of wind and rain, and when he looked again, the man was gone. No shadow, no sign of movement. But Ray was not that mad, nor that far gone. He had talked to an old man up on this cliff, and that old man —

  He had known about the broken watch.

  “Damn it,” Ray muttered, rain running down his face and onto his lips. It tasted of the sea. His hand still stung from the thorns, as if reminding him that it had been hurt as well, and he tried to examine the wounds in the moonlight. But he could not focus. He kept glancing around at shadows threatening to crowd in. Far out to sea, lightning stabbed the horizon.

  He started back toward the village, moving quickly along the dark path. The moon had retreated fully behind the clouds now, and the only trace of illumination came from the reflected glow from the clouds’ underside. Skentipple’s borrowed light guided him in. He slipped several times, but managed to remain standing. Water flowed across the path on its journey toward the cliff edge, and he wondered what would happen if he submitted to that flow.

  After Toby died, Ray had considered suicide three times. Once he’d gone so far as to walk up here to the cliff top and explore a less-trodden path, one that led down past an old stone bench buried deep beneath a bramble bush and skirted close to the cliff edge. He’d stood on that path for some time, the ground ending maybe ten steps in front of him, and all he’d needed to do was force his way through the twisted heathers and gorse that grew to the edge. That had been three months after Toby died, and three days after Elizabeth moved out. He’d stood there, analyzing in a dispassionate, objective way his reasons for wanting to die. And much as the world without his son was a terrible, empty place, he hated the trace of self-pity he could not help feeling. If he fell, it was Elizabeth he’d be thinking of, and how she would react to his death.

  He’d sighed, and then glanced left along the cliff. Just in view was the regular
edge of a stone wall. It was closer to the cliff’s edge than him, and he’d leaned forward trying to make out exactly what it was. A building of some kind, he thought. A small hut, maybe, buried by plant growth, surely never used. He’d wondered at someone loving this view so much that they’d gone to the effort of constructing something up here. And then he’d sat there for a long time, listening to the sea, smelling gorse, feeling the gentle warm breeze against his face. . . .

  It took twenty minutes to get back to the village, and by the time he reached his home, his limbs were shaking with exertion. His clothes were sodden and heavy, and the final climb up the paths and steps to his front door almost defeated him. But he made it inside, hiding from the storm and drawing curtains against the cheery lights of the village.

  He set the open fire in the living room, and as the rolled newspaper burned and the wood caught, he stripped. The warmth from the fire was almost instantaneous. He unfolded a rack and hung his clothes, then remembered the Ben 10 watch.

  Have you brought me a broken toy?

  It wasn’t in any of his coat pockets. Ray searched again, making sure he checked each pocket thoroughly. Then, naked, he went through the kitchen to the back door, turning on all the lights and looking on the floor. There was no sign of it.

  So you going to give me the toy?

  He went back to the living room and checked the coat again, then his trouser pockets, then retraced his steps to the back door one more time. He flicked on the outside light and opened the door, forgetting his nakedness as he went out beneath the small porch and scanned the broken stone path leading to the small garden gate.

  The watch was gone. He’d dropped it. I have to go and find it, he thought, but the storm had reached its full fury now, and Ray suddenly felt more weary than he’d realized. He shut the back door and checked the kitchen clock.

  It was almost midnight. He’d been up on the cliffs for two hours.

  “Tomorrow,” he said to the terrible empty house. “I’ll go and find it tomorrow.”