The Thief of Broken Toys (11 page)

“Her young son,” he said. Frowned. That
was strange.

“Morning,” Rachel said, coy and demure.
“What can I get you this morning?”

“The usual,” Ray said, because he could not
remember what his usual was. He felt uncertain
and unsettled. Something was missing, and it
wasn't something about the village or its people.
“Rachel . . . what's happened to me?”

“What?” she asked, looking him up and
down. The shy flirt had left her now. Perhaps
being a single mother only ever allowed her
the briefest opportunities, the shallowest
flirts.

“Something happened, and I don't think I can
remember what. There's a room in my house,
and
something's
missing
from
it.
It
should
matter to me. I slept in there last night, and . . .”
He trailed off, shaking his head and wondering
what her nervously flitting eyes meant.

“Are you . . . okay?” she asked.

“Yes. Yes, I'm fine.” And he
was
fine. He felt a
twinge of guilt when he eyed Rachel's breasts,
but Elizabeth had left him. It had been long
enough now to make it right for him to move
on. There was that disturbing feeling, leftover
from some strange dream, but he knew that
would fade as the day wore on. So yes, he was
fine.

Fine.

“That was Toby's room,” Rachel said quietly.

“Toby,” Ray said. Something pulsed within
him — a surge of heat and pain, quickly fading.
He gasped softly, glanced around the bakery —
empty but for him and Rachel — then back at
the woman before him. “Who?”

“Ray?” she said.

“Toby who?” And he meant it. There'd been
that reaction, like something passing through
him.
Goose walking over your grave
, he heard
his long-dead mother say, and he smiled at her
precious memory.

“Ray?” Rachel said again.

Toby who?
He turned and left the bakery
without his bread and cakes. Rachel did not
call him back, though he felt her watching him
go. And the village felt hollow, like a thing of
place and substance replaced with something
light and false, and Ray felt a hollowness
opening at the heart of him that was far larger
than he could ever hope to understand.

He started walking, and the weight of that
hollow place followed.

We see him walking away from the bakery,
and perhaps from the hope he'd had for a
new life. Inside, Rachel is watching him go,
confused and a little scared. For months now
she has been entertaining the idea of she and
Ray becoming involved. She's dreamed about
it, and sometimes fantasized, but now he is
a stranger walking away, and she no longer
knows his gait.

Ollie, precious to her, is her whole world.
She'll not risk that world by becoming involved
with someone. . . .

“Unhinged,” she says. She starts whistling
uncertainly as she lays out another tray of iced
cake slices.

Outside, along the street, Ray walks.
There's pain gone from his heart, but in its
place is something worse. It's not always best
to forget. Sometimes, to remember is all we
have.

We should know. We've been doing this
long enough, and remember it all: every loss,
every breath of deceit, every illness and broken
bone and impact of family fist on family flesh.
It wears us down, and sometimes we drown
beneath the weight of it all. But there's always
that moment of
floating
when something
works so well, and sadness is mended as easily
as a broken toy.

We move quickly away from Ray who will
grow to be our guilt — but we'll live with it —
and away from Skentipple. Been there too
long. Other places to go.

We drift inland far from the sea, until the
solid weight of another place draws us down
with the gravity of pain.

TIM LEBBON is a
New York Times
-bestselling
writer from South Wales. He's had twenty
novels
published
to
date,
including
The
Island
,
The Map of Moments
(with Christopher
Golden),
Bar None
,
Fallen
,
Hellboy: The Fire
Wolves
,
Dusk
, and
Berserk
, as well as scores of
novellas and short stories. He has won four
British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award,
and a Scribe Award, and has been a finalist
for the International Horror Guild and World
Fantasy Awards. He has also been a judge for
the World Fantasy Award. In 2004,
Fangoria
named him “one of the thirteen rising talents
who promise to keep us terrified for the next
twenty-five years.” Only nineteen years left to
go . . . better get busy.

Forthcoming
books
include
The
Secret
Journeys of Jack London
for HarperCollins (coauthored with Christopher Golden),
Echo City
for Bantam in the US and Orbit in the UK,
Coldbrook
for Corsair in the UK,
30 Days of
Night: Fear of the Dark
for Pocket Books, the
massive short story collections
Last Exit for
the Lost
from Cemetery Dance and
Ghosts and
Bleeding Things
from PS Publishing, as well as
several other projects not yet announced.

He has written several screenplays, and
is currently developing two TV series with a
British TV company.

Several of his novels and novellas are
currently in development for screen in the
USA and UK, and he is working on new novels
and screenplays.

Find out more about Tim at his website:
www.timlebbon.net
.