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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.
    â€œDamn 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