Page 19 of The Vanishing Place

Two pīwakawaka, their tails spread out like fans, darted between the trees. The birds had been following them for twenty minutes, flitting from branch to branch.

Effie hunched low in the ferns like Dad, quiet and still, with the gun on the grass beside her.

“There,” whispered Dad. “You can just make out her ears.”

Effie stared through the hanging fronds, in the direction that he was pointing. There was no clearing or cut-out trail—the bush ate them up, their bodies gobbled by a vast magical greenness.

“There,” he breathed again. “Can you see her?”

Dad had been back for two weeks, not long enough for her to fully trust him, but the harder-to-control parts of her—the bits that were made of Dad—wanted to impress him.

Effie peered into the silver beech leaves.

Every bit of her hurt; her legs and arms and feet.

There was a space between her shoulders that had started to throb, bruised from where the gun had been slung over her shoulder.

They’d walked all day—Dad teaching Effie to navigate—trudging through thick bush for so long that her legs had gone from tired to sore to numb. Then back to sore again.

She squinted. “I see her,” she squeaked. “I see her.”

“Shh.” Dad touched a finger to his lips. “You’ll spook her.”

The chamois looked up, turning her head in their direction. A brown band looped from either side of her nose, up and around the back of her horns.

“Right, Effie.” Dad’s breath was warm on her face. He smelled bad, like sweat and wet earth. “You’ve got this.”

“But…” The chamois was so alive. The blood beat through its body, pulsing just like Effie’s. “What if—”

“You’ll be fine.”

Dad lifted the gun, and Effie held it the way he’d taught her. Then she breathed. In and out. Not trapping the air in. Not letting it burst her open.

The small antelope was beautiful. Its summer coat was light, honey colored, and its curved black horns rose up like a crown.

“Now,” Dad said.

“But—”

“Now.”

Effie’s lip trembled, and she was suddenly more scared of Dad than the animal or the loaded gun. Dad’s voice had changed, just like that. Warm one moment, cold the next, like when the wind changed direction. Effie didn’t want this Dad.

She focused on the animal. Dad would come back if she just shot it.

She squeezed the trigger, forcing her eyes to stay open, and when the chamois dropped to the ground, Dad let out a proud yelp.

Effie beamed as he hugged her, but there was a strange metallic taste in her mouth.

She ran her tongue across the front of her teeth, licking away a thin coating of blood.

She must have bitten through her lip without realizing it.

Dad’s arms wrapped around her. “Well done.” His smile took up his whole face. “Your first chamois.”

“June won’t be happy.” She’d gone nuts when she found them practice-shooting behind the hut.

“Ha.” Dad laughed then. A proper belly laugh. “No, she won’t. But she’ll eat bloody good this week. Don’t think I can stomach any more lentils.”

His face lightened. Effie had done that. And she could see, hiding behind his eyes, the Before Dad. The Dad before Mum died.

“Come on, little Rimu.”

Rimu . Effie’s throat got smaller. Or something in it got larger. Dad hadn’t called her that in months.

Dad did the next bit himself, and Effie stood a few meters away, watching through her fingers.

He boned the body out, keeping the cape and skin, and made a backpack out of the body.

Effie felt queasy as he hauled the dead carcass onto his shoulders.

From behind there was no Dad, just a lolling chamois head.

He’d half-hacked its legs off too, and the stumps flopped about as he walked.

It made Effie want to hurl onto the grass.

Thankfully, Dad let her walk in front after a bit.

A couple of hours later, after multiple navigating fails by Effie, they made it to the unfamiliar hut.

Dad had marked the secluded hut on the map with a black dot, and told Effie to lead the way.

It was only three grid squares north from their hut—three squares and a trillion identical trees.

Exhausted, they sat at the wooden bench and Dad made them dinner.

It was strange, staying somewhere else in the bush.

When Effie was Aiden’s age, she’d thought that their hut was the only one in the world.

But this hut was bigger than theirs. It had two bedrooms with bunks, as well as a living area.

But it was grotty. Mum would’ve hated it.

Effie had needed to cover her mouth when they’d walked in, to stop from breathing in the stench of death.

Possum . Dad had found it in one of the bedrooms and chucked it outside.

The hut was filled with cobwebs and dead flies.

Effie had wiped down the table with a scrap of cloth and found a brush to clear the floor a bit.

She’d also found a charm bracelet when she was brushing under the sofa and slipped it onto her wrist. She didn’t wear jewelry other than the pieces Lewis made for her, and her arm looked quite pretty.

“Where are we?” asked Effie.

“We’re just at the end of the valley. The Thomas Range is on that side”—Dad nodded to the right—“and Cuttance is on the other. Moeraki is straight over that ridge there.” He nodded north.

Effie groaned. “But we walked for ages .” Learning to navigate was the worst. It all looked the same. Just green, green, green. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“You’re doing great.” Dad smiled. “Tracking’s bloody hard, and that chamois didn’t know where it was going.

It wasn’t just you taking us in circles.

” He winked. “But heading straight down the valley, without getting lost, probably would have taken about forty minutes.” His smile widened.

“Maybe more with all of them bloody pee stops.”

Effie glared at him, then she turned away, hiding her smile. “You’re a dope,” she muttered.

She glanced around the hut, confused by it.

The kitchen was way fancier than theirs, with big metal surfaces and taps and stuff, and there was expensive furniture, like a store-bought chair and a steel bed in one of the rooms. There was even a gate around the fire and matching cutlery in the drawers.

But the place was yuck. Even with the possum gone, it still smelled of animal droppings and must.

“What’s this hut called?”

“I don’t actually know.” Dad shrugged. “Don’t reckon it has a name. Some rich guy owns it.”

Effie grimaced. “Well, he’s not very tidy.”

Dad chuckled. “I doubt he’s stepped foot in here in years. There are loads of private huts dotted around the country, buried away in the bush. Some just get forgotten about, I guess. Rich punters with too much money.”

“How’d you find it?”

“Oh…” A shadow passed across his face. “Just some hunting trip a couple of years ago.”

“Well, you could have cleaned up a bit. It’s gross.”

Dad grinned. “It’s grand. Just a bit of dust.” He tossed Effie a couple of carrots from his rucksack. “Bit of an airing and she’ll come right.”

Over the next hour, they chopped and ate and chatted, then headed to bed.

Dad took the dead-possum room with two bunks, and Effie took the room with the bunks and the fancy bed in the corner.

There was no chance she was sleeping with the possum ghost, and Dad snored like a deer in rut so she wasn’t about to share.

Dad had laughed at that, spitting out his coffee, and it made Effie laugh too.

She lay her sleeping bag out on the steel bed and turned on her head-torch.

She’d never had a room to herself, or even a whole blanket, and the space felt endless without Tia and Aiden.

No noise. No warmth. Effie picked up her sleeping bag and slipped into one of the bottom bunks.

It was better being squished into the small space, easier to get comfy without all that extra room.

Effie lay flat on her back, staring at the bunk above, but she didn’t turn her head-torch off.

The dark didn’t scare her—it was no different from closing her eyes.

But there was something odd about the hut.

Effie turned her head, sending brightness into the faraway corners, then she snuggled into her sleeping bag and inched away from the wall, leaving the light on.

It was a moment before her pulse settled enough to focus.

And then she saw it. Squinting, Effie reached up, her fingertips brushing the slats of wood in the base of the bunk above her.

Carved into the wood was a name—sort of strange and flowery.

Probably for a girl. Effie whispered it out loud as she touched the letters.

Then her eyes caught on a fleck of white, where a piece of paper was poking out, jammed between the mattress and the slats.

Sitting up, she pulled the paper free and opened it.

As she read, the words slipped under her skin.

He has me shut up. Help me .

It was signed off with a single letter.

D .

Effie shuddered, her body both sweaty and cold, and shoved the note back between the slats. Then, tumbling from her sleeping bag, she hurried from the room and into her dad’s bunk.

“Effie? Are you okay?” Tiredness made his words long and heavy.

“I don’t like it here,” she whispered.

He curled his arms around her, constricting the punch of her heart. “Sleep, little one.”

Effie felt for the bracelet on her wrist and twirled one of the charms in her fingers—the one shaped like the letter D . Over and over. Until at some point she fell asleep, and the silver D fell limp on the mattress.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when the chamois was strapped to Dad’s back and they’d walked for long enough that the blisters on Effie’s heels throbbed, that she noticed the bracelet was gone, probably slipped off when they were tidying up.

Effie was about to ask Dad about it, and the note too, when he turned and looked at her.

His face was all serious, and the expression emptied her mind out.

Don’t leave again. Please don’t leave .

“I made a deal with June,” he said.

She nodded. Maybe she nodded. None of her was working right.

“June’s agreed to stay on another month with us. To help with the baby.”

Us . Us was good.

“Under one condition,” he said. Then he smiled. “Afterward, I’m to take you kids to live in Koraha for six weeks.”

Six weeks .

“With you?”

“With me. At June’s house.”

Warmth flushed through Effie’s face. “And I’ll see Lewis?”

Dad laughed. “Yes. You’ll see Lewis.”

Effie adjusted the gun on her back and marched on.

Six whole weeks .

By the time she made it to bed, her head was spinning with thoughts of town and ice cream and Lewis, leaving no space for anything else.