Page 20 of The Vanishing Place

Effie sped into Lewis’s driveway and jumped from the ute without bothering to take the keys from the ignition. She pounded on the door, picturing Anya hurt somewhere, bleeding and crying, and she started to shake.

“Jesus, Effie.”

The door opened and Lewis stood there, bare-chested, in a pair of tartan pajama pants. “It’s not even six.”

Then he paused, seeing her. Not the police officer. Not the stubborn woman he’d argued with the evening before. Just the little bush girl shaking on his front step.

“Jesus,” he said again, softer.

Then he opened his arms and she walked into them, pressing her head against his bare chest. For a moment, she considered never moving again, but it was Lewis who pulled away, Lewis who belonged to someone else now.

“What happened?”

Effie took a step back, righting herself. “She’s gone. I’ve driven twice around the village, but she’s gone.”

“When did—”

“Half an hour ago. I went into her room to check on her but she wasn’t there.”

Lewis stepped aside. “Come in.”

“No.” Effie shook her head. “We need to go now. We need to find her.”

Lewis reached out, his fingers brushing her shoulder. “Let me send a WhatsApp message to the village, get the locals looking, then I’ll chuck on some proper clothes. Five minutes and we’ll be back out there. I promise.”

Effie stepped past him into the house. She could still smell him on her, the warm earthy scent of his skin. “There’s a WhatsApp group for the entire village?”

“You know, for barbecues and village gripes mainly. The usual stuff.” Lewis shrugged. “Lecturing freedom campers on how to use a toilet and getting Instagrammers to piss off.”

A soft laugh escaped her and Lewis squeezed her hand—the gesture too fleeting—then he reached for his phone.

—

In less than ten minutes, they were side by side in Lewis’s police vehicle. Half the village was already out. Early risers, Lewis said, overly enthusiastic.

They drove the narrow Haast-Jackson Bay Road first, thinking Anya would have headed away from the town and off the main highway.

For twelve kilometers, the view barely changed.

Bush and shrubs lined the road, obscuring the Tasman Sea to their right, and thin transmission towers rose up every hundred meters.

Effie wound down the window and breathed in the salt air, letting the West Coast breeze wash over her. Eventually, she turned back to Lewis.

“She’s not here,” she said quietly.

“We’ll turn around at Okuru River.” Lewis nodded at the endless ribbon of tarmac. “It’s just up ahead.”

Effie looked out the passenger window, her mind clicking over the same two words, as her eyes scanned the verge. No body. No body. No body .

Lewis’s phone rang as they were headed back, and he pulled over.

“Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t try to touch her.”

He exhaled as he hung up, then he turned to Effie. But she’d heard enough of the call to make sense of it.

“Apparently, one of the locals—”

She closed her eyes. “Just drive.”

Neither of them spoke as they drove back to the village, the clouds gathering and darkening overhead.

By the time they reached the Koraha junction, the rain was battering so hard on the windscreen the wipers could barely keep up.

The start of the long one-lane bridge came into view, and Effie stiffened in her seat.

She watched as the blur of bodies emerged, the collection of spectators gathered halfway across the vast bridge.

Effie took a breath, trying not to hate them for it.

After the car had eased to a stop, she climbed out, pulled a jacket on over her shoulders and forced herself toward the circus.

She was a police officer. This was not new.

This was not shocking. People were the same everywhere.

“Where is she?” Lewis asked, shaking the hand of a man with a wavy mullet.

“About two hundred meters farther along.” The man nodded in the direction of the bridge.

The Haast River Bridge, 20 meters high and 750 meters long, was striking.

The vast strip of steel hung in the mist—grand and foreboding—before disappearing into the murky abyss.

Effie wiped the rain from her face, her heart pulsing in her fingertips as she followed the exposed length of road with her eyes, ready to jump into the gray void without hesitation.

“We all backed off to this passing bay,” the man continued, “after what the kid did to Mim.”

Lewis frowned. “How is Mim?”

“Pretty shook up. The kid proper went for her.” The man shook his head. “Like a wild thing set loose.”

Wild .

The word, the weight and sharpness of it, stabbed between Effie’s ribs and she turned away. She looked out at the bridge, the horizon drowned in fog, searching for a sign of life in the watery distance. A blot of color. A flash of movement. But there was nothing. Just a wall of gray.

“Don’t you listen to him.” An older woman stepped from the crowd. “I’m just grand. Barely a graze.” Her face was scratched and bloodied, her cheeks torn by tiny fingers.

“Mim.” Lewis touched her arm. “What happened exactly?”

“Poor child’s terrified, that’s what. One of the boys spotted her, loitering way out on the bridge, and I volunteered to walk across.

There was no sense us all trekking out and frightening the poor mite.

But the child didn’t want me talking to her, I’ll tell you that much.

The moment I opened my mouth, she ran for the barrier.

” An expression, too soft for the woman’s weathered face, settled in her eyes.

“A jump that high could break a thing like her. She’s nowt but skin and bone—”

“She was going to jump?” Effie stepped forward.

“She was definitely thinking on it. I tried to grab her”—Mim paused, touching a hand to her scratched cheek, and sighed—“but she darted farther along the bridge. Ran straight back to the railing. After that, I thought it was more dangerous for her if I stayed.” Mim looked right at Effie.

“It was like I was the thing she wanted to jump from.”

Effie peered back at the bridge. “I need to get to her. She’s my responsibility.”

Lewis nodded. “I’ll keep everyone back.”

“Their homes would be a good distance,” she replied.

“I’ll try.”

As Effie went to walk away, Lewis grabbed her hand. Like they weren’t strangers. Like they hadn’t been living separate lives for seventeen years.

“You got this, bush girl.”

Lewis smiled and Effie turned away, momentarily glad of the rain on her cheeks.

Of the water that masked her tears. It was pouring now.

Not a meek sort of drizzle, but the type of wet that sliced through your bones.

She ran a hand along the white railing and peered over the side.

The river surged below, swollen by months of rain.

Please be alive .

Thick sheets of sleet and mist blurred the road, making it impossible to see more than twenty meters ahead. Twenty meters of hope at a time, that was all she had. For twenty meters at a time, the kid was still alive.

Please be alive .

As Effie moved forward, her eyes were drawn to a smudge of color, a ball of limbs curled on the ground.

Oh god .

The Frozen nightdress. The child was there.

Huddled on the ground. Effie cleared her eyes.

Anya’s head was buried between her knees, the bones of her shoulders poking through the drenched cotton.

She would be freezing—probably hypothermic.

She needed warmth, dry clothing, a doctor and a kind voice. Now .

Except not this kid. Fuck . Mim’s scratches were proof of that. Effie closed her eyes, swearing and grinding her teeth, and when she opened them again, Anya was staring straight at her. Wild . An animal backed into a cage. Effie exhaled and stepped forward, making the girl flinch.

Small steps. No words. No talking .

Effie covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head.

No talking .

Anya stared back, unmoving. The moment stretched into eternity, then she nodded once, and Effie took another step forward.

Then another. Inching closer. The bridge hummed, the wind passing through the railings in a high-pitched whistle.

Effie stopped when she was a few meters away.

Close enough to see the hollow expression on Anya’s face.

Effie reached an arm out slowly, and the words slipped from her. “Anya, I just want to…”

Fuck .

Before Effie could stop her, Anya lunged at the railing and climbed over. Onto the wrong side.

No.

Effie threw a hand to her mouth, not letting any sound leak out, and peered over the side.

The fall probably wouldn’t kill her; the child wouldn’t reach enough speed to break bone.

But twenty meters was a solid jump, and there was no guarantee that Anya could swim.

Effie flicked her eyes back in the direction of the girl, and Anya thrust a hand out, fingers splayed.

Don’t come any closer . Effie held her hands up in surrender.

Anya was faced inward, with nothing but air beneath her heels.

She was trembling, but she was holding on, her knuckles and fingers white from the effort.

A good sign. A will to live. Effie reached out and held the barrier next to her.

Don’t jump. Don’t jump .

There was a calm area of water beneath the girl—the spot where she would likely land—an eddy where nothing moved, dead and black, waiting for her.

It was low enough that it would hurt. A lot .

Ten meters higher and she would die on impact.

But this height, if she got it wrong, would feel like hitting concrete. She would feel everything.

The elements whipped around them, but the girl stayed perfectly still, her eyes fixed on the river. Suddenly, the distant blast of a car horn tore through the mist and they both turned. Then Effie saw him—materializing through a gap in the clearing sky.

No .

Lewis stood next to his car. He was already out of his shoes and jacket. Ready to run. Ready to jump.

Effie gave a desperate shake of her head. Immediately, Lewis stopped and retreated.

She turned back to Anya, pleading with her eyes, gluing her to the railing.

He’s not coming. I promise. He’s not coming .

Anya seemed to consider her, to wait, and Effie used the moment to slip her hands behind her neck and unclip her pounamu necklace.

Anya watched as Effie held her arm over the railing, letting the dark green stone dangle above the river.

The silver chain slipped through her fingers toward the water, and Effie caught it at the last moment.

Anya gasped. “No.”

Effie looked across at her. “I won’t drop it,” she said. “But I need you to come back over the barrier.”

The girl nodded, as if the greenstone heart had some power over her. Then she started to shake violently as the cold cut into her nervous system and her arms trembled with the effort of holding on. Effie pocketed the necklace quickly and extended her arm.

A vacant expression washed across Anya’s face as she swayed on the edge, her heels bobbing in nothingness, and her left hand came away from the railing.

No!

Her exhausted body lurched backward, her free arm flailing in the gray void, then she collapsed.

Forward, not downward—not tumbling into air.

The child fell against the barrier and slipped into Effie’s grasp.

As Effie pulled her over the railing, the air stilled.

No rain. No noise. It was as if the world had skipped a beat, before reality seeped in and the two of them spilled onto the ground, their bodies tangled in a heap.

“Are you…” Effie began.

But at the sound of her voice, the girl stiffened and a fury glazed her eyes.

No talking. Got it .

Effie covered her mouth and started to push herself up. But Anya was already wriggling and kicking, tearing herself free. Then she was on her feet, running across the bridge. Across the river. Toward the line of bush and trees.

The bush .

Blood pounded in Effie’s head.

The bush . Of course.

She scrambled to stand. Anya wanted to go back to the bush. She wasn’t running away; she was running back. But she was going the wrong way; she needed to cross the river much farther up.

“The hut,” Effie screamed. Louder than the river. Louder than the wind.

Anya turned and stared, her long auburn hair whipping around her face.

“I can take you there,” Effie shouted. She pointed across the bridge toward Koraha. “But we have to go that way.”

Time slowed. Second after second, pulse after pulse, and neither of them moved.

Then the girl held out her arm.

Come .