Page 23 of The Vanishing Place

Effie stood and started to pack their things, but she paused with the jacket in her hand, and the rucksack fell against her legs.

She couldn’t swallow properly. She pressed two fingers into her ribs, pushing hard into bone, trying to stop her body from turning on her.

No . Effie held out her hands—strange heavy lumps that didn’t belong to her—and opened and closed her numb fingers.

Not now . She hadn’t had a panic attack in years.

Effie gulped at the air, but her breaths had reverted to short, shallow gasps.

The bush pressed in on every part of her body, squeezing the air from her .

Fuck . Effie closed her eyes, trying to slow the frenzied tide of thoughts that pulsed in her skull, and when she opened them again, Anya was staring at her, almost close enough to touch, but not quite.

It was as if she was waiting to see what would happen.

Effie bent forward, resting her hands on her thighs. She had to breathe, to focus on the flow of air through her nose. She forced her eyes open and strained her neck to look up. Anya hadn’t moved. She just stood there, watching. Waiting. With nothing in her eyes.

Eventually, the air started to reach Effie’s lungs.

The sludge in her head began to clear and she stood up.

She took a deep breath, her lungs recovering, but the concrete block in her stomach didn’t ease.

Anya should have been sadder, more affected.

More something . When Effie had escaped the bush, she’d felt everything, as though the skin had been peeled from her body and she’d been rolled in hot embers.

And as they neared the hut, it felt like she was being skinned all over again.

Effie rubbed her hands over her face and gave Anya a small smile. But the girl just blinked and turned away. Almost as if she was disappointed.

Effie went to lift her rucksack when she spotted something glinting on top of the log where Anya had been playing. She walked over and picked it up. It was a four-inch hunting knife that June had given Effie. Next to it, four words had been carved into the wood.

Don’t disrespect the Guardian .

Effie frowned and looked up, the hints of rain dripping through the trees, but the girl was already walking ahead. Anya knew the way now.

They were getting closer.

—

Just over two hours later, without having stopped once, they reached the Roaring Billy River. Effie sat and tried to unclip her bag, the clasp jammed, but Anya didn’t stop.

“Wait!” Effie yelled, but Anya kept running. “Stop!”

Effie scrambled to follow her, but by the time she reached the river, Anya was in the water up to her knees.

She held her arms out, going deeper with each step.

Effie tightened the straps on her rucksack as the swift-flowing water swirled around her ankles.

She kept her eyes glued on Anya, who was already at the deepest section in the middle.

The current was too strong for her; the kid was too small.

And it was deep—the ends of her long red hair were moving in the water.

The image of Dad flashed through Effie’s mind, and Aiden’s little head lolling from side to side in the rucksack.

“Anya, wait!”

The river was too fast. It was too high after the rain. One misstep and Anya would be swept away. Within seconds, the river would pour into her, and she would be more water than child. Effie forced her way through the swirling current, the riverbed visible through the clear water.

“Anya!”

But remarkably, Anya started to rise out of the water, and then she was on the other side.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Effie fought her way across and rushed into the trees after her.

After ten minutes of bush-bashing, she spotted Anya, soaking and dripping and still.

Then Effie saw it. The hut. Right there in front of them.

Anya turned and looked at Effie, her clothes clinging to her concave body, and she pointed at the hut.

Go .

Effie set the rucksack down and signaled for her not to move, then she walked toward the timber deck.

The hut was smaller than she remembered.

Lesser almost. Diminished . But other than its size, it was as if no time had passed.

Effie gripped the hunting knife and took a deep breath, then she pushed the door open.

It was the smell that hit her first, like rotting meat and fruit.

The smell of death—of something that had once been human.

As she stepped inside, holding a hand across her mouth and nose, she saw the body.

It was splayed out in the middle of the room, on its back, naked from the waist up, with dried blood crusted across its bare chest.

Effie took a step closer and frowned.

There was something strange about the wound.

Unnatural. The two gashes, which had long stopped bleeding, were cut into a mark or a sign.

But as she leaned in to get a better look, a scream stole the air from the hut.

A terrible, harrowing sound. Effie turned as Anya rushed through the door.

She tore through the hut like a wild thing and threw herself onto the floor.

But not next to the body.

Not next to the lump of human.

The child threw herself to the bare floorboards, crying and whining, and started to claw at them with her fingers.