Page 25 of The Vanishing Place

The late afternoon glow spilled through the windows, creating a pool of white light around the two bodies.

A dead man and a broken child.

Except for Anya’s whimpers, softer now, the hut seemed to be holding its breath, waiting in silent expectation.

Slowly, Effie moved forward and reached out toward Anya.

But she turned and snarled at Effie, her face wet with tears and snot, and Effie pulled her hand back.

Without a word, the girl pressed her face to the floor, then stretched her arms out as if trying to hug it.

Effie turned to look at the body, the pungent smell scratching the back of her throat. The man lay on his back with his arms at his sides. His mouth and eyes were wide open, but there was nothing behind them. No life.

“Please.” Effie pressed her fingers to her mouth. “Please, no.”

Carefully, she knelt down beside him and slid a trembling hand behind his neck.

His skin was cold and loose, the outer layer already sloughing from his bones.

She lifted his head slightly, then peered under his neck.

As she saw it, her body lost all sense of weight and solidness, and a sob escaped her.

“I’m so sorry,” she managed.

There at the base of his neck was a small purple splotch. A birthmark.

Four .

With her chest clenched like a fist, she leaned over and pressed her lips to his forehead, kissing the six-year-old boy that she’d left behind. I’m so sorry . Her heart ached and her fingers quivered as she closed his eyes—the empty eyes of a fully grown man.

“I’m so sorry, little brother.”

Forcing herself to think like a police officer, Effie scanned his body.

But there were no signs of harm other than the shallow cuts to his chest, forming a crucifix.

Trembling, she pulled her phone from her pocket—still without service—and started taking photos, capturing the lifeless mass of her youngest brother.

Vomit burned the back of her throat as she zoomed in, snapping the religious symbol.

With each photo, a thought tugged at her—there was no knife, no sign of the weapon that had been used to cut into him.

Which meant someone must have taken it. That Four hadn’t done it to himself.

“Mum.”

Effie turned at the whisper of the girl’s voice. Anya was still curled into a ball, her cheek pressed against the floor.

“What did you say?” asked Effie.

She moved closer, but Anya shielded her face with her arm.

“Please,” breathed—begged—Effie. “I need you to tell me what happened.”

She shook her head.

“I know it’s scary,” said Effie. “And I want to help you. But it’s hard for me to do that if you won’t talk to me.”

“I’m not allowed to,” Anya said eventually, her words muffled by her arm. “He’ll punish me.”

“Who?” Effie stiffened. “Who will punish you?” She glanced behind her, her skin suddenly cold. “Four? Did Four hurt you?”

“I’m not allowed to talk to you.”

Effie looked at the bloodied shell of her brother—at the baby she’d fed and washed and rocked to sleep—then turned to Anya.

“Okay.” She paused, trying to think. “What if you just nod and shake your head? Would that be okay?”

Anya looked at her, but she didn’t move. She stayed coiled up like a fetus with her eyes glued on Effie. Finally, she nodded.

Effie adjusted her position on the floor so she was sitting next to Anya, shielding her from Four’s body.

“Did Four hurt you?”

Anya shook her head.

Oh, thank god .

“And was he dead when you ran away?”

A nod.

“Is this where you live?”

Another nod.

“With Four?”

Anya shook her head.

“With your mum?”

A nod.

Effie closed her eyes. “Is your mum…is your mum’s name Tia?”

Anya nodded, and a flood of emotions filled Effie’s chest, choking her.

She swallowed. “I really am your aunty.”

Anya looked at her, then she turned over so her back was to Effie.

“Sorry, I…” She stared at the child half-made of her sister.

Effie burned to know where Tia was, to know if she was still alive, but she couldn’t ask, not yet.

It was too much for the child. And every minute that passed worried her.

They needed to get away from the hut. Effie glanced back at Four and took a breath, needing to think like a police officer.

To focus on the dried blood and the absence of a knife, and what that meant.

On who or what might still be in the trees, watching them.

“Anya,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, but we can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”

The muscles stiffened beneath the child’s paper-thin skin, holding her to the spot.

“I know I said I would take you home. And we will come back, I promise,” said Effie. “But first, we need to get help. We need to find out what happened here and to make it safe for you.”

Anya rolled over and stared at her, her green eyes wide and cautious, taking in Effie’s every word.

She was clever—Effie had witnessed multiple examples of her intelligence; the girl wasn’t confused or intellectually stunted.

But she was traumatized, and she was naive, and that made her unpredictable. Vulnerable.

“I’m a police officer,” said Effie. “Like Lewis. So it’s my job to help people and to keep them safe. And right now, to keep you safe, I need to take you back to Koraha. Just for a short while. Then other police officers, like me, can come and find out what happened to Four.”

The trees rustled outside, and a branch rattled against the roof.

“Then, if you want, you can come back here.”

Anya tilted her head to the side, her big green eyes seeming to look straight through Effie.

“Do you know where your mum is?” Effie asked gently.

She waited. She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

Then the girl shook her head.

Effie swallowed the stab of disappointment, then slowly she held out her hand.

“I promise,” she said, knowing she shouldn’t. “I promise to help you find her. But now we need to leave.”

Without a word, the girl stood and walked past her. Then she opened the door, and Effie followed her out to the deck.

“I need to go back in,” said Effie. “Just for a few minutes.”

No response.

“Just stay here.” She pointed toward a chair with a blanket hung over the arm. “But if you see anything, anything at all, shout for me.”

Silently, Anya turned and sat down. She pulled the blanket over her legs.

Next to the chair was a box of coloring pencils, crayons and paper.

The girl pulled one of the sheets of paper out and started to draw a cross in the top corner, just like the one carved into Four’s chest. It occurred to Effie then that everything here belonged to Anya.

The chair, the blanket, the crayons—they were all hers. This was her home.

“I won’t be long,” said Effie as the girl drew two more crosses.

She stepped back into the hut, alone but for Four. Even from the other side of the hut, the smell was suffocating. She coughed and walked farther in, trying to move through the crushing wave of emotions. She had to block it out. This was why she’d come. Why she’d walked into the bush without Lewis.

Effie pulled her phone out to take more photos. The moment it became a crime scene, the hut would be taken from her. It would be wrapped in yellow tape and swabbed and gutted. This was her only chance to find something, anything, to hint at what had happened to her family.

She moved with care, touching as few things as possible.

She checked under the sofa, behind the piles of kindling and under the sink, but the knife wasn’t there.

Someone had taken it. She worked her way around the small hut, the traces of memory lingering in every item.

The past was right there, in every creak in the floor and every cold draft of bush air.

Effie walked over to the far end of the room and reached for the curtain that shielded the sleeping nook.

It was the same curtain that had hung there for thirty years.

As she touched the material, she could almost hear the whispered giggles of children and the sound of small bodies shuffling for space.

She paused, like a part of her knew what the tattered screen was hiding.

Effie tightened her grip on the curtain.

There was something wrong with the hut, something more than just the body.

There was an emptiness to it, the type of barrenness that laced the air of a prison cell.

Effie took a breath and pulled the curtain back. And her heart broke.

A set of chains hung from the wall, secured by a bolt, just high enough to detain a child. On the floor was a small bundle of blankets and a pile of books. Effie took a moment to quell the fury in her stomach, then she lifted her phone, capturing every inch.

After a second walk around the main room, careful not to disturb anything, she cracked the front door open and peered at Anya.

The girl hadn’t moved. Quietly, Effie closed the door and moved on to the bedroom.

The bed was made, and the room was neat and tidy.

But other than the faint smell of laundry soap, there was no sign of life.

No photos on the walls, no pictures drawn by Anya, no hints at Tia’s three decades of life.

Pulling the sleeves of her jumper down to cover her hand, Effie opened the drawers on the small dressing table Dad had built for her and Tia.

But they were both empty. No clothes. No blankets.

She frowned as she stood up. The whole thing—the hut, the body, Tia—it was all wrong.

Is this where you live?

A nod.

With your mum?

Another nod.

As Effie looked around, it was as if she were standing in the cell of a monastery, of a life stripped bare. Stripped of her sister.

“Where are you, Tia?” Effie whispered. “Where did you go?”

She moved forward and knelt in front of the bed, then she tried to squeeze underneath it. If there was any part of her sister left, it would be there, in their spot.

A place just for us, Tia, for our secrets.

Effie dug her fingers under the loose floorboard and lifted it up.

The small space was filled with paper, familiar pages torn from their old exercise books and drawing pads.

Effie pulled them out—leftover pieces of her sister—and shuffled back to sit on the floor.

There were about fifteen sheets of paper covered in Tia’s looped writing, each starting with the same two words.

Dear Effie .

She bit into her lip. Not crying. Tears wouldn’t do her sister any good. Effie flicked through the letters. Most of them contained similar anecdotes, accounts of things that they’d done as children.

Dear Effie

Do you remember that time, when June was still wary of the bush?

Gosh, she hated it at first, didn’t she?

Too dark. Too damp. Too noisy. Too quiet.

Too cold. And she tried to give Aiden a bath in the big bucket (he would have been about two) and he escaped.

Poor June went berserk. She was convinced he’d be mauled by a savage possum or poisoned by tree nettles.

Aiden must have run around the bush, completely naked, for at least an hour before we found him, covered head to toe in dirt.

Then when June tried to scold him, he just looked up at her and beamed, his teeth the only mud-free part of him.

I can still remember it, that little voice of his, as he held his hands up.

“Dirty hands. Aiden has dirty hands.” Then he pointed at June.

“Dune clean.” I think June hugged him so tight that it winded him.

She opened two tins of peaches that night and we all slept in her bed .

It was a good night.

Miss you. X

Effie flicked through the pages, all of them written to her, and all of them signed off with a kiss.

There were no dates or markers, but some of the pages looked worn.

And three of them were different. Newer.

Scrappier. Like maybe Tia’s hand had been shaking as she wrote.

Effie read them each twice, forcing herself to sit with her sister’s words, to accept what they might mean.

Dear Effie

I’m so sorry. I made a mistake. I should have come with you all those years ago. You escaped. You lived.

X

Dear Effie

I’m scared. I’m worried that I don’t know my own child anymore. I love her more than life. But I’m terrified that I’m losing her to him.

X

Dear Effie

Dad is lost to us.

X

Effie brushed a finger across her sister’s words.

What are you trying to tell me, Tia? What happened to you?

Outside, there was a thump, something hard hitting the ground, and Effie snapped her head around.

She’d been in the hut too long. Stupid. Stupid.

Effie folded the letters, slipped them into her pocket and glanced at her watch.

The summer evenings were long in November, but so was the walk out.

She wanted to be at least two hours away from the hut—away from her brother’s body—before she set up a bivvy shelter for the girl.

Then at first light, they’d head back to Koraha.

Effie took one last look at Four, whispered a silent apology, then she stepped outside.

“Anya?”

She glanced at the empty chair, then walked along the deck.

“Anya. We need to go.”

Her skin prickled as she walked the entire way around the hut, scanning the edge of the bush.

A thick line of trees surrounded the hut, and as Effie looked out at the forest, she felt herself slipping backward, getting smaller and smaller, until she was a kid again, sitting barefoot on the deck waiting for her dad.

But her dad wasn’t there.

And neither was Anya.

Effie was about to shout again when she looked up through the distant trees, straight into the eyes of a man.

A face, half-hidden in ferns, watching her.

He stood completely still, the left side of his body concealed behind a wide rimu.

Effie spun around, reaching for something heavy, but when she turned back, he was gone.

Effie ran forward a few steps, her heart racing.

She had seen him. Hadn’t she?

She hadn’t imagined it. The cold eyes. The flash of red hair.

Blood throbbed in her head and she turned, searching in every direction. But she was alone.

“Fuck.”

She swore as she kicked the ground, the thoughts buzzing behind her eyes, and she stumbled back to the hut to get her bag.

Then she saw it. What the girl had drawn.

And Effie froze.