Page 31 of The Vanishing Place

It was the German shepherds that found the girl. She was curled up like a koru, ropes tied around her ankles and wrists.

“Morrow is coming back to get us,” said Lewis, lowering his radio. “Then she’ll take us to the girl. Detective Constable Wilson is waiting with her.”

Effie glanced over his shoulder toward the hut, her mind incapable of forming words. Unable to still the quiver in her lips and jaw.

“It’s not too far,” he added.

Lewis put an arm around her, the solidness of him holding her up, and Effie clung on. Behind them, the police swarmed around the property like ants, all of them with a specific task: to bag, photo, swab, draw.

“I should have stayed and looked for her,” said Effie. “I should have searched for her until my feet bled.”

“Effie. She could have been anywhere. In any direction.”

“But she wasn’t, was she?” Her throat swelled. “She was only a few hundred meters away.”

“Even then, in the dark and with the trees, you could have walked straight past her.” He looked at her. “You did the right thing.”

“Or I left a scared child to die.”

Lewis went to say something—something that she didn’t deserve—when Morrow appeared, and Effie pulled away.

“Come on, you two,” said Morrow. “You’re needed. The nurse practitioner too.”

Kyle, who’d been hovering a few meters away, glanced over. Effie walked after Morrow, numbed everywhere but her stomach, and the two men followed.

There’d been a girl on Skye once, in Effie’s first month on the rescue team, who’d run off on a family walk.

A full callout had followed: helicopters, dogs, locals, police.

Rain had lashed down in sheets, and the heather had swollen beneath their feet.

They’d walked in lines, their bodies angled against the wind, spaced twenty meters apart, hands tucked under their armpits, eyes to the ground.

If you see anything, raise your hand .

A boot. A glove. A jacket. That’s what Keith had been praying for when he barked out orders. A backpack. A hat.

They’d walked for hours, the rain stinging their eyes and their torches illuminating the black hillside. No one had asked to stop. They’d just walked forward, one foot in front of the other, like there was nothing else to do.

It was Effie who’d eventually halted as the line—and the flicker of hope—moved on without her. Then she lifted an arm, her fingers trembling, unable to call out as she looked down.

Raise your hand.

There, among the trees, she’d seen the tangle of dark hair. The back of the child’s head. The tiny body, face down in the river.

Connie. Six years old .

“Are you ready?” asked Morrow, jolting Effie back to the present.

“Yes.”

“We haven’t moved her,” she said. “We haven’t been able to.”

“Is she chained?” asked Effie.

Morrow shook her head. “You’ll see.”

They walked the remaining hundred meters in silence, bashing through the thick bush, until the crouched figure of Morrow’s young colleague, Wilson, came into view, his eyes fixed on a small crate.

Oh god . Effie covered her mouth with her hand. It was Four’s shelter, the one he used to nap in. Except where the front had once been open, it was sealed off with a sheet of wire fencing. A cage .

Morrow held up a hand, stopping them, then nodded at Effie. “Just you.”

Effie stepped up to the wooden shelter. She could still feel the splinters, the tiny shards of memory and trauma buried in her skin.

“Anya?” She knelt in front of the box. “It’s Effie.”

The girl’s coiled fingers gripped the wire door, wrists bound, pulling it shut. Keeping herself in and the world out.

“I’m sorry,” said Effie. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

She crouched down so their eyes were level, just centimeters apart, and Anya snarled at her, her tissue-paper skin so fragile that the anger and wildness threatened to burst out of her. But there was something deeper in the greens of her eyes. She wasn’t wild. She was hurting.

“I know that you don’t trust me yet,” said Effie, “and I have no right to ask that of you. But I promise I just want to keep you safe.” She touched a finger to the wire. “I’m not going to hurt you, or make you do anything you don’t want to.”

Anya studied Effie’s mouth, her words.

“But I do need you to come out of there. And I need you to come back to Koraha with me.”

Effie moved her hand to the makeshift latch as the girl watched.

“I’m going to open the door now,” she said, “so I need you to let go of the wire.”

Slowly, Anya uncurled her fingers, her eyes focused on Effie’s hands, and Effie pulled the door open. Gently and gradually, she reached for the girl’s arms.

“Can I untie you?”

Anya nodded.

Effie released her hands first, the rope sodden and surprisingly loose, then she untied her ankles.

“You’re safe now.”

Effie was prepared when the girl leaped at her. Anya dove into Effie’s body, sobbing, and started hitting her chest, the child’s punches weak and fatigued. And Effie let her.

You’re safe now. You’re safe .

She didn’t notice Lewis and Kyle until it was too late. Until Kyle had already forced the needle into the child’s arm.

“ No! ” Effie screamed.

She pushed Kyle away, but the damage had been done, the sedative was flowing through the girl’s veins. Lewis tried to take Effie’s arm, but she elbowed him away and wrapped herself around the girl.

“How could you?” she yelled. “She was just scared!” Effie thumped the ground with her fist. “How is she meant to trust me now?”

“She was attacking you.”

“Barely,” Effie shot back. “She’s exhausted. And I was handling it.”

“No.” Lewis looked at her, his face hard. “You were letting a child beat you, because you think that’s what you deserve.”

—

Effie still hadn’t spoken to Lewis by the time the police car dropped them off at June’s house.

Anya was asleep in the back seat, balled up under Lewis’s jacket. They’d had to stretcher her out to the river, to an open area where the helicopter had managed to land, then they’d been flown out.

Focus on the kid . Morrow’s words. Not the body. That’s our problem now.

Effie opened the car door and lifted Anya out; she was barely the weight of a four-year-old.

“I’ve put fresh sheets on her bed,” said June, appearing in the drive.

“Thank you.”

“How long will she be out?”

“Another hour maybe,” said Effie. “Kyle said she’ll be a bit foggy for a while.”

She followed June inside to the girl’s room, while Lewis waited in the living room.

“What happened?” asked June, nodding in Lewis’s direction.

“Nothing.”

“Sure looks like nothing.”

Effie tucked the girl in, her body still curled tight, as though even in sleep, she wanted to make herself small and invisible.

“I’ll stay with her,” said Effie, sitting.

June walked across to the bed and leaned in, kissing Effie on the head.

“I had a nice chat on the phone with that lovely friend of yours.”

Effie frowned. “Blair?”

“The very one,” said June. “Smart girl. She told me to hug you twice a day, and box you about the ears at least once.”

“Bloody Blair.”

“Oh.” June frowned. “And she said to tell you that Rimu has grown accustomed to Egyptian cotton.”

Effie rolled her eyes. “My dog.”

“Ah.” June’s smile widened. “That makes a lot more sense.”

She went to leave but stopped, turning briefly in the doorway. “And I agree,” said June. “It would never have worked with that Greg fellow.”

“Christ.”

“Far too short. Not like—”

“Out.” Effie pointed at the door. “Now.”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

Effie placed a pillow on the floor. Then she sat by Anya’s bed with her arms resting on the edge of the mattress.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

After thirty minutes or so, Anya’s eyelids fluttered, her mind half in and half out of the world.

“You’re back in Koraha,” said Effie. “And you’re in bed in June’s house. You’re safe.”

Anya stirred, life leaking slowly into her body.

“The nurse sedated you in the bush. He put you to sleep.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was going to do that. He was just worried you might hurt yourself.”

Two green eyes—far older than any other part of her—opened, and Anya stared at Effie, her little body still. The following minutes slipped by in silence—just aunty and niece. Then slowly, Effie reached a hand forward and set it on the bed a few centimeters from the girl’s arm.

“I don’t want to have to restrain you.”

“I won’t run away.”

Effie blinked.

“I’m not allowed back there now.”

The girl curled tighter, shrinking, then she rolled over with her back to Effie.

“I’m not clean.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “You dirtied me. Just like Mum.”