Page 33 of The Vanishing Place

When Effie opened her eyes, the bedroom was half-hidden in shadow.

Night hadn’t fully settled. It was that before time, when the late afternoon light had deepened and lost its strength, and the air was still.

There was a blanket over her, a layer of warmth that hadn’t been there before. She rolled over, the hard floor aching in her hips and shoulder blades, and she pushed herself into a seated position. She must have fallen asleep briefly.

Shit .

With a jolt, Effie spun around and thrust her palm onto the girl’s bed. But Anya was there. Effie’s lungs collapsed with relief. She was there. Awake. Staring back at Effie, her little body drowned in the swell of blankets.

“I’m sorry,” said Effie. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Anya didn’t respond.

“Did you sleep?”

Anya gave a shake of her head, then she held out her arm. Two necklaces hung from her fist, the two swirled halves of a green heart. Instinctively, Effie touched a hand to her chest, but her pounamu was gone. Anya moved her hand and the silver chains swung in the space between them.

“If you place them next to each other,” said Effie, “they make a heart.”

Anya pushed the two halves together.

“Did your mum give it to you?”

She nodded.

“Before she died?”

The silence hardened and Effie waited, every cell in her body feeling the passing seconds.

Then the child spoke.

“I took it from her body,” said Anya, her voice small. “Mum didn’t deserve to take it with her.”

“Take it where?”

Anya looked down at her hands and rubbed her thumb across the stone heart.

“To hell,” she whispered.

The girl didn’t flinch. But the words that dripped out of her were small and soft, like they drained her of energy.

Effie swallowed. “Why didn’t she deserve it?”

“Mum was bad.” Anya sucked her lip. “She broke his rules.”

“Whose rules?”

Anya looked at Effie, her eyes wide and pleading, then she shook her head. Tears clouded her green eyes. “I’m not supposed to say.”

“It’s okay.” Effie placed a hand on her arm. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“You won’t make me?”

“I won’t make you.”

The child frowned.

“I won’t make you do anything,” said Effie.

Another frown. “What if I want you to leave me alone?”

“Then I’ll leave you alone.” Effie managed a gentle smile. “Until you’re ready for me to come back.”

Anya lifted both necklaces and slipped them over her head. “A heart,” she said.

“Yes.” Effie squeezed her arm. “Our heart. Made from you and me.”

Anya curled her fingers around the pendant. “You and me,” she repeated.

“You and me. Two parts of a whole.”

Anya looked down. “Can I be alone now, please?”

Effie forced the muscles in her neck and body to move—to nod and stand up.

“Of course.”

There was nothing to do but walk out. Right now, trust was all that Effie had to offer the girl.

As the door clicked shut behind her, Effie walked along the hall to the living room. The bedroom window had been bolted, and the only way out was through the locked front door. To escape, Anya would have to find the key and walk straight past the living room.

“Hey.”

Lewis’s voice jolted her, and Effie spun around.

“You’re still here?”

He nodded. “June has gone out for a bit.”

Effie walked into the room and stopped in front of him. “Did you put a blanket on me?”

Lewis shook his head. “I didn’t want to risk disturbing Anya.”

It was her then.

Lewis smiled, but not properly. There was a sadness to him, hanging heavy in his eyes and shoulders.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

His smile faded. “I loved them too, you know.” He swallowed. “Four and Tia.”

“Lewis…”

“I’ve never been quite as tough as you.” He wiped his face. “Never been as good at hiding my—”

“I’m sorry.” Effie sat next to him.

“Me too.” He squeezed her hand. “About your brother and sister.”

She moved closer, close enough to feel the warmth of him. Close enough for her heart to remember, for it to hurt. But still, she couldn’t make herself move away. She rested her head on his shoulder, and Lewis pulled her into him, the act of kindness a fraction of what she actually wanted.

“I’ll watch the door,” he said.

“You should sleep.”

He smiled. “There isn’t a single part of me that could sleep with you this close.”

Heat flushed through Effie. “You shouldn’t say things like that. You’re…”

You’re married .

She took a breath. “What about Charlotte?”

“Charlotte and I are separated.” Lewis paused. “We split up about eight months ago.”

“But June said—”

“We tried, for two years we really tried. But we could never…” He closed his eyes. “June knew that things had been tough, but I never told her we’d officially ended things.”

“I’m so sorry, Lewis.” Effie leaned into him. “June said Charlotte was nice.”

He managed half a smile. “I moved to Christchurch about two years after you left. I just couldn’t stay in Koraha. You were everywhere I looked. Then the earthquakes happened.” His body stiffened. “One hundred eighty-five people dead.”

Effie swallowed. She’d read the headlines . Devastating 6.3 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks the South . Our Worst Day: A City Turned to Rubble . She’d watched the news. The devastation. The deaths. The heartache. All the while thinking Lewis was safe in Koraha.

“You were there,” she managed, “when they hit?”

“For the February one, yes. I was on a job in Edgeware, north of the city center.” Lewis shook his head.

“It was like the whole house suddenly roared and shook around me…more violent than anything I’d known, and I had to brace myself.

” His voice became quiet. “It wasn’t like the small earthquakes I’d felt before.

It was jarring, like some impossible force was trying to snap the bones of the house in two.

I kept looking up at the ceiling, waiting for it to collapse.

I’d never heard noise like it.” He looked down at his hand in Effie’s.

“By the time the first shakes stopped, the house was a mess. There were shelves on the floor. Tables and wardrobes smashed. And dust. Dust everywhere.”

Effie didn’t know what to say.

“I felt I had to stay in Christchurch after that, for a while anyway. To help.”

“That’s when you met Charlotte?”

He shook his head. “I stayed in Christchurch for about ten months. Then Nan needed a hip replacement, so I came back to help her out, and ended up back home for six years.” He teased a strand of Effie’s hair through his fingers.

“I don’t know, maybe it was a post-disaster thing, but I felt that I needed to go back to Christchurch.

Like I’d abandoned the city or something. So in early 2018, I returned.”

“And,” said Effie, “the city?”

“It was unrecognizable,” he said. “Completely rebuilt. But after seven years, people were coming back.” He smiled then. “And one of them was Charlotte.”

Effie forced a small smile in response.

“Charlotte lost her boyfriend in the quakes,” he said. “They’d been together since high school. And in a sense, I’d lost you. I guess loss, in its weird way, brought us together.” Lewis almost laughed. “Hardly a rock-solid foundation for a marriage.”

“No. I guess not.”

“And,” he continued, “as we healed, we no longer needed each other in the same way.”

Healed .

The word stung.

“I moved back to Koraha in 2023—Nan wasn’t doing so well.

Charlotte stayed in Christchurch. We tried to make it work long-distance, but in reality, we were fighting to save something that hadn’t ever really been there.

We both knew that.” Lewis sighed. “Charlotte moved to Auckland last month, to start afresh.”

Effie swallowed. “I’m glad Charlotte was there for you.”

He smiled. Then he brushed a hand through her hair.

“The next few days are going to be hard,” he said, his voice changed. “They’ll want to do interviews. You should rest.”

Effie touched the smoothness of his belt, her heart racing, then she placed a hand on his stomach, her fingers separated from him by nothing but a few millimeters of cotton.

“Effie…”

She pulled her hand back.

Stupid. Stupid .

She shoved her hands under her arms. What the fuck was she doing? She needed to focus. She needed to think about Anya and Tia and the next forty-eight hours.

She cleared her throat, her body stiffening against his. “Do you think Tia’s body was in the hut?” She spoke without looking at him. “That Dad could have moved her?”

“I don’t know.”

Lewis gave a sigh—a policeman again—and Effie dug her fingers into her arm.

“Or,” she continued, “do you think that Tia’s been dead for a long time? And that Anya hasn’t had a real mum for years?”

“It’s possible,” he said. “Trauma can do all sorts of things to the mind. And to our memories.”

“She’s afraid of someone,” said Effie. “Someone did something to her.”

Lewis hesitated. “You don’t think it was Four?”

“No.” Effie let her head sink into him again. “I don’t.”

Lewis’s arms tightened around her, protecting her, just like he’d always done.

“If your dad’s out there,” he said, “we’ll find him.”

“He can’t get away with it again, Lewis.”

“He won’t.” He kissed her head. “You won’t let him.”

—

Effie sat at the kitchen table and stared at her phone. Blair, whose face filled the screen, was in her blue work scrubs.

“I just,” Effie bent forward, resting her elbows on the table, “I don’t know how to be around her, Bee.

It’s like she’s two people in one body and I never know who I’m going to get—the kid who hates me so much that she wants to throw herself off a bridge, or the kid who’s sitting in the living room right now doing watercolor paintings with June. ”

“It’s quite calming.” Blair yawned. “Shona, the art therapist, gets the patients doing it at work. Could be worth you giving—”

“Blair.” Effie snapped. “I’m not about to do a bloody watercolor.”

“Right.” Blair rubbed her face. “Sorry. I’m running on caffeine and cocaine at the moment.” She stopped to take a gulp from a mug with “Born in the NHS” printed across it. “What time is it with you?”

“About three in the afternoon.” Effie sighed. “I’m just back from my interview with Morrow.”

“Fun had by all, then?”

“Like a day at Disneyland.”

“That bad?”

“No,” she said. “Not really. Morrow asked all of the right questions. It’s just that I don’t have anything to tell her. I keep going over it in my head, but I don’t know what happened out there.”

“Did they grill you about your childhood?”

“Not really.” Effie hesitated. “A few questions about Dad and Tia. And Four, of course. But it was a lifetime ago. Tia and Four have been strangers to me for years. When I left, they were just children, Bee.”

“So were you.” There was a pause before Blair spoke again. “And the kid?” she asked.

“They’re coming here to interview her soon,” said Effie. “So I guess she’ll either sit in silence or try to scratch their eyes out.” She sighed. “I don’t know. Do you have any advice? Anything from a medical perspective?”

Blair clutched the mug between her hands, staring into it as if the answer might be at the bottom. “Did you ever read Room ?” she asked. “About the woman who’s held captive with her son.”

“Blair.”

“Just bear with me.”

“Yes.” Effie rolled her eyes. “I’ve read it.”

“Well, there’s this scene where they measure everything in the room, as a sort of fun activity.

The walls, and the table, and the chair.

Until the mum can’t take it anymore. Because she knows it’s not just some game.

She sees the room for what it is, a prison.

But to the boy, who was born there, the room isn’t something to be feared or questioned.

The room is all that he’s ever known. For him, what’s scary is outside.

The boy understands the rules of the room, and even though he’s a prisoner, it’s where he feels safe. It’s where his life makes sense.”

Blair set the mug down and leaned into the screen, just centimeters away, rather than a whole world.

“When the boy escapes,” she continued, “everything about the outside world overwhelms him, and he wants to go back. So when his mum tells him that he can’t, the boy is distraught.

” She paused. “It’s the same for Anya. Even if she’s escaped something terrible, something that we know to be wrong, it’s going to take time for her to trust this new reality.

We also don’t know exactly what she’s been told about the world.

It might be that she’s been groomed to distrust outsiders. To fear us.”

Blair went quiet, and for a moment, neither of them said anything.

“So,” said Effie, “just to be clear…after all that, your big takeaway piece of advice for me is time.”

“Exactly.” A smile pulled at the corners of Blair’s mouth. “A good old dollop of time and patience. Your favorites.”

“Great.”

“I reckon some chocolate wouldn’t go amiss either. Most kids can be bought with chocolate.”

“Time and chocolate.” Effie shook her head. “You really are a rare font of wisdom.”

A beeping sounded in the distance and Blair tapped at her phone.

“Right,” she said. “That’s me. Break’s over. Best get back to the trenches.”

“Miss you.”

“Love you.”

Blair blew a kiss into the screen and hung up.