Page 6 of The Vanishing Place

“Why won’t it drink?”

“Tia, stop.” Effie slapped her sister’s hand away. “You’re dirty.”

“It’s not opening its eyes.”

“He’s tired.” Effie touched the end of Aiden’s milk bottle to the baby’s lips, but he didn’t do anything. She frowned. “Maybe the bottle’s too big.”

Aiden always clutched at the bottle with his chubby hands and the milk sloshed into him.

“Why doesn’t Mum feed it?” asked Tia. “Aiden can share. He only has a little bit of milk from Mum now.”

“Mum’s resting,” Effie snapped, her throat tight.

Just that morning, before the screaming and the bleeding had started, Mum had stoked the fire and baked raisin cookies in the big metal pot.

Then, smiling her big sunshine smile, Mum had lifted Tia onto her hip and they’d twirled around, laughing and singing, as the room filled with the warm smell of cookie dough.

But that mum was gone. She was still in her bed—Effie had checked when they got back from the river—but her smile and laugh weren’t there.

Effie had covered her with a clean blanket and left a cookie by her bed before tiptoeing out—letting her rest.

“Maybe it doesn’t like milk.”

“He,” said Effie. “It’s a boy.”

“How do you know?”

Effie tried to tease the teat into his tiny mouth. “I just do.”

His little body wasn’t doing the right things.

Babies were meant to cry and flap their tiny arms. Aiden had cried for hours, his body almost red with it, and his screams had filled the hut.

Effie had tried to lock him outside once.

And when Aiden was real small, still new, he used to kick his legs and arch his little body into a bridge.

But the new baby had stopped crying, like two hours ago.

Even when Effie prodded his tummy, he stayed quiet.

The baby wasn’t doing any of the right baby things.

“Please eat.” She poked his lips with the soft teat.

Effie had made up the milk just like she did at breakfast—one small cup of powder and one big cup of water.

“Where did he come from?” asked Tia.

Effie frowned. “From inside Mum.”

“Did Dad put him there?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

Effie touched a finger to his motionless little face. It was all squashed and yellow—just two lines for his eyes and one for his mouth. “I don’t know.”

She didn’t even know what color his eyes were.

She stroked his cheek and stared at him.

Maybe he needed the sleep. Aiden had slept loads when he was tiny.

Mum used to carry him when she dug in the vegetable garden and when she foraged for kōtukutuku berries and pikopiko.

But when Effie prodded at the baby, he didn’t move.

Babies were meant to move. And babies were meant to drink milk.

“Tia,” she said. “Go get a teaspoon.”

Tia jumped up from the rug, naked but for her undies, and scurried over to the kitchen corner, her gangly legs tripping over the pile of their wet clothes. Tia’s skin barely covered her skeleton, like the bones were trying to pop out at her hips and elbows.

“Here,” said Tia, holding out a teaspoon.

Effie set the baby on the sofa, the old couch made nice by one of Mum’s knitted blankets, and dripped a few drops of milk onto the spoon.

Then she held his head gently, like a bundle of fragile moss, and parted his lips with the spoon.

Tia sat close, her dark hair dripping onto the sofa, and Effie could feel the racing of her sister’s heart.

“Here, baby,” said Effie, “open up.”

His tiny yellow face stirred, and his mouth opened.

“He’s drinking,” squealed Tia. “Look, he’s drinking.”

“Shh. You’ll scare him.”

Warmth leaked through Effie’s chest as the liquid dripped into him. It didn’t make sense how something so small and breakable could be real. The spoon emptied, and Effie’s throat got all filled up. Fragile, breakable things didn’t survive in the bush.

“Give him more,” said Tia as she bounced on the sofa. “Look…look…”

The baby’s lips puffed at the air like a fish.

“He wants more.” Tia pointed and beamed. “He’s hungry.”

For the next half hour, they dripped milk into their tiny brother.

Effie couldn’t stop looking at him. Then, as best as they could, they cleaned him up and wrapped him in one of Aiden’s cloth nappies.

They didn’t speak about the bigger stuff.

Not about Mum. Not about Dad or Aiden. Not about the too-deep river and the too-fast current.

As darkness crept in, Effie piled up a stack of twigs and lit the wood fire.

The heart of the hut, Mum called it. Dad had built the firebox using an old fuel drum.

He’d tipped the barrel sideways and made a door and a chimney.

Mum used the top for cooking—a heavy iron square that popped in and out.

When Mum took it off, flames snuck out and the kettle boiled real fast.

Using a glove, Effie opened the door and threw a piece of wood in.

Even in summer, babies needed extra heat.

Mum said baby skin was so thin that all the warmth leaked out.

Once the fire was going, Effie pushed the table and the four homemade stools aside, then made a bed of blankets in front of the sofa.

She didn’t know how to build the cot, and their sleeping corner was too far from the heat, but the blankets were clean and soft.

After wrapping the baby up, Effie placed him on the little floor bed and sat back on the sofa, watching him.

“What do we do now?” asked Tia.

Her little sister hopped up next to her and snuggled in.

“We wait for him to cry, then we give him more milk.”

They sat side by side, their feet dirty and their bodies bare, and watched as his chest filled and deflated.

The kitchen bench flickered and shone in the firelight, and the floor around the firebox gleamed.

At the opposite end of the room, a curtain hung on a wooden rod where Dad had built a sleeping nook for them, with a double bed on the bottom and a single on top. None of them used the top bunk though.

Effie and Tia curled up as the summer sky darkened and the heat from the fire slunk up the walls.

A gnawing hunger twisted in Effie’s stomach, and she wrapped her arms around her middle.

Tia did the same thing. But neither of them moved.

Mum was the one who usually cooked, Dad and Effie sometimes too.

But Mum’s cooking was the best, especially her bread.

She’d bake it for hours in the heavy black pan, and the smell of bread would make Effie’s tongue sweat.

On weekends they even got Vegemite. Hunters left it in the Thomas River Hut, and Dad would bring it back from his hunting trips.

Effie pulled her knees up, squishing the twisted knot away with her thighs.

The idea of food felt strange without Mum. The hut felt empty without her.

“I need to check on Mum,” said Effie eventually. “You watch the baby.”

Tia nodded.

Effie lit a candle and tiptoed over to her parents’ door, careful to avoid the squeaky floorboards.

Holding her breath, she stopped in front of it.

Mum said it was polite to knock, in case her and Dad were busy.

But Dad was gone. Deep in the bush gone, or washed down the river, proper gone.

Effie touched the door with her fingertips.

Mum would be fully rested soon. Before long, she’d be ready to get up—to feed the baby and make bread.

Mum would know how to get Dad back too. Mum and Dad were two parts of one thing, Mum said, and parts couldn’t exist separately. Dad would come back for her.

“Mum…” Effie eased the door open and slipped inside. “I gave the baby milk.”

She walked over to the bed, not looking at the mess or the broken chair or the blood on the sheets.

“He’s sleeping now,” she said. “Tia’s watching him.”

Effie set the candle on the small bedside table next to the untouched cookie, and pulled back Mum’s blanket.

Then, just like she did when there was a storm, she nestled in next to her.

As their arms touched, skin brushing skin, Effie bit deep into her lips and scrunched her eyes closed, refusing to feel it.

Never. Ever. If she didn’t feel it, then it wasn’t real.

If she didn’t feel the cold, then it wasn’t there.

“We changed his nappy too.”

Effie adjusted her position so that they lay side by side with their heads level.

She closed her eyes and added in the missing bits—the smell of her mum’s soap and the warmth of her breath.

She ignored the stiffness of her body, the way her arms rooted to the bed like trees and how her fingers fixed in a tight curl.

Then, gently, Mum reached for Effie’s hand, their fingers entwining, and whispered a story into the candlelit room.

After a while, Effie turned and peered at the door, listening for the sound of footsteps. “He’ll be back soon, Mum.”

She touched her mum’s arm. The cold—that wasn’t there—clothed her mum’s skin like one of her knitted shawls.

I know, darling.

Mum kissed her forehead and Effie snuggled in. But she didn’t cry. If she cried, if she felt anything at all, then her mum wouldn’t come back either.

Good night, sweetheart.

“Good night, Mum.”