Page 65 of The Vanishing Place

Effie woke to the sound of her sister’s voice.

Her sister who never stopped talking. Her sister who had an answer for everything. And suddenly, Effie was twelve years old again, tucked up in the sleeping nook, wishing that Tia would be quiet for just two minutes.

“Tia, it’s not even light outside,” Effie groaned. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“There’s no light anymore.”

“The sun will be up soon.” Effie turned over.

“It won’t make a difference,” whispered Tia.

“What are you talking about?”

Effie dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, grinding out the final grains of sleep, and the moment changed, becoming solid—and Effie was back, chained to her mother’s bed. Body first, bruised and hollow, then her mind.

“Tia?” Effie moved forward, reality hardening beneath her palms as she crawled toward the door. “Tia? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh god.” Effie let out a lungful of air. “I thought…Did he hurt you?”

“He’s taken away the key and the matches.” Her voice was small and cracked. “As punishment. I can’t open your door.”

“That’s okay.” Effie took a breath. “Are you okay?”

“We’re both shut up now. We must confess to our sins or—”

“Tia, are you hurt?”

There was a shuffling.

“My ribs…it’s sore to breathe.”

“Can you try and—”

“You can’t beat them,” Tia interrupted. “He’ll never let you go.” She started to sob. “Daniel’s wife, Hana, she tried to escape once, to leave this place, but he dragged her back and locked her away. Then, one day…Hana was just gone. Vanished. And we never saw her again.”

Hana . Effie clutched a hand to her stomach. Hana was real.

“Who’s Daniel?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”

“I wanted to be braver.” Tia’s voice trembled.

“I wanted to run away. To leave. But Anya loved him. He twisted and polluted her little mind until she wouldn’t…

until she wouldn’t listen to me. To her own mother.

” A tortured moan leaked from Tia. “When they tied her up to stop me from leaving, Anya let them. She let them chain her up, like a caged animal, because she thought my behavior needed punishing. That my disobedience was sinful.”

Tears flowed freely through Tia’s words, and the pain in her voice dislodged something in Effie’s chest.

“I should have done more,” said Tia. “I should have left before Anya was born.” There was a pause. “Dad was right all along.”

Effie exhaled. “Tia, what happened? What happened to Dad?”

For a moment, the cold air was quiet, stagnant.

“I was twelve years old when you and Dad left. It was just me and Four, and I didn’t—”

“Tia, I’m so sorry.”

“Then Peter and his family came. And for a long time, I was happy. I wanted it, this secluded life in the trees. I wanted what Peter was offering—a family. Faith. A life away from the world. After everyone I’d lost, Peter made me feel safe.

” Tia paused. “But every birthday, Dad hid something for me by the river—a secret, a sign that he was there…that I could go to him. But I ignored him. I was so angry with him. I hated him for leaving.”

The words landed as a punch in Effie’s stomach.

“Then Anya was born, and things…things changed. Peter’s rules got stricter, less rational, and he started to punish any defiant behavior. His son Daniel was even worse. Daniel is…” Tia took a breath. “He’s cruel.”

There was a thick beat of silence.

“It was Daniel who found Dad’s body,” she said. “Floating face down in the river, when Anya was still a baby.”

Effie stiffened, fighting the instinct to cry.

“But Dad didn’t drown,” said Tia. “They spotted him coming to see me, I’m sure of it, and they killed him.

Dad was stronger than that river. He didn’t drown.

He was murdered.” She paused. “It’s strange, I don’t remember much from that time.

Perhaps I’ve blocked it out, but I remember the way Dinah screamed.

She cried for weeks after Daniel found Dad’s body. ”

Dinah . The name scratched at the insides of Effie’s skull.

“I think,” Tia continued, “that perhaps Dinah knew, and she was scared—scared of what her own family was capable of.”

“But…” Effie frowned, a half-formed moment coming back to her.

“You said Dad died when Anya was a baby…but…” The image crept into her thoughts—ripped in two.

“Anya knew who he was. I showed her a picture of Dad, and she recognized him. She was afraid of him.” Effie hesitated. “Anya said that he would hurt her.”

The bad man.

There was a soft tapping on the door—fingers perhaps—and when Tia finally replied, her words felt labored. “Peter used to tell Anya ghost stories about Dad, about the dead man who haunted the woods. Peter found an old photo of Dad in the hut, and he used it to frighten Anya. To manipulate her.”

Effie closed her eyes, her heart leaden, and she swallowed. “How many people are there?” she asked. “Out here?”

“There’s only five of us left now.”

“Left?”

“Daniel’s wife, Four and Anya—they’re all gone, one way or another.”

“Tia,” said Effie, “did Daniel kill Four?”

“No.”

“Then what happened to him? Did Four really take his own life—”

“It was me.”

“What was?”

“It was my fault.” A small strangled sound escaped from Tia’s throat. “I’m the reason our brother’s dead.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I kept pushing him…” she said, her words hard and blunt. “Pushing and pushing, making him do things.”

“What things?”

“I just wanted what was best for Anya. I wanted her to be free of this place. For her to live a normal life. So eventually, I convinced Four to help me, to teach Anya that there was more to the world, and that the outside wasn’t a place of sin.

Four talked to her about Koraha and school, and small details from his childhood—June’s baking, the park, kicking a rugby ball.

He even found our old schoolbooks from when Mum taught us, and novels that Peter had hidden away. ”

“Why didn’t you run, Tia? Why didn’t you leave and get help?”

“I couldn’t leave,” she whispered. “They had my daughter, Effie. They had her chained to a wall. And Peter made it very clear that if I ever left, I’d never see Anya again. That by the time I brought the police back, she’d be gone.”

Effie had no words. Her sister had lived through hell. There were no words for that.

“Four spent months marking the way back to the river with scraps of material. He hung them from trees and wrapped them around branches. I talked Anya through it again and again, about the markers and the old tinnie hidden in the rushes. I drew her picture after picture, pointing out the narrowed sections in the river, and showing her how to launch the tinnie. You remember—across the shallow water, where the Haast River is only sixty meters wide. Everything Dad taught us as kids. Often Anya held her hands to her ears and screamed until I stopped talking, and a few times she threatened to tell Peter. But I kept trying, just in case.”

“Why didn’t Four leave?”

Effie stared at the door. It was impossible, of course it was, but she felt the sad smile that settled on her sister’s mouth.

“Four hadn’t been in the outside world since he was six years old,” said Tia. “The bush, and this, it’s all he’s…he’d…ever known. Crossing that river was never an option for him.” She paused. “Four believed that if he left Peter, he’d go straight to hell.”

“But he wanted Anya to leave?”

“Four wanted Anya to have a choice.” Tia drew a breath. “Because I asked it of him. And it cost Four his life. Peter found out what Four was doing—the whispers about school and the outside world, the books—and he…”

Her words thinned to a quiet whimper.

“I gave Four that meal. I set that plate in front of him.” Tia’s tears filled the quiet. “I had no idea what Peter had done.”

“They poisoned him? Just for talking?”

“You don’t understand. Peter demands, without exception, that we hold ourselves separate from the outside world. He says we would be better to eat possum bait than to be poisoned by the sinful words of outsiders. And Peter’s word—the Guardian’s word—is law.”

“Guardian?”

“The Guardian of truth. Of God’s message.” Tia’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Peter claims to speak for God. He says that separating ourselves from the corrupt world is the only way to stave off evil and save ourselves.”

A wave of heat pulsed through Effie’s brain. The scene, the empty hut, Morrow’s words. My team were all over that hut for a day and a half . They didn’t find a trace of your sister. It didn’t add up.

“But the police went through the hut,” she said. “There was no evidence of Peter or you. There was nothing to indicate that anyone else had been there.” Effie hesitated, trying to make sense of it. “And the prints on the knife, they were small…Anya said that when she left you, that you were dead.”

Tia didn’t answer.

“I don’t understand.” Effie frowned. There were so many holes, so many things that didn’t make sense. “If Anya loved Peter, why would she run away? Why would she—”

“She was scared.”

Effie pushed her fingers into her temples. “It doesn’t make—”

“People only see what Peter wants them to see,” said Tia. “Peter controls everything. He is everything. And Anya loved him fiercely. She would never have left him. They would have died in the trees together.” Tia paused. “But then, Anya loved Four too.”

Effie pulled against her restraints, willing herself an inch closer.

“The last thing Four did,” said Tia, “before he took his final breath, was to unchain her. To set her free.”

Effie waited for more, but Tia fell silent. A second. A minute.

“Anya cut a cross into Four’s chest,” Tia said eventually, “so that God would know to take him.”

Effie closed her eyes and pictured Anya in Koraha, waiting for her.

“There’s something else you should know,” Tia went on. “Peter, he’s…Peter is Asher’s dad. Except he’s not Asher. His real name is Adam. Adam lied to us…about his name and who he was.”

Effie stared at the door, at the spot where her sister sat on the other side, then she reached her hand out.

“Adam didn’t die that day, Effie.” Tia took a breath. “Adam never left.”

A cold understanding pulsed through Effie’s chest. “Is Asher—Adam, I mean—is he…?”

“Yes,” said Tia. “Adam is Anya’s dad.”

Effie covered her mouth with her hand, knowing what her sister was going to say next.

“Adam brought Peter here. Adam did all of this.”