Page 7 of The Vanishing Place

Effie sat in the car outside her house—her own little piece of Skye—and gripped her phone. She hadn’t seen Lewis in seventeen years.

She pressed the phone to her chest, her body shaking from fatigue and the lack of a proper meal.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Lewis had a kid—a girl.

Maybe they were planning on visiting Scotland.

Lewis would be thirty-five now, a grown man just three years older than her.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back.

What if there wasn’t any of her Lewis left in him?

Life changed people; it shaped them and turned them into something different.

Effie barely recognized herself some days.

What if she made the call, and the boy who’d saved her—whom she’d held in her heart for nearly two decades—had vanished?

A dog’s bark startled her and Effie opened her eyes, her pulse softening as she glanced out the window toward Loch Harport.

A blanket of shadow hung in the sky, the clouds heavy and low, as the yellow glow of the rising sun emerged from the water.

Lewis reckoned that sunrise was just God messing about—showing off.

Not that either of them had believed in God, but there was something about throwing his name around that had made them feel powerful—just two scrawny kids at the end of the earth.

The dog barked again and Effie reached for the door handle. “I’m coming. I’m coming.”

She stepped out into the morning air, dressed in a selection of the mountain rescue’s spares, and walked over to her front fence.

Keith had made her shower at the station and eat two Clif Bars, but the cold had taken something from her.

It had hollowed her out, leaving a tiredness in her bones.

She’d had to beg Keith to let her drive the seven miles home.

He’d made her list all twelve Munros on the island, from lowest to highest, to prove she was lucid.

It had taken her less than twenty seconds.

“Hey, boy.” Effie reached over the fence and rubbed the dog’s ears. “Sorry I’m a bit late.”

Rimu jumped up, his body shaking with excitement. He bounced beside the gate, panting and spinning until Effie opened it.

“I missed you too.” She knelt down and scratched his head, the thick Icelandic sheepdog fur falling out in her hands. “You really need a brush, buddy.”

Rimu circled her legs as she walked to the red door.

Hers was the last house in the row, semi-detached with white walls and a fully enclosed garden.

Effie had bought it seven years ago, for two main reasons—the village of Carbost had a total population of 164 people, and from her garden, she could see over Loch Harport and out toward the Cuillins.

“Come on. Let’s get inside.”

Effie opened the door, kicked her shoes off in the hall and walked through to the living room.

There was little in the way of decor other than a well-stocked bookshelf, two braided rugs (both handmade), and a large coffee table that she’d built out of driftwood.

The walls were bare but for one print of the Cuillin Ridge Traverse (from Blair) and a small framed drawing of a silver fern (also from Blair).

“You hungry?” Effie smiled at Rimu. “Stupid question.”

With the dog at her ankles, she walked through to the kitchen and poured dry food into his bowl. As the kettle boiled, she stared out the window at the water, her mind miles away. Why was Lewis calling her?

Why now?

Effie had finally managed to mold a life for herself—a life where she didn’t think about them every day. But from the moment Greg had mentioned Lewis’s name, Effie had felt herself being dragged back.

She looked at the dog. “We’d better give him a call, then.”

Rimu’s tail wagged and he followed her through to the living room. Then he jumped up onto the sofa and rested his head on her lap.

“You know this is absolutely not allowed, right?”

Rimu stared up at her with wide pleading eyes.

“Just this once.” She ruffled the back of his neck. “But if you tell anyone, you’re straight outside. No sympathy.”

The dog settled in and Effie checked her watch. It would be early evening in New Zealand, on the opposite side of the world. She typed in the number Greg had given her, then held the phone so tight her cheek started to sweat on the screen.

He answered on the second ring. “Effie?”

Her stomach stirred from fear and excitement and everything in between. He sounded just the same, and yet totally different.

“Effie? Is that you?”

“Yeah.” She closed her eyes and took a breath. “It’s me.”

There was a long pause. But not awkward.

Nothing had ever been awkward between them.

Even when she was nine and he was twelve—their ages and genders theoretically incompatible—they had just worked.

Everything about Lewis had been safe and light—his smile, his personality, his voice.

Effie had always felt sort of gray and grumpy around him, and yet at the same time, he was the only person who made her feel the exact opposite.

He was the only person who didn’t treat her like “the wild girl” from the bush.

“So,” he said. “How are you?”

The absurdness of it—after nearly two decades—made her laugh. She actually fucking laughed.

She held a hand to her face, to her smile. “I’m alive.”

“Excellent.” Effie could hear the emotion in his voice. “I could really do with you being alive right now.”

“What’s happened, Lewis?” She bit into her lip. “Did something happen to…” She couldn’t bring herself to say their names; she hadn’t said her family’s names out loud in years.

He hesitated. “There’s been a situation in Koraha, and…I think I need your help.”

“My help?” Effie frowned. “I don’t understand.”

Lewis let out a long breath. “A kid turned up a couple of days ago. A girl.”

Images rushed through Effie’s head— click, click, click —like the snapping of a camera, and the past flashed in front of her.

One sibling after another. Tia. Aiden. The baby .

Effie held the phone as her spine tingled.

Something was about to happen, something bad.

Unless, of course, she hung up. And kept running.

“She came out of the bush,” Lewis continued. “I found her raiding the fridge at On the Spot.”

On the Spot . A lump clogged Effie’s throat, regurgitating forgotten things.

On the Spot had been the only store in Koraha.

It was where she’d had her first ice cream—an Eskimo Pie.

And where she’d split a kid’s lip open. Some boy, a few years older than her, had thumped into her, his elbow out, and murmured that she smelled like possum feces.

Effie had been holding a Granny Smith apple, and she’d hurled it straight at his head.

“I think,” said Lewis, “that she’s probably about eight years old. But it’s hard to tell. She’s so small and thin and—”

“Malnourished?” The question slipped out before Effie realized she’d spoken.

“No. I don’t think so. Just scrawny. But…” Lewis was stalling; Effie could feel him protecting her from something. “She was starving and disorientated, like she’d been walking for a couple of days. And she was covered in blood.”

“Hers?” Effie leaned forward on the sofa, the police officer in her sparking to life, a shield masking something far darker.

“I don’t think so. Her legs and hands were fairly beaten up, probably from the bushwalk, and she had the odd scar, but she wasn’t bleeding. Apart from a few scratches and bruises, she was relatively unharmed.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

Effie frowned. “What did she say?”

“Anya.”

“Sorry?”

“Anya.” Lewis sighed. “That’s her name. It’s all she’ll tell me. I’ve tried everything, but she won’t talk to me. To anyone.”

“But can she speak?” asked Effie. “Does she know how to talk?”

“I think so. I mean, I’m guessing she can talk. She did say her name, and she seems to understand everything that I tell her, and I caught her flicking through a book,” he said. “I think she’s choosing not to speak.”

There was a silence, heavier and louder than before. Effie closed her eyes. She should hang up.

“Effie,” Lewis said eventually, “she looks just like you.”

His words stopped her—her heart, her lungs, her voice.

“She has your green eyes,” he said. “And your red hair.”

Effie clutched the phone, tethering herself to the conversation. “What are you saying, Lewis?”

“Something’s happened to that child,” he said. “Something bad. I don’t know what. But she won’t talk, and she barely eats. The poor girl has witnessed something horrible and…” He hesitated. “I think, given the strong resemblance, that she’s come from your family’s place.”

The hut .

“No one knows how to get there, Effie.” He paused. “No one except you.”

Rimu raised his head, and Effie touched a hand to his pricked ears.

“No one except me,” she said, barely audible.

The route was ingrained in her. Every land marker. Every bend in the river. As the oldest child, she had the bush etched into her skin—Dad had made sure of that.