Page 8 of The Vanishing Place

Morning came. But no Dad.

Tia didn’t say anything, and neither did Effie, and a big quiet hung in the air, filling the hut.

Tia sat on the floor with the baby as Effie mixed up powdered milk and poured oats into three bowls.

Mum would need to eat something to give her energy.

The hut felt smaller without Dad and Aiden in it.

And with Mum resting, things were a mess.

The kitchen was cluttered, and there was nowhere to put the bowls.

Effie placed two on the floor, making it hard to angle the large bag of oats.

She cursed as oats spilled out and scattered under the sink.

Mum hated mess. Mess meant rats, and Mum hated rats even more.

The baby had moaned on and off all night, only sipping tiny amounts from the spoon. Effie felt ill from the mixed-up sleep, like there was vomit behind her eyes and in her brain, and she wanted to shout at something. Not sleeping good was like being shat on by a possum.

“Shouldn’t it be hot?” asked Tia as she took her bowl.

“Oh.” Effie stared at the cold soggy oats. “I forgot.”

Tia shrugged and started eating. Her eyes were puffy and black. The possum must have shat on her too.

After taking a bowl through to Mum and stacking it on the messy bedside table, Effie returned and sat next to her sister. She couldn’t eat. She just stirred it, then set the bowl aside.

Together, she and Tia spent the morning trying to work out what the baby wanted.

It was exhausting, worse than grinding a million sedge seeds into flour.

They didn’t know how to wrap a baby, or how to tie a nappy properly, and neither of them had dared touch the dirty cloths.

But the baby was mostly clean. And he slept and he drank, a bit anyway, and pooed, which seemed to be it with babies.

Effie stood at the sink, the ache in her eyeballs impossible to blink away, and tried to wash the pile of dishes, not wanting the mess to make Mum angry.

But her head kept dropping forward and her eyelids wouldn’t stay open.

Tia was snoring on the sofa, her mouth wide, and the baby was sleeping beside her in his floor bed.

Effie splashed water over her face to try to shock the tiredness from her eyes.

The first palmful did nothing. So she did it twice more, spilling water down her top and over the floor.

Her lips quivered as she dipped her hand back into the bucket, and she wanted to cry. There was barely any water left.

“Stupid shitty water.” Effie kicked the bucket. “Stupid shitty bucket.”

It was Dad’s job to check the water. But her stupid shitty dad wasn’t there. Effie kicked the bucket again. Maybe he’d drowned or fallen or been shot by a hunter. Not that she cared. She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, refusing to cry.

All her life, they’d worked as a team—Mum and Dad and the kids.

Growing vegetables, collecting and boiling water, baking bread, hunting deer, fixing the hut.

The bush was too big for just her and Tia, and now the new one.

The bush was an unforgiving thing that would eat them up.

Effie bit into her lip until the pain shrunk all the other thoughts away, then she reached for the bucket and headed to the stream.

For hours, she sloshed back and forth from the stream.

She relit the fire and boiled liter after liter of water.

Not boiling it meant a gutted-out stomach, like Dad’s stag knife rummaging through her insides, and three days spent on the compost toilet.

Twice Effie stopped to help Tia with the baby.

They gave him more sips of milk and piled up more soiled nappies, but his body had gone a weird gold color, and the white bits in his eyes looked like yellow butter.

“Shouldn’t he cry more?” asked Tia.

Effie didn’t know. She didn’t know anything about babies.

“Aiden cried loads when he was tiny.”

Effie stroked two fingers over his little head. His hair was light red—not like the young ones. Tia and Aiden were all Mum—thick black hair and dark eyes. But not Effie. Effie was a double of Dad.

“He’s probably just tired,” said Effie. “Babies need lots of sleep.”

She set him on the floor and tucked the blanket over him. Then she squished onto the sofa with her sister.

“When will Mum be up?” asked Tia.

“Soon.”

“I don’t like looking after a baby,” she said. “It’s hard.”

Effie stared at the small creature on the floor, muted by it.

By everything. She didn’t know how to be a mum, and definitely not to something so new, but she couldn’t tell Tia that.

Tia was only six, and six was a lot less than almost nine.

Almost nine was a big age, Dad said, filled with big responsibilities.

“I think we forgot to eat lunch,” said Tia.

“I’ll make us something soon.” Effie’s eyes wouldn’t stay open. “We can have dinner early.”

Her stomach growled and her body ached and drooped. Her bones felt heavy and empty at the same time, and her arms and legs had glued themselves to the sofa. There was nothing she could do but lie there and close her eyes.

It wasn’t until later, when a scream pierced through the fog, that she willed her eyes open. But it wasn’t a baby’s scream. Effie rubbed her face, trying to bring her mind back to her body. The scream vibrated through her again, the fear and desperation in it flooding her chest.

“Effie!” Tia burst from their parents’ room, her face a mess of tears. She fell to the floor, the crack of her knees making Effie wince.

“Tia.” Effie rushed over and huddled next to her. “I told you not to go in there.”

“Mum’s bleeding.” Tears choked Tia’s words. “There’s blood everywhere.”

“I know.” She pulled her sister into her. “I know. That’s just baby stuff. That’s just…”

Tia’s head shook violently against Effie’s chest. “No,” she cried. “Something’s wrong. She wouldn’t wake up.”

“I told you not to go in there.”

“I had to.” Snot and tears drowned her sister’s words. “I had to go in.”

“Why?”

Tia sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I thought Mum might have taken it.”

“Taken what?”

“The baby.”

Effie spun around, her brain dizzy. His floor bed was empty. He was gone. There was just a pile of blankets and a single teaspoon. There was no baby. No brother.

“Where is he?” She pushed herself up, finding energy in some angry buried place, and ran for the door. She thrust it open and rushed outside.

“Baby!” she screamed.

She glanced at the empty deck, then yelled at the wall of trees, her fingers balling into fists.

“Baby!”

Her throat burned and her eyes stung. But there was nothing. No one. Just kahikatea and miro and solid forest.