Page 109 of The Vanishing Place
“And where is he now?”
Anya shrugged. “Hiding in the trees.”
March 2008
The drink wasin his hair and in his face. It had stolen Dad’s eyes and grayed his skin. The drink sloshed through him as he stumbled up the hut steps. He staggered through the door, leaking the morning light into the room, and shuffled forward on shaky legs. Then he stopped in the middle of the hut, swaying, and looked at Effie. She stared back, her teeth clenched and her eyes thinned to tight slits.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
She stared at the deep gash across his left eyebrow, feeling nothing but rage. The blood was red and crusted, and his cheek was swollen. There were also four long scratches gouged into his neck, angry and weeping. But Effie didn’t care. She wanted to hurl herself at him. To pound into his chest. To claw and scream until the anger gushed out of her.
“Where were you?” she managed.
Dad looked down at his boots. Blood had dried in splotches on his shirt, evidence of where his bottom lip had split open and bled, and his pants were soaked up to his waist. The hut floor darkened around him as the river dripped from his clothes and he started to shiver. To cry. His body shook violently, like somethingwas thrashing inside him, and he pushed his palms into his forehead. Then a sound escaped his lips and he stumbled back.
“Dad?” Effie inched forward.
But he held his hand out and shook his head. He whipped his neck from side to side, shaking and shaking. Too hard. Too fast.
“Dad, stop,” Effie begged. “Stop. Please.”
His head stilled suddenly and he looked at her, his face sad and unhinged, and a chill flushed through Effie.
“Dad, what happened?”
“She’s dead,” he whispered.
Her heart stopped. “Who? Who’s dead?”
“I should never have left her.”
Dad was there, but his mind was somewhere else—adrift.
“I left her…and now…now she’s dead.”
“Dad…” Effie reached an arm out, but he recoiled. He staggered away and flattened himself against the wall, putting distance between them.
“Leave me,” he said. “Leave me alone.”
“But—”
“I don’t want you here.” He turned his face away. “I don’t want you to…”
“Dad, I don’t understand.” Effie’s lips trembled. “What happened?”
“Get out,” he shouted, his eyes wide and fogged with drink. “Get out.”
He threw his arm out, pointing at the door. “Leave,” he yelled. “Now.”
“Dad…”
He grabbed a mug and threw it across the room, the ceramic shattering against the wall with a crash. Effie lurched backward, tripping over a basket of firewood and landing on the floor.
“She’s dead,” he murmured. “Dinah’s dead because of me.”
Effie scrambled to her feet, her heart pounding against the insides of her ribs—broken—and she ran from the hut. She hurrieddown the steps, past her siblings in the garden and past the rows of vegetables. She didn’t stop until she was deep enough in the trees that the hut was hidden, until the ache in her lungs and the panting of her breath silenced her thoughts.
Puffing, Effie bent forward and rested her hands on her knees. The small clearing—where Mum and Aiden lay—spread out like a dark pool. Trees crowded around it, so dense that only faint rays of sunlight sifted through the canopy. Effie’s breathing softened, and the noises of the bush slowly returned.
