Page 24 of The Vanishing Place
June smiled. “He’s there too.”
“What exactly do we know about her?”
“Not much. She turned up at the supermarket on Friday morning searching for something to eat. Poor child was famished.”
“Where did she come from?”
June glanced down at her plate, then her eyes flickered toward the window. “From the bush.”
“Are you sure? I mean, Lewis said she won’t talk.”
“I’m sure.”
“How?”
June reached a hand across the table. “Because she looked just like you when you turned up. Scared. Dirty. And with those same green eyes.”
Two girls. With eyes the color of the forest and blood on their clothes.
December 2001
Dad was goneagain when Effie woke up.
There was a big cold space on the sofa, the warmth of him gone too. But Effie didn’t run from the hut. She didn’t scream at the bush. Dad was real gone this time. She could feel it in her chest, like a hole had opened up. And no amount of screaming would bring him back.
Effie pulled herself up from the sofa and walked around to the kitchen. Dad was gone and now June was there—like a gift he’d left for them. A stupid early Christmas present.
Effie didn’t speak, and June didn’t try to make her. They stood side by side, washing dishes and putting them away. June didn’t know the right places for the bowls or the cutting boards, and she used the wrong towel.
But then, Mum was dead, so what did it matter?
The baby was asleep in the corner (June had assembled Aiden’s old cot), and the young ones were sleeping in the nook. Effie didn’t know where June had slept; she didn’t want to think about it.
Once Effie had dried Four’s bottle, she walked outside and sat on the deck. After a few minutes, June followed her.
“This is for you,” she said, handing Effie a small package. “Lewis left it at my house.”
June smiled and walked back inside, leaving a cup of mint tea for Effie. It was annoying that June was being so nice. Effie didn’t want nice. She wanted something to scream at.
She opened the gift—a single shell threaded onto a black waxed string—and placed it over her head. Staring at the trees, she held the shell between her fingers and moved it along the string.
“Mum and Dad are gone, Lewis.”
She rubbed her forearm across her face, as close to crying as she’d been. But she blinked the tears away. She wouldn’t cry. She wasn’t some stupid blubbering little girl.
—
Four days passed before Effie spoke to June. She mumbled answers to all her stupid questions—about the greenhouse and what the young ones ate and how to get water—but she never proper spoke to her. Aiden, however, clung to June’s legs like a mussel, and Tia talked at her continuously.
“How did you get here?” Effie asked eventually.
June sat on the sofa after putting the baby down, then she looked at Effie as if they chatted all the time.
“Well,” she said, thinking. “Your dad appeared at my house that night, around nine or ten. It was just getting dark. He must have practically run down that valley with Aiden. I doubt he even stopped to take a breath. Your dad said he managed to catch a ride at the falls and made the whole trip in five hours.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Just the walk alone took us nearly double that on the way back. I have a bit of trouble with my right knee, you see.”
“Dad stayed at your house?”
“Well, not really. He left Aiden so the boy could sleep for afew hours, then…” She hesitated. “Then he went to the shop for supplies and a couple of—”
