Page 53 of The Vanishing Place
The child threw herself to the bare floorboards, crying and whining, and started to claw at them with her fingers.
July 2003
Effie sat onthe deck outside the hut, wrapped up in all the clothes she owned. She’d found Mum’s old jacket too, and had tucked it around her legs. There was no warmth in the bush in July—the month was cold from start to finish. Less sandflies though. So winter had that going for it, at least.
Four was asleep next to her. He was snuggled up inside a wooden shelter that Dad had made for his naps. Four would only sleep outside during the day, like he was a dog or something, which had annoyed Effie at first. But she’d got used to it. And during the winter, the quiet wasn’t so bad. Inside the hut was mad; Tia’s stuff was everywhere, and Aiden was so loud.
Four sneezed and swatted at his face with a chubby fist, then he crinkled his eyes, his cheeks like red balloons. Without any of them really noticing, Four had turned one and a half. He ran everywhere now, his legs constantly bruised, and he shouted out the noises of animals. But despite all the running, he still had a big stick-out belly. Insulation for winter, Dad said. Effie, however, was a scrawny frozen twig.
She leaned forward and tucked Four’s teddy in next to him. Its right arm had been sewn back on twice, badly, and the one remainingeye gave Effie the creeps. But Four took it everywhere. June said it was probably a health hazard—more germ than bear.
Effie smoothed out Mum’s jacket and picked up her tattered copy ofHarry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. June had given it to her for her tenth birthday, and it was literally the best thing Effie had ever read. She’d devoured it three and a half times. Apparently there were three more books, and June had promised to keep an eye out for them. June hadn’t been back to the hut, not since Four was born, but Dad walked them all out to Koraha once every three months. Then for two weeks, they’d stay with June and go to school. They’d take baths and brush their hair and play at being normal kids. Effie loved those two weeks with Lewis and June and a fridge filled with proper milk. But Tia and Aiden—and probably even Four—always loved going back to the bush, to the stupid cold hut without electricity or Lewis or Mum.
Effie flicked to the page with her marker in it and started reading aloud. The characters felt more real that way. Ron was the best. He had red hair like Effie, always messy, and his voice sounded like Lewis sometimes.
A twig snapped in the distance and she looked up, not breathing for a moment, but there was no one there. Of course there wasn’t. Dad would be gone for at least another day. When he left, he was always gone for three days. And when he came back, it was another two days before he was really there. Effie turned back to her book. The young ones knew not to go near Dad when he got home, not until Effie said so.
Dad’s bad days had been getting worse. Sitting in silence. Drinking till his body slumped. It always happened just before he left, like an anger bubbled up in him and he had to leave before it burst out. The winter made him worse too.
On the bad days, he and Effie did a sort of side-stepping dance. They lived under the same roof, forced together by the hut, butthey didn’t really notice each other. They didn’t speak or touch. Dad sort of moved around them—like a giant trying not to squish bugs. Effie tidied up and tried to cook, and Tia played with the boys and got them dressed.
But on the good days, Dad hugged them and read them stories and did all the right parent things. On the good days, Effie cried when she fell, ugly dramatic tears, and Dad kissed her—her forehead first, then her grazed knees. She would sneak into bed with him in the mornings, without checking on Four first, and he’d readThe Lord of the Rings. On the good days, Effie fought with Tia and got annoyed with Aiden, and Dad made them all say sorry.
Most days were good days—days when Dad was Dad—and that made the bad ones feel smaller.
Four stirred in his wooden shelter and Effie giggled. He’d wriggled so much that only his face popped out from the blankets, his lips puckering like a fish’s.
“Come on.” Effie reached in and gathered him up. “Let’s get you some milk.”
Four snuggled into her, still half-asleep, and Effie stroked the purple birthmark on his neck. Inside, Effie threw more wood in the fire and heated up some milk, then she and Tia cooked up rice and lentils. The rice still lumped together, not like when June did it, and Tia burned the lentils to the bottom of the pan. But it was edible. The first time Dad had gone, they’d eaten nothing but raw carrots, broccoli and cold baked beans from the tin.
They spent the rest of the day playing in the hut and keeping the fire going. It wasn’t until the young ones were all in bed that Effie allowed herself back into Dad’s room. She’d made up his bed the day before and picked his clothes up off the floor, so that it would be nice when he got back. Then she’d swept up with a brush and pan. She’d found his journal when she was sweeping, the tornnotebook splayed open on the floor. Effie had taken a quick look, not a real one, then she’d snapped it shut. It was bad to snoop.
But now that the rest of the hut was quiet, Effie lifted the notebook again and sat on the bed, staring at the closed cover.
Don’t.
She ran her fingers over the worn jacket, adrenaline thrumming beneath her skin, and bit into her lip.
Don’t open it.
She sat like that for a minute, gripping the notebook so tightly that the tips of her fingers paled.
You can’t open it.
Then she opened it, flattening out the spine, and flicked through the pages. One after the other, cover to cover, then back again. Only the first quarter of the book had been written in, the pages smudged with dirty fingerprints, but it was the same thing on every page. A name. The same name written on each page, followed by a line of numbers—dates, maybe—and a scrawled cross.
Effie touched the writing, her hands shaking. She’d seen that flowery name before.
She traced a finger over the five letters, struggling to think over the punch of her heart.
She’d seen it in the creepy chamois hut.
2025
The late afternoonglow spilled through the windows, creating a pool of white light around the two bodies.
A dead man and a broken child.
