Page 56 of The Vanishing Place
She stepped back into the hut, alone but for Four. Even from the other side of the hut, the smell was suffocating. She coughed and walked farther in, trying to move through the crushing wave of emotions. She had to block it out. This was why she’d come. Why she’d walked into the bush without Lewis.
Effie pulled her phone out to take more photos. The moment it became a crime scene, the hut would be taken from her. It would be wrapped in yellow tape and swabbed and gutted. This was her only chance to find something, anything, to hint at what had happened to her family.
She moved with care, touching as few things as possible. She checked under the sofa, behind the piles of kindling and under the sink, but the knife wasn’t there. Someone had taken it. She worked her way around the small hut, the traces of memory lingering in every item. The past was right there, in every creak in the floor and every cold draft of bush air.
Effie walked over to the far end of the room and reached for the curtain that shielded the sleeping nook. It was the same curtain that had hung there for thirty years. As she touched the material, she could almost hear the whispered giggles of children and the soundof small bodies shuffling for space. She paused, like a part of her knew what the tattered screen was hiding. Effie tightened her grip on the curtain. There was something wrong with the hut, something more than just the body. There was an emptiness to it, the type of barrenness that laced the air of a prison cell.
Effie took a breath and pulled the curtain back. And her heart broke.
A set of chains hung from the wall, secured by a bolt, just high enough to detain a child. On the floor was a small bundle of blankets and a pile of books. Effie took a moment to quell the fury in her stomach, then she lifted her phone, capturing every inch.
After a second walk around the main room, careful not to disturb anything, she cracked the front door open and peered at Anya. The girl hadn’t moved. Quietly, Effie closed the door and moved on to the bedroom. The bed was made, and the room was neat and tidy. But other than the faint smell of laundry soap, there was no sign of life. No photos on the walls, no pictures drawn by Anya, no hints at Tia’s three decades of life. Pulling the sleeves of her jumper down to cover her hand, Effie opened the drawers on the small dressing table Dad had built for her and Tia. But they were both empty. No clothes. No blankets. She frowned as she stood up. The whole thing—the hut, the body, Tia—it was all wrong.
Is this where you live?
A nod.
With your mum?
Another nod.
As Effie looked around, it was as if she were standing in the cell of a monastery, of a life stripped bare. Stripped of her sister.
“Where are you, Tia?” Effie whispered. “Where did you go?”
She moved forward and knelt in front of the bed, then she tried to squeeze underneath it. If there was any part of her sister left, it would be there, in their spot.
A place just for us, Tia, for our secrets.
Effie dug her fingers under the loose floorboard and lifted it up. The small space was filled with paper, familiar pages torn from their old exercise books and drawing pads. Effie pulled them out—leftover pieces of her sister—and shuffled back to sit on the floor. There were about fifteen sheets of paper covered in Tia’s looped writing, each starting with the same two words.
Dear Effie.
She bit into her lip. Not crying. Tears wouldn’t do her sister any good. Effie flicked through the letters. Most of them contained similar anecdotes, accounts of things that they’d done as children.
Dear Effie
Do you remember that time, when June was still wary of the bush? Gosh, she hated it at first, didn’t she? Too dark. Too damp. Too noisy. Too quiet. Too cold. And she tried to give Aiden a bath in the big bucket (he would have been about two) and he escaped. Poor June went berserk. She was convinced he’d be mauled by a savage possum or poisoned by tree nettles. Aiden must have run around the bush, completely naked, for at least an hour before we found him, covered head to toe in dirt. Then when June tried to scold him, he just looked up at her and beamed, his teeth the only mud-free part of him. I can still remember it, that little voice of his, as he held his hands up. “Dirty hands. Aiden has dirty hands.” Then he pointed at June. “Dune clean.” I think June hugged him so tight that it winded him. She opened two tins of peaches that night and we all slept in her bed.
It was a good night.
Miss you. X
Effie flicked through the pages, all of them written to her, and all of them signed off with a kiss. There were no dates or markers, but some of the pages looked worn. And three of them were different. Newer. Scrappier. Like maybe Tia’s hand had been shaking as she wrote. Effie read them each twice, forcing herself to sit with her sister’s words, to accept what they might mean.
Dear Effie
I’m so sorry. I made a mistake. I should have come with you all those years ago. You escaped. You lived.
X
Dear Effie
I’m scared. I’m worried that I don’t know my own child anymore. I love her more than life. But I’m terrified that I’m losing her to him.
X
Dear Effie
