Page 57 of The Vanishing Place
Dad is lost to us.
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Effie brushed a finger across her sister’s words.
What are you trying to tell me, Tia? What happened to you?
Outside, there was a thump, something hard hitting the ground, and Effie snapped her head around. She’d been in the hut too long.Stupid. Stupid.Effie folded the letters, slipped them into her pocket and glanced at her watch. The summer evenings were long in November, but so was the walk out. She wanted to be at least two hours away from the hut—away from her brother’s body—before she set up a bivvy shelter for the girl. Then at first light, they’d head back to Koraha.
Effie took one last look at Four, whispered a silent apology, then she stepped outside.
“Anya?”
She glanced at the empty chair, then walked along the deck.
“Anya. We need to go.”
Her skin prickled as she walked the entire way around the hut, scanning the edge of the bush. A thick line of trees surrounded the hut, and as Effie looked out at the forest, she felt herself slipping backward, getting smaller and smaller, until she was a kid again, sitting barefoot on the deck waiting for her dad.
But her dad wasn’t there.
And neither was Anya.
Effie was about to shout again when she looked up through the distant trees, straight into the eyes of a man. A face, half-hidden in ferns, watching her. He stood completely still, the left side of his body concealed behind a wide rimu. Effie spun around, reaching for something heavy, but when she turned back, he was gone.
Effie ran forward a few steps, her heart racing.
She had seen him. Hadn’t she?
She hadn’t imagined it. The cold eyes. The flash of red hair.
Blood throbbed in her head and she turned, searching in every direction. But she was alone.
“Fuck.”
She swore as she kicked the ground, the thoughts buzzing behind her eyes, and she stumbled back to the hut to get her bag.
Then she saw it. What the girl had drawn.
And Effie froze.
January 2005
Four walked betweenEffie and Tia, Effie holding one hand and Tia the other. Since turning three a couple of months ago, Four refused to be carried anywhere. If Effie even tried to lift him, he would scream and do the grass-eating thing that Aiden used to do. The forest floor liked to trick Four’s small feet though, tripping him over, but Four just giggled like it was a game.
“You’re flying.” Tia laughed as they swung Four in the air, lifting his gangly legs over a rotten stump.
“Again,” he said. “Do again. I want to fly.”
“What’s the polite word?” asked Effie.
“Please. Again, please.”
Tia smiled and they swung him up. Tia was still small, shorter than other nine-year-olds, but she was strong.
Dad and Aiden walked ahead, their hair and clothes still wet from the river. Dad was being a proper dad, chatting and laughing, and Aiden looked up at him like Dad’s bad days never happened. As if the times he left them alone were made up. Effie forgot sometimes too. Like when Dad searched for mushrooms with Four, or when he helped Aiden climb the big tree at the back of the hut. It was harderthen—to imagine the blackness in him. But Effie couldn’t forget it. Sometimes, though, she had to put a lot of effort into remembering.
“Come on, you three.” Dad looked back, grinning. “Hurry up. There’s birthday cake to be had.”
