Page 69 of The Vanishing Place
He looked away; his expression different. “My dad,” he said. Soft. His voice thinned out. “My dad punched me.”
There was a beat of quiet.
Asher gave a sad smile. “Too hard that time, I guess.”
Then another.
Effie turned her head away. They weren’t the same. She and Asher. Her dad and Asher’s dad. Effie blinked, closing her eyes to the glare. To the sun. Not to tears. Not to the sad burn in her stomach and cheekbone. After a few seconds, she turned back.
“I’m sorry,” she managed, and she was—sorry. “About your eye.”
But Asher’s story wasn’t her story. His dad wasn’t her dad.
“Could…” Asher paused. “Could we maybe keep this between us?”
Effie crossed her arms. “Doesn’t bother me.”
He smiled. No shock there.
“This secret,” Effie frowned. “It doesn’t make us friends or anything, though.” She kicked at a dangling fern. “And the God stuff’s still bullshit.”
2025
It was theGerman shepherds that found the girl. She was curled up like a koru, ropes tied around her ankles and wrists.
“Morrow is coming back to get us,” said Lewis, lowering his radio. “Then she’ll take us to the girl. Detective Constable Wilson is waiting with her.”
Effie glanced over his shoulder toward the hut, her mind incapable of forming words. Unable to still the quiver in her lips and jaw.
“It’s not too far,” he added.
Lewis put an arm around her, the solidness of him holding her up, and Effie clung on. Behind them, the police swarmed around the property like ants, all of them with a specific task: to bag, photo, swab, draw.
“I should have stayed and looked for her,” said Effie. “I should have searched for her until my feet bled.”
“Effie. She could have been anywhere. In any direction.”
“But she wasn’t, was she?” Her throat swelled. “She was only a few hundred meters away.”
“Even then, in the dark and with the trees, you could have walked straight past her.” He looked at her. “You did the right thing.”
“Or I left a scared child to die.”
Lewis went to say something—something that she didn’t deserve—when Morrow appeared, and Effie pulled away.
“Come on, you two,” said Morrow. “You’re needed. The nurse practitioner too.”
Kyle, who’d been hovering a few meters away, glanced over. Effie walked after Morrow, numbed everywhere but her stomach, and the two men followed.
There’d been a girl on Skye once, in Effie’s first month on the rescue team, who’d run off on a family walk. A full callout had followed: helicopters, dogs, locals, police. Rain had lashed down in sheets, and the heather had swollen beneath their feet. They’d walked in lines, their bodies angled against the wind, spaced twenty meters apart, hands tucked under their armpits, eyes to the ground.
If you see anything, raise your hand.
A boot. A glove. A jacket. That’s what Keith had been praying for when he barked out orders. A backpack. A hat.
They’d walked for hours, the rain stinging their eyes and their torches illuminating the black hillside. No one had asked to stop. They’d just walked forward, one foot in front of the other, like there was nothing else to do.
It was Effie who’d eventually halted as the line—and the flicker of hope—moved on without her. Then she lifted an arm, her fingers trembling, unable to call out as she looked down.
