Page 70 of The Vanishing Place
Raise your hand.
There, among the trees, she’d seen the tangle of dark hair. The back of the child’s head. The tiny body, face down in the river.
Connie. Six years old.
“Are you ready?” asked Morrow, jolting Effie back to the present.
“Yes.”
“We haven’t moved her,” she said. “We haven’t been able to.”
“Is she chained?” asked Effie.
Morrow shook her head. “You’ll see.”
They walked the remaining hundred meters in silence, bashing through the thick bush, until the crouched figure of Morrow’s young colleague, Wilson, came into view, his eyes fixed on a small crate.
Oh god. Effie covered her mouth with her hand. It was Four’s shelter, the one he used to nap in. Except where the front had once been open, it was sealed off with a sheet of wire fencing.A cage.
Morrow held up a hand, stopping them, then nodded at Effie. “Just you.”
Effie stepped up to the wooden shelter. She could still feel the splinters, the tiny shards of memory and trauma buried in her skin.
“Anya?” She knelt in front of the box. “It’s Effie.”
The girl’s coiled fingers gripped the wire door, wrists bound, pulling it shut. Keeping herself in and the world out.
“I’m sorry,” said Effie. “I shouldn’t have left you.”
She crouched down so their eyes were level, just centimeters apart, and Anya snarled at her, her tissue-paper skin so fragile that the anger and wildness threatened to burst out of her. But there was something deeper in the greens of her eyes. She wasn’t wild. She was hurting.
“I know that you don’t trust me yet,” said Effie, “and I have no right to ask that of you. But I promise I just want to keep you safe.” She touched a finger to the wire. “I’m not going to hurt you, or make you do anything you don’t want to.”
Anya studied Effie’s mouth, her words.
“But I do need you to come out of there. And I need you to come back to Koraha with me.”
Effie moved her hand to the makeshift latch as the girl watched.
“I’m going to open the door now,” she said, “so I need you to let go of the wire.”
Slowly, Anya uncurled her fingers, her eyes focused on Effie’s hands, and Effie pulled the door open. Gently and gradually, she reached for the girl’s arms.
“Can I untie you?”
Anya nodded.
Effie released her hands first, the rope sodden and surprisingly loose, then she untied her ankles.
“You’re safe now.”
Effie was prepared when the girl leaped at her. Anya dove into Effie’s body, sobbing, and started hitting her chest, the child’s punches weak and fatigued. And Effie let her.
You’re safe now. You’re safe.
She didn’t notice Lewis and Kyle until it was too late. Until Kyle had already forced the needle into the child’s arm.
“No!” Effie screamed.
