Page 103 of The Vanishing Place
“Do you have any pictures of my mum and Four?” asked Anya.
Effie pulled back, her heart thrumming.
“June said you might show me.”
Effie turned and stared at the writing desk, a weight pushing on her lungs. “Yes,” she said eventually. “I have one. Sort of.”
“Can I see?”
Effie slipped from the bed and stepped over to the old desk, unmoved in twenty years. June had left it, just in case Effie wanted to go back there. She tugged the drawer open and lifted out the wad of papers. Letters from Lewis. Drawings and maps that they’d made. Old pictures. And at the bottom was Effie’s only family photo, taken just a month before Four was born. A month before Mum died.
Effie touched a shaking finger to each of their faces. Mum and Dad stood in the middle with the sea behind them. Four was safe and invisible in Mum’s stomach, his tiny body hidden away from the world, from all of them. There was no evidence of her little brother. No bulge in her mum’s top. No swelling to her chest. But he was there, listening and growing and making Mum glow. Ten fingers and ten toes. A cryptic pregnancy, Blair had named it.
A little surprise.
Tia, Aiden and Effie were sitting on the white sand, their feet and legs bare, with wide smiles and wild hair. Aiden was scooping up a fistful of sand, about to eat it, and Tia’s mouth was open mid-word.
“That’s your mum there,” said Effie, pointing at Tia. “A long time ago.”
“She looks different.” Anya frowned. “Where’s Four?”
“In there.” Effie smiled. She couldn’t not smile. He was her baby brother, the baby she’d fed and loved and rocked to sleep. “Even though there’s no bump, there’s a—”
Then with a jerk, Anya grabbed the photo and ripped it in two.
“Stop!” Effie tried to hold Anya’s hands. “What are you doing?”
“He’s there,” said Anya, her face white.
“Who?” Effie’s hand trembled. “Who’s there?”
Effie held the torn pieces together, her mother’s face sliced in two.
“Four?” Effie managed. “He’s just a fetus. He can’t hurt—”
The girl shook her head. “The bad man’s there.”
“What bad man?”
“In the middle.” Anya pointed to the smiling figure in the center of the picture.
Dad.
“You mustn’t speak to the bad man,” said Anya. “He’ll hurt you.”
Effie stared at the photo, her body tense, then back at the child. “Anya, did that man do something to you?”
She shook her head. “We can’t talk to him.” Her eyes widened. “It’s not allowed.” She shook her head again. “Never ever.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Effie placed a hand on her shoulder. “We don’t need to talk about him.”
“I want June.” Anya’s eyes were a watery green. “I want June.”
“Of course.”
Effie drew her hand back and the girl sprinted from the room, leaving Effie with the butchered image of her family.
August–December 2007
