Page 114 of The Vanishing Place
Adam lifted hishands and splatted them down on the water, sending big splashes out of the bath and over Dinah’s dress.
“Adam, stop!” Big sister pulled a funny face, her eyes squished up. “Adam! You’re getting the floor wet!”
He gathered bubbles around his tummy, but the bathwater gobbled them up and his belly button peeped through the water. He thumped the water again, and it spilled over the bathroom floor.
“Adam, stop!” Dinah laughed. She leaned over the bath and gripped his hands. “You’re making a mess.”
Then big sister scooped up bubbles and plopped them on his head.
“There.” She smiled. “Now you’re an important police officer in his police hat. So you have to behave.”
“Just five more minutes, you two.” Mummy’s voice sneaked in under the bathroom door. “Dad will be home soon.”
Adam pushed the open shampoo bottle under the water, making it heavy. Then he squeezed the plastic, and bubbles exploded out of the top.
“Yay.” He giggled.
Big sister laughed, then she got a cloth and wiped the bubbles from his face.
“No eyes,” Adam squealed. “Not in eyes.”
Dinah smiled. “I’m nowhere near your eyes.”
Big sister needed to wipe her face too. Her cheek was all grubby, smudged blue and purple.
“Just three minutes.”
“Yes, Mum,” Dinah called.
March–April 2008
Effie clambered fromthe tin boat and landed on thestones,a small wounded puddle.
The Haast River had churned and tugged under the boat, pulling her astray, but Effie had battled against it, fighting until her arms burned and her palms left skin on the wooden oars.
She spluttered, coughing up bile and phlegm, and wiped the mucus away with her sleeve. Her clothes were damp with dirt and river and Asher’s blood. She crawled on hands and knees, reaching out to the water, but her body bowed over, and the stones caught her chin.
Cursing, Effie forced herself up, then she lunged at the river, scooping up handfuls of water and throwing it into her face and down her throat. After hours of stumbling through the bush without food or drink, the skin on her feet was raw and her stomach ached. She’d walked for six hours, too dazed to stop, and the black tinge of nightfall was creeping through the sky.
Effie lay down, allowing herself a short rest, as the shadows lengthened and the sky darkened above her, the moon bright and round.
Slowly, her breath and body came back to her and she stood. It was an easy ten-minute walk through the bush to the road. Thenit was twenty-seven kilometers on the hard road to Koraha. In the dark. Alone. Without food or water or warm clothes.
“Stupid idiot.”
She should have grabbed her bag. She clenched her fists and kicked at the ground. Then she lifted her face to the moon.
“You up for this?” Effie whispered. “Cos I’m going to need your help.”
The moon smiled down, and Effie forced a weak smile back.
“Let’s go, then.”
—
The small body that slumped against June’s back door, nine hours later, was broken and empty.
Effie had hidden in the verge whenever a car passed, only a handful in total, afraid of strange faces and strange questions, then she’d stumbled on without stopping. As the hours passed, and her feet tore, the cold had eaten through her. First through her clothes, then through her bones.
