Page 130 of The Vanishing Place
There was another pulse of quiet.
“Speak up,” he shouted. “I hate it when you mumble.”
“No talking,” said the voice.
“Good,” he said. “You’re a good girl now, aren’t you, Tia?”
“Yes.”
Tia.
The sound and shape of her sister’s name slammed into Effie’s chest and she lurched forward.
Tia.
Aching and exhausted, Effie lifted her head and stared at the door.
“You’re alive,” she whispered.
1992
Adam stopped inthe trees, his new slingshot hanging from his fingers, and turned his head.
The bush hummed with cicada song.Buzz. Click. Buzz. Click. And the sharp whining vibrated in his chest.Thrum. Thrum.
Adam bent over and rummaged through the dead leaves, finding his marble. Then he straightened up and aimed his slingshot, like Daniel had taught him, and went to shoot again. But something stopped him—a thickness to the air, like there was something living in it.
More than just bugs.
He pocketed his favorite marble and set off through the trees. The branches got closer together every few steps, and the air got heavier. The bush darkened, gobbling him up. Then, a little way ahead, he saw it.
Daniel’s bush hut.
Adam crept up and hid behind a tree. He wasn’t allowed to go to the hut without Daniel. Daniel would whack him, and Adam’s arm would throb for a week. Holding his breath, Adam peered through the branches. His eyes widened as he absorbed the strange unknown thing. A thing that he shouldn’t be seeing.
Bad. Bad.
A bad-feeling thing.
But Adam couldn’t look away. His eyes were glued to it. As he stood there, his skin thrumming with cicada song, the bad thing stuck to his memory. It snuck in, uninvited, and tread muddy footprints through his head.
There was a figure. But not Daniel. The figure was kneeling with his back to Adam. A man. The man crouched forward on all fours, knees dug into the dirt, just inside the three-walled hut. His T-shirt was wet between his shoulders, and it clung to his back like cling film.
Adam strained his neck, trying to see better. It was an odd image, hard to understand. The figure was struggling with something. His arms leaned forward, and he was pushing his hands into the earth. He thumped at the ground, then he raised his back up, like he was doing press-ups, and he made a weird growling noise. Then his shoulders pulled up to his ears and his body started shaking.
Adam blinked at the strangeness of it. Daniel would be angry. Daniel hated people in his hut. Then the figure shifted slightly to the side, panting, and Adam saw her.
Dinah.
Fear swirled in Adam’s stomach, his heart racing, but still he didn’t move. He didn’t do anything. Dinah was squished flat under the man’s body.Under Cameron. And her legs were sticking out from each side of his waist.Cameron’s waist. His sister’s legs floated in midair, trembling, as Cameron grunted.
Adam wanted to look away. To scream. Yet he stood frozen, quiet but for the buzz of cicadas and the thump in his chest. Quiet but for the weird yelps that came out of his sister and stabbed into his tummy.
Not a single muscle in Adam’s body would work. Sick trickled down the back of his tongue, and Adam wished, prayed, that he could disappear.
2025
Effie got asclose to the door as the chain would allow. Then she waited.
