Page 17 of The Vanishing Place
“Taken what?”
“The baby.”
Effie spun around, her brain dizzy. His floor bed was empty. He was gone. There was just a pile of blankets and a single teaspoon. There was no baby. No brother.
“Where is he?” She pushed herself up, finding energy in some angry buried place, and ran for the door. She thrust it open and rushed outside.
“Baby!”she screamed.
She glanced at the empty deck, then yelled at the wall of trees, her fingers balling into fists.
“Baby!”
Her throat burned and her eyes stung. But there was nothing. No one. Just kahikatea and miro and solid forest.
2025
“This is mad.”Blair hobbled across Effie’s small kitchen. “You get that, right? That this is totally mad?”
Effie lifted the kettle and poured two cups of tea. “Milk?”
“You can’t just get on a plane to New Zealand. It’s like…” Blair shook her head at the milk bottle. “Like a really fucking long way.”
Effie carried the mugs through to the living room, and Blair limped after her.
“And this Lewis guy. I mean, what do you even know about him?”
“We grew up together.” She smiled. “You’d like him.”
“Oh, I’d like him.” Blair rolled her eyes. “Well then, that’s just peachy. You just jump on a plane to the other side of the planet and go meet some guy you haven’t seen in fifteen years.”
“Seventeen.” Effie sipped her tea. “Seventeen years.”
“And what?” Blair’s eyes widened. “Just cos some random kid appears from the trees, you’re off to help? Don’t they have other police officers in New Zealand? Or other people who can talk to trees?”
Effie raised an eyebrow. “I don’t talk to trees.”
Blair sat on the other sofa, ignoring her, and Rimu nuzzled into Blair’s legs.
“Traitor,” said Effie.
“Is this about Greg?” Blair asked. “Is that what you’re running from?”
“No. It’s got nothing to do with Greg,” said Effie. “And I’m not running. In fact, for the first time in my life, I think I might actually be doing the exact opposite.”
“You’ve got nothing to prove by going back there. You know that, right?”
“Bee…”
“You survived the bush, and then you escaped. You moved on. What good is there in going back?”
“It might help a little girl.”
“That’s bullshit. You can help little girls here.” Blair leaned in. “Either you’ve gone mad or you’re hiding something.”
Effie stared into her mug, then looked out the window at the sea loch and the heavy sky. She had only ever shared parts of her past with Blair. More than she’d told anyone else, but still, just parts. Blair knew the bush-girl story, the neglected kid who’d grown up in the wild. But the worst bits—the darkness that had slithered into their lives after her mum died—those Effie had locked away.
She focused on the salt loch. There was barely any difference between the water and the sky, like a bleak watercolor of gray and charcoal.
