Page 31 of The Vanishing Place
Effie crouched down and lay on the floor, then she squeezed under the bed. She knew exactly where she was going to keep Mum’s necklaces—a secret spot that only she and Tia knew about now. Right at the back, she dug her fingers under the loose floorboard and lifted it up. Then she placed the small box inside.
For the next hour or so, Effie stretched out on the bed and read and talked to Mum, telling her about Christmas, which wasn’t actually the worst. And about how she’d trimmed the deer leg. Which June hadn’t even gagged at. Eventually, when Effie slipped from the bed, it was later than she’d realized, and the glow from the kerosene lamp was the only light in the dark. She inched the door open, clutching the lamp in one hand, and peered into the living area, but there was no sign of June. Effie frowned as she stepped into the room, empty apart from Four asleep in his cot. The curtained nook was quiet and still.
“June?” Effie whispered.
A pressure built in her chest as she crept over to the front door and stepped outside.
“June,” she whispered again.
She walked across the deck and held the lamp up against the night, the sky so dark it was hard to imagine the bush was even there. She moved around the side of the hut, stepping over a collection of discarded toys and gardening tools.
“June,” she called, though not loud enough to anger the night things. The first prickles of fear tingled her skin. Unknown things lived in the dark.
“June?” she said, barely a whisper. “Are you there?”
Effie continued around to the vegetable garden. The large cages—set over the chard to keep out possums—loomed like dark figures. They were horrid things, built from driftwood and sheets of old wire that had torn the skin from her fingers more than once. As she moved closer, the light from her lantern spilled over the broad beans, and a pair of white eyes glared at her. Effie gasped and stumbled back as the creature scurried off through the leafy rows.
Stupid ugly possum.
Effie swore at herself, then kicked the dirt. She went to turn back—June was probably just peeing—when she heard it.
A cry.
A soft, sad cry, diluted by the hugeness of the sky and the trees.
Holding out the lamp, Effie continued around the back of the hut. As she turned the final corner, she saw a dome of light. And there, crouched on the ground with her back to Effie, was June. A liquid cold trickled down Effie’s back, a not-right feeling, and she quickly turned her lamp off. There was something about the moment, something wrong, something Effie wasn’t meant to be seeing. As soon as Effie’s flame went out, June turned her head toward her, just like the possum. Her eyes were wide and shocked, and her face was pale. With her long silver hair and wild eyes, she looked like a witch.
Effie didn’t move. She froze to the spot, barely breathing, and willed the night to hide her away. Eventually, June turned back to a metal box on the ground. Effie watched as she sifted through the contents. After a moment, June held up a single piece of paper and ran her fingers across it, reading something, then she folded it carefully and tucked it into her pocket. After placing the other itemsback, June locked the box. Then, using a long stick, she pushed it as far under the hut as she could.
Effie closed her eyes, like she did when she was small, to try to make herself invisible. She prayed that June would walk the other way around the hut.
Please. Please.
The haunting call of a morepork echoed through the bush—quork-quorkquork-quork—and when she opened her eyes again, June and the dome of light had gone.
Without a match to light it, Effie left the lamp and inched along the side of the hut to where June had been. She hugged the wall as she moved through the dark, using her feet and hands to guide her. She crouched down on all fours, feeling along the ground under the hut with her fingers.
She lay flat, squeezing her body into the cramped space, and shuffled forward on her thighs and forearms, the soil gathering under her fingernails. The dirt and a thousand unseen bugs itched at her skin, but she wriggled farther in. Her muscles burned as she stretched her arm out, straining and searching with her fingers, the weight of the hut making it hard to fill her lungs. She scrambled forward, the gap shrinking, and something sharp dug into her stomach. Effie winced, coughing in dust and cobwebs.
Yuck.
Then she felt it. The side of the box. Her fingers grazed the hard surface, but she couldn’t quite grip it. She was jammed, sprawled in cobwebs and possum shit, and the smallness of the space was making her feel sick.
Stupid box.
Effie started to wriggle backward when her fingers grazed over something else. Something smooth. Grunting, Effie pinched the piece of paper between her fingers and slithered out from beneath the hut. She dusted herself off and slipped it down the back of hershorts, then skulked around the dark deck. Once she was sure that June had gone to her bedroom, Effie crept in the front door and scurried across the room to the nook.
Neither Tia or Aiden stirred as Effie lit a candle and held the black-and-white photo to the light. She didn’t know who she was looking at. Two children, a boy and a girl, sat next to each other on a stone step. Effie frowned. The boy in the photograph looked older than the girl, Effie’s age maybe, and the girl was about Tia’s size. The boy was laughing and the girl was holding his face. She was kissing his cheek.
Effie turned the photo over and whispered out the words that were written on the back.
“To the boy who tried to save my life.”
Her stomach fluttered, and she thought suddenly of Lewis.
2025
This was mad.Totally and utterly mad.
