Page 42 of The Vanishing Place
Effie groaned. “But we walked forages.” Learning to navigate was the worst. It all looked the same. Just green, green, green. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
“You’re doing great.” Dad smiled. “Tracking’s bloody hard, and that chamois didn’t know where it was going. It wasn’t just you taking us in circles.” He winked. “But heading straight down the valley, without getting lost, probably would have taken about forty minutes.” His smile widened. “Maybe more with all of them bloody pee stops.”
Effie glared at him, then she turned away, hiding her smile. “You’re a dope,” she muttered.
She glanced around the hut, confused by it. The kitchen was way fancier than theirs, with big metal surfaces and taps and stuff, and there was expensive furniture, like a store-bought chair and a steel bed in one of the rooms. There was even a gate around the fire and matching cutlery in the drawers. But the place was yuck. Even with the possum gone, it still smelled of animal droppings and must.
“What’s this hut called?”
“I don’t actually know.” Dad shrugged. “Don’t reckon it has a name. Some rich guy owns it.”
Effie grimaced. “Well, he’s not very tidy.”
Dad chuckled. “I doubt he’s stepped foot in here in years. There are loads of private huts dotted around the country, buried away in the bush. Some just get forgotten about, I guess. Rich punters with too much money.”
“How’d you find it?”
“Oh…” A shadow passed across his face. “Just some hunting trip a couple of years ago.”
“Well, you could have cleaned up a bit. It’s gross.”
Dad grinned. “It’s grand. Just a bit of dust.” He tossed Effie a couple of carrots from his rucksack. “Bit of an airing and she’ll come right.”
Over the next hour, they chopped and ate and chatted, then headed to bed. Dad took the dead-possum room with two bunks, and Effie took the room with the bunks and the fancy bed in the corner. There was no chance she was sleeping with the possum ghost, and Dad snored like a deer in rut so she wasn’t about to share. Dad had laughed at that, spitting out his coffee, and it made Effie laugh too.
She lay her sleeping bag out on the steel bed and turned on her head-torch. She’d never had a room to herself, or even a whole blanket, and the space felt endless without Tia and Aiden. No noise. No warmth. Effie picked up her sleeping bag and slipped into one of the bottom bunks. It was better being squished into the small space, easier to get comfy without all that extra room. Effie lay flat on her back, staring at the bunk above, but she didn’t turn her head-torch off. The dark didn’t scare her—it was no different from closing her eyes. But there was something odd about the hut. Effie turned her head, sending brightness into the faraway corners, then she snuggled into her sleeping bag and inched away from the wall, leaving the light on.
It was a moment before her pulse settled enough to focus. And then she saw it. Squinting, Effie reached up, her fingertips brushing the slats of wood in the base of the bunk above her. Carved into the wood was a name—sort of strange and flowery. Probably for a girl. Effie whispered it out loud as she touched the letters. Then her eyes caught on a fleck of white, where a piece of paper was poking out, jammed between the mattress and the slats. Sittingup, she pulled the paper free and opened it. As she read, the words slipped under her skin.
He has me shut up. Help me.
It was signed off with a single letter.
D.
Effie shuddered, her body both sweaty and cold, and shoved the note back between the slats. Then, tumbling from her sleeping bag, she hurried from the room and into her dad’s bunk.
“Effie? Are you okay?” Tiredness made his words long and heavy.
“I don’t like it here,” she whispered.
He curled his arms around her, constricting the punch of her heart. “Sleep, little one.”
Effie felt for the bracelet on her wrist and twirled one of the charms in her fingers—the one shaped like the letterD. Over and over. Until at some point she fell asleep, and the silverDfell limp on the mattress.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when the chamois was strapped to Dad’s back and they’d walked for long enough that the blisters on Effie’s heels throbbed, that she noticed the bracelet was gone, probably slipped off when they were tidying up. Effie was about to ask Dad about it, and the note too, when he turned and looked at her. His face was all serious, and the expression emptied her mind out.
Don’t leave again. Please don’t leave.
“I made a deal with June,” he said.
She nodded. Maybe she nodded. None of her was working right.
“June’s agreed to stay on another month with us. To help with the baby.”
Us. Us was good.
“Under one condition,” he said. Then he smiled. “Afterward, I’m to take you kids to live in Koraha for six weeks.”
