LITMIR.BIZ

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flying high above Imbali, looking down through the smog at dozens of zigzag streets, twisting here and there, house after house after house crowded together, stair-stepping their way up and down hills and all the way to the city of Pietermaritzburg. An ambulance flashes its lights as it speeds around bends in the roads, goes down a wrong street and hits a dead end, backs up and turns around to try again to get out of the maze that is Imbali.

      And then I see her. A witch—my witch, the woman who lives at the top of the hill—as she sneaks through the winding streets, as she passes each sleeping house, observing them all briefly until she comes to ours. And then she stops, staring right at the bedroom window where I sleep with Mama.

      Though she doesn’t say a word, I know she’s daring me to come out and challenge her. I can hear her cackly voice speaking in my head: Hah! So! You think good always defeats evil, eh? Well, why don’t we find out, Nomkhosi Zulu?

      Don’t do it, I whisper, but my body ignores my brain. It gets out of bed even while I scold it, even as I shout Stop! It walks to the window, and there I am, looking outside, watching that witch walk around and around and around the perimeter of our house, digging small ditches, scattering a white powder on stones, placing the stones in the holes, refilling each ditch with dirt, then stomping down until nobody can find the spot where she dug.

      Muthi. She’s scattering a potion around our house, one that will harm anybody who steps into our yard.

      No no no! Stop. I try to speak the words out loud but my voice strangles against the muscles of my throat.

      She pauses to look at the bedroom window again, spreads her lips into a thin grin, and provokes me with her wordless taunt. What are you going to do about it? How are you going to protect your family from this muthi?

      What did I do to deserve this? I ask. Why am I your target?

      She laughs. You think you and your family are innocent? Ah, but there was an opening to evil. You invited me.

      I didn’t invite you, I argue.

      Somebody in your household did. And now I’m daring you to come outside and we’ll see who’s stronger. You or me. Hah!

      Who invited evil into our lives? I can’t imagine Mama or Gogo or Zi doing anything that would cause this attack. Did I do something? I think back back back, months back. Of course, there are always these things that we should do for the ancestors, to ensure their protection over us. My family is not as faithful as we should be. But surely, our omission isn’t so big that it would open the door so a witch thinks she is perfectly welcome in our home.

      Our eyes meet. My fear collides with her hatred, like two khumbis in a car accident. I start to shake and shiver.

      There’s no way I’m going outside and facing her, alone.

      And she knows it. She knows I’m a coward. That’s why she laughs, her mouth open wide, gold glinting on her front tooth. She laughs and laughs and laughs. At me. But it’s the strangest thing. There’s no sound anywhere, like God opened my eyes and plugged my ears.

      She puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles until a baboon lumbers over from the shadows and kneels. She climbs on and rides away, still laughing.

      Mama shakes me awake. “Khosi,” she’s shouting, “vuka! Wake up!”

      I’m standing next to the window, the same window in my dream.

      “You must have been sleepwalking,” Gogo says. She looks like she wants to ask more, but respects my privacy too much.

      Zi isn’t so respectful. She’s sucking her thumb, the scarf we managed to tie on her head last night clinging to a single knotted plait. “Were you having a nightmare?”

      “No!” I deny it quick quick. But I know this much: dreams don’t come out of nowhere. They are signs, sent from the ancestors as warnings. They’ve bothered me for two nights in a row now. What is it they’re trying to tell me?

      I close the door to the toilet and sit on the edge of the bathtub, looking down at my feet, following the cracks in the linoleum from one end of the room to the other, trying to forget what I saw.

       CHAPTER FIVE

       VISIT TO THE SANGOMA

      Gogo has trouble getting out of bed the next morning, sore from her walk up the hill to go to Umnumzana Dudu’s funeral.

      “Why don’t you stay in bed, Gogo?” I suggest. “God will understand if you miss church just once because you are so tired.”

      But no matter how tired she is, or how sick, Gogo always goes to church. “God never says, ‘I’m too much tired, I don’t think I’ll forgive your sins today,’” she says now as she struggles to sit up.

      I glance quickly down at her swollen knees. Gogo gasps as she tries to stand and I reach forward to give her support. We hobble into the dining room, where Gogo collapses on the sofa and Zi sits beside her, patting her arm. I pull a little table forward and lift Gogo’s feet to help bring the circulation back.

      “I’ll go to the sangoma after church and get some muthi to bring the swelling down,” I say. I need to see the sangoma myself—to talk to her about the dreams…about what happened yesterday…about the drunk man who looked like he turned into a crocodile…

      Mama stands in the doorway of the kitchen. “She needs to go to the doctor, Khosi,” she says.

      “The sangoma’s herbs always work, Mama.” Please, Mama, I need to go.

      “A doctor’s medicine will work even better,” Mama says.

      “But when can she go to the doctor?” I ask. “She can’t go alone and by the time I’m back from school, it’s too late, the clinic is closed.”

      Mama closes her eyes at the impossibility of it all. She leaves early Monday morning and comes home late on Friday night. After helping Inkosikazi Dudu last week, she can’t miss another day of work—we depend on her small salary for every last penny.

      “I can stay home from school and take Gogo to the clinic this week,” I offer, sinking inside.

      Mama shakes her head. “School is too important.”

      Anyway, if I stay home from school, Zi has to stay home from school, too. She is too young to walk through Imbali by herself or to catch a khumbi to go into the city, where we are lucky enough to go to a private school because we have scholarships.

      “Then let me go to the sangoma and get some herbs. It’s brought the swelling down in the past, Mama.”

      Mama sighs. “It’s the best way. For now.”

      I sit down beside Gogo and put my arm around her. “There are people from the parish who will come and let you celebrate mass here at home,” I say. “I’ll ask them to come this afternoon. You stay here and rest. Next week you’ll feel better.”

      So Gogo stays home from church, for the first time I can remember. While Mama is in the toilet getting ready, Gogo calls me to her side. I lean in close. “Don’t forget, tell the sangoma about the witch,” she whispers.

      “That will be expensive, Gogo,” I say.

      She fiddles around in her pockets and hands me fifty rand. “If you can only pay for one thing, forget my muthi. It is not so important as blocking that old woman’s evil.”

      Mama locks the gate behind us, and we start walking up the hill toward our church, the Catholic one, which is just behind the water tank covered in bright, bold graffiti. Zi dances ahead of us, calling hello to the people we pass.

      We walk past house after house, past the tall buildings of flats, tsotsis hanging out on the top floors, smoking

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