LITMIR.BIZ

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apartheid, training as a soldier in Mozambique. He came home after the government released Nelson Mandela and they started negotiating to become a democracy, so blacks could have the vote for the first time ever in our own country. But then he was too old to finish school and now he struggles to find a good job. Sometimes he works for a day here or a day there. But paying lobolo to marry Mama? It is too much money.

      So Thandi is lucky, living with her baba, seeing him every day. I only see mine some few times a year.

      Thandi runs off to find her father and I find Mama among all the people lingering at the door. She gives me permission to go. I watch as she and Zi begin the long walk down the hill, past all the tiny houses and the tall buildings, all the way to our little house, set on the edge of Imbali, where the houses bleed into Edendale, another township. There are so many of us, sometimes it seems like the houses go on and on forever, all the way across South Africa.

      I sigh when I see the long queue stretching all the way from the round hut in the back to the neighbor’s yard. Weekends are a popular time to visit the sangoma.

      As I wait in the queue, I finger the fifty rands Gogo gave me to pay for the medicine, winding the paper around my index finger. Mama thinks sangoma medicine—honoring the ancestors—is silly, maybe even wrong, but here I am. And so are all these other people. Why? Because we know something Mama doesn’t. She’s the smartest woman I know… but she hasn’t figured out that science doesn’t explain everything.

      When it’s my turn to enter the round hut, I take off my shoes, smiling at the sangoma’s apprentice. I wish I could help people the way she will when she’s done with her training and working as a healer. But you don’t choose to become a sangoma the way you choose to become a doctor or nurse; you’re selected by the spirits of your ancestors. If they want you, they’ll make your life miserable until you say yes.

      She gestures for me to enter the hut. “Ngena,” she says.

      I squat down on my haunches to crawl through the small hole near the ground.

      The entire hut smells pungent, bittersweet like strong incense. A small fire smolders in the corner, belching short billows of smoke. The ceiling is black with burnt ash. Bunches of dried herbs and a beaded cow’s tail hang from the ceiling, while an orange cloth sags across the wall. The floors are mud, smeared with cow dung in circular patterns.

      There’s a sound like the wind blowing through a field of tall grass. I look around, wondering where the noise is coming from, but there’s nobody in the hut except for me and Thandi’s grandmother, the sangoma, who’s sitting in the central part of the round hut, her mouth closed.

      “Sawubona, Gogo kaThandi,” I greet her, bowing low to the ancestral spirits inside her.

      “Yebo,” she replies. Her long red beaded plaits clank as she nods her head at me.

      As I tell her about Gogo and her sore knees, I peek at her wild outfit, wondering if it sometimes embarrasses Thandi to see her gogo dressed like this. Even though Inkosikazi Nene is a modern sangoma and believes in doctors and nurses, she is still very traditional in the way she dresses and the way she approaches the ancestors. Everything she wears connects her to the spirit world and protects her from evil: the red and black beaded cap with a strip of cheetah fur threaded through it, the piece of blue cloth with pictures of spears and shields tied around her waist, the red ochre she rubs on her body until she shines a dull muddy red.

      “I will give you the usual herbal remedy for sore knees,” Inkosikazi Nene says, reaching up to the ceiling and breaking off big handfuls of dried herbs. She shakes them together in a small gourd, rattling the herbs inside. She pours the mixture onto some newspaper, wraps it up, and hands it to me. “Steep it in boiling water. She must drink it three times a day until the swelling goes down.”

      When I take the folded up newspaper, her hand rests lightly on top of mine. “There’s something else, is it, Khosi?” Inkosikazi Nene and Gogo have been friends for many years. She feels like another grandmother to me. To know that she’s on our side and we can always seek out her help…it means the world to me.

      My throat is dry. The rustling sound becomes a low whistle.

      “As soon as you walked inside this room, the spirits started shouting all at once,” she says.

      “Is that…is that the whistling sound?” I ask.

      Her fingers tighten on my wrist. “You can hear it?”

      “Only a little. What are they saying?”

      “They’re saying you’re in danger, little Khosi. Tell me why. Do you know why?”

      I swallow. “Do you know that old woman who lives in the two-story house at the top of the hill, near the water tank, just before you reach the Zionist church? The woman that everybody says turns people into zombies?”

      She nods.

      “Yesterday, when I walked Gogo to our neighbor’s funeral, she spoke to me. She told me she’s coming for me and nothing on earth can stop her. She dug her fingernails into my arm.” I hold out my forearm for Inkosikazi Nene to show off the shallow gouge, already scabbing over. “Do you think…do you think she’s cursed me? I had a terrible dream last night that she came and challenged me to a fight. I don’t want to fight her!”

      Inkosikazi Nene reaches behind her and grabs a large stick of dried impepho. Lighting it, she waves the smoke in front of her nose, breathing in deeply, closing her eyes, and humming.

      I start to speak again, but she holds up her hand to stop me.

      At last, she opens her eyes. “It is almost true, what that old woman said,” she says. “Almost.”

      “What part is true?”

      “She is coming for you, that is true. And I cannot stop it. I do not know what is going to happen, Khosi. I can give you some muthi; I do not know if it will help. But my spirits are telling me that there is somebody who can stop her.”

      I hold my breath.

      “They are saying it is you, Khosi. With the help of your ancestors, you can stop her.”

      Something claws and scrabbles inside of my stomach. “I’m like a rat which the cat plays with. How can I stop her? She’s a witch!”

      She folds her hands across her stomach. “You must remember to honor your ancestors every day, to make sure they are protecting you,” she says. “Offer a little food and drink to them in the evenings and thank them for what they do for you. They will help you. That is what they are saying.”

      I stumble out of the hut, Gogo’s muthi clutched tight in my hands. Perhaps the words Inkosikazi Nene spoke to me should fill me with confidence. But they don’t. How could anybody think that I can stop a powerful witch? A witch with an army of zombies working for her?

       CHAPTER SIX

       VISITING LITTLE MAN

      Instead of going straight home, I head towards Little Man’s house, cutting through a corner alley behind Mama Thambo’s shebeen. The blue light of the television spills out through the open door, where two men are lighting up and smoking dagga. The sweet odor drifts towards me. Inside, men and women are cheering for Bafana Bafana, South Africa’s soccer team.

      I wander past, ignoring the cat calls from the men standing outside. I’m deep in thought about what the sangoma told me. Usually, a visit to the sangoma is so comforting—either there’s nothing wrong or she can help you fix it. But today…

      When I look up, I can already see Little Man’s yellow matchbox from a distance, crowded up against the houses next to it. His mother is growing a garden in the front yard; the corn looks like it’s ready to harvest.

      Despite the worry over the

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