along the horizon.
It’s so rare that we can be together like this, Mama and me. I stand there as long as she does, watching the sky light up with blue and white streaks of light before we close the door, then turn back to Beauty, who’s waiting to finish plaiting my hair.
In my dreams that night, a bolt of lightning creeps into the house, sneaking in through the crack in the door. It knows my name, spoken by the witch. It skulks down the hallway, feeling from side to side, searching… searching…searching for me.
I wake up, bathed in sweat and unable to fall back to sleep. So I get up early to fix Mama a good breakfast before she leaves for Greytown.
While Mama bathes, I cook eggs and toast bread, placing them under a plate to keep warm. I even fry a small piece of fish I saved just for her sending-away breakfast.
But when I open the back door to empty the rubbish bin, there’s a sudden fluttering of black wings, gigantic wings, wings as tall as I am. A man-sized bird. The wings flutter and flash, silver like lightning, quickly disappearing around the corner.
I run around the house, flinging rubbish to the side in my haste, but the bird is long gone, leaving only a streak of something like smoke lingering in the air.
It’s nothing. That’s what I tell myself as I pick up rubbish and place it back in the bin. It’s nothing. At least, that’s what Mama would say. She would laugh. “Sho, it is just a bird, Khosi. You’re scared of a little thing like that? A bird?”
And I would have to admit, “It wasn’t just any old bird. It was the impundulu.” I’d feel stupid telling Mama that. She’d insist it couldn’t be true. I can hear her already, in my head. “Khosi, really! There’s no such thing as a lightning bird. It’s just something old people talk about. A folk tale, nothing more.”
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