my arm. We both look at the dirt, hoping we won’t accidentally make eye contact with the old woman who lives there.
Ever since I was a child, Gogo has warned me about her. “Khosi, there are women in this world who want to hurt you,” she would say. And the woman who lived in this house was one of those women. “She is too much powerful. You must watch out, hey!”
Gogo always spoke in hushed tones when she talked about her. The dog lying in the sun, the chicken pecking in the dirt, the fly buzzing around your head—they could be her spies. And who knew what she would do if she heard you talking about her?
“She has a maze of tunnels underneath her house,” Gogo would whisper. “They lead to gigantic gold mines. She kidnaps people on the street—men, women, even children. She turns those people into zombies. At night, she makes her zombies go deep into those tunnels to look for gold. That is how she makes all her money.”
Gogo had always warned me that you couldn’t recognize a witch by the way she dressed or even the way she behaved. Anybody can be a witch. Your own mother can be a witch and you won’t even know it!
Now that I am fourteen, I sometimes wonder if Gogo is right about everything she says. But I do know she’s right about this old woman. Whenever I’ve passed her on the streets, she cackles like she knows all my secrets. I don’t dare look at her, afraid if I do, I’ll be sucked in by her power and become one of her zombies.
Today as we hurry by, we’re both startled by a sudden rattling sound. Looking up, I see that old woman grabbing hold of her fence and shaking it to get our attention.
“Nomkhosi Zulu,” she calls.
How does she know my name? We look at each other. Her eyes grip and hold me firm, the way her fingers clutch the metal fence. There are gold flecks deep in her eyes, and a large gold tooth glints as she spreads her lips into a thin grin.
“I’ve been watching you, Nomkhosi Zulu.” Her voice is honey sweet. “Ever since you were a little girl.”
There’s a strange rhythm to her words. They echo in my mind, a song playing over and over—and oh, how I want to dance.
“Hey, wena Ntombi! Come here, sweet thing.” There’s something about her voice…Why, she sounds like she has stolen Gogo’s voice.
Gogo sucks in her breath and grabs my elbow, her wordless plea, Masihambe, Khosi. We must run.
But I’m drawn to the fence, an ant marching to sugar. The old woman reaches through the wire, seizing my arm in her wrinkled fingers, her grasp rough, her fingernails digging in until I gasp.
“This one’s spirit is strong,” she says.
“Khosi.” Gogo’s voice is low but strong. “We must go now.”
But I’m like a doll in this old woman’s hands.
“Khosi,” Gogo says, now more urgent.
The old woman lets go suddenly, almost shoving me backwards. “Yebo, hamba.” Her mouth breaks open into a wide grin. “Yes, go now with your weak old gogo. But I will come for you just now, Nomkhosi Zulu. Soon, I will come for you.” Her laughter twists and coils, snake-like and cold. “And nothing on this earth can stop me.”
I stumble against Gogo, who puts her arm around me. She is shaking, even more badly than I am. We hurry away, not daring to look back.
It isn’t until we’re around the curve and out of the old woman’s sight that we stop to look at my arm, bleeding from where her fingernails dug in.
“Oh, no,” I moan. If a witch is able to get some of your body dirt from your clothing or your skin, she has the power to harm you.
I breathe deep before asking the burning question. “Do you think that old woman will really come for me? Is she really a witch, like you say, Gogo?”
“Angaz’, Khosi,” Gogo says. She looks as worried as I feel. “We will ask the sangoma to make some muthi to protect you.”
The right muthi can protect you from all sorts of evil. But in the wrong hands, that same muthi can be used against you. You have to be vigilant–and hope and pray that both God and the spirits of your ancestors are strong with you.
“What will Mama say?”
“Eh-he, I don’t know.” Gogo’s hands still tremble as she holds onto me, her energy dwindling as if the old woman has already consumed her strength. That’s what witches do, after all. They suck the life out of people, to make themselves rich or to make themselves live longer. “She is not believing in the old ways. It will be difficult even now to convince her that we must go to the sangoma about this problem.”
“Mama is never here,” I point out.
Gogo nods and we silently agree to keep Mama in the dark about this. We walk, quiet and tired. The whole world looks washed out, like a grainy black and white photo—the kind of photo published in history textbooks that shows early missionaries to Natal, as this part of South Africa was known then, with the first Zulu converts, formal and stiff in their European clothes.
I sneak a sideways glance at Gogo. “I wish that woman didn’t know my name.”
“Yebo, impela,” Gogo agrees.
Your name is all a witch needs to have power over you.
“Gogo, how can that woman have so much power when she is so evil?”
Gogo’s eyes grow dark, and I can see within them the memory of growing up in the shadow of the white man, when their power over Africans was absolute. “At the end of time, God will defeat all evil,” she says. “But in the meantime, we must suffer. Perhaps this suffering is cleansing us from our sins.”
“What did she mean when she said, ‘This one’s spirit is strong’?”
“Yo, Khosi! I have always known that,” Gogo says. “You were born the same day your grandfather Babamkhulu died. I believe he gave you part of his spirit as he departed. Even then, I told your mother, ‘Isithunzi sake is strong, you watch. Khosi won’t be like us. Her spirit won’t stay the same all her life—it’ll grow with time.’ And up to this day, you look just like Babamkhulu. This to me says I am not wrong.”
In the picture we have above the mantelpiece, Babamkhulu looks like an old black bird, shrewd with very dark skin, small eyes, and a beaky nose. Do I really look like him? I’ve always wanted to look like Mama, beautiful with smooth brown skin and wide, full lips, a big bosom and hips that sway like a tree when she dances.
“Maybe Babamkhulu’s spirit will keep you safe now,” Gogo says. She clasps my arm and rubs the spot where the witch dug in with her claws.
“Maybe,” I say. I don’t feel like my isithunzi is strong. I don’t feel like there is anything of Babamkhulu about me. I’m just a teenage girl, vulnerable like anybody to the evil spirits that are invisible but hovering in the air all around us.
CHAPTER THREE
