Chapter 3: The thing that walked with him

When Sipho was twenty-five years old, the darkness no longer lingered in the house.

It followed him.

It was a presence at first, a pressure against his back when he walked by himself, a chill on his shoulders even in the sun. He learned to know its moods by the way the air changed, by the way the sounds muted when it was around, by the way the world seemed to tilt forward, listening.

He tried not to acknowledge it. To give something a name meant it had substance, and Sipho felt as if he already weighed too much. Those years aged Amahle. Her hair thinned, her skin dulled, and deep lines carved permanent suspicion into her face. She slept poorly , often waking, screaming Thando's name, sometimes Sipho's, sometimes words Sipho did not recognize. In the mornings, she pretended nothing had happened.

"You worry too much," she told him when he asked if she was well. 

"I am your mother. Worrying is my work."

Sipho worked two-jobs that never lasted, opportunities that slipped away just as they seemed secure. Interviews went well until something inexplicable soured the room. Employers forgot his name. Paperwork vanished. Once, a man shook his hand enthusiastically and promised to call, then died in a car accident that same night.

No one wanted to be around Sipho anymore.

Circling Sipho was an ocean of negative energy.

Sipho had dreams about Thando every night.

Thando was not how he remembered him in his dreams. Thando's eyes looked like they had been burned , and he had a huge grin that twisted his face. Thando was always standing at the edge of a dark forest or in a doorway that kept changing, always holding out his hand.

"Come," Thando said.

Every time , Sipho would wake up before he was able to answer.

When Amahle was around Sipho, she could see a big change. As Sipho walked around, he was jumpy, and where his eyes were looking at the ground many times , it wasn't where Amahle was looking. She thought about all these things and told herself it was coincidence, stress, or guilt.

But deep inside , she could feel it in her bones.

The ritual was reaching its peak.

One day, Sipho came home very upset; he was so scared he didn't even know how to hold onto anything. All he did was sit at the kitchen table and stare at the wall.

Finally, he said, "It spoke to me."

Amahle froze.

"Who?" she asked, knowing who it was going to be.

"The thing that is behind me," Sipho replied.

Amahle's heart dropped like a rock; she pushed herself to be excited, to pour the tea, to fake being happy.

"What did it say?" she asked him.

All of a sudden , Sipho's eyes became filled with tears. "That I belong to it. That I have always belonged to it."

Amahle dropped the cup.

The stain on the floor reminded her of the tea from this evening.

This was the first time this evening.

The books were not as new as Sipho had thought; they were covered in cracked leather, the pages thin and brittle, the ink faded but fierce. She flipped through the books over and over, searching for the answers to questions she once felt confident about.

The purpose of the ceremony was not about having power over another person; it was about exchanging one thing for another.

To exchange life for life; to exchange one door for another door; to trade one thing in order to keep another thing whole.

She tried cheating the system.

She took one of her sons before he was due.

The debt was not erased.

Instead it was transferred.

From her to Sipho.

Amahle lit candles while shaking her hands and called on the names she promised herself she would never speak again. The darkness answered then. It enveloped her like an overwhelming mass of black.

"You are late."

Amahle whispered, "I want to end this. He has suffered enough."

The darkness came closer to her and seemed to be amused.

"He has not suffered yet."

Amahle clenched her teeth and said, "Take me instead."

The air stood still.

"You have already been paid for," the darkness told her. "You gave your first."

Amahle's knees buckled. "Then what do you want?"

The answer sliced through her brain like a knife.

"Completion."

From that moment on, the manifestations became more aggressive.

As Sipho walked by, objects appeared to be displacing around him. The reflection he saw in the many mirrors all around the city did not appear until after Sipho had passed by each one. Strangers would also glance up at him for too long, staring with glassy eyes. Their mouths would twitch as if they were about to speak but were restraining themselves from doing so.

On one occasion, while coming back from work, Sipho felt a hand grab his shoulder.

He turned around and found Thando standing behind him.

Thando was neither alive nor dead.

Thando's face looked like it did when he was still alive; it just looked distorted and ugly because of the unnatural, inhuman forces that were now influencing him. His eyes were blackened, and his eyeballs looked like they had none of the reflection or light that regular people had in their eyes.

"You have taken my place," said Thando in a calm tone.

Sipho immediately collapsed to his knees.

"I didn't know," Sipho cried, "I swear I didn't know."

Thando knelt by Sipho on the floor and spoke with the same unnatural stiffness he had before. "Neither did I," he said. "But now it has chosen me. And now it has chosen you."

The moment Sipho opened his mouth about what he had witnessed, Amahle slapped him across the face.

The sound of the slap was noticeably amplified in that space.

"Don't say his name again," she warned, "or you'll create something worse than that."

Sipho looked at her in shock, an understanding blossoming inside him like a flower opening to the morning light, painfully.

"You've known," he asserted. "You've always known."

Amahle turned and walked away.

That was when Sipho finally decided to leave.

He prepared quietly for his departure with a racing heart, unconcerned about how the home creaked in protest of his decision. The walls pressed tighter against him, and the air around him resisted him. Just as he stepped out into the night, the lights had a violent flutter .

Amahle was standing in the hall, wide-eyed.

"You are not allowed to go," Amahle insisted . "It will follow you."

Sipho returned her gaze, a hard edge forming inside him. "It has already followed me," he replied.

He left the home before dawn broke.

As he stepped out, the presence pressed against him forcefully with a familiar power at the base of his back. He stumbled and struggled for breath as a voice whispered in his ear.

"You cannot run away from home."

The house let out a breath as he closed the door behind him.

Its job was complete.

Amahle finally understood the truth, breaking the lies she had created for herself for decades.

The ritual does not lie within the walls.

It lies within the blood.