Present day
It felt like we had been walking for hours with Mutale's heavy arm around my neck. We were running out of time. The shine in the gold dust was fading, and the dark shadow will be on to us. I kept looking behind us, yet, I saw no sign of it anywhere. I knew it was out there lurking from a distance and waiting for the right time to pounce.
Mutale groaned in pain now and then, and he was breathing heavily as he limped beside me. Holding him up was proving to be strenuous because of his weight. I was quite surprised that I hadn't tripped or fallen over yet. If I had the average strength of a young lady, I wouldn't have held him up for so long.
"Do you know where we're going?" Mutale asked, breaking the long silence between us.
"Why are you asking me now?" I asked. "What if I am taking you to be killed?"
"Killing people isn't on your résumé."
"You know, I might not kill you, but I can take you to people who can."
Mutale looked at me, but I didn't return the look as my eyes were focused ahead.
"Wait, you would do that?" he asked.
"Why don't you just wait and find out."
As we continued to walk, Mutale tripped over a stone that he ended up falling to the ground. I almost went down with him, but I ended up kneeling beside him instead.
"You need to get up," I said. "We're almost there."
"Almost where? The way I see it, you don't know where we're going."
"You really doubt me, do you?" I asked as I looked at the trees around us.
"I do. And I believe you're really going to take me somewhere to be killed."
"If you think so, then you might have just told me to leave you behind."
"That was before I realised that we are going nowhere. Admit it, Diana, you're lost and in no time, that shadow is going to come for us."
"Oh, you of little faith," I said as I stood up and took a few steps away from him, going forward.
"Wait, are you really going to leave me here? Diana!"
I didn't answer as I continued to walk. Soon the tress cleared, in front of me stood a house. My grandmother's house.
"Diana, where did you go!" Mutale called out behind me.
I turned around and went back into the forest. I found Mutale struggling to stand up with his badly dislocated leg, but he fell back to the ground and he let out a scream.
"Goodness," I said as I came closer to him. "Couldn't you have just waited for me?"
"I thought you had left me out here to die," he said, his eyes staring back at me.
I didn't say anything to him as I helped him up on his feet again. After I had him well supported beside me, we walked the same way I came. We found ourselves in the clearing and in my grandmother's compound. Her house unlike most of the houses around the area, was made from concrete bricks and was slightly bigger. The households around the area weren't as close to each other as most villages I knew of. For you to reach your neighbour, you had to take a ten or five minute walk, depending on how far they were located. We didn't have very close neighbours so it was good that no one else would see us approach the house.
Sadly, just like a lot of other houses in the rural areas, my grandmother's house didn't have any electricity, so the house was dark. Luckily, we had the light from the moon. There was another smaller building outside the house. It was an open hut with a thatched roof held up by long wooden poles. This was the kitchen. Someone had put out the fire that was used to cook our supper hours ago.
Mutale and I walked over to the house. When we got closer to the building, I made Mutale lean his back against the hard grey wall. When I saw he could balance himself upright for a little while, I walked over to the front door. I figured that at this time, everyone else in the house was fast asleep. I slowly walked up the large stone steps to the door. When I took hold of the handle and tried to push it open, it didn't budge.
I walked down the steps and walked past Mutale so as to go to the other side of the house.
"Are you trying to break into the house?" Mutale called out to me. I came back round the corner to hush him.
"You're going to wake everyone up, keep quiet," I whispered to him.
Even when I couldn't see his face clearly, I could tell that he was upset. I went round the corner again. The moon didn't illuminate much on this side of the house, but finding myself to the first window wasn't much of a problem. This was the room where my cousins and I slept in.
The window wasn't made of the usual glass windows a lot of us are familiar with. It was made of wooden planks held together. There was enough space for air to come into the room, but usually it was hot at night and it was dangerous to leave the window open throughout.
I went over to the window and I placed my ear near it to hear if anyone else was still awake. It was quiet and completely dark in the room. Usually, my two cousins and I would talk all night. I must have lost track of time since I was being chased around by some dark shadow in the forest.
I folded my fingers and knocked onto the wooden window. I didn't hear any movement inside, so, I knocked again. Still there was no response and I decided to knock even harder.
Soon, I heard movement and someone swearing under their breath. I had no doubt that it was Katy, my younger cousin. I knocked again so as to let her know that there was someone by the window.
"Who is there?" Katy asked loudly, sounding really pissed that someone had woken her up from her sleep.
"It's Diana," I answered. "Quiet down, you will wake Agogo (grandmother) up."
"Eh? Diana?" Katy asked in a surprised tone. I soon heard the ruffle of blankets being pushed aside and heavy footsteps against the hard concrete floor.
Through the space in between the planks where there was nothing but darkness, the white sclera of her eyes came into view. Her iris looked black in the dark, but they were dark brown like mine. I could hear her deep breathing and I could tell that for a minute she was terrified.
"Imwe (you)! What took you so long?" she asked. "We had to lie to Agogo that you had gone to sleep early because you had a headache. And we couldn't leave the door open for you because she doesn't like leaving it unlocked for too long."
"I know, I'm sorry," I apologised. "Can you please open the door? We need to get inside."
"Huh? Aren't you alone?"
"I brought a friend with me. He's badly injured."
"Mmm. You go out at night and now you bring in some stranger. Did you even find what you were looking for?"
"No, change of plans. I'll be at the front door."
"Okay." And her eyes soon disappeared in the darkness.
I went back round the house to where Mutale waited, still leaning on the wall. I noticed that this time, his breathing was more steady and calm.
"Where did you go?" he asked.
"I went to tell my cousin to open the door."
"Wait, your cousin?"
"This is my grandmother's house. I told you I knew where we were going."
I soon placed his arm around my shoulder to support him as we slowly headed for the front door.
The sound of locks unlocking rang in my ears as soon as Mutale and I reached the stone steps of the door. The door flew open and out of the darkness emerged Katy in her pink night gown with a green chitenge wrapper wrapped around her waist. When she saw me trying to help Mutale up the steps, she quickly came over in her bare feet and helped to carry him on his other side.
Katy was bigger than me in stature despite me being older. I am apparently slim. Usually, a lot of Africans would like to call people like me, skinny in comparison. I guess that's why some of my relatives like telling me to eat a lot and that I was underweight, mistaking me for being skinny or anorexic. But growing up in a modern world made me realise that being slim wasn't so bad. As for Katy, she was a bit shorter than me, but had a huge body. In other words, some of us Africans would call her fat, but healthy. Also, it seemed like she was more stronger than I was, but I surpassed her because I had strength that was out of the ordinary.
We were soon in the house and we passed the dark kitchen area, then the dining area, being careful enough not to bump into anything. We went straight ahead into the living room and we settled Mutale gently onto the sofa. Katy quickly rushed back the way we came so as to go and close the front door.
Unlike other rooms in the house, like the bedroom I slept in with my cousins, the living room, dining room and the kitchen area had glass windows. With the moonlight coming in from one of the windows in the living room, I made my way to the bookshelf at the far corner of the room to look for a solar flashlight. I found it on the second shelf, got it and switched it on.
"Comfortable?" I asked as I looked at Mutale seated on the sofa on the other side of the room.
Mutale grunted. I could tell he was still annoyed. But we had other things to worry about. I placed the torch back on the bookshelf. Katy soon rushed back into the living room. With her heavy weight, I was surprised her feet barely made any noise onto the concrete floor.
She first looked at Mutale, still on the sofa and grunting a little due to the pain in his knee and then with a scared look, she went on to look at me.
"Who is he?" she asked.
"He's Mutale," I answered. "He was a friend of mine. He's my enemy now."
"Heh?" Katy put her hands on her hips. She reminded me of my mother. "He was your friend and now he's your enemy?"
"Yes, just know that."
Mutale grunted again and my cousin and I both looked at him. Katy looked at me again.
"What happened to his leg?" she asked.
"He dislocated his knee," I answered as I reached into my pockets of my trousers to retrieve the little sack that kept the gold sand. "We need to put it back in place."
"What?!" both Katy and Mutale asked at the same time.
"Shhh," I warned them putting my index finger to my lip with the little sack in my other hand.
"You're not doing that," said Mutale.
"We don't have much time now, do we? We have to get away from here and with your dislocated leg, we won't manage to get away from that thing."
"What is out there?" Katy asked. "I hope there aren't any hyenas."
I almost laughed at the mention of hyenas. There haven't been hyenas in this place for a long time. Long ago, hyenas roamed around here before some were taken to national parks or zoos. There were many stories about how they roamed around at night and caused a frenzy. The stories I enjoyed about them was how a person would sometimes take up a form of a hyena because he or she was involved in witchcraft, and eat people. Those were the kind of stories that kept you up at night that you would think any movement you heard outside was probably a hyena. You wouldn't even go out to use the latrine no matter how much you wanted to.
"No, it's something else," I answered. "Would you put his knee back in place, Katy?"
"Are you sure? What if I hurt him? You should do it."
"I don't think he would like me to do it since I am the one who dislocated it in the first place."
Katy looked surprised. "Did you guys get into a fight?"
"Not really," Mutale answered.
"He tried to kill me," I answered. "I had to defend myself."
"Heh, heh," Katy found it amusing. "You've become strong. You even managed to beat a man?"
"She didn't beat me," Mutale defended himself.
"Whether I beat you or not, it doesn't matter," I said. "You need that leg fixed."
There was a door in the living room that lead the way to the backyard of the house. I approached the locked door and with the sack in my hand, I untied the little strings. With my index finger and thumb, I got a pinch of sand, knelt on one knee to the floor and sprinkled the sand like salt beneath the door, making a straight line across it.
"What are you doing?" Mutale asked.
"What is that?" Katy asked as she came and bent over to see the gold sparkling sand. It wasn't sparkling as much as it had been before.
"It's sand," I answered her as I stood up from the floor. "It protects us from whatever dangerous mystical creature is out to get you."
"So, you're saying there is something evil out there?"
I looked at Katy. She was used to the drama that's been going on around me lately that not everyone knew about. Telling her about the shadow that was out to get Mutale and I might scare her a little. But I know she can handle it.
"Yes, there is an evil creature out to get us," I said.
"It's out to get you, not me," said Mutale.
"Well, too bad, because it's after you too."
"Is it outside?" Katy asked as she went to the window next to the door.
"You won't be able to see it. It's kind of like a shadow."
"And now what are you going to do?" Katy turned away from the window to look at me.
"We have to get out of here," I answered.
"How?" Mutale asked this time around. "The shine in the sand is fading quicker than I thought, and it won't protect anyone of us in this house when that thing shows up."
"I know," I said. "I have a plan. Katy work on his leg. We don't have much time."
Katy nodded her head and approached Mutale, whom I saw didn't like the fact that someone as huge as him was going to work on his leg. As for me, I quickly went to the front door and sprinkled the gold sand on the floor next to the door. There weren't any more doors that led outside the house, so I started to sprinkle sand on every windowsill, starting from the kitchen area, to the dining room, and soon, I found myself back in the living room where I found Mutale groaning in pain. Katy had popped his leg back in its socket.
"That must have been painful," I said to him as I carried on sprinkling dust onto the windowsills. "We must use something like a cast to hold his knee. It needs to heal."
"Whoa, Diana," said Mutale, still holding on to his painful knee. "Why are you sprinkling the sand around like it's fairy dust? You don't mess around with such stuff."
"I know what I'm doing," I said as I left the living room and took a turn to the corridor which led to the bedrooms.
I first went to my grandmother's room on the east side of the house. The place was hot and stuffy with all the windows closed. I went ahead to sprinkle the sand on the windowsills, with the moonlight coming in through the window. When I was just about done, I heard movement on the bed. For a moment, I thought she had finally woken up. I turned to look behind me. Her bed was at the corner of the room and I was at the other end where the window was. I blew out a sigh of relief when I realised that she hadn't woken up but just changed to another position to sleep in. I was done sprinkling the sand and as I silently walked out of the room, I hoped to see her face for one last time, but she was facing the wall. Maybe it was for the best. Besides, if she ever knew what was happening, she would probably freak out and call my parents. But I wasn't going to be here for long anyway.
I walked out of the room and silently closed the door behind me. I went on to the room I slept in with my cousins on the west side of the house. Leah, my other cousin, was also fast asleep. And just like Katy, she also knew about my supernatural drama. But at the moment, I didn't want to drag her into more of it. Having one cousin around was enough.
After sprinkling some sand on the windowsill, I silently walked towards the closet that was directly facing the door. I was glad that the doors of the closet were wide open because the wooden doors squeaked loudly when you drew them open.
In the dark, I quickly went for my black backpack where I kept some of my important items. I quickly took my backpack and left the room silently.
I was back in the living room with one backpack strap over my shoulder. I found Katy kneeling beside Mutale's leg, wrapping something around it that almost looked like a bandage. But it wasn't because we never kept bandages in the house.
"What are you using for his leg?" I asked her as I put the backpack down on one of the sofas.
"Just a cloth to keep his leg in place," Katy answered. "I'm using one of Agogo's chitenges."
"Are you sure it's a good idea? Won't she notice that one of her chitenges is missing."
"Leave that to me. I'll tell her that it got stolen or something."
"Ya, I'll leave the lying to you. You're pretty good at it."
I saw Katy smile. One thing Katy was good at, was telling a lie. She could convince anyone that she was telling the truth in the way that she spoke. She neither flinched nor played around with her fingers, nor even show any signs that a lot of us show when we are nervous and telling a lie. She was as cool as a cucumber and whatever script she always had planned, she stuck to it like a professional actress. But she couldn't fool me though. I knew when she was lying and apparently, she didn't know that I had such intuitions.
I went back to looking at my backpack and I unzipped it, removing from it, a red t-shirt, two paperback novels that I carried with me to keep my mind occupied and then, I pulled out a green pencil case with a yellow zipper. It was just what I was looking for.
I put the pencil case aside and put back whatever I had removed from the backpack and zipped the bag shut. I took the pencil case and unzipped it. In it were pens, pencils and highlighters. I went closer to the torch so as to look more clearly into the case.
"Hey, what are you looking for?" Katy asked as I noticed through the corner of my eye that she had stood up from the floor.
"A pencil of some sorts," I answered, as I put my hand into the pencil case.
"What do you need it for?" Mutale asked, sounding like he was still in pain. "This is no time to write letters to people."
"And who would want to read a letter at this time of the night?"
I soon withdrew my hand out of the pencil case, and in my fingers was a purple and white pencil. It was a bit larger in width than any average sized pencil and it didn't have an eraser at the top. Where the eraser should have been, was a purple shaped diamond jewel. I saw Mutale and Katy look at it with awe.
"What kind of pencil is that?" Katy asked.
"The special kind," I answered. "Now, don't freak out at what you're about to see."
I stood in the middle of the room since there was plenty of space with all the sofas against the walls. There had never been a carpet covering the concrete floor. I knelt down and with the pencil, I started to draw.
Usually, with a pencil, the black lead is what sticks to the paper or whatever surface that you draw or write on. But this time, the lead of the pencil wasn't the standard black lead; it was purple, a light glowing purple. As I continued to draw, I heard Katy come closer and mutter "wow." Ya, the pencil is amazing. The first time I tried it out, I couldn't help but be amazed myself.
"What are you drawing?" Mutale asked, still seated on the sofa.
"I'm trying to summon someone," I answered. "I can't do so without the drawing."
"Eh!" Katy knelt beside me on the floor. "I hope you aren't drawing those weird drawings for summoning the devil."
I gave Katy a brief look before bringing my eyes back to what I was doing. I could tell why she was worried about me summoning the Devil. I had encountered him before,.... not by summoning him, but under weird circumstances. And also because I had drawn a circle first and she thought I would draw the five star symbol in it.
"Don't worry," I said. "You just wait and see."
I started to draw inside the circle in silence, the glowing purple light glowing even brighter. Katy and Mutale were quiet the whole time, waiting to see what the drawing was.
"Done," I announced as I straightened up a bit, but still kneeling on the floor.
"Wow," said Katy, again.
"What the-" Mutale stood up from the sofa slowly. He took a few steps, limping forward, to see the drawing on the floor. "Is that what you had to draw?"
"Yep," I answered him as I stood up from the floor and looked at him. "What? You don't seem too pleased with my drawing."
"No, I mean...," Mutale shook his head. "What does it mean?"
"You have to ask Stella that."
"Who is Stella?" Katy asked, looking up at me.
"The person I'm summoning," I answered. "Now, Katy, please move back a little."
Katy did as she was told and backed away from the drawing. Mutale also did the same. I continued to stand where I was and with my hands outstretched, I cleared my mind and concentrated on the drawing, glowing on the floor.
Soon, I started to chant out a mantra. The language was that of the ancients. As I continued chanting over and over again, the drawing of the butterfly enclosed in the circle and divided into four parts, glowed even brighter that the brightness filled up the whole room.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
