FAITH TO FAITH : THE GIRL WHO THE PAINTED LIONS

PROLOGUE - THE T-SHIRT "Why are you wearing a dead girl's t-shirt?" The words ripped out of my throat before I could stop them. The white boy in front of me froze in the dim museum hallway. The yellow museum lights caught the faded paint on his chest - a lion, roaring, with one word underneath that made my heart stop beating. Artesia. My lion. My word. My hands had painted that shirt three years ago in a dusty township art center in Cape Town, for a woman I thought I would never see again. "Where did you get that?" My voice was shaking now. "That shirt belongs to Lisa. Lisa World." The boy's blue eyes snapped to mine. For a second, I saw grief so raw it looked like my own. "How do you know my sister?" he whispered. "She died last year." And that was how I met Rick World. CHAPTER 1 - THE GIRL WHO MADE TREES FROM TRASH My name is Hlonipha Nxomani, but no one in Ngqushwa called me that. They called me SB. Or Artesia. I got the name when I was nine. It was Christmas, no money for a tree. So I dragged dry mopane branches and tied spar plastic bags as leaves. Painted them green. Teacher Mapoyi cried and said, "You are Artesia - a true artist." I was in position 25 in Grade Eleven. Average. But my hands could make pots that did not crack, bead necklaces for the Chief, sing at church. Granny Madlamini and I sold pots by the R72 road to Port Elizabeth. Good days, R80. Bad days, nothing. Until the stroke. Granny was 94. The doctor said, "Take her home. There is nothing more we can do." I was 17, four cousins to feed, Grade 11 finals. Father left at 6 months. Mother Nontobeko drank and disappeared 10 years ago. That night I prayed: "God Almighty, please bring back my mother or find someone who will stay with me until I pass my matric, because all my cousins have parents living in the city and I am the only one who has no one."