Chapter 10: The One Who Walks With Dust
1032 Words
Scene: Lutho’s Bedroom – That Same Night
Lutho woke without waking.
His eyes were open, but the room around him wasn’t right. The dim light of the streetlamp outside usually spilled through the curtains, soft and golden. Now, everything was cast in a grey hush, like the world was holding its breath.
His breath fogged in front of him.
Cold. Wrong.
He sat up slowly, his blanket clinging to him like wet leaves. Across the room, the corner where the shadows met the ceiling twisted, deepened—pulling inward.
Then he heard it.
“Ilanga… lidla… ilanga…”
Not spoken aloud. Spoken through him.
He clutched his chest. His heartbeat wasn’t his own. It pulsed too slow, too deep, like a drum buried beneath the earth. With each beat, he could feel the graves shifting. Soil loosening. Something yawning open.
Lutho stumbled to the window. He pulled the curtain aside.
The street was empty. Silent. But the sky—the sky was wrong.
A thin line of red light traced the horizon, as if dawn were arriving from underground. And just for a moment, he saw them.
Four figures standing outside Councillor Sefako’s house. Cloaked. Still. One of them turned its head sharply—as though it saw him watching.
Lutho gasped.
The glass in the window fogged over, and when he blinked, the figures were gone.
Behind him, the old radio on his desk crackled to life.
“…you are not Keeper… you are only necessary…”
He whirled around. The dial wasn’t even turned on.
Then the radio spoke again—but this time it used his father’s voice.
“Lutho. The gate is being opened from inside. They’re not just calling the dead… they’re trading them.”
Lutho’s knees buckled. His hand gripped the edge of the desk.
From the hallway, Dineo’s footsteps rushed toward him. She had heard something. Maybe the whispering. Maybe the radio.
But before she reached the door, Lutho turned to her and said softly:
“They’ve started. And they know I’m watching now.”
The door flew open with a bang. Dineo rushed in, her wrapper clutched around her like a shield, the leather charm at her throat swinging wildly. She didn’t speak at first—just scanned the room like a mother lion. Her eyes locked on the radio, then on Lutho’s pale face.
“What happened?” she demanded, rushing to his side. “Did you see something?”
Lutho nodded slowly. “They were at Sefako’s house. The ones who don’t breathe.”
Her stomach dropped. “How do you know that?”
He looked up at her, eyes wide, still caught between this world and something deeper.
“They called to me.”
No. No, no, not yet, Dineo thought. He’s still too young.
She steadied her voice. “Did they touch you?”
“No.” He hesitated. “But one of them saw me… and the radio. It—” His voice faltered. “It used Baba’s voice.”
That shattered something in her.
Dineo dropped to her knees, cupping his face with both hands. “Listen to me, Lutho. That was not your father. Not anymore. These things wear voices like masks. They lie. They steal warmth. They don’t love. Do you understand?”
He nodded, trembling.
She pulled him into her arms, holding him tightly against her chest. Her eyes burned as she stared past him at the still-crackling radio. It was dead silent now, as if it had never spoken.
She whispered into his hair, “They are trying to open the gate before you’re ready. But I won’t let them take you. I swear it. Not again.”
Lutho pulled back. “Again?”
Dineo froze.
The word sat between them like a fallen match.
“I—I meant,” she began, but Lutho was watching her too closely now.
“You knew what they were before the graves moved,” he said, his voice small. “You knew they’d come for me.”
Dineo looked at her son—not the boy in front of her, but the child of Sipho, the child whose soul flickered between this world and the one beneath.
She stood up. “Get dressed.”
“What?”
“We’re going to your grandmother’s house.”
“Gogo Pulane? But it’s the middle of the night—”
“She’s the only one left who remembers the old rituals. If they’re trying to open the gate now, we need to find the spirit that sealed it before.”
Lutho frowned. “The Forgotten Spirit.”
Dineo looked over her shoulder.
“No,” she said. “The one who betrayed it.”
The room grew colder.
Dineo stood slowly. Her eyes were glassy, but not with tears. With memory. With fear. With the slow return of something she had buried beneath years of pretending.
She looked down at him, no longer as just a mother—but as someone who once bargained to keep her child free.
“You’re what’s left of a promise that should never have been made.”
She turned toward the door.
“Get dressed.”
Lutho blinked. “What?”
“We’re going to your grandmother’s house.”
“But Gogo Pulane hasn’t left her bed in months. She’s half-blind—”
“She’s not blind to this,” Dineo snapped. “She’s the last one who knows the old rites. The ones that were outlawed when the missionaries came. The ones that sealed the Buried Ones in the first place.”
Lutho stood slowly. “You mean… the Forgotten Spirit?”
Dineo turned to him, her voice lowering.
“No,” she said. “The one who betrayed it. The one who sealed the Buried Ones for a price.”
Lutho swallowed hard. “What price?”
She didn’t answer.
Instead, she whispered a word under her breath—“Nkokheli,”—and the charm in her hand burned faintly red.
Then they both heard it.
A knock. Soft. Measured. At the front door.
Three taps.
Then silence.
Dineo and Lutho locked eyes.
“We leave now,” she hissed.
- Writer
