I sat up panting and drenched in sweat, my heart pounding as if it would fall out of my chest at any moment. The hairs on my skin stood up to attention. I turned the side lamp on. My phone started buzzing. I jolted and gasped. I swear my mother never missed a beat, she knew something was wrong, “Ma,” I muttered, still panting.

“My baby, you sound like you just ran a marathon,” she sounded muffled; like she didn’t want anyone to hear the conversation.

“Ma, it’s happening again, these dreams are getting worse,” I sighed.

“Ugh, Litha! I’ve said this so many times. You must stop watching those horror movies of yours,” she said dismissively.

The fan mounted on the ceiling, hovered above me, twirling like a baton; that was probably the reason behind my shivering.

“Do you hear me?” she complained.

“Huh — I mean Ma?” I quickly corrected myself before she did.

“This is nothing, my baby, just pray and go to sleep. You know prayer always helps,” she said matter-of-factly.

An eavesdropping fly on the wall would conclude that my mom didn’t care about me,  she was just tired of my “supernatural demonic dreams” as she liked to call them.

“Tonight’s dream felt so different, Ma. I was sitting under a paradise green marula tree, gloriously stretching its branches. There were cooing doves resting on it, and a gogo I’d never met before joined me and put these dazzling blue and yellow beads on my wrist,” I explained. “My soul lay still, Ma; it was like I’d met her before. Then these thick, black snakes disrupted the calm, even the doves flew away.” The thought sent shivers down my spine, “They chased me, Ma, I wasn’t running fast enough, they —”

She cut me off, “Nana, you have an overactive imagination, you were the same way as a child. You were even…”

Just then, my mind visited a conversation I previously had had with my dad. Maybe he was right, there was more to it than my mom’s dismissive attitude was telling. She wasn’t entertaining the idea, because it went against everything she believed in. As a strong-faith Christian woman — a pastor at that, it was hard to imagine her daughter going through this. When her husband tried to bring sangomas as a solution, she dismissed it before he even got the chance to utter such a word. Oh, and the church gossip that would follow her like a bee chasing a sunflower. ‘Did you hear about the pastor’s daughter entertaining demons?’ they’d mutter to themselves.

“I’m about to start one of my midnight prayers; you should too. Ignore these dreams; they don’t mean anything. We’ll talk soon.” The line went dead.

Now, standing trembling under the glistening blue sky with the soles of my feet bleeding, a sharp rapping sound of drums hits. I don’t know how I got here. I went to sleep and woke up here. Staring back at me are seven rondavels and a woman dressed in a red and white patterned cloth. Wrapped around her waist is a shawl with the same pattern. She also wears a white headwrap and beads on her wrists.

“Ungathuki, unobizo ngizokusiza.” (Don’t be afraid. You have a calling; I’ll help you).

My mother will kill me. Everything goes blank.