Jay starts that day the same way he has started every other day: with a deep-house track and a bowl of Jungle Oats. It has been a month since the funeral but he still hasn’t gotten used to living without his mother.

Ma walks into the room with a basket of washing already dry.

“It’s only eight o’clock, Ma, the sun isn’t even out yet. When did you have time to wash and hang the washing?”

Jay can’t believe that Ma has all this energy at 75 years old. He is 15 and he barely has enough energy to wake up at half past seven on a weekend.

“Time waits for no man, Jayden. You will be asleep while your riches wait for you outside.”

Ma has been the only normal one since Nisha’s passing. You wouldn’t even say that she had lost her only daughter. “Come help Ma fold this washing, my boy. It’s Saturday and I don’t want to be late for my club meeting.”

Jay plans out his day while folding Pa’s underpants. He is going to fetch his twin cousins, Taylor and Tylinn, and then they will meet their friend Marcus at Oom Boy’s game shop. Marcus will not be the reigning champion of Mortal Kombat for long. Jay refuses to come second to Marcus in anything. He is the red Power Ranger. Marcus is the black one. That is the way it has always been and that is how it will always be. Marcus just won last week because Jay was still sad that Nisha wasn’t there to make koesisters for Sunday morning. Today will be better. He knows now that Nisha is not there any more.

But see, that’s the weird thing: it feels like Nisha is there all the time. He just can’t see her. He tried to explain it to Pa, but Pa just called it grief. He knows that this isn’t grief; this feels real.

Jay decides to take a nap before fetching the twins. He can’t seem to keep his eyes open any more.

“Jayden.” A whisper wakes him, but there’s no face to trace it to.

“Jayden, it’s me.”

“Nisha? Mammie?”

“Yes, my child, it’s me.”

“But wait, I saw you die.”

“I am not in your world any more, Jay. I am in the great beyond.”

“What is happening to me? Am I going crazy?”

“Jayden, I can’t stay long. I have to give you something. My child, you have a gift. We all do. Take this, go to Ma. She will explain everything.”

Jay wakes up from what feels like the strangest dream ever. He is just about to write it off as grief when he sees the ring that Nisha gave him in the dream on the table next to his bed. Was it a dream? He tries not to freak out, but he can’t help but shiver. Everything felt so real. He puts the ring on.

Jay can’t explain how he got to the graveyard. The last thing he remembers is putting on the ring in his bedroom, and now he is at Nisha’s grave on the other side of the township. How did this happen? He starts walking towards the white marble tombstone when he sees a shadow that looks very familiar.

“Jayden.”

“Ma?”

“I am glad you could make it, my boy.”

“Ma?”

“Jayden, the time has come for me to tell you who we really are.”

Tell us: What do you think is going on? What do you think of the story so far?