The thick dust transformed into a gentle wind. It circled around Kganya. It was exhilarating. The wind then hit her on her back, so that she turned around. She saw a body lying down.

“Gogo Lesedi!” She ran back to her.

“Gogo, please wake up!” Kganya shouted at an unconscious Gogo Lesedi. She then suddenly remembered something.

She picked up her stick and twirled it around, opening a circle in front of her.

“Come on.” She helped Gogo Lesedi up.

Gogo Lesedi was heavy. But with so much invisible strength added to her own, she was able to bring her back through the circle.

***

“What’s going on? Why are they not breathing?” Ntombi asked, putting her ears alternately to Gogo Lesedi and Kganya’s lips.

“I don’t know!” Her mother sounded scared.

“Should we light another incense? This one is burned out? Do you have a spare in your room?”

“No, I don’t –”

Her mother was cut off by a coughing Kganya.

“Oh, thank goodness, she is awake!” Ntombi moved to her daughter.

“Kganya? Can you hear me?”

“Help … help,” her daughter said, faintly.

“Help? Help Who? You?” Ntombi asked shakenly.

“I think she is pointing at Gogo Lesedi,” her mother said.

Ntombi moved to Gogo Lesedi and slapped her a little harder on the cheeks.

“I think I know what she needs,” her mother hurried to the bedroom.

She came back stirring something in a teacup. “Here, let’s pour this into her mouth.”

Ntombi opened Gogo Lesedi’s mouth while her mother poured the foul-smelling liquid into it.

“Yes, now we wait. Bring hot water from the kettle, and a fatuku so we can help Kganya here,” her mother commanded.

Ntombi got up and headed for the kitchen.

***

“She is waking up!” Kganya called her mother and grandmother from the bedroom.

They all came in running.

“Where am I?” Gogo Lesedi asked in a croaky voice.

“You are in my mother’s house in Free State, you are safe. Have a little rest,” Kganya’s mother told Gogo Lesedi with a smile on her face.

***

Two hours later, when Gogo Lesedi was fully conscious, Kganya told them everything that happened in the Spiritual World.

“I know the wooden stick you are talking about. Let me fetch it.” Her grandmother went to the bedroom. She came back with a wooden stick that was the same as the one she had in the Spiritual World.

“Yes, that’s the one!” Kganya beamed. She couldn’t believe it.

“I guess it is yours from now on since, well, you are the one,” her grandmother smiled.

“Tomorrow we can go back to Gauteng and start afresh with your initiation, even though you pretty much have learned everything already,” Gogo Lesedi told her with a smile.

“Yeah, I’m sure your initiates are worried, although it has only been a day,” Kganya said, jokingly.

“Hey, you know them.” Gogo Lesedi laughed.

***

Three months later, Kganya was graduating from her initiation. All her family members were there, and so was her best friend Lethabo.

“Whoo! I can’t believe you are done. I have missed you, chomi!” Lethabo jumped with happiness.

“I too can’t believe it. Thank you for saving school notes for me, you are such a true friend.” Kganya nearly cried as she said this.

“Oh that? Don’t mention it!” Lethabo brushed it off by waving her hand.

But in all honesty, Kganya was grateful, and she knew Lethabo knew that.

“Oh! Look at us. Come, let me introduce you to Nthabiseng, you will love her. And some of the other initiates!” She dragged Lethabo with her hand.

“Whoa! Slow down.” Lethabo cracked with laughter.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that a lot has happened in the past three months.”

“I see, but we have all the time in the world to catch up, Gogo Kganya.” Lethabo said the last part, teasingly.

“Eish! I have forgotten you with your silly jokes.” Kganya chuckled. “But you know to you I’m still Kganya, right?”

“Yeah, I know. Otherwise our friendship would have to end because there is no way I’m calling you Gogo.”

They laughed and hugged each other.

“Talking about Gogos, come with me and I will introduce you to my grandmother, then my aunt and her two children.”

They danced and ate a lot of meat that day. As the party was ending, Kganya looked around at her new friends, and saw her grandmother, and her mother talking to her sister and her sister’s children. She felt her ancestors were pleased.

So many things had been made right.

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