‘Kganya! Look at the mess you’ve made. Go grab the broom.’ Ntombi stood up from the couch with a start.

Kganya didn’t move a millimetre. Her eyes were still on the man who was sitting on the couch, smiling at her.

‘Kganya, what are you waiting for? I said go grab the broom!’ Ntombi shouted, but Kganya didn’t so much as flinch.

‘What are you doing here?’ Kganya asked the man on the couch.

‘Huh?’ Ntombi said.

‘I’m talking to him.’ Kganya pointed at the dirty man who was still sitting on the couch, smiling at her, unmoved.

‘Kganya, what happened to respect? You can’t talk to an elder like that!’ Ntombi grabbed Kganya’s hand to be face-to-face with her.

‘A man? That’s not a man. That’s a ghost!’ Kganya said, shrilly, turning back to the figure on the couch.

‘Ah! Kganya, are you crazy?!’ Ntombi asked with shock. ‘Apologise right now. This poor man came here to ask for the recyclables, he doesn’t deserve this disrespect.’

‘Recyclables? At this hour?’ Kganya turned to her mother. ‘Which collector asks for recyclables inside people’s houses?’

Ntombi opened and closed her mouth, then opened it, only to close it yet again.

‘Exactly!’ Kganya turned back to the man who was sitting as a spectator during this argument.

Kganya was taken aback because now he was not wearing that smile of his. His face had got serious. ‘This is a ghost of Zumba Mbazo; he has possessed the body of this poor man.’

At this, the beggar stood up slowly from the couch. ‘You know my name.’

‘Yeah, I do,’ Kganya said as if that was a question. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘What am I doing here? You know my name but don’t know what I’m doing here?’ The beggar moved slowly towards Kganya and her mother, the latter confused as to what was going on in her living room.

‘No, I don’t only know your name. I know you were killed in 1910 by the people of this community because you were practising witchcraft, murdering babies,’ Kganya said bravely.

Ntombi gasped and covered her mouth with her hand and turned from Kganya to the man who was now standing tall in her living room.

‘Then you know why I’m here—to kill you!’

‘Haibo!’ Ntombi exclaimed, taking steps back, shielding Kganya with her body.

‘Kill me? For what?’ Kganya said, shaking.

‘When you came that day at the cemetery to ask me questions, I felt you instantly; I knew that you were one of them.’ The beggar kept coming closer.

Kganya remembered the beggar staring at her and Lethabo weirdly after they’d asked him questions, and the day after school when she found him picking through the dustbins outside hers. Did he see then that this was where she lived?

‘You are one of those people who hanged me. I promised I would come and kill them one day, and they didn’t believe me. Now I’m here to fulfil my promise.’

‘You will kill my daughter over my dead body, I tell you!’ Ntombi said, gaining some strength.

The beggar snarled. ‘Ha! That can be arranged.’

‘Don’t you dare touch my mother or—’ Before Kganya could finish her sentence, the beggar backslapped Ntombi and she crashed on the TV stand.

‘Or what?’ The beggar asked Kganya when the barrier that was separating them was removed.

Kganya’s eyes darted from her mother who was lying on the floor unconscious, to the dirty tall man who was towering over her, getting ever closer. She didn’t know what to do. Run to her mother and check if she was OK? That was unthinkable because this man would easily grab her. She made up her mind.

She turned and sprinted for her bedroom.

‘Where are you running to? Come here, you coward!’ The beggar shouted at her.

Kganya got inside her bedroom. She closed the door and turned the key in the lock.

BAM! BAM! BAM! Came the sounds from the other side of the door.

‘You think this will stop me, huh?’ The beggar asked in that menacing voice of his.

There was silence for about fifteen seconds, which felt like an hour to Kganya who was standing in her bedroom, scared.

BOOM! Came the thundering sound from the other side of the door.

He was kicking it!

Kganya walked backwards until she hit the wardrobe with her back. Her eyes were still on the door the whole time. She was scared to blink as if he would get in the second she did that.

BOOM-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM! Came the kicks on the door again.

The wooden door cracked.

BOOM-BOOM! BOOM! ‘Open this door right now!’

Kganya just stood there, motionless.

‘Do you know what it was like inside that coffin in all those years?’ BOOM-BOOM! ‘Trapped underground, with nothing to do?’ BOOM-BOOM! ‘And all for what? Because I wanted to be immortal and all-powerful?’ BOOM-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM!

The crack in the middle widened. The last kick made a big hole, and the beggar peeped through it. ‘I see you!’

Kganya went to the side of the wardrobe and retrieved the staff that was leaning on it.

She assumed the balance stance by spreading her legs wide and clenched the staff with both of her hands in front of her.

The beggar removed the pieces of wood on the door with his hands to make the hole bigger. He didn’t mind that he was cutting himself with splinters in the process. It was like he wasn’t feeling any pain. He finally seeped through the big hole in the door and successfully entered Kganya’s bedroom. He faced her, and that smile resumed its position on his face.

‘Now you are mine!’ The beggar jumped at Kganya. ‘Come here!’