I scrambled out of our hiding place and stared into the darkness. My father called out Boubacar’s name again, panic in his voice. Out here his book knowledge could do nothing to help his family survive. He clambered up the rocks, calling Boubacar’s name louder and louder. Grace slipped out from behind the briefcase and stood up.

“I don’t like it here, Patson. I want to go home,” she said, a sob catching in the back of her throat.

“We can’t go home,” said the Wife, looking wildly about her. “We have to get to my brother. James will help us. There is no other way. We have to find James.”

As much as I hated to admit it, I agreed with the Wife. The option of going home had long passed. We had no choice but to find Marange and then James Banda, the man responsible for us running through the bush away from soldiers, hiding under rocks, terrified for our lives. Diamonds for everyone, he had said to the Wife. He hadn’t told her about the roadblocks or about the soldiers attacking people in the night. He had forgotten that part.

And then my father appeared, grinning, with Boubacar by his side. Grace ran to him and threw her arms around one of his legs. “Thank you, thank you for coming back for us.”

Boubacar rested his hand on her head and bent down to look into her eyes.

“I didn’t leave you, Mademoiselle. I had to see if the soldiers were gone.”

“Who were those poor people?” I asked.

“Those boys wanted to be men. It is the way here. When you have worked the mines, you are no longer a boy. If you make it into the eye, you are seen as a man.”

“And they did not make it?” my father asked.

“No, their luck ran out. They were found camping in the valley near the diamond fields, waiting for a chance to fill their sacks with soil. It was as close as they could get to the fields.”

“What did those soldiers want from them?” I asked.

“Diamonds. The police usually patrol this area, but I have never seen soldiers before. This is something new. I don’t know why the army is here.”

“And the woman with them?” asked the Wife, but he offered her no answer.

“Do we still have far to go? I’m tired,” said Grace.

Boubacar crouched and laid his hands gently on her shoulders. “I need you to be brave, Mademoiselle Gracie, and when you are tired, I will carry you. You do not need to be afraid,” he added. “While I am here, you can wear my magic tie. Whoever wears it cannot be harmed. Would you like that?”

Grace nodded and Boubacar solemnly took off his tie and placed it around her neck.

We gathered what was left of our luggage and again walked out into the night, knowing better than to ask how much longer it would be to Marange.

A full moon rose above Elephant Skull and bathed us in a silvery glow. I had lost all sense of time and space, the shimmering sky too bright to find those stars that might have marked our progress. We had walked for three, maybe four, maybe five hours, I could not say. I remember stopping briefly and drinking foul, dark water from a muddy pool. I remember the Wife weeping on the ground and my father putting his arms around her, before dragging her to her feet. I remember tripping over tangled roots in the dark, falling over and rolling down an embankment and Boubacar lifting me off the ground, dusting me off, and pushing me forward.

Uncle James was responsible for all of this. Uncle James Banda. Diamonds for everyone, he had said. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and staying awake. The heaviness of sleep deadened my arms and legs. My neck seemed incapable of holding my head erect and it dropped of its own accord onto my chest until I jerked it upright. This must be sleepwalking, I thought. I stubbed my toe, grazed my arm against a thorn bush, and awakened only long enough to again walk, walk forward into the dark night. I dreamed of cool fridge water and clean, soft sheets and Sheena.

Although the forest around us was eerily quiet, I had an unnerving sensation that we were being watched. Every flickering shadow threatened. The moonlight illuminated shapes that seemed to move but then when I looked again they went still. It was difficult to make out what was solid and what was not. All animal noises had been silenced and we walked on, on through a sleeping forest.

And then I glimpsed a shadow in human form staring at me. The ash-gray figure was no taller than me and stood at the foot of a hulking mimosa tree, leaning on a pair of crutches. I could not tell if it was a girl or a boy, alive or dead, or whether I was dreaming or awake. But it stared at me with eyes that were real enough. The figure lifted its dust-gray arm and pointed back to where we had come from, its lips moving with words I could not hear. Moonlight spilled through the branches, forming a halo of silver around its head.

I was so tired, I was not afraid. I moved toward it just as the figure turned away and disappeared into the low-hanging branches of the mimosa tree. The forest was as silent as an empty church. Boubacar’s pace had never slowed. Grace’s arms were flung limply around his neck. She slept like a rag doll on his shoulder. My father dragged the Wife behind him, still clinging to the last of the four suitcases she could not live without. I trudged on, barely able to keep my eyes open.

I was too exhausted to think about what I had seen or what it had meant. That would come later, but now all I could think of was sleeping. Boubacar suddenly stopped and raised his hand. Once again we fell wearily to the ground, no longer concerned with the noise we made. He whistled—three short notes—like the call of a nightjar. Grace did not stir. I wished he would carry me. My eyelids drooped shut.

Behind me, the Wife’s whispered urgency roused me. “Look, Joseph, look!”

A single flame rose from beneath the ground and floated in the air only ten paces ahead of us.

I rubbed my eyes as, one by one, small flames rose out of the earth and hovered in the air. In their flickering light, figures emerged from the ground. Their faces were stained with gray dust and sand, their bloodshot eyes illuminated by the light from wax candles they held in front of them. Some carried long iron rods; others bore pickaxes upon their shoulders.

My skin prickled the rest of me awake.

Wordlessly they stared at us through the darkness, their gray faces all holding blank, incurious expressions. I had heard of zombies roaming the earth after midnight but had never believed those stories until this moment. Their silent presence was unworldly. If Grace had been awake, she would have screamed. Could I still be asleep and dreaming of the undead rising from the earth? Was the figure I had seen standing under the mimosa tree one of these creatures? Boubacar had not moved since the figures emerged from the ground. He whistled the same three short notes again, and from the darkness a voice responded in a language I had never heard before.

“Wait here,” whispered Boubacar, crouching down beside me and laying Grace gently on the ground without waking her. “If anything happens to me, you take your sister and run for your life. You do not look back. You do not wait for your father or his wife. You run. You understand, Patson? You run faster than you ever have before.”

There was no doubting the warning or the large knife in the palm of his right hand. He quickly pulled a short iron bar from his bag and rose to his feet, walking slowly toward the waiting figures. He concealed the blade behind his back but carried the iron bar in full view. I glanced at Grace, still protected from these zombies by her armor of sleep. More glimmers of candlelight emerged from the earth and moved gradually toward us, until we were surrounded. The murmuring of a strange language covered us, huddled as we were on the ground. I strained to hear a familiar word or make sense of imminent danger in the tone of the speaker. Fully awake now, my body hummed with tension, fear, and wonder. At the first indication of danger from Boubacar I would sweep up Grace, and run directly toward the flames. I would scatter these zombies with a scream of the living and bring my sister to safety before she woke up. They would not devour her, or drag her into their shallow graves.

“Shhh, Patson,” whispered my father. “Easy, son. It’s all right.”

My father’s words jolted me out of my fear. “What are they, Baba?”

“They are diamond miners working at night, Patson. We must have entered the diamond fields of Marange. Look, hundreds of them digging through the earth.”

More figures emerged from a different hole only a few meters away. They were oblivious to our presence, intent only on their work. In the dull yellow light of lanterns and candles, they lifted large, heavy sacks onto their heads and slowly disappeared into the forest that fringed the field.

“But why at night?”

“I don’t know, son,” he admitted, squeezing my arm.

“They’ll take me to my brother,” declared the Wife. “We’ll be all right once we get to James. James will look after us.” She made to stand up, but my father held her in place.

The foreign voice barked an instruction and one by one the flames disappeared back into their holes beneath the ground. A blanket of darkness descended once again over the field. Boubacar returned. He no longer carried his knife.

“The Mazezuru syndicate has an understanding with Banda. They have allowed us to cross their section of the field and go on to Banda’s camp.” Turning to a thin man standing silently by his side, Boubacar said, “This man will escort us.”

Leaning on a long iron rod, his bony frame didn’t seem capable of holding the heavy sack on his back. He looked as exhausted as I was.

“Thank you,” said my father. “Thank you very much.”

The man did not respond; instead he turned away and, in a maneuver that suggested he had done this a hundred times before, adjusted the weighty sack on his back. He stabbed his iron rod into the ground for support, and made his way through the field, skirting its shallow craters. Boubacar picked up his bag, packed away his own iron bar, and carefully lifted Grace into his arms to follow closely behind our new guide. I allowed my father and the Wife to go ahead of me and took up the rear.

Another man clambered out of a hole, blew out his candle, and, after a brief exchange with our new guide, joined us. He, too, carried a sack on his back, and used an iron rod for support. A short distance away, I turned to look back at the diamond field that now seemed dark and empty and a bit less frightening.

“They mine at night to avoid sharing their ore with the police,” explained Boubacar. “Some do work during the day—the Live Show, they call it—but then they are watched by the police, who breathe down their necks looking for ngodas.”

“Ngodas?”

“Raw diamonds.”

“And the iron rods?” my father asked.

“They are sharpened to chip away the rocks and break the earth. Then they load the ore by hand into those sacks,” said Boubacar.

“Basic artisan mining techniques,” mused my father. “The diamonds here are low-quality industrial diamonds often found in shallow alluvial deposits. They are accessible to anyone with a sharp tool, plenty of muscle, and an abundance of optimism.”

“Shut up, Joseph,” snapped the Wife. “You’re showing off.”