From the shadows I watched the soldier rebuckling his belt and sauntering out of one of the classrooms at Junction Gate High School. It hadn’t taken long for the army to find the working women from Harare. One of the washerwomen, as Baba had called them, appeared at the doorway and called to another soldier leaning against the wall smoking with yet a third soldier. He threw his cigarette down, made a comment to his companion, who laughed, and disappeared inside. The washerwomen were in business; night school was in session.

I moved slowly through the shadows, cautiously keeping the soldier in my sight, and headed toward the administration office. The front door was closed but with a little pressure I was able to force it open. The foyer was dark and quiet. At the end of the corridor I saw a glimmer of light leaking from under the door. I walked quietly down the corridor toward the photocopying room, aware that I was not the only person inside this building; behind each of the closed doors, people had made the offices their homes.

I softly knocked on the door of the photocopying room, realizing that I didn’t know what to call Arves’s granny. “Mrs. Makupe,” I whispered. “I’m a friend of Tendekai.”

There was no response, but I was sure I heard the faint sound of a metal plate being placed on a table.

“Magogo,” I whispered again. “My name is Patson. Tendekai sent me to get his medication.”

I knocked again, this time a little louder.

The door opened partially and a small figure stood in the crack of the doorway staring up at me. “Go ’way. It’s late. This no time,” she said, closing the door.

“Wait,” I said, sliding my foot across the threshold and digging my hands into my pockets. “Tendekai said you liked Footy Pops. I brought some for you.”

The old woman hesitated. I couldn’t quite see her face, but in a flash her hand darted out, took one of the sweets, and popped it into her mouth. The door opened wider and I walked into the room, which was unlike any photocopying room I had ever seen at school.

The room was dimly lit by several flickering candles: One burned upon a pile of rusted bolts, nails, and animal bones; another seemed as if it were being swallowed by a black mamba. Another was on top of the school’s safe, impaled upon one of the quills of a porcupine. Its eyes twinkled in the candlelight and it took me a moment to realize that, like the buck on the walls of the Kondozi farmhouse, the eyes of the snake and porcupine were also made of glass, the work of a talented taxidermist.

Against one wall was a set of shelves, where once reams of paper must have been stored. Now it was filled with all the colors and textures of life itself, swept up and waiting to be bottled and bundled for her patients. Small and large jars lined the shelves filled with a rainbow of remedies: bundles of roots, piles of bulbs, heaps of sticks and bark, packs of bones, parcels of dried plants, all ready to be treated, scraped, boiled, and then swallowed or applied. In another corner, above a mattress, the shimmering brown ribbon from old tape cassettes had been strung like a tangle of music seaweed over the skull of a small animal. The room was permeated with the bitter scent of smoldering impepo, a veldt bush often burned by sangomas to appease the spirits. The contents of a black oil pot bubbled on a gas burner at the center of the room, giving off an odious smell.

Once the old woman slammed the door shut she studied me with a pair of pinprick black eyes set deep in her wrinkled face. I recognized her immediately—she was the liver-chopping crone we met when my father came looking for Headmaster Ngoko. My stomach turned at the memory of her boiling liver and at the sight of my father collapsing against the wall. I remembered Jamu talking about a powerful spirit medium who lived at Junction Gate. This spirit medium must be Arves’s grandmother. No wonder he had easy access to marijuana. She had shelves full of the stuff. All the hair on the back of my neck stood up at the thought of being here alone with her in the dead of night. I would get Arves his meds and leave as soon as I could.

“Tendekai is sick. He needs his medication,” I said.

“The sickness. No good for nobody. Sit. Sit. I know you. I seen you before. Your father came here. Sit!”

I jumped at her command as she pulled up a stool and patted it with her hand. I sat down and she leaned over me, holding out her other hand and wagging it at me. I fished around in my pocket and gave her all the Footy Pops I had.

“These soldiers say I am witch. Their words make me angry, hah! Well, I’m sitting and suffering through the war of liberation! Years and years I work in the bush with the boys who fight the white man. I heal them. Dr. Muti fix them up. Hoh! They say, ‘You’re casting spells!’ No way. Mm-mm. I say, ‘Ah! And yet all these problems, they’re coming from greed. Your greed,’ I say. ‘You kill the people of the soil. Why? For the stone that shines.’ Hoh-hoh,” she exclaimed, clicking her tongue and shaking her head.

I tried to interrupt her but she moved around the room still chattering, never looking in my direction.

“It’s better if I go to a tree and hang myself. I die! In shame! Forget everything of those days. Forget all the voices that visit me. When you hear suffering all night, all day. I’m these years old, and I’m eating tears. Aah! I say, ‘I want to be at peace, but you soldiers bring trouble.’ Mmm. Well, my heart is angry.”

I didn’t understand half of what she was saying. It was clear where Arves got his motormouth from. All the while she sucked on her Footy Pops, stirring her oil pot, tearing up bits of bark, grabbing stuff from the shelves, smelling it, discarding it, finding something else, and then, as if realizing there was a stranger in the room, she turned and pointed a stick at me.

“You. The Moyo boy. I remember now. T’kai told me you found a girazi. Hoh-hoh. Big trouble now for you. Bad and good together,” she said, walking up to me and laying her hand upon my head. “But your totem is strong.” Her fingers felt like the claw of a bird that perched upon my head. I shifted uncomfortably at her proximity, her body odor, and the pressure of her hand.

“Mmm. Hoh-hoh,” she muttered, her voice now almost a whisper, and then, as if her breath had suddenly been drawn from her, she went very still.

I couldn’t see her face, but felt the nails of her fingers lightly pressing into my skull. The candle on the pile of rusted bolts and nails sizzled; its flame fluttered and died. A wisp of smoke twirled upward into the darkness. My chest tightened at the sudden change of atmosphere. It was as if there were another being in the room, unseen, but unmistakably present.

“Your shavi is strong too. She watches. Mmm. Shuumbaa,” she said, her voice clear now, and strangely altered, somehow younger. “Mmm. My half-and-half, my little lion. Now is the time to be strong.”

I went cold; the voice sounded familiar. A tingling sensation rippled down my neck, right through to the core of my body. Only one person ever called me “half-and-half” and “little lion.”

“You must look to Grace,” she said, her voice light, almost lyrical. “You are the best thing that ever happened. Mmm. You will need to have the heart of a lion.”

I wanted to reach out, to see the face of my mother, but I was afraid that if I moved, the moment might be broken and the sense of calm would be lost. I felt the bird lightly release its grip as the old woman stepped back, exhaled forcefully, and drew in a long, slow, shuddering breath.

“Hoh-hoh,” she exclaimed, turning back to her pot and shelves as if nothing had happened. “They come when I not ask. Heh-heh. You are lucky, boy. Mmm. T’kai he was brought up by me. Not so lucky. Well, at first, he stays with his mother and father. They die; I stay and I raise him. Mmm. He was still a little child. I carry him on my back. He grows up. His uncle bring him here. I grow corn, I buy clothes for him, and I wash him. He grows a little. His uncle goes away. Mmm. I send him to school, but the sickness. They not want him. Mmm. Indeed, he grew up here, he was raised by me. But he will leave soon. He will not grow more. The doctor gives him medicine. We both try. You came for this?”

She handed me a red tin. Still dazed, I took it without a word and stood up. She laid her wrinkled hand on my arm gently.

“You be careful, boy,” she said, looking into my eyes. “These soldiers are dangerous. Tell T’kai to come home. The camps are no good.”

I nodded and, for no reason I could think of, I hugged her.