📖 Chapter 7: The Fracture

(Ukuphuka kothando)

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Oyena’s transformation didn’t happen in secret anymore.

She no longer fought it — the dreams, the names, the voices in water, the flames that flickered even when there was no wind.

She was learning to walk in two worlds.

But to the people around her?

It looked like madness.

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Lawrence sat at the edge of their designer kitchen counter, pale and tired. His espresso had gone cold.

Martin paced.

> “We took her in,” Lawrence mumbled. “Gave her everything. French immersion. Horse riding. Therapy.”

“This is not gratitude.”

> “It’s not her fault,” Martin said, too quickly. “She’s just confused. Hormonal. Or… maybe someone in Khayelitsha is brainwashing her.”

They had stopped calling her “Aurora” softly — now they barked it, desperate to snap her out of it.

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At school, things weren’t much better.

Her best friend, Zoe — blonde, drama-club captain, half-obsessed with crystals and horoscopes — stared at her like a stranger.

> “You’ve been so weird lately,” Zoe said.

“All that ‘ancestor stuff’... like, what even is that? You’re not even from that world, Aurora.”

> “I am from that world,” Oyena snapped. “You just never bothered to ask.”

They hadn’t grown up racist, Oyena always thought — just comfortably colorblind.

But now, she realised… no one around her had ever tried to understand the parts of her they couldn’t pronounce.

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She started eating alone during break.

Eyes followed her.

Whispers floated behind her:

> “Is she possessed?”

“Maybe it’s drugs.”

“She was so normal last year.”

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One teacher, Mrs. van Dyk, asked her to stay after Life Orientation class.

> “I’m worried about you, Aurora.”

> “It’s Oyena.”

> “Right. Oyena. I just… I don’t know where this is coming from.”

> “From the womb I was stolen from. From the ancestors you think are fantasy. From the fire I’m finally not afraid to carry.”

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Back home, she walked barefoot now.

Salt bowls in corners.

A clay pot in her wardrobe.

She had stopped hiding.

And that made them panic.

Lawrence called a child psychologist.

Martin booked her a silent retreat.

They tried to bribe her with a new phone.

They even searched her room one night — and found the cloth from Gogo Babalwa.

> “What is this? Witchcraft?”

> “No,” Oyena said. Calm. Clear. “This is my inheritance.”

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They didn’t scream at her.

They begged.

> “We just want our daughter back.”

> “Then you should’ve kept her name.”