Title: The Calling
Anele had always felt a pull toward something greater, something unseen yet deeply felt. She grew up hearing whispers from her grandmother about the old ways—about how their ancestors spoke through dreams, how the wind carried messages, and how the rivers held secrets of those who came before.
But modern life had drowned those whispers. Bills, work, and the constant noise of survival had pushed the old ways to the background. She prayed, she meditated, but something always felt incomplete. Until the night of the dream.
She was standing in a vast field, the earth damp beneath her feet. Before her stood a towering baobab tree, its thick roots twisting like the veins of the land. A figure emerged from its shadow—an old woman draped in white, her face hidden beneath a beaded veil.
“Anele,” the woman called, her voice both distant and near. “You are being called home.”
Anele felt her heart tighten. “Home? But I am home.”
The woman shook her head. “Not here. You have forgotten who you are. It is time.”
A sudden wind howled, and Anele felt herself sinking into the earth, into darkness. When she woke, she was drenched in sweat, her chest rising and falling as if she had run for miles.
The following days were strange. Birds landed too close, their eyes holding an unsettling intelligence. Strangers greeted her with knowing smiles. The air smelled different, richer. She started seeing patterns—on walls, on leaves, in the sky—symbols she didn’t recognize but felt deep in her bones.
Finally, unable to ignore the signs, she visited her grandmother’s sister, Gogo Thandi, the last one in the family who still practiced the old ways. As soon as Anele stepped through the door, Gogo Thandi nodded.
“They have been waiting for you,” she said simply.
Tears welled in Anele’s eyes. She didn’t need to ask who “they” were. She already knew.
That day, under the flickering light of a single candle, Gogo Thandi performed a small ritual, calling on the ancestors. As the flames danced, Anele felt it—an opening, a shift. A warmth spread through her chest, filling the empty space she had carried for years.
She was home. Not in a place, but in a knowing.
And from that moment on, she was never the same.....