VOID Novel Chapter 4

 

 

VOID
©2026 Sanelisiwe Ndlovu Hoko
CHAPTER FOUR
SIPHOKAZI
It’s evening, and I haven’t eaten since Sinenhlanhla called to say Lihle is in Kezi. I don’t believe she’s there for work. What are the odds that she’d land at the exact rural school where my daughter works? That’s not coincidence, that’s hunting. My gut twists like a wrung cloth. She’s been looking. She got a lead. And now she’s confirming it.
“Mom, can I have more ice cream?”
Christy stands next to the fridge, bowl in hand and spoon in mouth. At fourteen, she still behaves like a five-year old.
“Before supper?” I ask flatly.
“Yes, Mom! I love it.”
“Ice cream is a dessert. You eat it after supper. You can’t just—”
“If my girl wants ice cream, let her have it,” Nigel cuts in as he walks in. I hadn’t even heard his car pull in. “Since when do we run this house on timetables?”
“Fine. She can have the whole fridge. I don’t care.” I snap. She had ice cream the second she walked in from school. Now she wants more before supper. The word ‘dessert’ might as well be Greek to her.
Christy whoops and opens the fridge. Saved by Daddy again.
Nigel drops shopping bags onto the counter. “When did it rain enough to fill up rivers?”
“What river?”
“This one in my house.”
“We don’t have a river…….Nigel, you’re not funny.”
He grins. “I left you this morning calm, fed in the bedroom and sane. What happened while I was gone?”
“I’ve been calling you all day. You didn’t answer.”
“Meeting lasted longer than I imagined. Phone died and I realized I forgot my charger.” He kisses my forehead and slides his hands onto my hips. “Is that why you’re angry? Denying my child ice cream like she committed treason?”
I step back. “We need to talk. In the bedroom. Now.”
He follows, closing the door behind us.
“Emergency,” I say, voice low and sharp. “Lihle is in Kezi. Right now. And ice cream is not food by the way. Christy needs to learn to eat proper food.”
“Who’s Lihle? Do I know her?”
“Lihle Ndlovu. From Plumtree. Butholezwe’s youngest sister.”
Nigel frowns. “Visiting?”
I roll my eyes. Sometimes I wonder how this man became an Army Chaplain. “Visiting who, Nigel? Does she have relatives in Kezi? She’s circling my children like prey.”
“How old is she, anyway? Sixteen?”
“She was sixteen when her brother died.”
“Then she’s a grown woman now.”
“Usumfuna? You want anything in a skirt Nigel. You don’t have boundaries.”
He chuckles. “Whoa. Where’s that coming from?”
“I’m telling you my kids’ lives could be in danger! She could kidnap them, poison them against us, rewrite their whole history! And all you do is drool over the kidnapper like she’s your next parishioner. We should be driving to Kezi now with the whole army to deal with Lihle.”
Nigel’s eyes widen. “Army? Kidnapper? I’m lost. Didn’t you say she’s just visiting?”
I sink onto the bed. He sits beside me.
“She’s there for work,” I admit. “But what if she tells them the truth? What if they believe her?”
“She saw them?”
“Saw? She already spoke to Sinenhlanhla. For now she doesn’t believe her. That’s our anchor. She’s steel. I asked her not to say a word to Kayise. I hope she won’t.”
He nods slowly. “You’re right.”
“I know I’m right. Which is why I say we round up a few boys in camouflage and drive to Kezi tonight. Scare Lihle off. Make her disappear.”
“No,” he says firmly. “That’s extreme. It draws attention. We can’t make her a forbidden fruit. You know how that ends, they’ll chase her.”
“So, what do we do?”
He hesitates. “Maybe… tell them the truth.”
I stare at him. “What truth?”
“They’re adults now, Sipho. It won’t kill them to know their paternal side. To have a relationship—”
“Never.” I hold up both hands like a shield. “I’m not signing my own prison sentence. Yellow doesn’t look good on me.”
“I didn’t mean that,” he says quickly. “I meant… letting them know where they come from, only.”
I shoot him with a warning glare. He raises his palms. “It was just a suggestion.”
“A stupid suggestion.”
“Just like your stupid idea of invading Kezi with the army.”
I exhale. “Let’s not fight. I’m just… scared. If the truth gets out—”
“No one will ever know,” he says, pulling me into a hug. “You raised them to believe you’re their only truth. Twenty years of that won’t unravel because some woman shows up.”
I nod. “Yeah. I thought as much.”
But his words don’t calm the storm in my chest. My pulse won’t slow. I hate Lihle for recognising Sinenhlanhla. What was I expecting though? I birthed a living echo of Butholezwe. Those eyes. That jaw. That stride. The Ndlovu blood doesn’t whisper it shouts. Once you’ve seen one, you know them all.
That’s why Nigel refused to stay with Butho’s family when we married. He said it felt like sleeping with his wife in the same house as her dead husband’s ghost. And after what we did to Butho… yeah. No one wants to stare a ghost in the face.
LIHLE
I can’t sleep. Sinenhlanhla’s face is burned into my mind, fierce, wounded and furious. I don’t know whether to feel joy or grief. Joy that I’ve found them. Grief that she wants nothing to do with me. They were poisoned against us. Against their own blood.
Mr. Khabo told me the girls were doing well at school, but struggling with basic needs. No wonder they didn’t go to university.
What haunts me most is her accusation; ‘You were educated with my father’s money.”
We never touched Butho’s pension. We never applied for it. It was Siphokazi who came to us just a year after he died. She begged for a death certificate so she could claim the benefits. She said the children were struggling. Since they weren’t legally married, to get the certificate, she needed a family witness.
“You should’ve brought the kids,” my mother said gently.
“Do they need children to issue a death certificate?”
“To see them, Siphokazi. Especially the newborn. You know how she was conceived. More rituals must be done on her. she might die if not strengthened in the African way.”
Siphokazi agreed, though we saw the dismissal in her eyes. “I’ll bring her. For now, help me get that certificate. The child will die of hunger before any rituals.”
She got the papers. Promised to return in two months with the children.
Then she went silent.
Phones went dead. Addresses vanished. My father travelled to Bulawayo, trying to retrace her. He spent the whole week, knocking on strangers’ doors, but to no avail.
Just thinking of how many times my mother was hospitalised from grief, from stress, brings tears I can’t hold back.
I wipe my face and dial her number.
“Why do you love night calls Lihle?” she answers, voice thick with sleep.
“It’s just after eight. Don’t tell me you’re already sleeping.”
“It’s raining here. I’m already in bed.”
“Then you won’t sleep anymore after what I’m about to tell you.”
“If it’s bad news, don’t tell me now. My blood pressure can’t take it.”
Ah, the drama of my father’s wife. I laugh softly. “It’s good news. I’m deployed in Kezi High. For the next three days I will be here. Guess who I met.”
“It’s your long-lost boyfriend. Every city, you have a man.”
“Mom!” I laugh. She chuckles back. “It’s no secret you love boys my girl.”
“You’re wrong. I met Sinenhlanhla Ndlovu, Butholezwe’s first daughter. Your granddaughter.”
“In Kezi?”
“Yes. She works at the school. As a receptionist, I think.”
“Amen! GPS yebapasi yehinga ngwenu. Zvigwile Butho, igwa. I knew that my son will track his kids nommater how she hides them. Fight my son.”
“Where does Butho fit in? I found his kids, and—”
“He’s bringing his blood home,” she whispers, voice suddenly thick with something ancient. “Twenty years and now he’s done waiting. It’s game on, Lihle. He won’t rest until they walk through that gate.”
I fall silent. This isn’t the reaction I expected. No wailing. No emotional ululation. Just this eerie certainty that Butho’s spirit is fighting for his kids. Where does she get it?
“This is perfect,” she adds, now fully awake and energized. “Gala pasi ulinge, Lihle. Watch and learn.”
She’s taken over the conversation entirely. The tired woman who claimed to be asleep is gone. Now she’s weaving prophecies. I press the phone closer to my ear and listen. Nothing is making sense to me. I expected her to be asking about how Sinenhlanhla is, if we spoke and if I saw the younger one whom we don’t even know is a girl or boy.
I’m relieved though because she’s not collapsing like how she always did each time Sinenhlanhla’s name was mentioned.
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