VOID Novel Chapter 8

VOID
©2026 Sanelisiwe Ndlovu Hoko
CHAPTER EIGHT
SIPHOKAZI
I stand in the centre of our bedroom, frozen like an actress who’s forgotten her lines mid-scene. What do I do now? My mouth hangs open, heart pounding against my ribs.
Kayise caught me off guard. If I’d known she’d corner me like that, I’d have rehearsed my lies and prepared my defences. Instead, I hung up like a coward, leaving her with questions I can’t answer and worse, knowing she knows something.
The fortress I built between my children and their paternal bloodline is cracking. I can hear the stones shifting. I have no doubt that soon, it’ll collapse and bury me in the rubble.
“Argh!” I rip off my bonnet and hurl it at the wall as if it whispered my secrets to Kayise.
The door opens. Nigel walks in carrying a tray. The smell of freshly ground coffee and sizzling bacon floods the room.
“Breakfast is ready,” he says.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Since when do you skip breakfast?”
“I have bigger problems than useless things like food.”
He places the tray on the side table, slides a hand into his pocket and locks eyes with me. “I told you I was going to the kitchen to cook. Why didn’t you stop me then and tell me no to bother with useless things?”
“You want to shove food down my throat even if I say I’m full?”
“Suit yourself.” He sits, stirs his coffee, and takes a loud, deliberate slurp. He knows I hate that sound, hence he does it to annoy me.
“You don’t care about my well-being,” I pout.
“You want to act like a child throwing tantrums, expecting me to be a prophet who reads your mind? You have a mouth. Use it. And if you think I’ll beg you to talk you will have grey hair still waiting.”
He picks up toast, spreads thick bread spread, layers on two strips of bacon, and bites.
“It’s Kayise and Lihle,” I say, hoping he’ll finally look up.
He scoffs. “We’ve been having that girl for breakfast, lunch, and supper. I’m tired of her.”
“Tired? I told you to deal with her but you refused. Now she’s onto us. She’s recruited Kayise. Do you know what that means?”
“I’m not playing guessing games.” He doesn’t look up from his plate.
“Wait until Kayise finds out you spent eighteen years cashing her father’s pension money. Then you’ll stop guessing.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
“How can you eat?” My stomach turned to ice the moment Kayise said ‘death certificate.’ I had to rush to the toilet, bowels loose with fear. And here he is, chewing like the world isn’t crumbling.
“You think refusing food will change anything?” he says, wiping grease from his lips. “I’d rather be stressed on a full stomach.”
In all this chaos, the only thing on his mind is bacon? A grown man choosing breakfast over strategizing?
“Stuff your face,” I snap. “Prison doesn’t serve bacon, by the way.”
“No one is going to prison.”
I hate how he is so calm about this. Something is not right. I feel it in my bones. Kayise has always asked about her father but it has never affected me like this. Right now even the mere thought of her makes the hair on my neck rise.
“What is she finds out that you’re the reason, she grew up without a father?” I ask.
He stops chewing and stares at me. “What did you say?”
“You heard me, Nigel.”
“Point of correction, ‘we.’ It was a unanimous decision between you and me.”
I just stare at him without a word surprised at how he is raising his voice at me? He sighs pushing away the plate of food. “You know it was for the best, Siphokazi.”
I look down and nod. “I know. it’s just that… I’m scared.”
“You have nothing to worry about. No one will ever find out if you don’t confess. Twenty years now, with the resources in our country you think they can launch an investigation?”
It’s not about me confessing or an investigation being launched, it about the guilty conscience that has made itself a permanent residence in me. I know the truth, Nigel doesn’t. He knows the edited version of the truth of which I’m not sure how he will feel once he finds out I lied about everything. I used him to get rid of a man I no longer loved.
SINENHLANHLA
Methembe has been slicing into my leg for fifteen minutes. There’s no blood coming out. Just clear fluid oozing from the cuts. How can a limb that carried me through fire, through grief, through twenty-five years of survival suddenly go dead? Like it’s been severed from me without a sound?
“I’ll add more salt,” Methembe mutters, sprinkling coarse grains into the wounds. He watches my face, searching for a flinch, a gasp or anything to show my nerves are now working.
I told him long ago that I feel nothing. But he’s desperate for his remedy to work. Perhaps it’s a good thing its not working, because knowing him, I would owe him for the rest of my life.
Kayise sits curled in the corner, knees hugged to her chest, silent since the first cut. Her eyes are red part flu and part horror.
“Anyone home?” A voice calls outside.
Kayise’s face lifts. She scrambles up, grabs a chair and sets it near me.
“Come in,” Methembe says, tossing his razor blade onto the table like a surrender.
Chimney steps in, sits where Kayise placed the chair and we exchange greetings.
“Kayise told me about your leg,” he says gently. “How are you feeling?”
I shrug and point. “Nothing. It’s not working.”
Like Methembe, he touches my toes lightly, testing as watches my face for any reaction of pain.
It hurts, not the touch, but the doubt in their eyes. As if I’m lying. As if I’d fake this.
“I cut her and put salt,” Methembe says, shaking his head. “Still nothing.”
“You did what?” Chimney’s voice drops low. “Msebele, how can you do such a thing?”
“I’m trying to boost her blood flow.”
“By cutting her?”
Chimney crouches, examining my leg, now weeping more fluid from the salt. “Kayise, bring water. Help her wash this nonsense off.”
He turns to Methembe, eyes blazing. “Do you realize you could cripple her? She feels nothing. What if you slice a vein? She won’t scream. You won’t even know.”
“I’m trying to help! You think I enjoy handling razors?”
“You’re not helping. You’re harming. Nhlanhla doesn’t need incisions. There’s nothing wrong with her blood flow.”
“Oh, so I’m hurting a child while trying to save her? Fine. You help her, if you know better.” Methembe stands, ready to leave.
Chimney lets out a dry chuckle. “Are you this ignorant or doing it on purpose? You’re an adult, Msebele. You come home to find a house burned out of nowhere. Now her leg goes stiff out of nowhere. And you call that normal?”
“Was I there when the house burned? Maybe they left a candle—”
“We can argue all day,” Chimney cuts in. “But this isn’t normal. This is a message. A strong one from the ancestors. And it must be dealt with urgently.”
Silence crashes down. Even Kayise stops sniffling. It’s as if Chimney dropped a live grenade and said, Whoever moves dies.
I hold my breath, the word ‘ancestors,’ is like poison in my chest.
“Why would my ancestors send a message through her?” Methembe asks.
“Who said they’re your ancestors?” Chimney replies, still circling his fingers around my foot, not looking up. “Sinenhlanhla is a Ndlovu. Her bloodline knows her.”
“I don’t have ancestors,” I blurt out angrily. “I don’t want their message.”
“You don’t get to choose, Sne,” Chimney says quietly. “If they want to speak through you, they will. And they won’t stop until you listen or deliver what they demand. They’re selfish, but that’s how it works.”
I shake my head hard. No. Where were they when I walked to school with holes in my shoes? When my mother vanished into another man’s life? Twenty years of silence and now they show up with drama?
“You mean the ancestors burned my house just to send a message?”
Chimney meets my eyes and nods.
“I’m not sure it is, but this? It’s not just a message, Sne. It’s war. Perhaps they’ve communicated with you before and you didn’t listen.”
A house I built with my own sweat. Denied myself joy and comfort just to have something. They took it within hours like it was nothing.
“Fuck ancestors,” I spit. “I’ll never listen. They can take everything. I don’t care. Message or war, I’m ready.
I’m still about to add more, to curse those so-called ancestors who only show up with riddles and ruin, instead of help, when my mouth betrays me. It twists sideways, like a puppet yanked by invisible strings. I try to speak, but words come out slurred. I can feel my face isn’t mine anymore.
“Do you want to insult ancestors again?” Chimney asks.
I don’t talk; I just let the tears carve their way down my face like they’re mapping my surrender. I’m not angry, I’m just defeated.
.
.
.
.
.