Makayla

 

 

The night terrors that once plague my mind for the first few years of life with my adoptive parents come roaring back as if no time has passed. In each instance, the dream consumed my mind. My voice, shouting, pleading, screaming, was a quiet echo in the background. I give a useless attempt to stir myself awake, silently murmuring to ‘wake up,’ but I don’t have the ability to lucid dream. No, this one takes hold of me, sets roots and kills me from the inside out until tears wet my pillow, and I’m stuck playing out the past…

I was just about five years old. A Nivean woman, in a formal golden ball gown, with a iqhiya (head scarf), covered her thick, long dreadlocks which rattled as she moved. My tiny hand was in her tight clutches as she tugged me along. Her rich brown gaze glossed with tears.

“Your malume (uncle) is coming, baby,” she spoke, her Xhosa clicks in rapid succession, while pulling me along. “Listen to me, Mikayla,” she said, “your uncle Qaaim is not to be trusted.”

The dream world began to set around us. We were running – or she was attempting to run and dragged me along a corridor with gold embellishments. I stumbled, my feet tripping over my own beautiful dark purple dress, as we headed up a never-ending staircase.

More and more steps surrounded us, and the windows were high up, but I could see a blanket of stars from my position. I could hardly breathe, as she tugged me, offering a smile that should have been encouragement instead of one laced with anxiety and fear. We continued to go up, toward a plunging chandelier.

“Umama…” I uttered, as I realized, even though I was dreaming, the beautiful woman beside me was indeed my mother. She was attempting to keep me safe.

The palace was never a quiet place. But the sound of my heartbeat drummed out every other sound in my ears. Where were the servants and the guards?

“No matter what, Mikayla, you will not listen to anything Qaaim says.” Her voice was heavy, she had more to say, but with her urgency and my toddler legs, we were having difficulty running… running from Uncle Qaaim.

Finally, we weren’t scurrying through a gilded staircase any longer, but now heading down a long corridor. Along the walls were tapestries with Nivean Kings and Queens. Some photographed, some painted. My mother was Nivean royalty. 

“Makuachukwa,” a manly voice called out my mother by her first name.

Her spine stiffened. My tiny feet tripped over each other, as we stopped moving with a jolt. I gasped for air.

“Ubhuti (Brother), you are still my mntakwabo (baby brother),” she spoke with authority, “you will allow me to put her–”

“You cannot hide my niece,” Qaaim said.

I gulped, slowly turning around with her. As the dream unfolded, I realized that nobody ever cut off my mother. She taught me to be polite, although my umama, and my utata, instilled certain notions in me, at even such a young age. Up until recently, Lulami enforced their wise teachings, now, she assisted MamNacozo with divinations and healing.

I glanced up at Qaaim. He had the same rich dark skin as my mother. His muscles filled out a tailored suit, a leopard skin hanging over his shoulder. My Utata’s leopard skin! Even at my age, I knew that no matter how generous my parents were, my baby brother, growing so very slowly in my umama’s belly was the only one who would receive my father’s leopard skin.

“Utata,” I murmured, father.

My mother’s lips trembled as she held her head high.

“You will not hide my niece, her royal highness, the princess from me, my udade ohle (beautiful sister),” Qaaim spat the words. “I am to become her keeper when you die, right?”

“Kill us both!” She ordered, pressing me behind her. “No need becoming regent, just kill your blood, Qaaim! Murder your sister and your niece just like you did with…” Her voice broke. “That belongs to my husband! You… you can kill us in the same manner that you just murdered my…”

Goosebumps rose along my satiny flesh. What did she mean? Her voice had cracked, and gone cold, quiet. Lulami always praised me on being a smart child, but I simply didn’t understand. Unable to comprehend what my Umama meant, I peeked around her. Before Lulami left me, a half a year ago to work with MamNcozo, she told me to open up. That I could feel the spirits. That I was a princess, and one day I’d become a very powerful queen if I continued to embrace my ancestors. They would keep me safe.

They always did.

Except when my heart seemed to clutch in my chest, just as it did now, while I looked into Qaaim’s eyes.

He had our dark brown eyes. Although, instead of the windows to an enriched, fair soul, his were muddled, and black with rage.

“Just kill us both, little brother. Have all of Nivean,” she trembled with each word.

Qaaim slid a dagger into her heart.

I’ve had this dream many times before. Thankfully, I always forget prior to awakening, but I always try to tell myself to leave this dream. My brain continues to warn me that it’s time to wake up, time to forget what the spirits beg me to remember.

What I know will happen next, is Qaaim will drag my mother’s body down all those stairs we’d just ran up. As I dream this nightmare for the umpteenth time, I’ll wonder where our guards are, numerous times. Why the Nivean warriors haven’t saved us. Abayomi, my friend, is six, and he promises to be an even better warrior than his father. He’s just bullheaded enough to think he could take on Qaaim. He wouldn’t allow this to happen! I scream in my sleep, but it’s for nothing. Here it comes. The thumping sound begins.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. The palace was eerily silent except for my sobs and the sound of my umama’s head thumping on each step as Qaaim moved her down the stairs by her feet. Her eyes were open, there was a tear trickling down her cheek. I clung to my dead umama as my uncle, Qaaim, “the advisor,” promised all would be well.

Outside, my parent’s car was at the front of the lot. My father sat in the driver seat. His body dead, he’s now as at peace as my mother is.

Qaaim opened the door to the passenger seat. “Where they go, you cannot, I’m afraid, Mikayla. We must return to the celebration.”

I was drowning in tears with a throat too constricted to speak.

“Tomorrow, our nation will mourn the end of an era. They will cry rivers because your parents were good. You too, will go away for a while,” he grunted, hefting my umama up onto the floor of the car with my added weight, as I continued to hold for dear life. “When you return, the people who truly loved your parents and won’t love you anymore because you will be different. With your dress and speech, you will be an abomination to the Nivean nation.”

“Anithandi?” I sobbed, wiping my big brown eyes so that I could see him clearly.

“Yes, of course, I do love you, Princess Mikayla.” He tapped my nose with a smile. “Unfortunately, there’s something inside of me which craves what you have more than I love you. Your parents are about to die in a car crash, so I need you to keep a secret until we work out the plan of how to keep you safe…”

It wasn’t until I was an adolescent that in my dream, did I question the meaning of his words. I silently questioned it. My psychologist continued to bring up the words I muttered ‘umama ufile, umama ufile—mom is dead, mom is dead.’ A detective was waiting for a response that he’d never get. I’d mumbled ‘mom is dead’ so many times while silently wondering: How was my uncle keeping me safe if he had murdered my parents? Why not murder me, I understood that a king regent only performed certain duties and didn’t receive the same reverence that the true king and queen did. Qaaim could’ve murdered me ‘in a car crash’ that night as well.

Qaaim was the person I needed to be kept safe from!

***

“Vuka (wake up)… vuka…” A deep voice whispers into my ears in a language that was once as familiar to me as air. I moan, deciding that I’m still asleep. Though I do not understand the words, the voice sounds displaced.

This is different. The thought continues to roam through my mind that I must be dreaming. Nevertheless, this dream doesn’t follow the usual pattern.

I should be in the passenger seat of Qaaim’s Mercedes, legs hardly extending to the edge of the seat.

Of all the times I’ve shouted for my nightmare to end, this is the first time it’s actually interrupted when my shoulder is anxiously shaken.

“Vuka,” the male voice implores.

THIS IS REALITY. My eyes pop open to darkness. Either it’s still night or the blackout curtains have seeped up every bit of illumination.

His voice is steady, swift as he speaks. My eyes adjust to the darkness. The man before me is a few years older than myself, has a broad nose, piercing dark eyes and full lips. There’s a hesitance in how he holds his hand out as if he believes I’ll break if he touches me.

He’s wearing a tourist shirt from Circus Circus, cargo shorts, and flip flops.

Scurrying to the opposite side of the bed, I scream at the top of my lungs, “Jagg–”

“You call for him!” The man shouts in an African accent, finally using words I’m aware of. “You, my princess, call for the mtyholi (devil)?”

“Jagger!” I reach over and grab the phone. My potential weapon doesn’t yank from the wall! Instead, the force of my pull has the cord snatching back. The only hard object at my disposal falls to the floor.

All I have is pillows to hit him with, and I’ve managed to tangle myself into the blankets.

The man comes around to my side of the bed, picks up the phone and places it down. “You are an abomination to our people.” He starts to call me the name Jagger does, but spits it out in disgust. “Uthando lukaMtyholi (devil’s love)”

With me in the bed, it’s hard to fight. And the man, either Zihulan or Nivean has a physique that implies I won’t win the fight or inflict any pain

“Where’s Jagger?” My voice quivers.

His thick lips hardly move. “Dead or dying.”

“You’re lying.” I snap. He wouldn’t allow this. There was no commotion before I woke. No shouting or fighting. Something isn’t right… why would this man pick up the phone from the ground and place it back on the nightstand?

He doesn’t want there to be a sign of a struggle!

How much bad karma can one person have to deserve being abducted twice in less than a full week?

The nape of my neck sparks with pain as I break the designer necklace that complemented the outfit I wore last night.

The man offers a confused look as he pricks me with a syringe.

I slap out at him but my body freezes, and my hand flops down. The mattress feels ever so welcoming as I crumple into the sheets and into another nightmare from the past…