Beckoned Through The Dark

101 // Abigail // Hostage

Finding my calling really changed my perspective on life, it changed the way I saw things and the way I thought.

Before finding myself, I was a really conflicted girl with a rebellious spirit; I was so caught up with the ways of society to the point where I was drifting further from myself with each passing day, I was starting to lose it. But my ancestors saved me against all odds. It was a tough journey, that I’ll admit; I was all alone, and Nomalanga did not support me because she knew I’d just opened a portal to her past.

If it wasn’t for her husband’s late sister, I would have probably been dead and buried without identity; she was a Sangoma and she helped me through my initiation - she helped me to find myself.

I still get emotional every time I remember it, being thrown with different truths; being told that I wasn’t who I thought I was and having to spend all that time locating my real parents. It was something else, but in the end, it was all worth it.

My calling saved me; my calling showed all the secrets of the universe - it opened my eyes. Before my calling, a crazy person was crazy because somebody bewitched them, but today I knew that crazy was not all that we thought we knew.

There were a lot of things that contributed to someone losing their mind, and it wasn’t always spiritual; drugs, depression, and past traumas played a huge role.

And then there was power, which was a huge contributor in the spiritual realm, Karabelo was a good example; she wasn’t cuckoo, but her quest for power made her twisted, there was no amount of western medicine that could get rid of that kind of darkness. She thrived for power, she loved being in control, and her mother gave her the platform to do as she pleased.

Then there was Betty, I’ve never had a chance encounter with her until now, but she was a different kind of crazy, the one that belonged in the psychiatric ward, she was cuckoo, and all western medicine did was to keep her tamed.

One never when she was going to lose it no matter how much she was observed, she bottled everything up till a breaking point, and as of now - she was way past it.

"If you say or do anything stupid - anything at all, I will kill all of you, you hear me?" Betty threatened, holding Dineo at gunpoint.

After calling Tiffany I wanted to rush to the mansion to rescue Ryan, but she nearly ran me over when I ran for Claudia’s car and then forced us all to get inside the house.

She was holding everyone hostage and had just confirmed that Nthabiseng was here.

She pulled Dineo and stood behind the door, and then released her at a distance. "Open the door. One stupid move and you are dead." She gestured for the girl to open the door.

You know what surprised me? Dineo was so calm about all this while I was panicking, and she opened the door without hesitation. "Dineo!" Betty pulled her back before Nthabiseng could hug her.

"One stupid move, and she dies," she warned, "Come in, all of you."

Nthabiseng walked in first and stood aside, followed by Sello. I felt my mother tense beside me, but I didn’t pay her much attention, she was not the least of my concern now. Where was Cecilia and Tiffany?

As if reading my mind, Tiffany walked in, holding another person's hand.

"Mom," Vincent gasped while sitting still on the floor. Betty had tied him up after he tried fighting her, that was when she grabbed Dineo and forced me to tie him up, and then she forced the rest of us to tie each other up until no one was left free.

She closed the door and held the gun against Dineo's head and instructed her new hostages to come and join us, and then she released Dineo once everyone was settled.

The room was flooded, with some people seated on the floor while others sat on the couch.

Someone knocked on the door, and Betty placed her finger on the trigger and stood behind the door. "Eleanor." I felt Cecilia tense beside me. "Eleanor, I know you are in there, I saw your car outside," Adelaide said.

"What do you want?" Betty grounded.

"I heard about what happened to Vincent, I came to check how he's doing." Baited silence followed, and Betty sucked her teeth in frustration. "It doesn't matter what happened, we are still family."

"Vincent is fine, you can leave now."

"Eleanor, there are police vehicles coming this way, what's going on?" She pulled the door open, and the old hag entered. "What took you so–" Adelaide swallowed her words the moment her eyes landed on everyone in the house. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Stop asking me stupid questions and make yourself useful," Betty snarled.

The door opened again, and Betty got distracted for a second, but that was enough time for Jack to tiptoe towards her.

“Jack, what are you doing?” Vincent asked.

“Eleanor, watch out!” A gunshot went off, and a loud scream rang out as Jack collapsed with his hands tied behind his back.

I shut my eyes and looked away as Dineo crawled to where he was lying in a pool of blood. “Daddy!” She shook him up in tears.

The gun fell out of Betty’s hands as she stood there in shock, not believing what just happened, as if nothing worse could happen Karabelo picked up the gun and charged for the door. "Finally, you are here," she said and opened the door widely. Jessica and Lwandle walked in holding weapons and cans written gasoline on them. "Adelaide, go and make sure that there is no one upstairs. Jessica and Lwandle, carry this man out." She gestured at Jack’s limp body. "Dineo, be the good girl that you are and go to where you were seated."

Dineo came back and sat on Nthabiseng’s lap while Jessica and Lwandle dragged Jack’s body and dumbed him right outside the house.

"What now?" Lwandle asked.

I couldn’t believe she had given up everything to become these maniacs’ lapdog, she was no longer possessed; that much I knew because Karabelo was powerless.

“It’s so funny how all of you are here, because of your precious little Lesego,” Karabelo mocked bitterly, “Where is she now?”

"Respect your sister’s memory," Betty said, finally snapping back to reality.

Nthabiseng laughed, and we all turned to her in surprise. "What memory?" She asked in laughter before falling back into a blank expression, a strange energy was radiating from her. "My daughter is alive,” she said, and someone nearly fell down the stairs while Karabelo choked on her saliva.

I stared at her in shock, but we all got distracted when Adelaide came tumbling down the stairs.

Everyone gaped in horror as she landed and laid motionless on the bottomless stair.

Tiffany and Jessica rushed to her, and Tiffany checked her pulse. “Oh, no,” she gasped.

“Tiffany, what’s going on?” Bridgette asked.

"What? What is wrong with my aunt?" Vincent asked in a panicked voice.

Tiffany gave him an apologetic look and whispered, "I think she had a cardiac arrest.”

The room went silent and for some strange reason, all eyes were set on Betty who was busy smiling. “Oh, my dear aunt,” she said dreamily while staring out the window. “Take her outside and call an ambulance."

Didn’t she hear what Tiffany just said? Adelaide was gone, she was no more, she was dead.

"What is taking Bradley so long?" Sello whispered in Tiffany's ear, but she replied with a shrug.

"Pour the petrol all over them," Betty instructed the three musketeers. "Karabelo, keep them on guard." Karabelo didn't waste any time pointing the bigger gun at us. "One move – kill them all."

"And the remaining petrol?" Lwandle asked. I couldn't believe this was once my best friend, guess her greed got the best of her.

"Pour some of it all over and around them, and then pour the rest outside just in front of the door and set it on fire. Make sure that it is a bit further from the door to avoid the fire and smoke from spreading into the house," Karabelo continued giving out orders. She turned to Lwandle with daring eyes. "Actually, I have a better job for that petrol – pour it from the door and go all the way upstairs."

We heard sirens from outside, and Lwandle ran back inside after setting fire outside. "The police?" Betty turned to Nthabiseng in anger. "I'm going to wipe that smile off your face, you witch!"

"Shut up, you maniac! I know everything, I know that my daughters are alive and that you killed my wife!" Vincent finally cracked, trying to get up, but Tiffany and Nthabiseng held him in place.

The smirk on Betty's face vanished. "You just couldn't wait to tell her, huh?" She asked Cecilia.

"Why, Eleanor? Why did you do it?" Cecilia asked.

"Surrender yourself, Elizabeth Edwards, we know you are in there!" A deep voice came from outside, speaking through a microphone.

I heard Tiffany whispering Bradley's name.

"Get our own loudspeaker, Jessica." The strange blonde girl did as she was told.

Betty grabbed the microphone from Jessica. "Who the hell are you?"

"Detective Bradley Jacobs. You are surrounded, Ms Edwards," he announced.

Betty scoffed. "It is Mrs Ngoma, and one mistake, I'm burning them alive."

"Answer me damn it!" Cecilia shouted as if the last two minutes did not happen.

Betty started acting weird, she scratched her hair and laughed all by herself.

"You want to know why I did it? You want to know? You all want to know?" She laughed, scratching her head. "You have always preferred her over me, mother. You always preferred Rorisang." She pointed the gun at her mother. "You betrayed me!"

Tiffany shifted closer to me and whispered, “Why does it feel like I just walked into a madhouse?”

"That’s because she's reminiscing about all the things she did and thought about at the basement earlier," Bridgette piped in. I was so numb; I didn’t even want to know how she knew that.

"Why did you kill Ryan?" I asked, but she was no longer here; she was way out of it.

"I'm busted. Everyone is going to learn the truth; everyone is going to know what I did. Everyone is going to know what kind of a person I am. Karabelo is going to hate me. Jack is going to leave me. Duncan, my only son, is going to hate me and Jack will take him away from me."

"I think your daughter has a loose screw," Nthabiseng mocked, "Elizabeth, did you take your medication today?"

“What’s her story?” I asked Tiffany, I knew she never let her guard down, she knew more than she was letting on.

“You feel it, don’t you?” She asked. I guess she was referring to the unnatural energy coming from Nthabiseng. “Early in 1999, we received a call from one of my former college friends about a car accident, he didn’t reveal much until we got there. The victim of the car accident was Nthabiseng Clements and she was announced dead at scene.” I turned to Cecilia, and she gave me a blank stare, but something in her eyes told me she knew the story too well. “The most horrifying part was that she woke up five hours after that at the mortuary, and she didn’t remember anything that happened before the accident. She kept insisting that her name wasn’t Nthabiseng Clements, and that she needed to return to her husband and daughters because they needed her,” she continued, “And when asked who her husband was…” She left the rest to my imagination.

I turned to Nthabiseng in new-found wonder. She didn’t belong here anymore, how did she manage to stay here all these years? As if sensing my stare, she turned to me with a small smile, a small glint in her eyes.

"No. Cecilia is going to watch me suffer and laugh about it, but I won't let her. I'm going to wipe that smile off her face - I'm going to kill her. It is her fault that I turned out to be the way I am."

"She's speaking of us as if we are not here," Cecilia whispered sadly.

"It all started when I was 25. Vincent had impregnated a girl - Rorisang. Her father had just died, and he left her the big mansion that you all heard of. My mom was so happy when she found out that she was going to be a grandmother. I was also pregnant, and I thought that she was gonna be happy. So, I told her, but no, she was not as excited, and she never told anyone about my pregnancy because she wanted me to give my child up for adoption. She called me names and treated me like rubbish, but she praised Nthabi all the time, like she was a Goddess," Betty cried.

"That is crazy, Betty, mom loved us all equally," Vincent snapped, but Cecilia’s tears told me otherwise.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”

"Betty!" Bradley called, "Let them go, we already have one dead body here!"

A new sense of panic rose throughout the house. "Shut up! Shut up or they die," she warned. "Shut up!" Betty started speaking to herself, shushing while banging her head and pointing her gun everywhere. She whispered, "Someone else has to go.”

An ear-splitting sound went off and everyone went still trying to figure out who fell dead on the ground.

No one dared to turn their heads, because we all feared for our lives.