Unravelled (32 page)

Gone are the days when Gaborone would transform into a ghost town over the festive season. Now a lot of people stay in town, filling the shopping malls and spending money as though it will no longer be valid by New Year. The streets are busy, and Bontleng is no exception.

I walk to Ntatemogolo’s house, trying not to look like someone about to do something sneaky, and lift the latch on the gate. The front door is locked. I walk round to the back and try that door, expecting it to be locked as well, but it opens with a soft creak. My hand freezes on the handle. My grandfather must be in town after all, and if he left the back door unlocked he’ll probably be home soon.

I open the door and slip inside. Everything looks normal. The kitchen is tidy, the living room filled with books, newspapers and odds and ends as always. I move towards the consultation room.

I stand in the doorway, feeling for the light switch. My hand touches the cold switch and halts. Ntatemogolo never turns the light on – it disturbs the energy in the room. I feel a surge of rebellion. The room is tainted anyway; I might as well, right? But I can’t bring myself to do it.

I drop my hand and whip out my phone instead. I turn on the phone’s torch and begin my search. I have no idea what I’m looking for. A clue, I guess, something that speaks to me. Something that seems out of place. Something that seems wrong.

I move towards the chest in the corner, the larger version of the one on my desk. The lid is heavy and hard to lift with one hand, but once I get it up it falls backwards against the wall. I aim the light slightly away from the contents so the light illuminates them without falling directly on them. Rolled up papers, empty cups, an assortment of bronze and brass trinkets, wooden figurines, a first aid kit, a packet of syringes, a large pair of scissors, and several small jars with foam stoppers.

I don’t dare touch them; my anxiety will taint them and then I’ll really be in trouble. Besides, there’s nothing unusual here. I close the chest and move along the wall. There’s very little else in the room – the reed mat on the floor, a small stool in one corner, an almost empty pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I frown – why are these here, and not in Ntatemogolo’s pocket?

I spend a few more minutes in the room, then admit defeat and leave. I glance towards Ntatemogolo’s bedroom and my pulse quickens. I’ve never been in there. I’ve barely even glanced inside. He never forbade me from entering; it was a matter of respect, like so many things between us. It was one of the lines I couldn’t cross. Until now.

I turn towards the bedroom. My hand reaches for the door handle, closes around the shiny steel, and presses down. The door opens, and my heart leaps into my throat, then drops back into place with a sheepish bounce. I don’t know what I expected to happen – thunder and lightning, maybe? A Barry White baritone condemning me from the great beyond? But nothing happens. There are no magical booby traps. I push the door open and step inside.

It’s unremarkable. An old, low single bed made of sturdy iron. A simple, thin mattress, covered with a grey blanket. A lumpy pillow, the dark blue stripes on the pillowcase faded. A built-in wardrobe with a full-length mirror stuck to one of the doors. A small chest of drawers painted white, peeling, with a few meagre toiletry items on top; a comb, a bottle of body lotion, deodorant, some pills that look like supplements. An empty ashtray. I don’t know why that bothers me. I should be glad Ntatemogolo is smoking less.

I walk around the bed and stop in front of the mirror, half hoping it will tell me something. “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” I murmur. “Has my grandfather been brainwashed, or not at all?”

My reflection mocks me and I look away, and then look back into the glass. There’s something. Something I saw out of the corner of my eye, something truly unusual. A small cardboard box protruding from under the bed. I turn away from the reflection and towards the real thing, then bend to pick it up. It’s not very large, about fifteen centimetres all round, but the strange thing about it is the way it’s sealed. There is no opening at all, no flap, no incision. It’s ordinary cardboard, but impossible to open.

I puzzle over it for a moment, wishing I had Ntatemogolo’s magical finesse. There is a way, a word, a phrase, a touch. The longer I study the box, the more my unease grows. I have to get this open. Inside is the answer I’m looking for, I know it.

A door opens and closes, and I look up in panic. He’s back! I look around me, but there’s nowhere to hide in this small room, and I’ll never fit under the bed. What should I do? What should I do? I can’t think, and before I know it he’s here.

“Put that down.”

I look into his face. He doesn’t look angry. Mildly annnoyed, a little anxious, but not furious. Why?

“Conyza, put down the box. It’s dangerous.”

“No.” I’m shocked at myself, but only for a moment. I grasp the box tightly and put my hand behind my back. “Not until you tell me what’s inside.” It could be anything. It could be what’s affecting Ntatemogolo and making him act so strangely. Another version of the necklaces the Puppetmaster used to control Emily and the other girls.

“It is a spell I’ve been working on.” He’s too calm. The Ntatemogolo I know would be livid that I entered his room and invaded his privacy.

His features are growing hazy. I squint, but it makes no difference. My vision is blurry all of a sudden.

“It is still unstable,” he says. “Please, put it down before you hurt yourself.”

I blink furiously, trying to clear my vision. “No! If you’re not going to tell me the truth, I’m going to find out for myself!” I rush past him, catching him unawares, and notice that for the first time in all the years I’ve known him, he doesn’t smell faintly of cigarettes. He smells of cologne. Cologne!

“Conyza! What’s the matter with you? Conyza!”

I bolt out of the house and run down the street, ignoring the bus stop near his house in favour of one further down. When I look back, I don’t see him following. Of course not – he’s not going to chase me. It would be undignified.

I flag down an approaching combi. My vision has cleared now, and I wonder whether the blurriness was caused by Ntatemogolo, or something in his house. I turn the box over in my hands while waiting for the combi to come to a stop. I have to figure out how to open it. I broke the spell the Puppetmaster cast over the girls – I can break this one. All I need is a little time.

***

It turns out it takes more than a little time. Even with Wiki’s help, nothing works. I can’t cut or break the box open; its surface repels every tool I place near it, even plastic knives. I’ve looked up spells and counter spells, but this is Ntatemogolo’s field and I’m utterly in the dark. I haven’t heard a word from him, and I’ve made no effort at contact. Every night I sleep with the box under my pillow, just in case Sergeant Emily is still on active duty.

January gets off to a sleepy start. Dad and I stay home for New Year and watch DVDs. I’ve kept practising my blocking on my own, and now I’m up to ten hours. I’m not sure there’s any point to it, though. If the Puppetmaster found a way around my grandfather’s barrier, why should mine pose any difficulty?

Lebz returns from Cape Town the weekend before school is due to start, pushing her luck as always. She looks wonderful. Her skin is glowing, her hair is cut into a cute bob and she’s beaming – until I fill her in on what she’s missed.

“I go away for five minutes and the world falls apart,” she grumbles. “Rakwena’s gone, your grandfather is losing it, and now there’s a magic box.”

“We’ve tried everything,” says Wiki.

The three of us are in my living room, the box on the carpet in front of me.

“Have you tried reading it?” asks Lebz.

I shoot her a look. “I read it as soon as I touched it – that’s how I know what’s inside is important.”

“No, I mean reading its mind.” She clicks her tongue at the sceptical expressions on our faces. “It’s not a normal object like a cup or book, right? It’s a spell. It has its own magic, which means it must have some kind of system that makes the magic work.”

“An operating system,” says Wiki, a smile stealing over his features. “Lebz, you’re brilliant!”

“Don’t sound so stunned,” she snaps, but she looks chuffed.

I give her an appraising look. Cape Town must have been something else. “OK, so what does this mean?”

“It means the box has something like a brain,” Wiki explains. “It’s a spell though, so it’s encrypted.”

“A barrier,” I deduce.

“Exactly. So you need to treat it like a person. Get into its head and uncover its secrets.”

I take a deep breath. I must admit, I never thought of approaching it that way. This is why a girl needs sidekicks. I focus on the box, directing my gift the way I would with a person. It takes a minute; my intellect keeps popping up, reminding me that my quarry is an inanimate object. I brush it aside.

Slowly my consciousness inches towards the box, seeking out its “mind”. Nothing. Nothing. And then…a barrier. Big, strong and beautiful. I smile.

“Yes!” says Lebz.

I bring my attention back to the barrier. It’s more like a fence than a wall, a series of interlacing levels of protection. Someone like Ntatemogolo would unravel them one by one, but I don’t need to do that. I just look for the weak spots, the holes between layers. When I find them, I start to push.

It takes a while. It’s like pushing against a net; I have to wait for the fibres to break. They give slowly, then a tear forms and I’m in. The inside of the box’s “mind” is like an open field surrounded by a low wall. On one side there’s a gate, and the gate is made of letters. They don’t form words, but they don’t have to. I read them one by one, following the chain, and feel a thread of power unfurl inside me. It moves out, spreading, then rushes into my fingers.

I open my eyes and look at the box. Open Sesame, I mouth silently, and lift the box off the carpet. I feel the power rush out of my hands. It’s exhilarating, and for the first time I get an inkling of what it must be like to be telekinetic. A gap appears along the creases around the top panel of the box. There’s a soft click, and it opens.

“That is the single most incredible thing I have ever seen,” gasps Wiki.

Lebz just gapes at me, eyes like saucers.

I hesitate and look at my friends. Wiki nods for me to go on, and I gently tip the contents of the box onto the carpet. Nobody speaks. There are exactly nine objects. The ring Ntatemogolo showed me some ago, a tiny plastic Ziploc bag containing what looks like a small human tooth, a small black diary, a woman’s ring with a large rock on it, a spool of gold thread, a white feather, a vial full of a murky yellow liquid, a red pebble, Ntatemogolo’s ancient watch, and my anklet.

“Oh, my God,” says Lebz finally.

I pick up my anklet. It gives off a soft, glowing warmth. I raise my left leg and pull it over my foot.

“Don’t!” cries Lebz. “What if it’s bewitched?”

“It feels clean.” I lift up Ntatemogolo’s watch. To my surprise its energy is neutral. “So that’s how the Puppetmaster is doing it. He’s got Ntatemogolo’s watch – maybe he just needs something that belongs to someone to control them. And now that I’ve opened the box, hopefully the owners of these things will be set free.”

“I have a feeling it might be too late for the owner of the tooth,” says Wiki.

We all look at the tooth. It’s so small it can only belong to a child. What is it with the Puppetmaster and children?

I shake my head. “No, it can’t be. There’s no point in controlling a corpse, right?”

Lebz and Wiki heave identical sighs of relief. I slip the watch over my wrist. It feels oddly heavy, and cold against my skin.

“Wait a second.” Lebz is frowning at the pile of objects. “If the Puppetmaster is using these things to control people, why were they in your grandfather’s house? Why wouldn’t he keep them somewhere safe, where no one would find them?”

That’s an excellent question, and one to which I have no answer.

“Let’s assume that Emily is the one who stole these objects,” says Wiki. “She gathers them, gives them to her master, and he puts them in this magic box. And then…”

“Maybe Ntatemogolo found the box when he went on that mystery trip!” I suggest eagerly. “Maybe that’s what happened – he found the box and brought it home, and hasn’t been able to open it yet.”

“OK, but there’s one problem.” Wiki points at my wrist. “If he found the box during that trip, that means the watch was stolen before that, and you didn’t notice anything strange earlier.”

I shrug. “Maybe the Puppetmaster hadn’t yet begun to mess with Ntatemogolo. Maybe he was keeping the watch just in case, and it was after he learned that his magic box was missing that he decided to start using the spell. And that would explain why Ntatemogolo hasn’t managed to open it. He’s focusing on fighting the Puppetmaster’s control…” My voice trails off. The theory sounds weak even to my ears.

“This whole mess is just too freaky,” says Lebz.

“The pieces just aren’t fitting together.” Wiki leans back in the sofa and pushes up his glasses. “We’re missing something.”

“Well, let’s start with Ntatemogolo.” I hold up the hand with his watch. “If we’re right and this watch was used to control him, then he should be back to normal now, right?”

My friends nod. I crawl across the carpet and pick my phone off the coffee table, then dial Ntatemogolo’s number. It rings, and rings, and rings…and goes to voicemail. That’s not a good sign.

“What now?” asks Lebz.

I shrug. “Now we wait and see.”

***

Waiting doesn’t yeild any results. Ntatemogolo won’t answer his phone, and I’m growing impatient. Three days after opening the box I decide to try and puzzle it out for myself. Since Rakwena and Ntatemogolo left, I’m beginning to realise how dependent I was on them. Not a good trait for a supernatural detective. Now that they’re gone I’m drifting, and I need to find a way to get back on track. I need to recover my mojo.

After breakfast I go to my desk and open the box. The contents are all still there, and I’m none the wiser about what to do with them. I pull out the chair and drop onto it, staring at the box. I was afraid it might reseal after I opened it, but it seems to have transformed into a regular cardboard box. I’ve been reluctant to tamper with the other items inside, in case I shift the energy balance somehow and cause tidal waves in China, or something. Ntatemogolo always says I should be careful how I use my gift.