The Dark Corner

– Don’t fret little man, he will be here soon. Come relax a while. 

The islander leaves Shaderick at the edge of the compound and merges in with the group singing and drumming inside. Lapping waves on the lake below wash under the rhythm of the drums.  

With a hesitant step, he follows the man. The people make no move to bar his way. He goes and sits down amongst them, cross-legged, tucking his feet underneath. Palm wine and cooked fish are being passed around. He gratefully accepts what comes his way. 

* * *  

Setting out the day before, he told the master of the home where he lived that he was going to greet a relative by the lake. Shaderick knew the master would not object to the visit. His earnings from the roadside stall had been good of late. The makeshift shop sold boxes of matches, cigarettes, sweets, detergent and other sundries, all neatly arranged on a worn mat for passing traffic to view. Mzungu on their way to the lake would sometimes stop, sniggering as they posed for photos with the roasted mice on sticks for sale. They’d usually buy something, or at least gift him some money. People gave easily to an albino boy, sitting under the searing African sun with only a torn fisherman’s hat for protection.  

Shaderick also knew the master was aware of this and could not object to the little bits he had been saving from the takings. Especially with what had been happening in the home recently. Starting out in the cool of the dawn, the boy filed in with the streams of people making their way along the dusty roadside paths. He needed to walk the 30 miles to the lake to have money enough for the ferry passage. 

Late that day, his grand-aunt met him at her small mudbrick house not far from the lakeshore. The welcome felt good and she prepared for him steaming dishes of nsima and fish. It had not been like that when his mother had passed some years before. She had not come forward then to wipe away his tears, nor had anyone else. No one could be found to look after him. When his mother first grew ill, a local man had come by to say that if she died, they would come chop off her ghost boy son’s legs and sell them to witch doctors. After her death, Shaderick was taken away to a home. He had been glad to leave. The village had been his world, but that world was a bad place now. 

After the meal, and after thanking her again for the hospitality, he spoke of the true reason for his visit. He said he had contracted the sickness and was here to seek out Bugabe at the lake. 

– No, Shaderick! How could it be? How could this happen? 

– I cannot say Auntie. I just know I have it and cannot pay for medicine. If the stories are true, it is the only way. 

– Go to the island then and tell someone Carmilla has sent you. Rest up now after your journey, the ferry leaves early in the morning.  

She sighed and let him prepare for bed. Shaderick thought of what he really wanted to say to her, to let it all come out; how an older boy in the home had cornered him in the shed out back. 

– Let’s see how powerful your magic is, ghost boy. 

He had then used the younger boy like a woman. 

The other times after that, the boy from the home would warn him not to breathe a word of it to another soul, or he would spill his magic blood all over the yard. Shaderick would just go limp and let him do as he wanted. 

Attacks were common on those like him, their blood and body parts much prized for cures and spells. He had lost toes in the last home and still had scars along his throat where he had been opened up. The attacks were not new, nor the hostility and rejection. But he worried what the older boy wanted to be cured of. He was popular with girls of the district; Shaderick feared he knew the answer. When the clinic came by on its tour of the townlands, he had asked for a test and was not surprised with the result. He had not even cried. On returning to the home, he saw one of the street dogs he gave scraps to from time to time. He coaxed it into the shed out back. It came willingly. The boy cut its throat with a kitchen knife and let it bleed out into the yard. He had held it as it whimpered, the life ebbing away from it in his hands. The blood mixed with the dust and dirt in darkening pools. It was just a street dog, a sacrifice no one would miss. 

His grand-aunt accompanied him to the Ilala ferry the next morning. She lightly brushed his cheek, scarred and scabby as it was from years of sunburn. He told her to stay well and boarded the ferry. A dark look crossed her face when he waved from the boat as it pulled away from the pier. 

When the ferry neared land again rowing boats came from the beach to pick up a load of supplies and people. As Shaderick lowered himself onto one, a fish-eagle swooped out of the sky to snatch a meal from the water, not far from the boat. With a splash, it was away again. 

Once ashore, he approached a scar-faced boy with a stall like the one he worked on himself. The boy had a grubby t-shirt with a print on it of a dancing cartoon dog. Not really knowing what he was doing, and in a voice barely above a whisper, he said Carmilla had sent him. The boy had been acting in the dismissive way Shaderick was used to with strangers. But with these words, his demeanour changed, like a rich mzungu had just gotten off the boat. The boy pointed to a concrete block building set back from the beach and told him to wait there, that someone would be with him soon. 

The day wound on into evening before a tall man came strolling by. He 

grasped Shaderick’s hand in a powerful grip. His complexion was very dark, like old bark. 

– I hear you are looking for someone, little man. 

– I need to tell someone that Carmilla has sent me. 

– Yes, yes, the one you seek is with us tonight. If the sickness dogs your steps, your remedy is near at hand. Come, it is not far. 

A faint drumbeat pulled them onward as the pair began to climb a road from the village. 

* * * 

Torches burn on the closest walls. A few of the group have gotten up to dance. One of the elder men produces a wooden flute and begins to play over the drums. Most not drumming are singing by now. One side of the compound looks out over the waters to other islands on the lake. The stars are clear in the sky, the milky way lit up and bulging bright from end to end. 

The dancing becomes more energetic. A group forms a circle and a woman is spun along inside, handled and patted as she goes. The woman calls something in a dialect Shaderick does not know. The circle spins her faster, the drums and singing getting louder as the woman’s calls grow a fevered edge. Finally, the woman drops to the ground in convulsions. Her eyes roll back in her head and her body jerks. His mother had brought him to see rituals like this years before. But they had never been as frenzied. 

From the back of the main thatched structure two figures have appeared, distracting Shaderick from the woman on the ground. The dogs that mull around with the group, begging for bones, scurry away to the far corners of the compound. One of the figures is an elegant lady with waist length braided hair. But all his attention becomes fixed on the man by her side. He looks like an albino too though with a commanding build. His hair is matted in the whitest of dreadlocks, except for two partially stained a brownish colour, framing his face. His pale skin has a hard lustrous quality with no signs of the scars and scabs that afflict most albinos. It shines in the torch light. A strong jaw protrudes over thick neck muscles like those of a hyena. The eyes are the most striking part, though. They are a coppery-grey colour like Shaderick’s but rimmed by an intense red that seems to pulse as they look around. 

The rumours he has heard in hushed tones could really be true. It is said Bugabe can help people with the sickness; that he is old, very old, and never stays in one place long. But that is all he knows. The man’s eyes continue to rove over the gathering, coming to rest on Shaderick. The drums and music fall into a lull for the boy. Everything slows down. The gaze probes down into his depths. He cannot break it, even if he wanted to. 

– …and to protect what is ours. 

The woman at the man’s side has been speaking but he has missed most of it, locked in by those eyes. 

– If you breathe a word of this to a mzungu, Bugabe will come for you. He will show no mercy. 

The man leans into her and whispers. She pauses. He crooks a finger up from beneath his black robe in Shaderick’s direction. His heart beats faster. The world becomes still as the grave. 

– Shaderick Mutherika! Come forward. 

The boy almost expects his name to be known. This man surely knows every little thing about him now, his eyes must have found everything. 

Shaderick rises to his feet. He makes the short way to the front of the structure where the couple stand, facing the gathering. The woman takes his hand and motions him towards a low table. He raises himself up onto it. His heart is beating wildly now. He isn’t sure he wants to be here anymore. She places his hat down and traces a fingernail along his trouser leg and thigh, then along his torso, opening the buttons of his long-sleeved shirt as she goes and pulls it to the side, before withdrawing. The man steps in to take her place. 

He places one hand on the boy’s body, the other hovers above. A thumbnail glints torch-light off its honed point, like a talon in its sharpness. Shaderick wants to be anywhere but here now. He would give anything to be back in his district, even at the stall in the height of the mid-day sun. He goes limp and gives himself over to whatever is to come. The nail comes down and nicks into his throat. The man leans in, putting his lips over the gash and sucks. He rises again after a few moments and spits a stream of blood into the dirt. A feeling seems to spread through Shaderick’s system. It may just be relief that the ordeal seems to be nearing an end. But he hopes it is something else. 

– It is done, he says quietly, droplets of blood smeared on his lips and chin. I can see we are kindred spirits, you and I. Would you like to join us? 

Cian Doherty currently works in Deansgrange Library and writes when he can. He studied English and Art history in UCD and has attended writing workshops at Big Smoke Writing factory. He has also written a couple of short pieces for stage with the amateur dramatic group No Drama Theatre. A few years back, he was working for UNAIDs in Malawi and this short story is inspired by his time there.