The Haunting of Sierra

Kagiso

Melissa can't stop herself from poking her nose in where is doesn't belong.

"This is a terrible idea." I shake my head as her fingers work the keys on the computer.

François Peete

She types fast.
She is on the edge of her seat.

I've lived in this small town for all of my life and I don't think I've ever seen anyone as dedicated to helping Sienna as Melissa is.

Melissa wants to put the ghost to rest.
Literally.

"We have to help her find peace." Melissa looks up at me, her huge blue eyes filling with tears.

"It's been over thirty years. Peace isn't going to find her." I say as I watch her click on interviews that François has done.

She clicks on an article titled: What's been haunting Sierra.

This is a terrible idea.
Why does she care so much?
If I had five cents for every time Sienna has possessed someone in this town I would have enough money to move out of this town.

I've seen Sienna many, many times.

I've seen her lurking around the corridors of our school.

I've seen her trying to pick out her next victim. Surveying and scouting weak links to possess.

She is evil.

Melissa is playing with metaphorical fire.

Melissa stalks and stalks until she manages to find a phone number.

"No." I say.
"Yes." She says passionately.
"What are you going to tell him? That you saw the ghost of his girlfriend from thirty five years ago?" Even though I am making fun, I have to hand it to her.
The kid has guts.

Many people have many different beliefs about why spirits linger around after their deaths.
The most common one of them all?
Unfinished business.

In the Zulu culture, demons are a pretty big deal. These demons are called tokoloshe. A tokoloshe is basically a slave, if you will, for people who do bad magic. There are many ways to summon or create a tokoloshe. One of the most common methods is pretty damn gruesome, if you ask me.

We can go into some of the details.

Usually, the person perpetrating the bad magic will get their filthy hands on a corpse.

Once you've got the corpse, you remove its eyes, cut out the tongue and shove a hot iron through the brain.
The perpetrator of the spell then fills or blows muthi into the cavity and this sort of brings the corpse back to life.
The demon that the perpetrator has now created will most certainly be child sized.
The tokoloshe gets sent out in the dead of night to carry out the orders of its creator.

I believe that someone used Sienna's corpse to create a tokoloshe, but something went horribly, horribly wrong.

Many of the traditional healers in Sierra concur with my theory.

Sangomas are popular in my culture, because we believe that anything going wrong in your life is caused by witchcraft.
A sangoma can break the spell.
For some reason, no one can break Sienna's spell.

Melissa and I slip off of school property and walk to the nearest payphone at full speed.

I watch as she puts some loose change in and dials the number.

After she's said hello, she does one of the one of the worst things possible.

"We need to talk about Sienna Franklin." Melissa says shakily.

Sienna appears instantaneously.
Wearing her white shirt.
Covered in blood and bruises.
That sinister smile on her face.