MY GRANDMOTHER INTRODUCED A TIKOLOSHI TO US AS OUR COUSIN.
When I was growing up, I never thought I’d have a story like this to share. It still feels strange when I think about it, like something out of a dream—or a nightmare. My grandmother, who was both loved and feared in our family, once brought home someone she introduced as our cousin. But he wasn’t like any cousin we’d ever known.
He looked about 15 years old, but there was something odd about him. He spoke in a strange way, with a heavy lisp, and couldn’t say words with “R” or “S” properly. He always seemed confused, like he didn’t fully understand where he was.
His behavior was even stranger. Unlike the rest of us, he never went to school. He slept all day, locked in his room, and only came out when it was dark outside. At dinner, while we ate normal portions, he would eat huge amounts—enough to feed five grown men—and still look like he wanted more. It was like he was never full.
At night, all of us cousins would sleep together in one room, but not him. He had his own room, and we weren’t allowed to enter it. Even when we were curious, something about that room made us afraid. Sometimes at night, we’d hear strange sounds from behind his door—soft thuds or whispers. None of us dared to go near.
The adults treated him differently too. They never scolded him for skipping school or eating so much. They didn’t act like he was one of us, but more like someone they didn’t want to upset.
As kids, we talked about him when the adults weren’t around. Some of us thought he might be a tokoloshe—a kind of spirit or creature from our folklore. We laughed nervously, but deep down, we all felt that something wasn’t right.
The moment we found out the truth came one night when my cousin dared us to peek into his room. It was well past midnight, and he was supposed to be asleep. We crept down the hallway, hearts pounding, and pushed the door open just a crack. What we saw froze us in place.
He wasn’t asleep. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by strange objects—a clay pot filled with something dark, animal bones, and candles burning with a weird, flickering light. His shadow on the wall didn’t match his movements—it was dancing wildly, like it had a life of its own.
We ran back to our room, terrified. None of us spoke about it, but we all knew what we had seen. The whispers we’d heard, the strange thuds, his unusual appetite—it all made sense. He wasn’t like us. He was a tokoloshe.
After that night, things changed. My grandmother seemed to sense that we knew something. The next morning, she wouldn’t let us anywhere near his room. Within days, he was gone, just like that. No explanation, no goodbye. It was as if he had never been there. But we knew the truth.
Now that I’m older, I understand what we couldn’t back then. My grandmother’s actions, the fear in the house, the strange way he behaved—it was all tied to witchcraft. Witchcraft isn’t just a story. It’s real.
Even now, I think about him and wonder what he really was. The world is full of mysteries, and sometimes those mysteries live right in our homes.
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