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Stalk the Lantern

Brett and Ntendeni cut imposing figures against the wall in the dining room of  the sparsely furnished Karoo farmhouse. A battered old unlit lantern stood at the head of the table in front of them. They were both dressed in black. Their clipboards, hiking boots and upright, feet-apart stances reminded the group of teenage boys seated around the table who was in charge. The rules at Unplugged Adventure were simple: No phones, no swearing, no fighting and no whining. This was the end of day three and screen-based dopamine withdrawal was in full swing. They had just finished a potjie kos meal that they had all had a hand in making on a fire made from wood they’d chopped themselves.  Ntendeni, the taller of the two, cleared his throat and the hum of conversation among the boys died down. His skin was almost as black as his clothes and his pronounced ears looked to some of the boys like bat wings. They’d be comical if the rest of him weren’t so frightening.  “Right guys,” his ...
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Claudia's Nokia

 It's a glorious Sunday morning at Annabel's café in the year 2002. Maxwell the waiter brings over Claudia and Vanessa's lattes. Claudia smiles at him, taps out the last of her SMS and drops her orange Nokia 3310 into her handbag on the floor next to her chair. Another pair of customers walk in and sit down at an adjacent table. They're a married couple from Khayelitsha. Not regular Annabel's clientele, but this is the New South Africa, and nobody pays them enough attention to notice the agitation behind their forced-calm demeanors. The man announces he is going to the bathroom, lifts his chair up and carefully places it down as he leaves the table. Chatting animatedly, neither Claudia nor Vanessa notice that one of the chair legs is hooked though one of Claudia's handbag handles. The woman pulls the chair back and the handbag with it. Her own phone rings (It's her husband, calling form the toilet). "What? Where are you now? Okay. I'm coming to get ...
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The Witch

  We join Maximilian of Tyne as he rides into Barrow village. His first stop is the vicarage. Barrow, he has heard, is home to a witch, and if he can beat the famed witch-hunter Matthew Hopkins to a trial and execution, he may gain the favour he so craves with the church. That, and the chance, perhaps, for an audience with King James. But what a day for a headache. And what a headache! Maximilian’s cranium is subject to an enormous, throbbing pressure, as if the moment of the blacksmith’s hammer on the anvil were drawn out into several hours. Putting on his best face for the vicar, he assembles the pieces of the rumour in his hurting brain: Gordon, cousin of the illustrious Spencers, has been losing his sheep to a pox. One of his shepherds stopped working then died. It is being whispered that this is the doing of a woman by the name of May, by means of black magic and assisted by her spirit familiar, a brindle dog. Max resolved to find the woman right away. But first he had to do s...
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Narnia Shop Hell Panther

  It was Sunday and it was still raining. Bex was the first awake. She opened the kitchen window, made herself a cup of coffee and then shuffled into the lounge with it. She peeked into the entrance hall. Jarek’s outrageous boots and Mazza’s Docs were conspicuous in their absence. She glanced at her lime green Baby G. It was almost ten o’clock. She hoped they hadn’t been arrested again. A door creaked open upstairs. She could tell from the ghoulish yawn that it was Kypo. She studied the contents of the low table as he hacked and gargled his way through his morning ablutions. The sorry pot plant was still hanging on for dear life after being knocked over innumerable times, smacked by Kypo’s pois, subjected to Al’s experiments and victim to Jarek and Mazza’s roughhousing. A hopeful shoot reached upwards from amidst the other frayed and battered leaves. One of Ash’s dioramas stood next to the plant. It can’t have been one she liked very much, since she’d left it to the chaos of the lo...
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