VVisselKind

In the small Eastern Cape town of Greystone, Elise Joubert is a woman of impeccable reputation. Her home is immaculate. Her grief, when it comes, is perfectly composed. And her daughter, loud, curious, entirely her own person, is a disappointment she has never once said aloud.

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When Rina is seven years old, Elise drives her into the mountains and leaves her on a remote path in the fading afternoon light.

She drives home. She makes tea. She builds her grief so carefully she can barely find the seam.

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The mountain keeps what it is given. But the mountains around Greystone are old, and they do not always keep things unchanged.

 

Months later, a child appears on Elise's stoep. She is almost exactly like Rina. Almost. She is more beautiful, more still, and she calls Elise Mamma before Elise can think to ask who she is.

 

Riena is everything Elise ever wanted in a daughter. Patient.

 

Obedient. Adoring. A perfect reflection.

 

She has also learned, in the dark of the mountain, exactly what Elise did to Rina.

 

And she has come home to teach her mother what it felt like.