Twelve-year-old Ayosa inhabits a world of blurred boundaries. Her memories pre-date her birth; wraiths, ghosts, emotions and nightmares are as real and compelling to her as her human interactions; and her love-hate relationship with her mother Nabumbo defies the normal rules of dependency. Ayosa is desperate to be wanted and loved, but Nabumbo, whose own childhood was torn apart by tragedy, is unable to fulfil the role she has been given. Instead she is often absent: either physically so, when she escapes for weeks or months at a time to pursue a failing career in photography, or psychologically, when she disappears inside herself. As Ayosa knows, this is a family trait: ‘That was how it was. Mamas left. Daughters waited.’
But then Ayosa decides not to wait any more, and her friendship with Mbiu, an orphan dismissed by the townsfolk as a ‘throwaway child’, begins to fill the void. In a world where nothing is black and white, Ayosa realizes that she can forge her own path, and choose who to love and who to leave behind.
