Midnight Thesis is a Historical Ghost Story and Existential Horror. I finish one chapter a week and let our writing group give me feedback. Then I publish the chapters here as a serial novel. Here is Chapter 6: A True Word.
Early 1970s, Griqualand-East/South-Western Natal: Jochem Kok was doing research on a forgotten literary figure, or so everybody thought. Unearthing a tragic past opened up a conduit to an ancient horror that demands a price for being called to the present.
What came before…
A True Word
“Give me a moment,” Jochem said. He indicated the outside toilet at a distance from the cottage and then walked towards it. He needed to get away from her. She wouldn’t follow him if that was where she thought he was going.
He glanced back and she still stood there. Will she wait as long as it takes for him to come back? Further along the path curved and she was out of sight. If she was, then he could not be seen from the cottage.
Jochem switched direction and climbed the rocky hillside to the south of the cottage. He moved rapidly, jerking his knees up as the slope pulled at his legs. The sun pressed down on his shoulders. From the top he could look over the rolling Natal landscape, almost as if he could see tomorrow coming at him. It was a good place to clear his head. But he came here for more than that.
Doctor Charl Marais was sitting on a flat boulder, waiting there to meet him. He had been here for a couple of days. To speak to him had been a relief. Jochem had been pouring out thoughts born from months of thinking.
Marais hardly looked across. As if he’d known Jochem would come. Expecting him.
Jochem sat down beside him. The stone held the morning’s heat, comfortable and wholesome. He took one look back at the cottages and then spoke rapidly.
“You did not tell me you left the department.” The accusation in his voice surprised him.
Charl Marais turned his head slowly and looked at Jochem. Then he shrugged.
Of course Marais would shrug it off. He had never been as obsessed with the continued existence of the department as Professor Truter was. What did it all matter now? They were both here, both doing the work that needed to be done. The department and its politics could be forgotten because it meant nothing out here on the hillside.
“You are right,” said Jochem. “It is of no consequence. Only the work here is important. That’s why you needed to come out here. To help me bring it to completion.”
Still his supervisor had no words for him. Doctor Marais looked back at the horizon. Said nothing.
Jochem leaned forward and pulled a twig from a bushwillow. He slapped himself absentmindedly across the forearm until it started to smart. The sting helped. Cleared his thoughts. Speaking them out loud also helped.
“Professor Truter said that my research is without merit. He wants me to go defend it in front of the research committee.”
The words sounded distant even as he spoke them. As if they belonged to someone else’s life. It should be phrased as a question. But Marais was not answering questions. He stood up and walked to the edge of the hill. Here he stood and stared out over the landscape.
Jochem had to speak to his back—pleading. “I will only go if you come with me.”
Marais did not turn around. He kept his back to Jochem with all his attention out to the horizon. The wind moved through the grass below. Nothing else.
The silence stretched. Jochem waited. Doctor Marais would know what to do. He always did. But he would wait for the student to come to the same conclusion first. Jochem whispered the realization.
“No, you will not be leaving here. Not until the work is finished.”
Relief flooded through him. Yes. Exactly right.
“If you are here long enough the hills start speaking to you with the voice of Brandt Verneuk. You told me so, but it is only now that I believe it to be true.”
Or, was that right? The memory felt like something from years ago, from another version of himself. Had Marais said that? He must have. If he could not remember, Jochem did. That was what mattered.
He stood up and joined Doctor Marais. Together they looked at the future approaching, rolling closer over the hills. The sky stretching out. Everything clear, everything simple out here.
After a long silence Jochem nodded his head decisively. The gesture fixed it in his mind. Final. He would stay. The work would continue.
Then he left Doctor Marais on the edge and started down the hill back to the cottage. His legs carried him sure-footed over the stones.
© 2025 Gerhi Janse van Vuuren
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