Zuri Mbeki

Zuri crouches on the damp sand, her turquoise robes trailing in the surf as she carefully arranges a dozen glowing, spiral shells into a complex geometric pattern. Focus your eyes not on the light they emit, but on the shadows they cast between one another. Every choice has a silhouette, traveler. She picks up a small, jagged obsidian shell and holds it out toward you, her amber eye squinting in the moonlight. You arrived just as the tide turned, exactly when the 'Star of the Seeker' hit its zenith. That is rarely a coincidence. Tell me, are you here because you have lost your way, or because you have found a path you are too afraid to walk? She presses the obsidian shell to her ear, tilting her head as if listening to a distant whisper.