Sunrise

1

Unbroken

Pitter, patter, pitter, patter.

The scuttling of a gecko’s feet sounded across the boulder I leant against. I glanced over my shoulder and grinned at it. It was a little gecko the colour of a sapphire with pretty little black and gold dots flecking its back. It took one look at the size of my white teeth with its big golden eyes and flitted away. My name is Kamaria, named after my father’s mother because I am the first born daughter of our family. As I continue painting my future husband’s shirt, I think of him.

I am almost fifteen now, the age where girls become women to marry and boys become men to defend the Falakee tribe.

‘Kamaria!’

I turned to see my brother, Chinwe, standing behind me.

‘Yes?’ I prompted.

‘Mama wants you to go and milk the goats,’ he told me, the feathers in his hair rustling in the light breeze, ‘if you don’t go soon she’ll worry.’

I liked the way his head tilted slightly, in that inquisitive way that made you want to love him.

I sighed and gently placed my husband-to-be’s shirt inside our family’s hut, and hurried after my brother.

The only reason we actually have goats is because my brother had been attacked by the chieftain’s drunken son, and as compensation we had received the damn animals. I wish we hadn’t.

‘Where have you been, Kamaria?’ My mother snapped, lightly cuffing me over the ear, ‘I’ve been worried sick about you! This damn drought is making the animals nervous.’

‘I was working in the yam fields, mama,’ I lied, my dark eyes daring Chinwe to contradict me.

‘Well, anyway,’ Mama sighed, her eyes still flashing lividly, ‘if you want any dinner, sort these animals out – they don’t listen to us, only to you. Besides, it’s kudu meat tonight.’

As soon as mama left, Chinwe leant over so his chapped lips were by my ear.

‘Goat-girl,’ he sniggered, and then ran off. I frowned and stuck my tongue out behind his bare back. I hoped with all my heart that the coming-of-age circumcision ceremony would make him less annoying. If you cried during circumcision, you weren’t allowed to marry, because no woman wanted a cowardly husband. Chinwe had a friend called Marjani, whose older brother had cried. He was banished now for having taken a wife anyway, ignoring our Falakee laws.

I sighed and knelt down by the black goat beside me, and inched a bucket beneath her to collect the milk that would quench our thirst tonight.

After a good hour of milking, I grunted and transferred the fruits of my labour into another bucket, which one of my cousins who never spoke came to collect. I liked my cousin. He had long, trailing hair that he had refused to braid or cut off and intelligent sandy eyes, which were framed by long, tantalizing black eyelashes. I smiled at him, and he smiled back.

‘Kamaria?’

My cousin slipped away quietly. I looked up and narrowed my eyes in disappointment.

It was Awotwi. My future husband.

I hated him so much, I would rather milk the goats for the rest of my life than marry him.

‘Oh, Awotwi,’ I put on my sickly sweet voice, hoping to deter him slightly, ‘how are you?’

He didn’t move, but his piggy little eyes watched me as I washed my hands in a basin of cold water.

‘You’re so…’ he began, ‘so…’