The baobab tree had seen more than any elder in the village. Its bark bore the carved names of long-dead warriors. Its branches, thick as limbs of giants, stretched toward the sky like prayers — unanswered. Beneath it, in the half-dark hush before dawn, Adira wrote secrets the world wasn't ready to hear.
Her knees pressed into the cool earth. The hem of her faded green kitenge fluttered with the wind, dusty from yesterday's chores, still damp from morning dew. She leaned over her grandmother's tin basin, using the metal's reflection to catch any movement behind her. Safety was a dance — never turn your back to the village, never let your thoughts be louder than tradition.
In her hands, a frayed notebook — pages water-stained, the spine patched with goat leather and hope. Hidden inside were dreams dressed in metaphors, fury disguised as poetry. She dipped a charcoal stick into a mixture of soot and cow milk, the ink of rebels and restless minds.
"If they teach us to kneel, we will learn to rise.If they teach us to whisper, we will learn to roar."
Adira paused, listening. No footsteps. Only the wind rustling banana leaves. A cow grunted in the distance. A baby cried and was hushed.
She continued to write, faster now. Her fingers moved like they'd done this before — not once, not twice, but hundreds of times. Because writing was her weapon. Words, her shield. While the other girls were taught to grind millet and fold silence into their backs, Adira taught herself history under moonlight — stories of Mekatilili, of Mau Mau fighters, of girls who became ghosts for daring to speak.
The village called those stories curses.
She called them blueprints.
Then came the voice.
"You're either mad or brave, sitting out here like that."
She didn't flinch. She knew the voice.
Kamari .
Adira turned slowly, careful to tuck her notebook behind her thigh. He stood shirtless, a water jug on his shoulder, beads of sweat already on his neck despite the morning cold. His eyes, dark and thoughtful, flicked from her face to the ink on her fingers.
"You always spy on girls before sunrise?" she asked, rising to her feet. Her voice was calm but sharp — the way you spoke to someone who didn't yet know what side of history they were on.
"I heard something. Thought it might be a thief," Kamari said, smiling lightly. "Didn't expect to find the chief's headache scribbling beneath trees."
Adira arched a brow. "You call your own headache beautiful, Kamari?"
He laughed, softly. "You know what I mean."
A moment passed. The kind that stretches when silence says too much. He took a step closer.
"My father would lose his mind if he knew what you were writing," he murmured, voice low. "You know he's pushing for the new bride laws to pass. Once they do, girls like you..."
"Girls like me will be married off like goats," Adira finished bitterly. "I know."
She moved past him, brushing his shoulder — soft contact, too fast to linger, but heavy enough to remember. He caught her wrist gently.
"You'll get caught one day. And you won't be able to write your way out."
She met his eyes. "If silence could save me, I'd already be free."
Kamari's grip loosened.
Kamari's brow furrowed as he stepped closer, his voice dipping to a hush.
"I heard what they did to Nalia."
Adira froze just for a second. The name hit like the beat of a forbidden drum. Nalia — the girl who vanished into exile after challenging the elders at the district council meeting. A legend now. A warning, depending on who told the story.
"She came back last month," Kamari said carefully, watching Adira's expression. "That's what they say. Someone spotted her near Kiwanja hill."
Adira didn't blink. "People say many things."
"They say she's organizing again," Kamari pressed, slow and subtle. "Speaking in codes. Recruiting young girls from villages. They even think she's planning something bigger."
His words hung in the air like smoke. Adira didn't respond, just stared at him with those unreadable eyes — the kind that made boys feel brave and exposed at once.
"I... I just don't want you caught up in things that can't be undone," Kamari added, more gently now."This path — what Nalia started — it's already swallowed people braver than us. Even men. Men with weapons. And you're out here with words and fire in your chest, thinking that's enough."
He took a step forward, voice just barely holding steady.
"Please, Adira. Just stop. Before you become another name they carve into silence."
She stood motionless. Unflinching. But something flickered.
"You're already walking too close to the edge," he murmured. "It's already... already too dangerous for..."
His voice cracked.
"Too dangerous for what, Kamari?" she asked, her tone flat — daring him to say it.
He looked at her then — really looked. And for a second, he wasn't a soldier's son or the village's golden boy. He was just a boy standing in front of the girl who could destroy him with a single decision.
"For someone like you," he whispered. "Someone I..."
The rest dissolved in his throat.
Her chest ached — but she didn't show it.Not even a blink.
Her shoulders almost dropped. Almost.
But she swallowed the softness growing in her heart, that voice that almost convinced her to stay like poison.Because feelings like that? They got people killed.
"If I find Nalia," she said, voice smooth as flint, "I'll join her."
And then she turned away — leaving Kamari under the baobab, heart full of things he could never say out loud.