Broken In Starlight

"Njata?"

She heard Wairimu call out her name with alarming panic. It was the middle of the night and they were out unlike any decent girl of their age group.

Njata was the last-born daughter in a family of ten boys and one girl. Everyone thought she had a strange name because she had not been named after any of the nine plus-one daughters of Gikuyu and Mumbi.

"What a strange name?", Neighbors would mutter, "I heard that she's named after a cow!" Others would add.

The reason for their puzzlement was simple.: The Gikuyu tribe came from Gikuyu and his nine plus one daughters who mothered the ten clans. First-born daughters were named after their paternal grandmothers while second-born daughters were named after their maternal grandmothers.

If there was a third daughter, she'd been named after her father's eldest sister, and a fourth would be named after her mother's eldest sister. If there were more daughters, they'd be named after aunts from both sides starting from the father's side and followed by the mother's. The same case would apply to boys starting from the grandfather and then to the eldest uncle and so forth.

Sometimes, people would be named after their character and role in the clan. For example, singers were called Maina meaning 'people that sing and herders were called Muriithi.

Needless to say, all names were common. All of their children had those original names because of the naming system, or a slight variation of those names, and others grew up to be named after their duties, but Njata? Such names were reserved for cows and goats. Alas!, Njata's maitû, Njeri, had a cow named "Mweri" which meant 'moon'. It had been born on a full moon night.

Njata thought her name was neither strange nor belonging to a cow. Sure, most cows were her namesake, but who else could claim that their name shined so bright? She was a literal star! She was unique and special.

The best thing about her name was that it had a story behind it. Not a just mere system of naming. Nothing dull like the norm. No, her naming was bright, just like her name.

Njeri, Njata's maitû, and Njuguna, Njata's baba, had tried to have a daughter for a long time. Njata did not know how long that time was, but she knew that it was long enough to bear 10 strong sons and for maitû to be out of her childbearing age. Baba loved his mother and always wished to have a daughter to name after her but it was not to be. Njeri could no longer bear a child. The strength had already gone from her bones.

Njata's parents had already accepted that the only daughters they'd have would be ones that their ten sons would marry. Some people would advise Njuguna to take a second wife so that she'd bear him a daughter to name after his mother. He never gave in to their demands. He loved maitû. She was a beautiful loving woman that had borne him 10 strong sons.

One day, as Njuguna had gone out to the forest with other young men of the village to hunt, he saw a baby lying down on a bed made of dried banana leaves. There had been evidence of a lone lion roaming around the village and roaring at night. A pride of lions was no danger. It was the lone one you had to watch out for. And so all warriors and able-bodied men in the village had tried unsuccessfully to hunt it. It was like the lion was outwitting them.

As Njuguna approached the mysterious bundle, the baby looked at him and smiled, revealing two dimpled cheeks. He was already halfway in love with it by the time he lifted the baby into his arms.

The other men with him warned him against involving himself with the child.

"It might be a bad omen", some said.

"Or maybe the child belongs to cûcu wa Kwerû", others claimed. Had it been just a case of an abandoned baby in the forest, the baby would have been more acceptable; but this, after a lone lion that kept on eluding them, was setting off all sorts of warnings.

It was useless. Njuguna was in love.

The baby was brought to the clan elders, the njama, where it spent a full night there, in case it was the daughter of Cûcu wa Kwerû. It was said that she was a demon that resembled an ugly old haggard woman.

And that she spent her life harassing naughty children who refused to obey their parents while stealing food from cupboards and granaries to feed her starving children. It made sense if the old crone had forgotten one of the said children in the forest.

So Njata spent a whole night, hungry and cold in the granary, waiting for her evil mother to come and collect her. It was believed that cûcû wa Kwerû roamed at night but by dawn, she would disappear, and all would be safe from her wickedness.

By dawn, the child was so cold and hungry that her piercing cries tore at Njeri's heart. She had not slept a wink. Neither had her husband. Of course, they knew that the child was not a demon baby but a gift from the heavens to them. She was their miracle. The baby's suffering made their hearts bleed. They just had to prove to the rest of the village that their baby was a child of light and not one of darkness.

When the sun rose, she ran, banged, and scratched at the door to the clan elder's hut. "The baby is alive! Let us have her, please!" She wailed. Shortly after, they had their daughter.

Njeri always told Njata she was the brightest star in a cloudless sky. That she lit up their family. The week that followed brought many miracles. Njuguna exchanged a deer hide he had caught the same day he rescued Njata for five young calves and three lambs at the trading center. Their herd grew into hundreds within a few years. A long-lost relative left them a huge chunk of land before dying a few days later.

After they adopted their new daughter, their Kwerû, store, was never empty. Everyone called it a miracle, but the two knew that that miracle was the beautiful baby girl with huge brown eyes. And they always made sure she knew. Of, course, she grew to love her name.

So Njata grew up. She knew that other girls in her village avoided her. Nobody wished to be associated with a potential daughter of Cûcu wa Kwerû. It helped that she didn't care. The only thing she cared about was loving her family. And breaking a few clan rules.

As she grew up, She noticed that her baba was a special man because he treated maitû with love and devotion. He never hit maitû when he got angry. She feared the prize of being a woman; marriage. All girls her Rika wanted to get married and please their husbands.

Not Njata, she wanted to be a queen. Her darkest desire was that she wanted to be like Wamuyu, the daughter of Mumbi. She never got married, bore her children, and mothered a whole clan. According to Njata, this decision didn't make her less it made her more. Indisputably, it made her the most!

Of course, if all men were like her baba, marriage would be a prize in truth. But the reality was different. Her reckless thoughts led her to intervene when an incident happened one night near her favorite grass spot.

She loved to go there every night she got a chance and watch her namesake the stars in the sky. She would imagine herself as the brightest among them: regal, bright, and brilliant. After all, stars had to stick together. Stars were the only friend she had besides her family. Such behavior made people who knew them call her mad. This made her parents sad.

As she watched the beautiful Njata's twinkle, she heard muffled voices. One masculine and insistent, the other feminine and scared. It wasn't a wonder that the wind carried secrets to her. It had done so since she had been a little girl. She always heard secrets of coming rain from the wind. By the time she had blossomed into a beautiful young woman, her mother had learned to listen to her and plant even when the clan seer foresaw famine. Members of the clan would watch Njeri plant her sorghum and millet and laugh at what they perceived to be a fool's errand on her part. Once the unexpected rain would fall, watering the seeds and bringing forth a plentiful harvest, the clan members would be put to shame. Because of this, many assumed that Njeri had the gift of foreseeing, an assumption that she let go of, for correcting them would have reminded them that Njata was a strange child brought to her under unclear circumstances.

Njata was an intuitive young woman. She had learned to listen to her instincts. And her instincts were telling her to follow the sounds the wind was bringing to her. Whenever the wind spoke to her, there was always a reason. So she followed the source of the voices to find the clan's most beautiful and hardworking girl, Wairimu in the arms of the meanest young man of the village. Wairimu was the girl that all unmarried warriors of the clan wished to marry. She had the most flawless, smoothest dark skin. Her hair was a dark crown of kinky waves above her head. Her teeth were white and perfect. She had soft full feminine hips and her hours toiling on the farm showed by her slightly muscular arms. Oh and her bosom! It was so ample that it guaranteed that her future babies would never lack a supply of healthy milk. Her legs were so long that they never ended, to a point that Whenever she walked, Njata always thought she was as graceful as a giraffe, feeding on the greenest leaves on the highest part of a tree that mere goats and gazelles scrambling for the grasslands could never hope to reach. To top it all off, she had a kind heart, even to outcasts like Njata, and a genteel disposition that awed everyone who knew her.

At the moment, there was not much grace within the giraffe. Wairimu looked agitated. Kîguta, the clan's laziest young man had one of his hands fool with her generous bosom while his other hand was grabbing her back and pulling it close to her, his mouth mere inches from her face as he said,

"I am going to make you mine Wairimu. Everyone is going to respect me after I take you!"

"No!" She screamed!

Njata did not need the wind whispering at her to know what she needed to do. As if her body had a mind of its own, she bent down picked up the biggest rock she could see, and hit him squarely on his shoulder. He let go of Wairimu immediately.

He turned around flabbergasted to face Njata.

" YOU!", he shouted, so outraged that spittle formed clusters at the corner of his mouth.

"Yes, me! Don't you know who I am? I dare you to put your filthy hands on either of us and find out who my real mother is!" She retaliated.

He looked like he would call her bluff for a few breaths, then he thought better of it and stormed away after proclaiming, "I will not forget this!"

"Neither will I!" She replied, just so she could have the last word, and sighed in relief as she saw the last of him retreating away. It was times like these when being a possible daughter to a demon paid off.

The two girls were left in stunned silence. Wairimu was the first to break the silence with hysterical laughter. After a short while, Njata joined in and they both found themselves hysterically crying and laughing simultaneously. Their frenzy of emotions was a result of the horrid thought of what might have happened. She made a mental note to ask her brothers to teach her how to fight like a warrior. The shared encounter was the inception of a great friendship.

The following day, word spread that kîgûta had run away from the clan during the night. The news was met with relief by most but unease and a great sense of foreboding by Njata. Once every few seasons, even after everyone except the two girls had forgotten about the laziest coward of the clan, the wind would whisper here and there, the foreboding feeling would crash back into Njata's heart and leave her out of breath for a few beats then disappear without a trace. She made a point never to forget Kîgûta and the evil she had glimpsed in his eyes as he threatened to take away Wairimu's innocence.