The morning air was cool, coming down from the mountains, holding the damp breath of the night. A thin mist hugged the huts as the village slowly stirred awake.

Inside one of the smaller thatched shelters,  Nalaya knelt by a clay basin filled with thick mud and ash. She dipped her hands into the mixture, rubbing it slowly over her arms, her face, her neck. The cold grit clung to her skin like a second layer, feeling irritating and itchy but doing the job of hiding what she truly was. She hated it.

Her aunt Isoba, who had been watching from the doorway, came and knelt beside her, with a heavy expression of affection and sympathy. "Nalaya."

“Must I still do this?” the girl asked, her voice soft but edged with the annoyance of doing this repetitive ritual every morning. “It feels wrong. It feels like I’m erasing myself.”

“Mwana wane." Her aunt reached out, brushing a streak of ash from the Nalaya's ear.  “You are protecting yourself, not erasing .”

“But aunty Isoba, why am I hiding? I’ve done this since I was four. No one comes to our village, and I know our people would accept me as I am.  Is it so wrong to look different—” her eyes lowering to the basin. “I know I'd stand out, but I just want to be myself.”

Her aunt reached out, and tipped Nalaya's chin up, meeting her eyes. “Ndali nku kwenda kwenye kuchuku, Because you will be in danger. You already are covered and cause a stir, especially with the men. Twelve men have already asked for your hand in marriage. If you looked how you really are, for some you will be a prize. For others who have been wronged by the Europeans, you'll be hated. You are a mix of both worlds, and I am not sure if any would accept you fully."

"But it's not my fault ndesu Isoba." Nalaya frowned, her gaze searching her aunt’s face.

“I know.Your mother’s softness, shines through you,” her aunt continued quietly, “but your father’s pale blood. Your eyes, your skin, your hair, would draw questions… envy. People would not understand. To them, you would not belong to this village, or any. They would see you as something foreign — and that would bring trouble upon us all. That's  why we braid your hair and coat it with black clay to hide your natural texture, and cover your skin with the mixture.” Isoba, nodded at the bowl.

She looked down at her hands, now darkened and sticky with the mixture. “So I am to live hidden forever?”

Her aunt’s gaze softened. “Nde kule mu until it is safe to be seen, yes. Until the world no longer fears what it cannot name.”

Nalaya nodded slowly, eyes sad, her breath catching as she smeared another handful of ash across her shoulders. Outside, the morning sun rose over the trees — but inside, she felt as if she lived in the shadows, covered in earth, shaped by secrecy.

Nalaya carried the woven basket of damp clothes on her hip as she and Kito, her friend since childhood, made their way down to the lines near the fields to hang them. The air was thick with the scent of wet clay and palm sap, and the heat pressed down like a heavy hand. Cicadas hummed lazily in the trees, their droning rhythm blending with the distant calls of women at the riverbank.

Kito tossed a few pieces of cloth over the lines strung between the poles, her bare feet pressing into the warm soil. “You’re quiet today,” she said, squinting over her shoulder. “Did Aunt Isoba scold you again?”

Nalaya shook her head, her fingers working absently as she spread a tunic against the rope. “No.” Her voice came out thin, almost swallowed by the whispering river. She hesitated before speaking again. “Kito… do you think I look different?”

Kito turned, a frown creasing her smooth forehead. “Different? How? From how you were?”

Nalaya’s hands stilled. She glanced down at her arms, darkened from the morning’s ash rubbing. “No… I mean different from you. From the Chokwe people.”

Kito laughed lightly, a musical sound that caught in the breeze. “You ask strange things. Of course you look different—your nose, your hair… even your eyes. But that’s what makes you you, Nalaya. The elders say the spirits touch each of us in their own way.”

Nalaya tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Aunt Isoba says I must never forget to cover myself, that my skin could bring trouble.”

Kito shrugged, lifting another cloth. “Aunt Isoba worries too much. The world is wide, and no one out there cares what shade your skin is.”

Nalaya looked past the fields toward the horizon, where smoke curled faintly in the distance—raiders’ smoke, though she didn’t yet know it. Her chest tightened with an unease she couldn’t name. “I wish I could believe that,” she whispered.

Kito followed her gaze, shading her eyes. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Nalaya said quickly, shaking her head. But her hands trembled as she reached for another damp garment. “It’s just… sometimes I feel like the earth itself knows I don’t belong to it.”

Kito laughed again, softer this time. “Don’t say that. You were born here, you belong here as much as any of us."

“I wish my mother was alive,” Nalaya said quietly. The words seemed to startle even her, as if they’d slipped past the guard she usually kept on her tongue. She lowered her eyes to the basket, where the damp cloths clung together like wilted petals. A small sigh escaping her.

Kito looked up from the line, her hands pausing midair. “Do you remember anything about her?”

Nalaya shook her head slowly. “No… not really. Just flashes of her singing when she thought I was asleep, the smell of palm oil on her hands, the way she’d braid my hair before Aunt Isoba made me start coating it with mud.” Her voice trembled. “Aunt says she was kind, that she laughed easily. Sometimes I try to hear her voice when the wind moves through the trees. But it never sounds quite right.”

Kito’s expression softened. She stepped closer, wiping her hands on her skirt before resting one gently on Nalaya’s shoulder. “She’s still with you. That’s what my mother says — that the dead stay in our bones. I'm sure you carry her smile.”

Nalaya gave a faint, sad smile and looked away, blinking against the burn in her eyes. The breeze had shifted, carrying the faint scent of smoke. She turned toward it, her gaze drifting to the village.