Don’t hurt her — sell her to me,” said the farmer when he saw the stepmother beating her daughter.

Don’t hurt her. Sell her to me, said the farmer when he saw the stepmother beating her daughter, abandoned by her father, and tormented by her stepmother. Azima’s life was a silent hell until the day her stepmother’s cruelty erupted into a public beating in the middle of the village market.

While everyone watched in silence, one man stepped in. Baraka, the reclusive farmer, made an unexpected offer. He bought Azima’s freedom with nothing but his words. He took her to his farm, a place of silence and hard work. The village began to whisper, wondering about the true intentions of that mysterious man. Had he bought himself a wife or just a servant? What no one realized was that Baraka saw in Azima a reflection of his own past a life marked by abandonment? And that rescue wasn’t an act of charity, but the beginning of an

unlikely bond where two wounded souls would find in each other a chance to start over. The path between the village of Kiwana and Baraka’s farm was a dirt road lined with trees that knew well the silence of those who carry burdens too heavy to be told. Baraka was one of them.

A man of few words, a direct gaze and callous hands. He bore the weight of a ruthless life. Orphaned since childhood, he had learned to work before he learned to trust. The people respected him, but no one dared call him a friend. They said he lived alone by choice, but only he knew how. Much solitude had been imposed on him.

That day he hadn’t gone to the market for supplies. It was fate that led him there. His horse slowed to a trot on instinct, and his eyes saw what no one dared step in to stop. A girl being beaten like an animal. In the middle of the street, dust mixing with swallowed sobs. It wasn’t the beating that hurt the most. It was the absence of a single hand raised to defend her.

And that’s what Baraka saw more than slaps. He saw abandonment, roar, and exposed before a silent crowd. When Baraka stepped down from the horse, the sound of his boots on the dry ground cut through the air. The murmurs stopped, the merchants averted their eyes, and the children stopped running.

Nafala’s hand was still raised, but she didn’t strike again. Baraka’s gaze was too heavy to ignore. He stared at the woman for long seconds, then said, “Don’t hurt her. Sell her to me.” Then the sentence hit the silence like a stone. The words, though simple, carried something no one could name. It was more than an offer. It was a sentence, a judgment.

Nefula scoffed, pulling at her skirt and giving a short laugh as if not taking the man seriously. Then take her. Let’s see how long you last with this useless thing, she said, spitting out the last word as if it were an animal. You owe me nothing. She’s free. Free Azima heard it but didn’t understand.

Freedom had never been an option in her life. She stared at the ground, too afraid to lift her head, scraped knees, a bruised face, and a soul curled in on itself. Baraka extended his hand, but she hesitated. For the first time, someone was offering her something, and she didn’t know if she was allowed to accept it.

Without a word, he simply walked ahead. Azima followed, not by choice, but because her tired feet knew there was nothing left behind. The villagers who saw everything said nothing. Some women crossed themselves. Others shook their heads. But no one stepped in. No one offered shelter.

No one protested because in the village other people’s pain was seen as part of the landscape, and Azima had long since become forgotten scenery. On the way back, the silence was thick. Baraka didn’t look back, and Azima didn’t dare look sideways. He didn’t tell her where to go or what to do. He simply mounted his horse and walked slowly.

From time to time, he glanced sideways to see if she was still coming. And she was with slow wounded but steady steps. Because for the first time, there was someone ahead. Not pushing, not shouting, just walking. When they reached the wooden gate of the farm, Baraka unlocked it with an old key. The kind that groans with tired iron. The sound echoed like an announcement.

A new story was beginning there, even if no one yet knew how. He pointed to the clay house with a simple porch. You’ll sleep there. There’s a bed, water, and bread. If you want it, she didn’t respond. Didn’t even thank him. Just walked in. Baraka stayed outside for a while, looking up at the sky that threatened rain despite the high sun. It was as if nature itself was confused like he was.

He had bought a girl’s freedom with nothing but his voice, nothing more, and now he didn’t know what to do with it. Inside the room, Azima gently shut the door. She sat on the edge of the bed, looked at her hands dirty with dust and dried blood. She touched the clean sheet with hesitation, as if afraid to stain, something too beautiful for her.

And that night, for the first time in a long while, she fell asleep without sobbing. She didn’t dream, but she didn’t cry either. And sometimes that’s more than enough to begin again. Asterisk. Baraka’s farmland was generous but demanding just like life. Fertile soil, but it only yielded to the sweat of those who knew how to work it. When Azima arrived, there were no speeches, no warm welcomes.

The wooden gate creaked shut behind her with a slow, almost solemn groan as if saying, “Here, a new time begins.” But neither she nor Baraka knew what to do with that time. The house was simple but clean. The smell of toasted flour and firewood still burning in the stove gave off a strange sense of comfort. Azima, used to being treated with contempt, hesitated to fully step inside.

She lingered in the doorway, her feet still outside like someone unsure whether they’re allowed to cross into a place they’ve never been invited. Baraka didn’t insist. He simply pointed without a word to a side room. The door was slightly a jar.

Inside a wooden bed covered with a faded blue sheet, a picture of fresh water and a straw mat folded in the corner. As Ima entered with short, dragging steps, she ran her fingers along the bed frame, scanning the room as if searching for traps. There were no shouts, no orders, just silence. Dot. In those first days, the silence between them was like a third inhabitant of the house.

Azima would wake early, wash the porch, sweep the yard, collect firewood, and do what she had always done. Work without asking, obey without knowing. Baraka, for his part, left for the fields before the sun was fully up, and only returned when the trees shadow stretched long across the ground. They hardly looked at each other. She didn’t speak, neither did he, but there were gestures.

One late afternoon, Baraka left a fresh loaf of bread on the table. It was still warm. He didn’t say it was for her, but he left the room and minutes later, Azima picked up a piece with trembling hands. She ate slowly like someone afraid it might be taken back. The next day, the bread was there again.

One morning, while Baraka was feeding the goats, he saw Azimma on her knees in the yard, scrubbing a pot until it shone. The sun hit her face, and she squinted, but didn’t stop. That scene, so ordinary, stirred something in him because she wasn’t just cleaning a pot. She was reclaiming her dignity one scrub at a time. That night, he placed an extra blanket in her room. The weather was cooling and she had a light cough. She noticed but said nothing.

She simply pulled the blanket up to her chin and for the second time fell asleep without tears. Over time, Azimma began to care for the house with more attention. The windows were always open, the clothes lined up neatly on the rope, and even wild flowers started to appear in clay pots on the porch. Small touches no one teaches.

Signs that a woman is turning a shelter into a home. Baraka noticed everything, but said nothing. He still left early, returned late, but now his gaze had softened. One day, arriving from the field, he saw the gate had been repaired. The wood had been sanded, tied with fresh cyil rope. Azima was turned away. tending to the garden.

He stood there for a moment just watching, then went inside without a word. Sometimes at dinner, the only sound was the spoon tapping against the plate. Other times, not even that. But on one of those silent nights, Azima murmured, “Thank you,” for the room dot so softly, it almost got lost in the wind outside.

But Baraka heard he didn’t reply with words. He got up, took a new candle, and placed it by her bedside. a small gesture, but it said, “I heard you. I see you.” The silence between them wasn’t empty. It was a process, a bridge. Slowly, Azima stopped walking with hunched shoulders. She started to look ahead, even if she still didn’t know where she was going.

And Baraka, who had never known how to care for anyone, was starting to learn that to welcome someone isn’t about pretty words or promises. It’s about opening the door and not closing it once the other steps in. There on that small farm lost between the brush and the whispers of the village, two souls were learning what it meant to begin again, even if they didn’t yet know what to call it.

Time in the village wasn’t measured by clocks, but by glances, and it only took Azimma lifting her head a little higher for the stairs to begin. Curious, sharp, restless, the older women, seated on the wooden benches around the square between one stitch and another, began weaving words with the same care they used to line up their threads, and once the words started flowing, the questions came laced with poison disguised as laughter. Did you see? He took the girl into his house, asked the chattiest of them.

Mama Jalia, a raspyvoiced woman who never let a single detail go unnoticed. I saw yes, right there in front of everyone, like buying a chicken at the market, replied another, shaking her head. Word is it wasn’t out of pity. They say old Baraka got tired of being alone and bought himself a wife.

Young just the way men like them added a third. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. The laughter was quiet, like distant thunder before the storm of malice, but no one dared say these things to his face. Baraka was respected, but feared. He was never one for easy smiles or small talk at the market.

Always walked with a straw, had pulled low over his eyes, and when he spoke, every word seemed heavier than his own body. That’s why the whispers stayed at the edges in the corners of homes, on the seamstress’s benches, in the riverside chatter between loads of laundry. A Z I M A on her end said nothing but she felt it. She knew.

She caught fragments, noticed the sideways glances and twisted smiles. Still, she kept washing, sweeping, harvesting. She didn’t want to be seen, but she didn’t want to disappear either. She existed in between, caught between a past that still hurt and a future that still frightened her.

It was on one of those calm mornings that Baraka upon finding the corral fence broken asked the closest neighbor MZ Kum for help. As they repaired the wood, they overheard a woman in the distance, her tone dripping with sarcasm. They say he even serves the maid coffee now. Maid or wife? Hard to tell.

Baraka looked up but said nothing. He simply hammered harder as if the sound of the nail could drown out the insult. Hours later, when he got home, Azima was sweeping the porch. He approached slowly and said without looking straight at her. They’re saying, “I bought a wife.” Azima froze. She didn’t know what to say. Her cheeks flushed, not from pride, but from shame.

The word bought still stung. Even after everything, Baraka sighed, leaned against the door frame, and said firmly, “I bought her freedom. Nothing more.” There was no performance in those words. No attempt to play hero, just the plain truth. Raw like dry earth before rain.

He didn’t owe anyone an explanation, but for the first time, he chose to give one. Not for the people, for her. Azima gave a slight nod. And in that silent gesture, something aligned. It wasn’t affection yet. It was respect, solid ground. In the days that followed, the gossip continued, and as usual, it morphed.

They said Baraka gave the girl new clothes. that he let her sleep in late, that he wasn’t the type of man to raise anyone, so that situation must have another name. But there was something curious. No one ever said it to his face. One afternoon, Mama Jalia, the same one who started spreading those venomous lines, tried to bring it up at the market while Baraka was picking out okra seeds, taking good care of the girl. Huh, Baraka? They say she’s already running the place.

Baraka raised his eyes, stared at the woman for too long, heavy seconds, and said simply, “I take care of what’s mine,” and of other people’s freedom to dot. Mama Jalia dropped her gaze, and never brought it up in front of him again. In the village, silence could speak louder than any answer. And slowly the jokes withered like plants without water, because there was no scandal, no secret, just a girl who now walked with her head held high. And a man who wasn’t ashamed to protect what the world tried to cast aside, and that kind of courage, even in

silence, had always been stronger than the spiteful laughter of the neighbors. The weather in Kiwania was unpredictable. The sun would scorch for weeks, and then suddenly a cold front would sweep across the mountains, bringing with it the damp wind that made the roof tiles sing at night. It was during one of these sudden changes that Azima began to cough.

At first, a soft irritation, muffled into the back of her hand. Then came the fever, uninvited, relentless, breaking her body into pieces that couldn’t be seen, only felt. The next morning she didn’t get up. The floor of her room, always clean, bore the footprints of forgetfulness. The water in the picture hadn’t been touched. The halfopen window let the cold wind dance over her sweaty skin. Baraka noticed her absence.

It wasn’t the silence of chores that caught his attention, but the silence of movement. He called out once, no answer, called again. Nothing. He pushed the door open with his fingertips like someone afraid of what they might find. Azimma was curled up in bed, face flushed, eyes half closed, breathing shallow, her hand hung off the edge of the mattress, trembling like a fragile branch in a storm. She said nothing. Neither did he.

Baraka went back to the kitchen, grabbed a clean cloth and a bucket of fresh water. He dampened the cloth and began to cool the fever the way he’d seen his grandmother do when he was a child. Swapping cloths, placing them on her forehead, then her neck, offering spoonfuls of thin porridge.

No skill, no training, just will. That first night, he slept sitting at the edge of her bed, eyes wide open, alert to the slightest movement. When Azima mumbled in fevered delirium, he whispered, “You’re staying. No need to run.” It was like talking to the air, but each word carried a quiet faith. The second night, she woke with a start. Tried to sit up, but fell back onto the pillow.

But I want you to know you deserve nice things. Azima was startled by the sentence. Her face flushed. She stayed silent. Not out of pride, out of shame, out of not knowing how to react to words so rare, so strange. I’m not I’m not worthy of that, she murmured.

Baraka stopped stirring, wiped his hands on a cloth, and replied calmly, “You are worthy of respect and of choice.” He said, “No more, and neither did she.” That night, Azima lay awake, staring at the ceiling. His words echoed like an old drum beat. “You are worthy of choice. It hurt, but it also healed.” The following week, on a cloudy Sunday, she washed the dress.

with her own hands, ash soap, and the care of someone handling something sacred. She hung it on the line with reverence, watched it from a distance, as if still unsure it really belonged to her. A few days later, she wore it. No announcement, no special occasion. She was just cleaning the house, but decided to wear it. Baraka saw her walking across the porch.

He said nothing, just watched. She in the blue dress barefoot looked like a new version of herself, still carrying the past on her shoulders, but now with a new kind of light in her eyes. Later, while putting away jars in the cupboard, she said almost as if speaking to herself. My mother liked dresses like this, blue ones with little flowers.

Baraka heard her but didn’t reply. He felt something tighten in his chest. It wasn’t sadness. It was the weight of realizing that slowly she was returning to herself. That night, Azimma stepped out into the Yah. She looked up at the stars, feet still bare on the cold earth. The blue dress swayed in the breeze.

And for the first time, she felt she didn’t have to hide from what was beautiful. Not because of the dress itself, but because someone one day told her she had the right to choose to wear it. Time moved slowly like the waters of the Kazadi River in the dry season. Days on the farm followed the same rhythm.

Morning light slipping through the cracks in the window. The smell of coffee mixed with burning wood. The sound of cattle grazing in the distance and the steady beat of Baraka’s hoe in the field. Everything seemed unchanged. But inside Azima, something new was beginning to form. A different kind of silence. No longer made of fear, but of space.

Space for what had never been given time to grow. Dot. Aima woke before the rooster crowed. Her body still bore traces of recent illness, but her eyes held a quiet shine. She ran her fingers through the leaves, fed the chickens, scrubbed the cloths with strength.

The house was always clean, not out of duty, but out of care, a kind of tenderness one only has for something that little by little starts to feel like home. Baraka watched from a distance, not with the eyes of an owner, but with the quiet awe of someone who sees beauty blooming where he never thought it could. One morning, the sky was thick with low clouds.

It was planting day. Baraka left early, carrying the plow to prepare the land alone. Azima decided to clean the back of the house, a place she rarely visited. Cluttered with old logs and the remains of the old chicken coupe, where tall weeds had taken over the path.

While clearing dried leaves and shifting branches, she spotted a flower, simple, yellow, small, but there it was, standing tall amidst the weeds in neglect, blooming without asking permission to exist. A stopped. She stared at it for a long while. Then she sat down on the ground, arms wrapped around her knees, and said, “More to the wind than to anyone. My mother liked these.” Her voice came out light, but full.

It was the first time she’d spoken of her mother since leaving her stepmother’s house. The words carried the scent of childhood, the weight of grief, the memory of a love that never returned. She smiled, not a wide smile, but a true one, the kind that surfaces when the soul finds, even for just a moment, a good memory buried beneath the rubble of pain.

Baraka returned later, ho over his shoulder, clothes covered in dirt. He saw Azima in the backyard kneeling by the flower bed, the small flower in her hands. He didn’t speak, but he stopped and waited. She looked up and saw him watching. She thought of hiding the flower, but didn’t.

She just stayed there still holding the delicate stem like someone holding the last thread connecting them to the past. “It was her favorite flower,” she said unprompted. She used to say, “Flowers like these only grow where the earth still has a heart.” Baraka didn’t respond right away. He walked over, crouched beside her, and pulled a small pocketk knife from his trousers.

Carefully, he dug a tiny hole in the ground. Then, “Let’s planted again,” he said. Azima handed him the flower. “Together, they placed it in the soil, covered it with earth, and watered it with water she brought from the kitchen.” They remained in silence afterward, staring at the small yellow dot against the dark soil.

It wasn’t just a flower. It was a bridge, a gesture, an invisible thread between two worlds. The one that had been lost and the one still waiting to be born. From that day on, Azima began to hum while washing the dishes. Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, but Baraka heard it and never interrupted because her singing was proof that something in her was coming back or perhaps arriving for the first time at the market. She walked with more confidence.

The women didn’t whisper as much anymore. And even when they did, Azima no longer shrank. There was a quiet dignity in her, the kind that doesn’t need to be explained. Dot. In the yard. At night, she would sit with a cloth over her shoulders, gazing at the sky. Sometimes she talked to herself. Other times she simply listened to the wind.