It was the elders visiting for the third time this week that alerted me. The elders and the whispered words that blew across the yard, chilling my spine. “Ten cows.” “Wedding.” “Kutairi” (the cutting).

No-one speaks of my big sister, Amidah. But I remember. I remember the fifty-year-old man to whom she was promised, for a dowry of nine cows. The Ngarida (cutter). The rusty blade. The way they held her down and told her not to scream. The blood spreading over her white dress.

And afterwards, how her body was thrown into the Bush, where the wild things are. My beautiful sister. Fourteen years old to my seven. To escape the Lawalawa curse, there was to be no burial. No mention of her name.

I stopped speaking.