Butterfly Effect by Amy Kitcher (Lucent Dreaming Issue 12)

Born betwixt times — head in the old year, feet in the new — Nyathera’s tiny fists punched the air like she wanted to fight the world.
“Love her well, mumewangu,” implored her mother, but the words died even before the umbilical was cut, leaving her bitter father to raise Nyathera on goat’s milk, cassava and shame.
The meagre diet didn’t stunt this strange daughter, who sprang up like a mushroom after rain. Her hair was the shape and colour of thunderclouds and her tongue was so silver boys thought she had licked the moon. While other girls tended crops and carried water, Nyathera danced to the rhythm of the war drums, stamping her small feet in the ochre dust, weaving her hands in sinuous patterns none could decipher.
“Settle down, binti,” her father chastised. “Cover yourself! Be quiet!”
But she did not heed her father’s warnings.
Long before her first moonblood, Nyathera’s reputation curled around her like a python. Her hips hypnotised the village hunters so that no one ate meat for a year. Jealous and angry, the matriarchs tried to beat the pride out of her. White-masked mgangas sought to bind her wrists with rules, sew her lips with prayers and anchor her feet with duty. But Nyathera mangled all-comers with a smile.
Fearful she would bewitch the world, Nyathera’s father called for the Cutter. “Cleanse her, please,” he implored, but the Cutter who performed the circumcisions refused.
“Who will marry one such as her?” he asked, shaking his head and sheathing his blade. “No need to waste my time tidying that which will never be seen. Better to let her feed the crocodiles.”
In despair, her father agreed and he took Nyathera to the river bank that same night.
“Wade across, binti,” he said, pushing her down the bank.
“Why, babu?” asked Nyathera, casting wide-eye glances at the brown ribbon of water and knotting the hem of her kanga between her fingers.
The crack of his palm against her cheek made a flock of speckled mousebirds erupt into flight. “Because Mulungu prizes modest girls with folded hands and downcast eyes, who whisper softly as butterfly wings! And you are an aberration! A malevi!”
Nursing a sore heart, she let the cold grip of the current pull her under. But even the river rejected Nyathera, spitting her out on the opposite bank before the crocodiles had even flexed their tails.
Not wanting to bring shame on her father’s house, she turned her back on the vast plains and walked and walked until she reached the cloud-kissing forests. Here, she would learn. Here, she would change. And her teachers would be the butterflies Babu treasured so much. Intent on her lessons, she stalked hairy orange caterpillars along their twigs. She climbed kapok trees to watch delicate glasswings emerge from their papery cocoons and take flight. She waded through mangroves while the insects drank her sweat, their long tongues tickling her cheeks like a ghost mother’s kisses. She studied how their gentle fluttering changed the course of the wind.
The day after the pregnant moon, Nyathera crossed the river, hopping nimbly on the backs of crocodiles, and returned to her village. She found her father at work in front of his skinning rack.
“Babu,” she called, lifting a hand in greeting. When he turned, shock slackening his features, Nyathera puffed up her cheeks and blew a single breath into the old man’s face. His eyes rolled back and he dropped down dead. After all, Mulungu’s butterflies may be fragile, but they have power, too.

Amy Kitcher lives in the south Wales Valleys and divides her time unevenly between her two jobs, her two children and her two passions: reading and writing. She can talk about books in four different languages and has a Masters degree in modern warfare. Amy has been writing for almost a decade and was recently named as one of Literature Wales’ Representing Wales 2022 cohort, under the mentorship of Eloise Williams. Her poetry and short stories have been published in various online magazines and anthologies.
T: @amykitcher I: @amykitcher

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