THE GIRL WHO FELL FOR A GOAT HERDER IN THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS (PART 2)

THE GIRL WHO FELL FOR A GOAT HERDER IN THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS (PART 2)

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I could have screamed. I could have thrown the remaining shards of the love potion jar into the river, or run barefoot until my feet bled on the shale-lined paths above the terraces. But instead, I went home and scrubbed the soot from the bottom of our bread oven.

It took two hours. I didn’t cry.

In our world, women were expected to fold grief into the dough. Bury it in herbs. Knot it into a carpet design. But I—I folded it into silence.

For weeks, I said nothing of Idris. Not to my sister. Not to the old women who stared with curiosity when they saw me walking alone. And not to the goats, who surely sensed the shift in my rhythm and bleated at me with more confusion than usual.

But I watched.

I watched her.

Her name was Samira. Her teeth were too perfect, like she’d never bitten into anything tougher than boiled eggplant. Her voice was gentle but commanding, the kind that made the village boys forget their tools when she passed. When she spoke, it was low and calm—what we called a “salt voice”—the kind used by women who didn’t need to shout to be heard.

She was not cruel. That would’ve made it easier.

No, Samira smiled kindly at me when we passed near the spring. She even asked once, “Do you need saffron? I have some extra,” like we were neighbors and nothing more.

It was Idris who couldn’t meet my gaze.

We didn’t speak for thirty-four days. I counted.

Then came the wedding.

Not the kind with silver and instruments. No, it was small—fast. Held under the shade of a dying almond tree. A few goats were tethered nearby, chewing through the ceremony. No one cried, not even the bride. Certainly not the groom.

I did not attend. But I saw them returning that evening, Samira on a borrowed mule, Idris walking beside her. His eyes were the color of dust and decisions made too quickly.

Later, I learned he had been promised to her since the fire that had destroyed his childhood village. Her father had taken his family in, fed them, clothed them, and made the match early. When Idris came north, he had only meant to wait until she arrived.

And then, somehow, I had happened.

I sat on the flat rock near the river that night and stared at the trees until the moon stretched them into shadows. Then I went to my grandmother’s chest and pulled out the bottle.

Empty. Still smelling faintly of cloves and regret.

I did something then that I don’t entirely understand, even now.

I began to write.

I had no parchment, only leftover dye-paper from a merchant’s wrapping. I dipped a sharpened olive twig into walnut ink and began writing letters. To him. To Idris.

I never intended to send them. I just needed the words to live somewhere other than in my throat.

> *Idris,*
> *Do goats love you because you are silent, or are you silent because goats do not expect more than silence?*
> *I drank something I shouldn’t have. I think you did too—only yours was a promise, not a potion.*

I folded each letter and placed them under a stone near the goat pen, as if the animals might carry them to him in their hooves. I kept writing, every few days.

Then, on the forty-first day, I found one of my letters missing.

I thought the wind had taken it, until I found a small square of blue cloth tucked in its place—ribboned with orange peel and sage.

My heart stopped. I knew that scent. My grandmother’s mixture.

A note was inside. Not in my hand.

> *Yamina,*
> *Sometimes I look for you at the river. Sometimes I don't. Both hurt.*
> *She is kind. She is good. I do not love her. I will.*
> *That is all I know to do.*

He did not sign it. He didn’t need to.

And so it began—letters exchanged under the stars. Never spoken. Always hidden. His written in precise strokes, as if trying not to betray emotion. Mine messier, thicker, like they had to spill before I drowned.

I told him I dreamed of him before I ever knew his name.

He told me he dreamed of burning and waking in sweat.

I told him that I now understood why goats bleated into nothingness at dusk.

He told me that sometimes love is like snow on a hot roof—it never gets the chance to stay.

But the words became more than we meant them to.

And one morning, when he passed me near the spring and brushed my hand just slightly, I knew it had gone too far.

His wife was pregnant.

Samira glowed with contentment and sickness all at once. She spoke of her baby as if it already had a destiny, a name, a room.

And I—I could no longer look at Idris without feeling like something stolen.

So I stopped writing.

I left no message, no explanation. Just silence.

And yet—his letters kept coming.

Twelve in total.

All tucked beneath the stone near the goat pen. None opened.

And then they stopped.

I spent the next season folding grief again—this time into bread, yes, but also into cedarwood carvings and the worn hems of the blankets I made for the winter. I dreamed of Idris less and less.

But not never.

Sometimes, I’d see the curve of a sheep’s horn and feel my breath catch. Or hear Samira humming to her baby and remember the low timbre of his laugh.

Still, I told myself—I had chosen this. I had opened the bottle. I had asked the world to show me love.

I just hadn’t known it would look like this.

And then came the war.

It was not loud, at first. Just the word *France* traveling like smoke over the mountain. Then came soldiers in dusty boots, asking questions we didn’t understand.

They came for the strong men. They came for Idris.

And that was the last time I saw him.

He was standing by the almond tree where he had married Samira, now holding her and the baby in one arm. He did not look at me.

Not once.

But I looked at him, the whole time.

Because I had to ask myself:

Was it better to have loved briefly and wrongly… or to have never opened the bottle at all?

Check out part 3
#love #lovelife #lovestory #monday #mondaymotivation #story #storytime #storytelling #motivation