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) ********** 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 forge...
