Chapter 6: The Memory of Stones
The morning light spilling over the village from behind the mountains was paler than usual. Aytekin had woken early. Sleep still clung to his eyelids, but the echo of last night's words lingered sharper in his mind.
As he stepped outside, the morning prayer had just ended. The voice rising from the mosque's minaret hadn't pierced the silence of the steppe—it had deepened it.
On the road, he saw old Halime Nine. A water jug in her hand, the weight of the years bent across her back. She glanced at Aytekin from the corner of her eye, then lowered her head and murmured,
"A traveler's shadow is sometimes longer than a mountain's, my child."
Aytekin didn't quite understand what she meant, but he bowed in greeting. Words from elders like Halime Nine always seemed closer to the language of the earth.
By the time he reached the village's eastern slope, Bayram was already waiting. His hands were shoved into his pockets, one foot scuffing at the dirt, impatient.
"You're late."
"I wasn't expecting you at all," Aytekin replied with a smile.
Together, they climbed the stony hill to the east of the village. It was like their secret place. The children called it Burgaz. From there, looking eastward, one could spot the "Kemah" pass leaning against the backs of the mountains—a path once used by merchants, now kept mostly by silence.
"Brother," Bayram asked suddenly, "do you think there's still snow up there?"
"There might be," said Aytekin. "But it's not our place to go."
Silence.
"What if someone comes from there?"
Aytekin understood what he meant. That man still wandered at the edges of their thoughts.
"Watch the trees," he said. "Where the wind blows from… that's where things come, too."
---
At that same moment, in the village square, Yusuf Usta stood with the imam and a few elders, speaking about the migration routes. Rumors had come from the smoky valleys. Some manors had been abandoned. Some villages had sunk into silence. An unnamed fear wandered the land like a nomad.
"A town's been burned," one said. "Northeast, near Erzincan. Was it the Mongols? Someone else? No one knows."
And in that moment, Yusuf Usta's fingers tightened around the woven rope at his belt.
"If the road closes before the sun has even set," he said quietly,
"then shadows walk ahead of us."