The sheep never made noise after sunset.
That was something Ceren learned early. In the highlands, silence wasn't empty—it was full of breath, of cold earth, of the night watching you back. When she was little, she thought the silence was alive. Sometimes it hummed when the wind passed through the goat-hair tents. Sometimes it whispered from the forest. And sometimes—just sometimes—it spoke her name.
Ceren.
Not loudly. Just enough.
Enough to make her pause while fetching water from the mountain spring. Enough to make her look over her shoulder while carrying milk jugs too heavy for her small hands.
Her father, Ali, used to say, "Don't fear what doesn't show its teeth."
Her grandmother said the opposite: "If you can't hear it, it's already too close."
Ceren believed them both.
At night, wrapped in wool blankets with the sound of lambs breathing beside her, she would stare at the stars poking through holes in the tent. Her sister Senem would already be asleep. Her little brother Şahin would twitch in his dreams, maybe chasing foxes.
But Ceren stayed awake.
Because the silence didn't let her sleep.
And deep inside, she knew—this wasn't just silence.
It was memory. Waiting.