In our village, kids grow up fast. By six, you’re checking fences. By eight, you’re shearing wool. And by ten, you’re expected to move the flock without losing half of them in a ditch.
So when my younger brother Nico begged to take the sheep out by himself, Mama finally gave in—mostly just to stop his fussing. “One hour,” she warned, pointing a stern finger. “And don’t go past the ridge.”
He didn’t return for almost two.
When I finally saw him coming back, he looked like he’d just won a prize. Every sheep followed him obediently, like he was some tiny shepherd king with a stick and muddy boots.
But then I counted.
Fifty-four.
We only have fifty-three.
At first, I thought I’d made a mistake. But I know our flock like family. I’ve been working with them since I was twelve. I know each face, every mark. And one sheep—the one with the torn ear and a strange yellow tag—wasn’t ours.
Nico said he found her by the stream. She just started following him. Thought maybe she “belonged to the mountain.”
But we don’t have any neighbors with sheep past the ridge.
When Papa read the tag, something changed in his face. He went quiet. Pale.
He gently told me to take Nico inside. But as I turned to go, I heard him whisper to Mama, “That’s impossible. That farm burned down five years ago.”
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I crept down the hall and found them in the kitchen. Papa was digging through an old wooden box we weren’t allowed to touch—full of old papers, charred maps, and faded photographs.
Mama sat silently, clutching a chipped mug like it was the only thing keeping her grounded.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Papa whispered. “That entire flock was lost in the fire. So was their boy.”
The boy?
The next morning, Papa said we had to return the sheep.
“But where?” I asked. “That place is gone.”
“The land’s still there,” he said softly. “And sometimes, the land remembers.”
We loaded the extra ewe into the trailer. She didn’t resist. She just looked at Nico like she understood.
The ridge seemed steeper than I remembered.
We reached the place where Nico had found her. The stream still ran clear, and the field was overgrown. But Papa stopped at a patch of broken stones and rusted wire.
“This was it,” he said. “The Albu farm.”
He looked at the tag again, like it might somehow tell him something different this time.
Then he said, “Maybe she came back for a reason.”
He let her go.
She didn’t bolt. She simply walked across the grass, stopped under a gnarled old tree, and began grazing like she belonged there.
We thought that was the end.
It wasn’t.
That night, Nico had a dream.
He told us over breakfast like it was no big deal. Said he saw a barefoot boy with a soot-streaked face who had been searching for “Mira.” When he saw the sheep, he smiled, waved, and said, “She wasn’t lost. She just forgot the way.”
Then he thanked Nico—and vanished.
Mama and Papa exchanged a long, silent look. Some memory. Some grief.
Later that day, Papa finally told me everything.
The Albu family lived on that land. They had one son—Ionel—and a small flock. One night, the farmhouse caught fire. By the time help arrived, it was nothing but embers and ashes.
They never found Ionel’s body.
People speculated: maybe he fled, maybe he was buried in the ruins. But one thing everyone remembered clearly—he loved a sheep named Mira. Torn ear. Always by his side.
Papa had helped in the search. Held a flashlight. Called the boy’s name until his voice cracked.
Eventually, people gave up.
“Sometimes,” Papa said, staring out the window, “things find their way back. Or someone helps them.”
Then strange things began to happen.
Fresh clover appeared near our barn—though we never planted any.
Nico started waking early, without a fuss. Said he “felt like the sheep needed him.” He’d sit in the field for hours, murmuring to them softly, and they’d gather close, listening.
One day, I saw something even stranger.
Nico crouched by a lamb, holding out a tiny flower. The lamb sniffed it, backed up, and… bowed.
Not a nod. A full, deliberate bow.
I thought I imagined it. But when I told Mama, she didn’t laugh.
She just said, “Children see what we’ve forgotten how to.”
A few days later, a frail old man knocked on our door. Said he was passing through and asked for water. But when he saw Nico, he froze.
“Your boy…” he murmured. “He looks just like Ionel.”
Papa’s face tightened. “You knew the Albūs?”
The man nodded. “I was Ionel’s uncle.”
He sat with us, pulled out a faded photo—Ionel holding Mira. That same smile Nico had.
Mama brought a hand to her mouth.
“I always hoped Ionel lived,” the man said. “Maybe I was wrong. But seeing her…” He pointed toward the field. “That’s Mira. I know it.”
Papa just said, “Maybe she came back through him.”
Before leaving, the man knelt and whispered something to Nico. Nico smiled.
That night, we found a small carving by the gate—a sheep, shaped from ash wood. One word carved into the base: Mulțumesc. Thank you.
Life moved on, but something felt changed.
Softer.
Nico kept growing, and so did the flock. Nobody talked much about the extra sheep, though everyone noticed her—yellow tag, knowing eyes.
She passed away two winters later.
Nico cried for days.
We buried her by the ridge, under the tree she returned to. Mama planted daisies. Papa carved a stone.
Nico still visits.
Sometimes he talks. Sometimes he just sits.
But he always leaves smiling.
Now he’s older, taller than me, stronger—but still gentle, still patient. When younger kids ask about the sheep with the yellow tag, he tells them:
Sometimes, helping someone find their way—especially when they don’t seem lost—is the greatest kindness of all.
Some things don’t need fixing. Just remembering.
Because when we carry someone’s memory with love, they’re never truly gone.