The Willow's Curse

by Walid Abdallah

The village of Qaryat al-Nahr lay sprawled across the Nile’s fertile banks, its people rising and resting to the rhythm of the river. By day, the place glowed with a charm no painter could capture. Willow trees lined the water’s edge, their long, green branches bending gracefully, dipping into the current like women washing their braids in the Nile. Children played beneath them, lovers met in their shade, and farmers bathed their weary feet after long days in the fields. The place was a small paradise, alive with birdsong and the shimmer of light on water.

But when the sun sank into the horizon and dusk painted the river in bruised shades of purple and gray, the village changed.

It was then that the willows grew restless. Their drooping branches swayed in a wind no one else could feel. From their shadows, whispers slipped into the air—low, beguiling murmurs that floated toward the young men trudging home from the fields. Voices like honeyed silk, promising rest, pleasure, and eternal ease. The farmers who obeyed the call and stepped into the water never returned.

Generations had passed with these vanishings. The elders of Qaryat al-Nahr spoke in hushed tones of hundreds gone—boys barely past youth, men in the prime of their strength. Their families searched for days, dragging nets through the Nile, praying in the mosque, making offerings by the riverbank. But there were no bodies, no cries, not even the trace of a struggle. Just the dark waters and the willow branches drinking greedily.

Some whispered it was the work of demons. Others believed it was the curse of Pharaohs past, for long ago, at that very spot, children had been sacrificed to ancient gods to bless the crops and ensure the Nile’s annual flood. Blood had once mingled with water there, and the gods had grown addicted to the taste.

The villagers tried to stay away after twilight. But still, every few nights, another man would vanish. It was as though the river itself chose its victims, bending them to its will.

***

Among the villagers was a young farmer named Will. He was broad-shouldered, quiet, and hardworking, the kind of man whose presence was felt more in silence than in speech. He had lost a cousin to the river’s hunger two years before, and though his mother forbade him from going near the willows after dusk, Will often lingered at the fields long past sunset.

It was not recklessness that drew him near but defiance. He could not bear to think that a place so beautiful by day could be governed by such darkness at night. He told himself he would resist what others could not. He told himself he was stronger.

One evening, after a punishing day of harvest, Will walked by the river’s edge. The sun had just slipped below the horizon, and the sky pulsed with dying fire. The air grew strangely heavy. From the shadows of the willows, he heard them—the voices.

They came softly at first, like the echo of a dream:

Will… come to us…

He stopped. The sound curled into his ears like smoke. He glanced around. The fields were empty, his fellow farmers already home. Only the willows remained, their branches swaying, dipping into the Nile, as though beckoning.

Will… you have worked enough… let us cool your body… rest with us… forever…

His breath caught. Sweat trickled down his temples though the night had grown cool. He told himself it was illusion, the exhaustion of labor, but the pull grew stronger. His feet seemed to move of their own accord, leading him toward the bank.

The water shimmered under the faint light of the rising moon. The willow branches reached toward him, brushing against his arms like fingers. His heart thundered, but his body felt heavy, enchanted. He remembered his cousin’s disappearance, the hundreds swallowed before him. And still, he could not turn away.

When the first branch wrapped itself around his wrist, he did not resist. Its touch was like silk, soft and insistent. Another slipped across his shoulder. Another around his waist. They tightened, not cruelly, but with the tenderness of a lover.

Suddenly, Will was waist-deep in the Nile. The water lapped at his chest. He felt his strength leaving him, replaced by a serene surrender. His eyes fluttered half-shut. Somewhere in the depths, shapes moved—faces pale and indistinct, eyes hollow, hands outstretched. The lost farmers, the drowned, their mouths open in eternal silence.

The willows pulled harder. The voices grew sharper:

Stay with us, Will… You are chosen… You belong to the river now…

Something within him snapped. A spark of willpower, raw and furious, burst through the haze. He remembered the elders’ tales of Pharaohs sacrificing children at this very place, remembered how they said the gods fed on the innocence of the young. He was not a boy. He was not prey. He would not be their offering.

With a cry that tore through the night, Will dug his hands into the willow branches and ripped them from his body. Their silky texture turned coarse in his grip, their whispers hissing into shrieks. They thrashed against him, clawing at his skin, but he staggered backward toward the bank, each step a battle.

The water dragged at his legs, heavy as stone, but he fought with a rage born of memory—his cousin’s laughter, his mother’s face, the lives stolen by this cursed place. He pulled free of the last branch and collapsed onto the dry earth, gasping.

Behind him, the river seethed. The willow branches flailed and lashed, their whispers rising into a chorus of fury. But they could not leave the water. They could not touch him now.

Will lay on the grass, chest heaving, body trembling, eyes wide with the terror of what he had escaped. For the first time, he understood why no one had ever returned. The pull of the willows was not only strength but sweetness, not only terror but temptation. Few men could resist forever.

But he had.

The Nile flowed on, calm once more, its surface hiding the restless spirits below. The willows bent low, their long braids trailing in the water, patient. They would wait. Another victim would come tomorrow, or the day after.

Yet the curse was no longer invincible. One man had lived to tell of it.

And though Will never spoke of that night in detail, his eyes carried the truth: a warning and a burden. The villagers learned to trust his silence, for silence was what the river hated most.