Beneath Wandering Stars

by Cowles, Ashlee;

  I take an exaggerated bow. “Fin.”

  Seth glares at the two hens like they’re solely responsible for the world’s troubles. “And the moral of the story is: don’t turn down promiscuous tavern wenches, otherwise your food will return to life and start attacking people?”

  I struggle to contain my laughter as a few more pilgrims enter the church. “I don’t think the roast chicken ever attacked anyone. According to the legend, these lovely ladies are her descendants.”

  “Do people in your religion actually believe this stuff?” Seth asks.

  I shrug. “I highly doubt revived chickens are a doctrine one must accept, but this part of the camino is pretty boring, so why not add a little whimsy with some local folklore?”

  “But why chickens? These two ladies would peck out your eyeballs if they had the chance. Trust me on that.”

  “Wow, Seth. You’re a regular St. Francis of Assisi. If blessed hens who live inside a church can’t defeat your irrational phobia, there’s nothing more I can do for you.”

  “You’re right,” Seth mutters. “I’m a lost cause.”

  • • •

  For some reason, I’ve lit a lot of candles lately. Sometimes I light them in the little churches at the center of every village. Sometimes I put them on these pagan-ish monuments pilgrims create by stacking stones. And sometimes I leave the candles in places that have no special significance, but just seem like a spot Lucas would appreciate.

  “Can I light one?” Seth asks as we’re passing through a grove of olive trees outside the town of San Juan de Ortega.

  “Sure.” I almost fall over in astonishment as I hand Seth half a dozen tealights so he can start his own trail for Lucas. Between the two of us, we might just set the camino on fire.

  Speaking of getting burned, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask Seth for a while now. The misty sunrise that started our morning walk was a taste of heaven, so now is as good a time as any to bring up the seven minutes we were supposed to spend in that eternal realm.

  “Seth, remember that birthday party we both went to a few years back? The one Lucas missed because he was away at soccer camp?”

  “Yeah,” Seth replies, his face deadpan.

  “Why were you so repelled? Was it because I had braces then? I mean, I didn’t want to kiss you either, but it wasn’t as if the thought made me physically ill.”

  The embarrassing words tumble out as though I am physically ill right now and can’t control my verbal retching. I’ve never been one of those girls with horrible self-esteem issues, but I’m basically offering myself up on a silver platter, giving Seth the opportunity to spell out everything that’s wrong with me. Every reason he refused to kiss me that day and decided Angry Birds was far more interesting.

  Seth stops walking. “It wasn’t like that, Gabi.”

  “Then what was it like?”

  “It was, like, you were fourteen.”

  “And you were sixteen. As far as I know, that’s not illegal.”

  “It is when it comes to your best friend’s little sister.”

  Ah yes, the unbreakable bro code.

  “Then why didn’t you just say that? Why’d you ignore me?”

  After everything we’ve talked about and been through these past few weeks, my questions feel so incredibly tween, but I have to know. Brent hasn’t been great at keeping in touch lately, so I’m wondering if there’s a reason boys find it easy to pretend I do not exist.

  Seth starts saying something, then stops. He studies the layer of copper dirt dusting his boots. “I’m sorry, okay? I just didn’t know what to do. Put a guy in a dark closet with a cute girl and there are things he wants to do, no matter how off-limits that girl is. So I checked out instead. It seemed like the easiest solution.”

  Forget setting the camino on fire. I’m more worried about my blazing face.

  “I see.”

  That’s all I can say. I’m mortified, and worst of all, I asked for it. Fortunately, the momentary awkwardness fades and we rediscover our stride. We don’t talk for the next few kilometers, but the silence isn’t uncomfortable. It’s more familiar than most things.

  How weird. The more at ease I feel around Seth, the more I miss Brent. I always miss him, but I’ve also gotten used to his absence. My mixed-up feelings from Eunate are a distant memory by now, but getting close to Seth after going solo for so long feels like chinks in my armor. I need to contact Brent as soon as we reach a city large enough to have an Internet café.

  There should be one in Burgos, today’s stop. That’s also where we’ll board a bus and skip ahead to the last hundred kilometers of the camino, that way we make it to Santiago in time for our flight home.

  “Whoa, this place is a dump,” Seth announces when we reach the city’s outskirts.

  I stop to tie my shoelaces in the sprawl of pavement and industrial fringe. “Yeah, after walking through the countryside, it does feels like we’ve entered the ninth circle of hell.”

  “Did you just make a reference to Dante’s Inferno?” asks a female voice from behind me.

  What can I say? Literature is my best subject.

  “Because I said the exact same thing to my brother five minutes ago.”

  I turn around and see a guy and girl about my age—a rare sight, since most student pilgrims won’t start walking to Santiago until the summer months. They’re sitting on a bus stop bench covered in graffiti, eating homemade Nutella and banana sandwiches that smell delish.

  I shrug. “A bleak abyss was the first thing that came to mind.”

  “Genau, I can’t think of a worse place on the camino to send traitors for all eternity.” The boy half of this pilgrim pair points to the white spires of a cathedral in the distance. “Good thing Paradise is on the horizon.”

  Okay, he’s taking this Dante thing a little over my head, but at least this exchange gives me a chance to identify their accents. “Where are you guys from in Germany?”

  “From the town of Otterbach. You’ve probably never heard of it,” the guy replies with a smile that would make any girl stammer. “I’m Jens and this is Katja.”

  I’ll be blunt. Jens (pronounced Yens) is kind of gorgeous. Both he and his twin sister wear their dirty blond hair in dreadlocks, only her strands are dyed hot pink. Jens pulls off the wandering vagabond look much better than she does, but guys are lucky like that. Somehow they look roguishly masculine in their dishevelment, whereas we just look filthy.

  “Otterbach? As in the Otterbach north of K-town?”

  “You mean Kaiserslautern,” Seth corrects, since these siblings may not be familiar with American Deutsch slang. That’s his only contribution to the conversation, which is fine by me because the twins are talkative and speak perfect English.

  “Correction,” I say with a smile. “I mean Kaiserslautern.”

  Katja laughs. “Ja, that’s the only Otterbach I’m aware of. Do you know it?”

  “I live nearby. On the U.S. Army garrison.”

  “I figured. We have a few American friends who live there, too.” Jens tosses a subtle nod in Seth’s direction before whispering, “Plus, Katja has a thing for men in uniform.”

  Katja jabs her brother in the ribs, telling him off in German. Their sarcastic quips remind me of the way Lucas and I communicate, which makes me want to latch on to them like an emaciated leech. As we head into Burgos, we discover all kinds of things we have in common, from our deep love of the Bavarian pretzel, to our World Cup fanaticism.

  “So you play fussball then?” Katja asks when the subject of soccer comes up. “Why don’t you join the Otterbach women’s team this summer? We’ve had a few American girls play with us over the years.”

  “Sounds fun,” I reply. And I mean it. “What are the odds of us living down the road from each other, but meeting all the way out here on the camino? Talk about a coincidence.”

  Jens gives me a wink that makes my stomach flop. “Ah, but there are no coincidences on the camino. There are
only circles of destiny that occasionally overlap.”

  Seth rolls his eyes, though thankfully he doesn’t say anything rude. I’m not sure if I agree with Jens’s thoughts on destiny, but I like these twins a lot. Once we reach the city center, we exchange phone numbers so we can meet up back in Germany. Jens and Katja will stay in Burgos an extra day so they can experience the nightlife, which was nonexistent across this recent stretch of cow towns.

  “Buen camino,” the twins call out as we go our separate ways. It dawns on me that they’re the first people I’ve made social plans with since I moved overseas. A strange camino side effect, I guess. Though according to Jens, not a coincidence.

  “Now what?” Seth asks, glancing around the square.

  Unlike Burgos’s urban outskirts, the city center is a beautiful collection of narrow streets packed with tapas bars, plazas lined with ornate balconies, and walking paths along lush river banks. I stare up at the clean white façade of the Burgos Cathedral and shield my eyes from the glare.

  “Want to go in?” Whenever I run into a church to light a candle, Seth waits outside, but the Burgos Cathedral isn’t some country bumpkin house of worship. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the finest examples of High Medieval Gothic architecture outside of France. Again, according to Rick Steves.

  “No thanks.” Seth points across the square to a café of wicker tables and red umbrellas. “I’ll be sitting over there in the shade, enjoying the view with a nice cold cerveza.”

  I point to a six-pointed star in the cathedral’s rose window. “But look, a Star of David.”

  Seth snickers. “And that just makes up for centuries of persecution, now doesn’t it?”

  “Fine. I’ll be quick. Be a pal and order me a few tapas while you wait.”

  Too bad my visit requires way more than a minute. There are a ton of tourists waiting to take pictures with a statue of this Spanish knight named El Cid, so I stop by to see what all the fuss is about. While waiting for my G.I. Lucas photo op, I study the iridescent colors cast across the stone floor by the rose window. I’m zoning out, soaring through a realm of Pink Floyd records and dancing rainbows, until someone taps me on the shoulder.

  “Yes?” There’s no one there, until I lower my eyes and see a woman so tiny, she could probably fit inside my pack. I’m guessing she’s Mexican because she wears a T-shirt with Our Lady of Guadalupe proudly stamped on the front. Her huge smile eclipses her small stature.

  “Hola guapa. You take my photo y I take yours?”

  “Sí, por supuesto,” I reply, though what I really want is G.I. Lucas in the shot, not me. When it’s my turn, I set the action figure on the back of El Cid’s horse and say queso.

  After that box is checked, I try to visit all the little side chapels along the nave. Each has its own altar, and my plan is to light a candle for Lucas on every one. Unfortunately, the chapels are also packed with people who are convinced their photo albums will not be complete unless they include every single stained-glass window and statue on the camino.

  “Uh, excuse me. Trying to say an actual prayer here,” I grumble, annoyed that there isn’t a drop of transcendence to be found in this entire sanctuary. Politeness is futile, so I speed up the process by jogging from chapel to chapel, dodging pilgrims and pillars with the spiraling moves of an all-star running back. Each time I manage to light a candle, it feels like I’m one leg further in some bizarre Catholic relay race.

  “How was it?” Seth asks when I return to the plaza. “Filled with gaudy, morbid art like every other cathedral dominating the skyline of Europe?”

  “This one was really beautiful. No, majestic. That’s the word. Sadly, there were so many people treating it like a roadside tourist trap that it kind of diminished its power.”

  “Majestic, huh?” Seth leans back in his chair, soaking up the sun. “Well, so is this gorgeous day and that’s the only temple of worship I require. Now have a seat before I eat all of this delectable blood sausage by myself.”

  I scowl at the chunks of purple pork lining his plate. “No, gracias. But speaking of blood, who’s this El Cid character? It sounds like he killed a lot of people.”

  Seth pops the last few bites of sausage into his mouth, opens the guidebook, and clears his throat. He imitates a highbrow British accent, like he’s on a BBC documentary. “El Cid was a legendary nobleman and warrior, considered the national hero of Spain. He was born in 1043 near the Castilian capital of Burgos and led many campaigns against the Moors, which brought him much fame due to his military prowess.”

  “Moors?” I ask while making a vain attempt to wave our waitress over.

  “The Moors were the Muslims who controlled southern Spain for seven hundred years. Every part of the Iberian Peninsula, except for this narrow strip in the north, was under Islamic rule for centuries, and Christian knights like El Cid spent their free time trying to regain the lost territory.”

  I rest my feet on an empty chair, glad to be off of them after hours of walking on joint-crushing concrete. “I really don’t get this age-old conflict between the West and the Middle East. It seems so endless. Not to mention pointless.”

  “That’s because you’re thinking about it from a twenty-first-century Western perspective,” Seth replies. “What we have are two completely different ways of viewing the world, and any time that happens, there’s bound to be conflict.”

  “But why? How hard is it to live and let live?”

  “Really hard, actually. Maybe even impossible. Beliefs matter more to humans than almost anything else, no matter how we try to suffocate them.” Seth passes the olive bowl. “Think about it. No one is willing to die for a bigger house or better 401(k), but people are willing to sacrifice themselves for the things they believe at the deepest possible levels.”

  “So what you’re telling me is the only way to achieve world peace is for people to stop caring about anything that actually matters?” I pick at a plate of stuffed peppers, smothered with enough garlic to wipe out a vampire coven. “That’s pathetic. If we can only play nice with each other when we’re too comfortable, or distracted, or apathetic to fight, then I don’t have much hope for our species.”

  “What other truce can there be besides a world united beneath the flag of superb HBO programming and funny cats on YouTube?” Seth shrugs, as if this topic doesn’t concern him, even though he’s spent half a year living its consequences. “We see them as patriarchal religious fundamentalists content to live in the Stone Age, and they see us as decadent, materialistic scumbags with no moral values. No real room for compromise.”

  Speaking of cultural stereotypes, I’ve failed miserably at securing our Spanish waitress’s attention, though in the process of craning my neck in every possible direction, I saw a neon sign across the square that looked like an Internet café. “Sorry Seth, I’d love to continue this enlightening discussion on the clash of civilizations, but I’ve got a boyfriend to talk to.”

  “Run along then.” Seth downs the last half of his beer. “I’ll be waiting.”

  From: calipunk4ever@hotmail.com

  To: gabigirl7@gmail.com

  Gabi,

  I hate to do this over e-mail, but you haven’t called in a while and I really need to tell you this so . . . it looks like I’m about to become “that guy.”

  We need to end it, Gabi. We should have done it a long time ago. I know it and you know it, but neither of us likes change. The acceptance letter I got in the mail last week confirms that it’s time to go our own ways. And no, it wasn’t from UT-Austin (that letter came a month ago. I just didn’t have the heart to tell you it’s no longer my first choice). I got into UC-Fresno, so I’m moving out to California right after graduation. I know this wasn’t part of our plan, but how can I pass up this opportunity just to stay in Texas for the rest of my life? SoCal, Gabi! The music scene. It’s my chance to finally make it big!

  I know this is really bad timing, what with your brother being injured and all. But that g
uy you’re walking with in Spain, Lucas’s buddy, he really helped me put everything into perspective. He made me see that I was holding you back, that being with me was causing you to put your entire life on hold. And because I’m being totally honest here, I’d rather tell you about the other girls I’ve hooked up with than have Seth tell you. (He threatened me with a complimentary waterboarding demonstration if I didn’t. Be careful around that guy, Gabi.)

  I know this sucks and I’m sorry. I hope helping you get to Spain counts for something and that you don’t completely hate my guts. I also hope Lucas gets better soon.

  Good luck in life,

  Brent

  Good luck in life? Are you kidding me? It’s so lame I almost burst out laughing, but that’s only because I’m on the verge of bawling my eyes out. I don’t know who I despise more—Brent for being a sniveling coward who cheats and dumps girls over e-mail, Seth for being the whirlwind disaster who somehow caused all this, or Lucas for not being here when I really need him. That last petty thought makes me hate myself most of all.

  I read through the message one more time, then log off the computer so I don’t bash in the monitor, even though I have eight paid minutes left. Brent’s pathetic message isn’t worthy of a response. And no, the fact that he’s been meaning to dump me for weeks and decided to soften the blow with a plane ticket doesn’t make him any less of a two-timing turncoat.

  I speed walk across the plaza, envisioning the scene I’m about to make—me picking up Seth’s umpteenth glass of beer and throwing it in his face in trashy American girl fashion. I can’t believe he had the nerve to go behind my back and tell Brent whatever he told him. I can’t believe I was actually starting to trust him.

  Seth is no longer seated in the café. Our stuff is still there, but he’s gone.

  “Your army friend had to use the loo,” a familiar voice announces. “Spanish beer goes right through you, see. I told him I’d watch your bags.”