Beneath Wandering Stars

by Cowles, Ashlee;

  “De donde eres?” the man who took our order asks when he sees me looking at a collection that would make People magazine jealous.

  “Los Estados Unidos,” I reply.

  “America?” The man’s face perks up as he steps out from the bar and grabs me by the arms. “Mira!” he says, dragging us to the wall of fame. “Look. Mel Gibson!”

  Seth chuckles as the enthusiastic bartender shows off an autographed headshot of the actor, who must have been a patron here way back when he liked wearing blue face makeup.

  “We have to get a picture of this for Lucas.” I envision the Braveheart movie poster and its famous quotation, ‘Every man dies, not every man really lives,’ which hung over Lucas’s bed when he was twelve. That should have been my first clue that my brother is more honor-driven than most.

  “Did you bring the action figure?” Seth asks.

  “Of course.” I open my purse. “Never leave home without him.”

  As we position G.I. Lucas next to the headshot, capturing a celebrity image of our own, the churro man’s eyes dance between us like we’re the ones with some weird Hollywood fetish.

  “Amor. Nos vuelven locos.” The man sighs and leaves us so he can assist the next customer.

  Seth perks up. “What did he just say?”

  “Didn’t catch it,” I fib. Because I’m a little freaked out. The bartender’s comment—Love. It drives us crazy—means my chemistry with Seth must be visible to the outside world. I’m not prepared to call this chemistry love, since I think of love as a promise, not a transitory spark. But there’s definitely something burning between us and it’s bright enough to notice.

  Our order is up, so we find a table by a window overlooking the street. The churros are piping hot, but I dig in despite my singed tongue. Eating distracts me from Seth’s intense staring.

  “Oh. My. Word,” I say in between bites. “This is amazing.”

  Spanish hot chocolate is not of the instant-sawdust-with-cardboard-marshmallows variety. It’s rich and dark and thick as soup, hence the churros, which serve as edible spoons.

  “I’m not a big sweets guy, but this stuff is good,” Seth says after a few bites. All of a sudden he laughs, which, given his status an hour ago, is music to my ears. “Napkin?”

  I turn to look at my reflection in the darkened window. There’s chocolate all over my face. “Guess I was hungrier than I thought.”

  Seth grins. “Sometimes we don’t know what we really want until we taste it.”

  Why hello, double entendre. That comment has me blushing like crazy, so I stare into my cup, stirring my churro like a witch whipping up a cauldron spell.

  Seth’s confession has clearly established some sort of bond, but I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of responsibility. Not on top of Lucas. I care for Seth a lot, but in many ways he’s hurt as badly as my brother, only his wounds are harder to see. If I fall for him now, what exactly will I be falling into? More than I can probably handle, that’s for sure.

  “When we get back home, what else should we do to help Lucas?” I ask, knowing this question will be a game changer. As intended, the sappy look in Seth’s eyes solidifies at my reminder of the tragedy that brought us together in the first place.

  “Get him a dog.”

  “Come again?” I assume he’s messing around, but I don’t get the joke.

  “Get him a dog,” Seth repeats. “There are a few charities that pair disabled veterans with retired MP and K-9 unit dogs. It won’t fix everything, but I know of a few discharged vets who got pups and it made a huge difference. Sometimes it’s nice to have a companion who doesn’t offer up clichéd condolences when there’s really nothing to be said.”

  Silence. Is that what Seth wants? Or does he want to acknowledge his wartime actions for what they were—an evil, perhaps a necessary and unavoidable evil, but an evil nonetheless? It isn’t fair, but maybe that’s how life works. Even when you want to walk the straight and narrow way, even when you’re trying to stick to the honorable path, there are times where you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Like the sticky chocolate lining my cup, an unavoidable darkness lurks around every corner, coating every motive and tainting every move. None of us escape intact, even if we try to climb out of the muck by pointing fingers and passing the buck.

  Seth was presented with an especially crappy choice, where even refusing to make it would have had disastrous consequences. I hate what happened, but I respect him for taking a side and accepting the blame, even if it costs him everything.

  “So is that why you let me hang around?” I trace my fingernail along the tattoo inside his wrist, then press down hard. “Because I have the silent, steadfast loyalty of a dog?”

  Seth grins. “You’re a good listener, but I’m glad you talk back. Even if you do have a smart mouth. Besides, as you already know, I’m a cat person.”

  Seth leans forward and wipes a smudge from my nose. “Here, you missed a spot.”

  His expression of playful innocence makes me believe there are ways to get clean, no matter how big of a mess we make. Maybe that’s what Lucas struggled with, why he poured himself into ancient warrior epics, in search of the secret for living with a fractured soul. Maybe that’s why he wanted to walk the camino—to purge his spirit of all he’d done before returning home. Maybe doing something to show we’re sorry when words don’t cut it helps more than all the counseling programs and self-help books in the world.

  If that’s true, then Seth has a long road ahead of him, because I don’t know how a person ever rights that kind of wrong. Maybe he can’t right it on his own, but he can sure as hell repent of it. And for that, I’m glad. Monsters don’t feel remorse, but men do.

  “Can we talk about something besides Lucas?” Seth asks, suddenly looking sleepy. “I love your brother and all, but he’s the only thing I’ve been thinking about for the past month.”

  “I get that. What do you want to talk about?”

  A mischievous glimmer in his eye, Seth chomps down on his last churro. “Maybe I don’t want to talk at all.”

  • • •

  Unlike the newer parts of the city, the old town is quiet. Overflowing with dark corners made for kissing couples. Well, it’s mostly quiet, until we pass through a courtyard where a public concert is taking place.

  A small crowd gathers around an ornate stone fountain, where a group of men wear what must be traditional Galician garb: wool pants and white shirts with puffy sleeves, worn beneath gray vests. Each man dons a wide-brimmed hat that looks like it was stolen from a Mennonite. Each plays something musical, from the accordion, to the snare drum, to Rodrigo’s beloved gaita. The few hombres not holding a physical instrument croon a controlled melody, clapping their hands in a consistent rhythm.

  “Want to watch?” It isn’t really a question. I’m already heading in that direction. The thought of being alone with Seth on an empty cobblestone street is both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. Better let the churros in my fluttering stomach settle first.

  We work our way through the crowd, finding a seat on the edge of the fountain. I’m amazed by this musical spontaneity in the middle of the night, yet the people around us—locals and tourists alike—don’t appear to find it strange at all.

  At the start of a tune that sounds like a Scottish Highland ballad blended together with a finger-snapping song from southern Spain, a girl who looks about thirteen steps out from the crowd and begins to dance. She wears a full red skirt and a shawl that blends in with her long black hair. Soon she’s joined by a few friends, all of them twirling in a circle around the fountain, their purple, yellow, and scarlet skirts billowing out like tulips. It isn’t a sultry dance like flamenco; it’s something sweeter and more traditional. Suddenly, in unison, each girl approaches a young man seated around the fountain and asks him to dance.

  Naturally, Seth is one of those young men.

  “No, no, no,” he repeats to the smiling señorita, his panicke
d eyes pleading. “Tell her, Gabi. I don’t dance. Seriously, tell her.”

  “Le gusta bailar,” I say to the girl before turning to Seth. “Loosen up. It’ll do you good.”

  “You’ll pay for this, Santiago.”

  Seth is dragged from his seat with the other unsuspecting victims, all of them equally mortified. At least his ankle is feeling better and he doesn’t have to do much. The young ladies are the ones who own this show. All the guys just stand there looking silly, while the girls swirl around them and everybody cheers.

  Once the guys are sufficiently dizzy, the chicas return them to their seats before making one more rotation around the fountain. Each girl resumes her original position before her male counterpart. The music stops and the synchronized dancers lean forward, pushing their partners into the basin of water behind them. Seth seems to fall in slow motion, his shocked face sinking below the big splash he makes. The crowd releases a collective gasp and everyone cracks up, but all I can do is sit there with my hand over my mouth until Seth resurfaces.

  He’s going to be livid. A few of the other dunked tourists definitely look pissed. Seth emerges, but instead of cursing, he’s laughing like a lunatic. He gets on his hands in the push-up plank position, then wades around the shallow fountain, spraying water on anyone near the edge like this is the splash section at SeaWorld. Amidst the screaming and the laughter, the music picks back up and the dancing resumes. Seth has an extra wet splash in store for me. I take it like a champ because I kind of deserve it, but I never imagined these tiny dancers could be so bold.

  A huge grin on his face, Seth climbs out of the fountain, wrapping me in a soaking wet bear hug. “Well, that was refreshing. I feel like a new man.”

  “I had no idea it would end that way. I swear it,” I mutter into Seth’s soaked chest.

  “Six months downrange only to be defeated by a little girl.” Seth gives me that look again. The one that makes me shiver like I just climbed out of the dunk tank. “Let’s get out of here. I think I’ve experienced enough Galician folk traditions for one night.”

  Dripping water the entire way, Seth leads me back to the main square of the cathedral. He’s limping a bit, so we take it slow. The square is shielded by a silence that’s almost unnatural, and the moon bathes the basilica in an ethereal light. Seth seems to absorb the solemnness of its afterglow.

  He sits down on the steps, pulling me onto his lap. “Have any candles left?”

  I try to get up. “Gross, you’re still soaked!”

  That only makes Seth wrap his arms around me even tighter.

  I laugh and shrug him off, so I can dig through my purse for one last tealight. “I don’t get it. Lucas is alive. What are we lighting this candle for?”

  “For us.”

  Whatever Seth means by that, the way the hairs on my arm stand at attention tells me now is not the time to ask stupid questions. I hand him the lighter. He sets the glowing tealight down on the stone step.

  The next thing I know, Seth is kissing me.

  Mist, coffee, shoelaces, dirt, hostels, rain, vino, pain, light.

  An entire camino in a single kiss.

  For the record, I can honestly say that kissing a boy out in the open—beneath the holy glow of a cathedral and with all the wandering stars as witnesses—beats the back of a stuffy car any day. By the time we come up for air, all that’s left of our candle is a puddle of wax and a thin trail of smoke reaching skyward.

  Chapter 24

  “I don’t understand.” I pace in front of Seth while he shoves freshly laundered clothes into his backpack. “Why are you doing this?”

  What I really mean is, why are you doing this to me? But saying that out loud would only solidify my selfishness and I don’t want to give Seth the satisfaction.

  “I’m doing this because I need to.” Seth hands me the cardboard tube containing his Compostela certificate, sealed with the official stamp we received for finishing the camino. “Give this to Lucas, will you?”

  He says it so nonchalantly, likes it’s nothing, when it’s everything. The simple gesture sums up everything I love about Seth, but right now I don’t want to kiss him.

  I want to kill him.

  “Why don’t you give Lucas the Compostela yourself?” I take the certificate anyway. “By visiting him in the hospital like the rest of us.”

  Seth stops packing. When he looks up at me, I see the fear in his eyes. Not the terror of someone who fears for his safety, but the look of one who is haunted. The dread of someone who fears for his soul. And then I know the truth. Send this boy back to Afghanistan, and he’d be fine. But make him visit my brother—half the man he was, at least physically—and the survivor’s guilt would have Seth running from the room.

  “I told you. You may have accomplished what you needed to by walking the camino, but I’m just getting started.” Seth grabs my hands, interlacing his fingers through mine. “Something happened to me towards the end of the trek. I can’t go home yet. I can’t be in a place where everyone knows my name, but I feel anonymous. Not yet.”

  “I thought you were trying to get shipped back to Afghanistan as soon as possible.”

  Seth nods. “Before last night, all I wanted was to go back and get revenge for what was taken from your brother. But now I see why Lucas wanted to do this walk. I want to suffer, to feel pain and confusion and remorse, because that means I can still feel something besides rage.”

  “But where are you walking to?” I press. “Turning around and walking back the same way we came makes no sense.”

  “I’m not opposed to going backwards in order to go forward,” Seth replies. “But there are a few old pilgrimage routes in England and Scotland, so maybe I’ll hop on a ferry. Honestly, I don’t really know where I’m going. I just need to keep walking.”

  “But you’re not even religious!”

  “I killed a kid, Gabi,” Seth says softly. “I didn’t want to, but I can’t help thinking that if there is some sort of afterlife, that’s one of the sins that counts.”

  You’re a kid yourself! I want to scream. “What makes you think walking will change anything? How do you know it will bring you any peace when it hasn’t so far?”

  “Oh, it has. I feel much better walking than I do sitting still, but getting Zen isn’t my goal. Peace may be a byproduct, but it’s not the point.” Seth turns to the crisp blue sky outside the hotel room window. “If there’s anything up there besides stars and empty space, it’s something that must be sought after, not summoned. I’m not interested in inner harmony or belief systems that soothe. I’m interested in ones that mobilize.”

  I have no ammo left, so it’s time to play the girlfriend card (even though nothing is official) and start sulking. I cross my arms and take a step back. “What about your ankle?”

  “It’s getting better. Walking will hurt, but like I said, I’m okay with that.”

  No matter his reasons, I don’t like the idea of Seth trotting the globe to atone for his mistakes, beating himself up for doing his duty, for trying to save my brother’s life.

  “What about you, kiddo? What are your plans now that the camino is over?”

  His relapse to that nickname brings a half-smile to my lips, but it doesn’t stop me from socking him in the shoulder—another attempt to hide that my heart is breaking a few hours after it finally felt whole. “I’m not sure. I’ll have to make up schoolwork over the summer in order to graduate, but all I really want is to hang out with Lucas for a while. Who knows, maybe when he’s well enough, we’ll go on a long walk, too. At least I already have experience pushing a wheelchair over vast distances.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Seth whispers. “Not yet.”

  Tears burn my eyes. Not yet. Not yet. The answer to everything I want is not yet.

  Seth sighs. “I’ve got to go, Gabi.”

  And if I truly care about him, I’ll let him. It may kill me, but I’ve been around the military long enough to know that if I don’t let
Seth heal in his own way, it may kill him instead.

  “No matter what you do next year, you’ve got an incredible future ahead of you.” Seth kisses my forehead gently, though his grip on my shoulders is anything but. “Don’t let me or any other chump hold you back.”

  But what if I want to be held back? What if I want to stay here with him, free on the open road with nowhere to go and no one to answer to?

  Seth reads my thoughts. “You know it would never last. Not like this.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  There’s a time for wandering, and a time for returning to your roots. A life severed from a mission is only liberating for so long. Pretty soon you’re just another restless drifter with no ties and no loyalties; a slave on the lookout for the next high, the next escapade, never satisfied with the mundane tasks that are part of life’s greatest adventure: love.

  And now is the time for roots. My family tree needs me, one of its vital branches. If Seth is ever grafted onto us, it will have to be back in the real world, where soldiers harbor scars no one else can see, where miracles are harder to come by, and where people are a lot more lost.

  I turn away and wipe my eyes. “You’ll miss me, you know? Especially when you get thrown in a foreign jail or slide down a mountain and there’s no one around to save your clumsy behind.”

  “You’re right. I will miss you.” Seth grabs my arm and pulls me in for a quick kiss. “But at least I’ll have G.I. Lucas to keep me company.”

  “He may not be enough. Promise me you’ll get real help if you need it.”

  “I promise.” Seth says the words like he’s making a sacred vow.

  There’s a knock on the door, already opened a crack. My father pokes his head inside. “There you are, Gabi.”

  Translation? You should not be in a boy’s hotel room alone, mija.

  Seth and I part like we’ve learned the other person has the plague. I swear I see a smile beneath Dad’s fabricated scowl.