Beneath Wandering Stars

Merit Press

F+W

Copyright © 2016 by Ashlee Cowles.

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by

Merit Press

an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

www.meritpressbooks.com

ISBN 10: 1-4405-9582-8

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9582-0

eISBN 10: 1-4405-9583-6

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9583-7

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and F+W Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

Cover design by Colleen Cunningham.

Cover and interior images © iStockphoto.com/kentarcajuan; Clipart.com.

• Title Page
  
• Copyright Page
  
• Dedication
  
• Acknowledgments
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  

Dedication

For my parents, LTC Steven H. Chowen, USA, Ret., and Lea Anne Chowen, who gave me the childhood that enabled me to write this story.

And for Danielle. None of this would have happened without you.

Although this story and its characters are fictional, they were stirred awake by a lifetime of impressions and memories. I want to thank my parents and sisters for being the core of the adventure that is the life of a military brat. I am also grateful to my in-laws and the rest of my extended family for their love and support. Thanks especially to Tia Julie, for proofreading my Spanish and teaching me about Spain's cuisine.

Thanks to Marlys Sowell and Lucia Hrin, for walking the
Camino de Santiago
with me back in 2011—the journey that inspired many parts of this story. I'm glad we survived the snoring, the aching feet . . . and the
vino
. Finding time and energy to write is a challenge for any writer with a day job, but perhaps even more so for a writer who is also a teacher. I am indebted to several organizations for providing tangible resources that made this work possible. To start, many thanks to the people behind the Glen Workshop, a program put on by
Image
journal, and the place where I typed the first words of
Beneath Wandering Stars
. A generous scholarship made attending the workshop possible, and this book is proof that a week can truly change a life. Many,
many
thanks to the Russell Kirk Center, especially to Annette Y. Kirk and Andrea Kirk Assaf. Not many writers are fortunate enough to receive the kind of support and resources the RKC has provided me, and I am truly blessed to have spent an entire year writing among this life-changing community, where the “circles of destiny” are particularly pronounced. In Colorado, I am very grateful to the Anselm Society, which provides spaces where artists of all stripes can connect and realize, “Hey, I'm
not
the only one.”

Writing may be done in solitude, but writing is never solitary. A sincere thank you to Katherine Khorey and Anna Vander Wall for reading an early draft of this story and for providing such heartening feedback. I am grateful for my wonderful critique partners, Anita Romero and Adrianne Hanson, who have given extensive comments on this and other works. Last but not least, I am forever indebted to Danielle Stinson, my very best friend, fellow Army brat, Ideal Reader, and the most talented writer I know. I'm so glad we share half a brain because without your brilliance and unwavering encouragement, this book would not exist. Whenever I had doubts, you always believed. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

All my love goes to my husband, Jordan, who is always open to whatever crazy notions I come up with, whether that's moving to the other side of the world or becoming an author. Your steadfast support and willingness to endure the hours I spend glued to my laptop have made this dream possible. Thank you.

Many thanks to my editor, Jacquelyn Mitchard, and the rest of the team at Merit Press, for “getting” this story and for strongly believing it was one young people ought to read. I am so encouraged by Merit Press's vision for young adult literature, and I feel fortunate to be a part of it.

Finally, I would like to thank the millions of men and women who currently serve, or have served, in the United States Armed Forces, along with their spouses and children, who also sacrifice so much. I wanted to write a book for and about military “brats” because I wanted to tell
our
story. Please forgive any errors in my interpretation. I sincerely hope I did the wild ride that is our upbringing justice.

Mail service in the midst of a war. It's crazy when you stop and think about it. Some guy's job requires him to dodge bullets just so messages like the one that arrived in my mailbox today can make it from soldiers to their families.

The book in my hands is almost as tattered as the manila envelope it came in, postmarked in Kabul. There's no letter, no note of explanation, only this dog-eared paperback that's seen better days. An image of a golden galley—one of those ancient Greek ships that wandered the waves of the wine-dark sea—sits in the center of the cobalt cover, right below the boldfaced title.

“That from your soldier?”

My
soldier? For the record, I will never have a soldier.

I look up from the book and meet the smiling eyes of a stocky lieutenant. I can tell he's a first lieutenant because of the silver bar on his camouflage uniform. His name badge reads Martinez. Idle chitchat doesn't fly in the Army, so it's best to have vital info up front and out in the open.

Soldiers are getting off duty, so the post office is crowded. I slam my mailbox shut. “It's from my brother.”

The smile in the lieutenant's eyes travels to his lips. “Always fun to get a gift from the Sandbox.”

“Lucas isn't in Iraq,” I reply. “He's in Afghanistan.”

“Even better,” says the lieutenant, shuffling through his junk mail.

I can't tell if that's sarcasm in his voice or not, so I return to the equally cryptic communication from my brother, to the book that makes no sense. Lucas left one clue, scrawled on its title page:

Do you remember that day, Gabi? How much we wanted to see the lights in the sky?

I do. Only instead of lights, we saw the sky crash down 110 flights of stairs.

I was young, but I can conjure up every detail of that September morning. How excited Lucas was to glimpse the green swirls of Alaska's northern lights. The sweet smell in the car from the banana bread Mom packed for our breakfast. That Odysseus was about to outwit the Cyclops when Dad switched from my audiobook to the radio, and we heard the news about the towers, the Pentagon, the planes. How my father—who wasn't in uniform, but still wore the insignia of the military in the pinched corners of his mouth—looked more anxious than I'd ever seen him, which made me more afraid than I'd ever been.

Most of all, I remember the way Lucas held my hand. He kept holding it through all the moves, goodbyes, and deployments that followed. Lucas is only eleven months older, so we've always been close. But after that day, he never let go. Not until he followed in Dad's footsteps and joined a war that started when he was still playing with G.I. Joes.

“You okay, kid?” asks Martinez, who's watching me stare at this book like I'm famished and it's food. “You look like you're about to pass out.”

“I'm okay,” I lie.

Lucas and I never talk about
9
⁄
11
. That means this book isn't a gift.

It's a message.

Sweat beads along the back of my neck as I flip through the paperback and notice specific verses highlighted in neon green. One reads,
Ares in his many fits knows no favorites.

Weird.
Ares is the Greek god of war, but what exactly is Lucas trying to tell me?

My brother deployed six months ago. He's pretty good at keeping in touch, thanks to e-mail and Facebook, but Lucas and I aren't exactly old-school pen pals. I'd expect him to send a souvenir from an Afghan market, or maybe a stash of flavored
shisha
tobacco for the hookah he had me hide in my closet. But a book?

Now, I love books. They're the most portable friends a military brat can have, but this isn't any book. Lucas and I used to listen to the audio version of the children's
Odyssey
during long drives and cross-country moves. I'd imagine our family's station wagon was our galley ship, the open road our Mediterranean Sea. The only thing missing was our Ithaca—the home we were trying to return to despite the detours.

I haven't read or listened to the
Odyssey
since that dark day over a decade ago, but I'm certain we have a copy buried in a moving box somewhere. Why would Lucas send another one?

Maybe it's a warning.

Or
maybe I'm just paranoid.

Soldiers file into the post office like it's a Great Depression bread line, which means it's time to get out of here. I bury my nose in pages that smell of Lucas's aftershave and head towards the exit.

“Uh, miss, I think you forgot something.”

I turn and see my mailbox door hanging wide open–even though I just shut it. “Oh. Thanks.”

There's one more padded envelope shoved inside, the one with the San Antonio return address I've been waiting for. It's the reason I stopped by the post office after soccer practice in the first place. Thankfully, this package contains a note.

My heart takes a nosedive towards the floor.

That's it???

The last time we talked, Brent said he mailed me something “special.” Sample CDs are cool and all, but I was hoping for something more personal and, oh I don't know,
romantic
. Saying you miss someone is not the same thing as showing it.

I study one of the CDs, which has me smiling in spite of the lump that has taken my throat hostage. Brent's rockabilly band is the Psychopathic Penguins. Kind of a ridiculous name, but the guys only wear black and white, so it's also kind of appropriate. As the lead singer, Brent takes center stage on the shiny new CD cover. He's wearing his signature pinstripe trilby hat, pulled down so low that his dark eyes are barely visible.

Okay, I'm getting dizzy again. This photo is one hundred percent swoon-worthy.

Man, do I ever miss this boy, especially right now when I'm confused about Lucas and need someone to talk me down off the crazy ledge. Thanks to his lip ring and Day of the Dead skull tattoos, Brent is
not
the kind of boyfriend my clean-cut soldier dad approves of, which is exactly why I like him. The military is all straight lines and sharp angles. “
Order
: the first step to fixing a broken world,” Dad likes to say whenever it's time to clean my room. I've never dated anyone like Brent, a drifting spirit who prefers a realm of chaos where the road is always swerving, where every day is new. We're opposites in a lot of ways, but we work. So
why
did I move a million miles away from him in the middle of my senior year?

Because the Army is awesome like that.

Two more months
, I remind myself as I step outside. The second I graduate, I'm headed back to Texas. Brent and I will go to the same college with our other friends, and everything will be just like it was before I left.