Read Beneath Wandering Stars Online
Authors: Ashlee; Cowles
Seth is cracking up behind his wineglass, his squinty eyes signaling an enthusiastic
bravo!
I can't help smiling back, but now I'm flustered and feeling unfit for a cross-cultural exchange. Fortunately, Jean Paul does most of the talking, and before long the entire table falls under his spell. He shares what it was like growing up in Sudan during the civil war. As he speaks, Jean Paul's hands move in graceful gestures that denote an inner calm I can't comprehend, given the horrors he's witnessed.
“Of all the long walks I've done, this pilgrimage is the most peaceful. When I was a boy, I fled the violence in my country by escaping across the border to Kenya, and we had to keep on the lookout for wild animals the entire way.” Jean Paul's face breaks into a huge smile. “So far I have yet to see a lion or a crocodile on the
camino
. Although it often sounds like I'm sleeping next to one in the hostels.”
Everyone laughs, but the fact that Jean Paul is the sole surviving member of his family makes my head spin. Hearing his story stirs up guilt for all the times I complained about having to pack up my room again, or because I was missing a school dance due to a move. Things my dad likes to call “first world problems,” compared to the challenges most of the world faces on a daily basis. You know, things like hunger and disease and violence lying in wait around every corner.
Seth's subdued voice breaks into the dim space. “Do you mind if I ask why you're walking the
camino
, Jean Paul?”
I snap my head in Seth's direction. This is the first time he's actively engaged another pilgrim on purpose.
Ever
. Pay attention, people!
“Not at all.” Jean Paul's glowing face brightens the room. “I'm here because I'm grateful. Grateful to be walking with all of you, grateful to be starting medical school in the United States this fall, grateful that I will be able to return to Sudan one day to help my people. Yes, that is my reason. My pilgrimage is one of gratitude.”
“I'll toast to that,” someone shouts from the other end of the table. “
Salud
.”
“
Salud!
” we respond in unison, even the nonconformist Seth.
Seth chats with Jean Paul right through dessert, which blows my mind since he hates small talk with strangers. But this Sudanese kid has lived and breathed armed conflict for most of his life, so maybe Seth can relate to the rawness of that more than anything else.
“Attention, pilgrims!” Greta clinks the side of her water glass with a spoon. “After dinner, we'd like to invite you to a time of reflection in the sanctuaryâa nightly tradition here at our
albergue.
Entirely optional, of course, but you are all welcome to experience the serenity of Eunate.”
Seth and I make eye contact. Normally we'd “peace out” at the mere mention of a touchy-feely group
anything
, but ditching our hosts after this amazing meal feels rude. Besides, we're sleeping on the sanctuary's front stoop anyway.
After clearing the table, everyone heads outside and walks over to the churchyard. Karl opens the door to the chapel, and we step through a portal to someplace ancient. A thick darkness I can practically feel awaits inside, until Greta hands out white taper candles and the small space fills with a gilded glow. I breathe deeply and taste a thousand years. Beside me in the pew, Seth fidgets with his jacket. I'm a little uncomfortable too, though I don't know why.
For a while we just sit there with our flickering lights, surrounded by a silence that echoes across the centuries. I stare up at the octagonal roof, supported by eight arches divided like eight slices of pie. It's a design more Middle Eastern than European, and stars peek through the skylight holes in each of the eight segments. The ceiling reminds me of the bathhouse postcard Lucas sent us after he experienced his first
hammam
in Afghanistan.
Lucas
. I remove a tealight from my pocket. As I touch it with my taper candle, Karl's voice shatters the hushed atmosphere. “Let's take a moment of silent intention for pilgrims who are sick or suffering, and for those walking on behalf of loved ones who are sick or suffering.”
Musty earth assaults my nostrils as my gaze falls to the orange dust on the floor, tracked in by the thousands of pilgrims who have passed through this space in search of a silent moment. A still point in an otherwise spinning universe.
Is that what my fellow wanderers are seeking out here on the
camino
? A minute with no phone, no Internet, no television? A chance to think about someone they love? Or are they searching for something even deeper? For an ethereal instant that makes skin tingle, for a fleeting whisper that promises there's something more? Some part of us that goes beyond cell clusters and synapses?
The space is beautiful. Like all beautiful things, it makes me ache. Maybe because it reminds me of something else. Something I know in my bones, but can't quite name. The domed altar, the hand-carved pillars, the golden stonesâall this beauty stirs up a longing for a place I
know
, even if I've never been there.
I'm not sure if this hunger for something sacred is real, but I'm certain the feeling will be over in a flash, gone as soon as I step outside and smell the manure sprinkled across these fieldsâa stark reminder that everything growing this spring will decay in the fall, no matter how delicious it tasted tonight.
But right now I can't help thinking this universe is a mystery that
wants
to be solved; a mystery trapped inside each and every one of us. The clues are all thereâlayered in the part of us that loves starry skies and sunsets, whispered by the muse who inspires painters and poets, hidden in the fractured piece of us that somehow feels more whole in a room full of strangers from around the globe. I don't know much, but I know this
thing
, this mystery, must be behind the desire that stirred millions of pilgrims across the centuries. Why else would people walk hundreds of miles to a place they've never seen? What is it that our restless hearts are searching for?
Home
.
That's what we all left behind to find. And if this longing for Home is
real
, then maybe Lucas still exists somewhere, even if his brain and his body are no longer talking. Maybe there's more to him than both of those things combined.
My eyes fall to the individual shadows scattered across the floor, all blending into one massive blur of tears. Before I feel the warm wetness on my cheek, I feel Seth's thumb wiping the tear away. He's been watching me this entire time, staring at the tealight resting between my fingertips. The look on his face is as close as he's ever come to a prayer, but it's enough. It assures me Seth loves Lucas as much as I do.
“Would anyone be willing to sing a song from his or her native land?” Greta asks, rescuing us from the weight of this overbearing stillness.
Molly volunteers. She intones a haunting, Gaelic tune, her mournful voice rising above all of us. Then she launches into an achingly slow rendition of “Danny Boy,” which almost makes me lose it entirely. Lucas's middle name is Daniel and my mom used to sing us this song whenever our dad was away.
“The summer's gone, and all the flow'rs are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow . . . .”
Yes, come back
, I hope. Or pray. Is there really a difference?
Please, Lucas, come back.
⢠⢠â¢
“That was nice. I guess.” Seth stretches out beside me in his sleeping bag, his face turned up to the night sky. “Nothing too weird or over the top.”
I know what he means, but I wouldn't call anything about this evening
nice
. Eunate is spectacular, incredible, amazing. But there's something unsettling about it, too. Something transcendent and almost sublime. I suppose we
are
sleeping right next to a medieval graveyard.
“Are you all right?” Seth asks when I don't respond. He's lying a decent distance away from me, his good arm resting behind his head, his eyes fixed on a net of stars.
“I'm fine. Just tired.” I roll over, struggling to get comfortable. A brigade of chirping insects fills the fields surrounding us, and their lullaby brings me back to that murky place where memories blur into dreams.
Cicadas. Big Red soda. Chlorine.
I'm in sixth grade and Lucas is in seventhâour ages the first time Dad was stationed in Texas. We lived off-post and had to go to a nonmilitary school for the first time. We hated it. All the other kids had known each other since kindergarten, so they ignored us. There was also this weird division between the white kids and the Latino kids, which we'd never experienced before. Military brats are used to hanging out with everyone, no matter if you're black, brown, or blue.
September. Asphalt hot enough to fry an egg. All the grass in our subdivision is brown.
Lucas is wearing his favorite San Antonio Spurs hat.
On our walk home from school, Lucas got into a fight with another Latino boy who teased me for “acting too white.” I had no idea what that even meant. All I knew was that I didn't fit in anywhere or have a single friend, which meant I spent most of the lunch period hiding out in a bathroom stall. Not my finest hour, in addition to being totally disgusting.
“Don't worry, Gabs. You'll always fit with me,” Lucas said while Mom iced his black eye with the frozen pork loin she planned to cook for dinner.
You'll always fit with me.
The sound of Lucas's voice forces my eyes open. I can't tell if the sob pressing down on my chest actually escaped my throat. The sky is silky black, the color of Lucas's hair before the Army chopped it off. I rub my eyes and make out a murky mass above me. The Milky Way. Seth rests in the same position, like a sentinel on an all-night UFO watch.
“How come you're still awake?” I mumble. “Can't sleep?”
Seth doesn't move his head or break his focus. “Look at all that empty space. An entirely empty universe.”
I can't tell if that's meant to be reassuring, or just depressing. Either way, the thought of black holes that consume all light makes me want to disappear into my sleeping bag.
“Have you heard the St. James legend yet? About how they found his body way back in the day?” Seth asks a few moments later.
“Nope,” I mutter sleepily.
“Supposedly there was this old hermit, a holy man, who lived in the woods alone about a thousand years ago. One night he heard strange music and when he looked outside, he saw a bright star shining above an empty field. But it wasn't a normal star. This star wandered back and forth across the sky, then stopped. The hermit reported what he'd seen to the local bishop, which led to an official investigation. The Church discovered the bones of three men in the spot where the hermit saw the star come to rest. James the Apostle had been a missionary to Spain, so the Church determined that the bones belonged to him and his two disciples. That's why they built the cathedral we're walking to.”
Santiago de Compostela. I never really thought about it, but it makes sense.
Santiago
is James in Spanish, and
campus stellae
means “the field of the star.”
I turn on my side to get a good look at Seth. “Is that what you've been watching for? Wandering stars?”
Seth nods, but his eyes don't leave the sky. “So far I've counted three.”
His response sends a shiver from my head to my toes, as if one of those stars falls right through me. After today's long hike, Seth must be exhausted. He doesn't seem like the stargazing type, so I don't even have to ask. I already know he's watching the heavens on behalf of my brother, wishing on all those shooting stars for Lucas. Knowing that Seth would stay awake for something so simple and silly floods me with feelings I don't know how to name. All I know is they make me want to kiss him with an intensity normally reserved for love or hate.
I burrow down in my sleeping bag, but there's nowhere I can hide from this holy fear, this startling wonder, this unnerving loss of control. Like a conviction that carries all kinds of unwelcome obligations, the last thing I want is to
believe
the emotions running through me.
Too bad the truth keeps existing whether we acknowledge it or not.
I love Brent, I love Brent, I love Brent.
The thing is, I
do
love Brent. At least, I think I do. And I would never betray him for the spell of a starry night, though that doesn't make the power radiating from the sleeping bag across the way any less frightening. This isn't just physical attraction. Hostel life is intimate, so I've seen Seth without a shirt on a million times, without a single spark.
This is something much, much worse.
Get up. Act.
Don't wait for things to happen
to
you.
Make
things happen.
I unzip my sleeping bag and crawl over to Seth, but instead of pressing my mouth to his, I extend my hand. “Come on.”
“What are you doing?” Seth looks up at me, a puzzled smirk on his lips.
“I want to try something. Something one of the other pilgrims mentioned.”
With an exaggerated groan, Seth takes my hand and climbs out of his sleeping bag. I lead him to the cobblestone path that follows the churchyard wall. The moon is so bright we can see the glistening stones without a flashlight.
“The Argentinian woman at dinner shared another
camino
legend. Some pilgrims claim a healing miracle will occur if you walk around this church barefootâthree times on the inside of the wall, and then three more times on the outside. Afterwards, we're supposed to enter the sanctuary and light a candle on the altar.”
Seth raises a dubious eyebrow. “Seriously, Gabi?”