Beneath Wandering Stars Read online

  Seth’s face is inches from mine. I can’t tell if he wants to kiss me, or slam mud into my mouth. He’s covered in so much sludge that he looks like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, but instead of shouting, “The horror! The horror!” he flashes a white smile. “Come on, we should get cleaned up. I think I saw lightning.”

  We exit the cow alley of death only to find another dilapidated village at the top of the hill. The place is a total time warp. All the houses have the same tile roofs and sea-green shutters, but the only signs of life are the pigs in the front yards and the gardens filled with this huge leafy plant that looks like a cross between cabbage and kale. I try to wash up in the fountain at the center of this ghost town, but that only smears the mud and makes the mess worse.

  “How about we hang out in there?” Seth suggests as a flash of white streaks across the dark sky like chalk on a blackboard. “Looks like a nice place to ride out a storm.”

  The sarcastic lilt in Seth’s voice tells me the shelter he has in mind is far from ideal. Sure enough, I turn around and see an old, abandoned house with boarded-up windows, covered in out-of-control weeds. It’s a total dump.

  We take off our backpacks so we can squeeze through a gap between the boards nailed over the opening where the front door should be. Thankfully, the house is semi-dry, even if it’s rotting from the inside out. Seth gathers scraps of wood left over from a staircase lying in shambles. He pulls out a piece of flint from his pack and starts making a fire in the hearth, its stone covered in a layer of lichen. I peer over his shoulder, impressed by yet another useful Boy Scout skill. Or maybe I’m just impressed by the way Seth’s damp shirt clings to his lean back as he crouches in front of the fireplace.

  Wait, what? Where did that come from?

  “Gross. All that mold has got to be a serious health hazard,” I blurt out, alarmed by the thought that just passed through my head.

  “Hey, if my underwear is soaking wet, then so is yours. Who cares about a little mold at that point?” Seth stands and takes a step back to admire the emerging flames. “Look at you—you’re shaking. Get closer to the fire, silly.”

  I take a seat on the hearth’s stone bench, and Seth sits beside me. We don’t talk, but we don’t have to. What happened outside in the mud—the play, the laughter, the sparks—was weird. And unexpected. And kind of exciting.

  And neither of us knows what to do about it.

  I’m as warm as I’m going to get. Too warm, probably. “I think I’ll explore a bit.”

  “All right.” Seth doesn’t look up. He keeps his eyes fixed on the flames, almost like he’s more afraid of getting burned by me.

  I move from the fireplace to the adjacent dining room. There’s no furniture. A dusty antique light fixture hangs from the ceiling and yellowed paper peels off the walls in torn strips.

  “I wonder who used lived here,” I call out. “And why they left.”

  Seth’s voice echoes back to me from the other room. “Earlier this morning, I talked with a Spanish pilgrim who told me that a lot of the farming communities in northern Spain are shrinking due to the country’s negative birthrate. Almost all of the young people are moving to big cities like Barcelona or Madrid to look for work.”

  “But this house has been empty for a long time.” I kneel in front of a built-in bookcase in the far corner of the dining room. On the lower shelf, behind a curtain of cobwebs, a picture frame lies face-down. I pick it up and meet the stare of a stoic man, his chest lined with medallions that proudly announce his profession. “Hey Seth, come look at this.”

  By the time I feel Seth’s solid presence behind me, I’ve had a chance to get familiar with the other faces in the black-and-white photograph. Standing beside the imposing man is a short, pear-shaped woman and two young children, a boy and a girl. The same look of longing haunts each pair of dark eyes.

  Seth studies the family portrait. “I bet they’re Sephardic Jews.”

  He points to the large pendant hanging around the woman’s neck—an open hand with a jeweled eye centered in the palm. “That’s a hamsa, an amulet of protection popular in Sephardic Judaism. My grandma has them all over her house to ward off the evil eye.”

  “Sephardic?”

  “Jews who lived in Spain until they were kicked out of the country in 1492.”

  “But this photograph was taken in the 1930s or 40s,” I observe. “Why would a Jewish family still live in Spain if they were exiled centuries earlier?”

  Seth shrugs. “Some converted to Christianity on paper, but still practiced their religion in secret. I heard a rumor that during World War II, Spain’s leader, Francisco Franco, drafted a list of all the Jewish families still in Iberia and handed it over to Hitler. Spain was officially neutral during the war, but if the man in this photo was a soldier, maybe he caught wind of Franco’s list and got his family the hell out of Dodge while they still had a chance.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “My grandma is Sephardic. Her family also left Spain right before the war,” Seth explains. “She used to tell me all kinds of stories about growing up in Andalucía. ‘In Granada there are pomegranates as big as your head,’ Grammy always said.”

  How strange. Seth and I both have Spanish ancestors, but they emigrated for very different reasons. Mine left to seek a better life in a virginal land across the sea, and Seth’s fled to seek any life at all. I think of his family scattered across the planet—first because of their ethnicity, then because of their military legacy. “Do you think it will always be like this?”

  “Like what?” Seth asks.

  I run through a mental list of all the places I’ve lived, including the pit stops along the way. “Do you think there will always be people destined to wander? People who never get to feel like they have an actual home?”

  Seth brushes the dust from the photo’s frame and sets it upright. “Yes.”

  That’s all he says, but it’s enough. The thought of other rootless pilgrims scattered throughout history is strangely comforting. It means having a home might just be the exception, not the rule.

  It means we’re not alone.

  • • •

  “What. The. Heck.”

  Back at the fireplace, a gray striped cat lounges on top of my bag. In G.I. Lucas’s spot. The friendly feline gets up to rub against our ankles, but his angry, scrunched-up face and the chunk missing from his left ear tell me he’s more of a fighter than a lover.

  “Hey, little guy. Where’d you come from?” Seth crouches down to pet the purr machine, but I’ve got other concerns.

  “Seth, what did you do with G.I. Lucas?”

  “Don’t look at me.” Seth glances around the room. “Did you move him for a photo op?”

  “No. He was on my pack when we entered the house.” I study the cat, trying to determine if an animal his size is capable of dragging a doll to some hidden lair. Then I hear it. Laughter, followed by the hollow ricochet of a ball being kicked down the street.

  Seth is out the door in two seconds flat. I’ve never seen him move so fast, even though the cat had him enthralled an instant earlier. I’m right on his heels, just in time to see Seth chasing two boys down the block. A semi-deflated soccer ball sits at my feet.

  What just happened? Maybe the two kids followed us into the house—thinking they were about to spy on a stormy make-out session—and saw a tempting toy marketed to their age and gender instead. But even if they lifted G.I. Lucas while we were in the other room, that doesn’t explain Seth’s intense reaction.

  Something is wrong.

  The rain slows to a trickle and the thunder has moved on, so I jog after Seth until I reach the village church. He’s pacing back and forth in front of the entrance, kicking rocks.

  “Whoa, calm down, dude. It’s just a doll.”

  “No. It’s not. Wait until I get my hands on those little punks,” Seth seethes through gritted teeth, his eyes ablaze. He points to the church. “They ran inside. What’s the protocol
here, Gabi? Cause if I go in there, I’m going to raise hell.”

  “I’ll go,” I reply, still bewildered. Why is Seth so upset? Sure, G.I. Lucas has sentimental value and it’s messed up that the little brats stole him, but they’re just kids. “Wait here. And take a few deep breaths while you’re at it.”

  I pull open the heavy door and enter an empty sanctuary—small, cool, and dimly lit. Filled with perfect hiding places for two little boys. My footsteps trample the silence as I make my way down the aisle, peering beneath each pew, until I reach the altar where a large and intimidating crucifix hangs from the ceiling.

  Not exactly the kind of refuge where you’d expect to find two thieves.

  A door to the right of the altar opens and a robed priest steps out, dragging the two boys behind him. By the ears. He pauses to bow before the altar, pulling the boys’ heads down with him in involuntary reverence, before approaching me.

  “I believe these two took something that belongs to you,” the priest grumbles. The boys remain silent, but they wriggle beneath the balding man’s grasp, their big brown eyes locked on me. “Elias, Javier. Dónde está?”

  Elias and Javier must be about ten or eleven. They start arguing, each blaming the other for what happened, until the irritated priest snaps, “Alto! Mirad a la chica.”

  Both boys turn to me, surprised when I ask them in Spanish, “Can I please have the toy back? It’s very special to me.”

  “You mean G.I. Joe?” one of the boys replies, his smug smirk giving him away as the instigator. He shrugs. “Lo siento. Haven’t seen him.”

  “Javier!” The priest squeezes the haughty boy’s ear and threatens to call their parents, which has his timid friend turning Judas in no time. The quieter boy points to one of the church’s side chapels.

  “Over there, padre!” Elias cries. “Javier hid it over there. We were going to give it back, padre. I promise.”

  “The only promise I want to hear after this blatant act of theft is that I’ll be seeing you both in Confession this week.” Without warning, the priest’s tone turns gentle and he releases his grip. “Now. What do you say to the pobre peregrina you’ve tortured with your cruel tricks?”

  “Lo siento. Sorry,” the boys mutter in unison before racing down the aisle and out the door. All I can say is they better keep moving while Seth is down for the count.

  “Little demons, the pair of them,” the priest mutters, a playful glimmer in his eye. “But with grace and a lot of prayers, they’ll turn out all right.”

  “Thanks for your help, father. Though I’m not sure you needed to be so hard on them.”

  “Unruly children want someone to be hard on them. There is freedom in self-discipline, for those ruled by their desires soon become slaves to them. Sometimes firmness is the only way boys like that know someone cares. Cares enough to hold them accountable for their actions. And boys like that soon become men.” The priest smiles, which makes him seem less crotchety. “Venga. Let us go rescue our brave hostage.”

  I join him in the side chapel, where G.I. Lucas stands on the little altar before a row of vigil candles, smack dab in the middle of the Blessed Virgin and St. James. It’s a slightly sacrilegious—not to mention slightly hilarious—sight.

  “Madre de Dios.” The priest snorts out a laugh. “Que ridiculo.”

  My buried chuckle never makes it out of me. That’s because this mixture of camouflage and sanctity is a stark reminder of that September night when millions of Americans lit candles to remember those who met their end in smoke and tragedy.

  Maybe that’s what this tealight thing is all about. Maybe it isn’t about bargaining with God or trying to buy an answer to a prayer. It’s about remembering a person, a soul. The silent flicker of the flame embodies what it means to wait, to endure, to be a dogged ember in a pile of coal, refusing to crumble to ash.

  “It is a bit of a contradiction,” I finally say. “A soldier up there with the saints.”

  “We are all called to be saints,” the priest replies, turning from the altar to a stained-glass window featuring the Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila. “That sweet little boy, Elias. Once I asked him what made a person a saint, and he told me something very profound. He pointed to this window and said without hesitation, ‘A saint is someone who lets the light shine through.’”

  I think of Matteo’s frequent pearls of wisdom and smile. “From the mouths of babes.”

  The priest smiles back. “You are a pilgrim, no? Then surely you’ve learned that your journey is nothing but one massive contradiction.”

  I pull out a candle and light it with one already on the altar. “What do you mean?”

  “Many pilgrims walk the camino in search of solitude, but find themselves connecting with other people in deeper ways than they ever thought possible. Some walk it for recreation and are surprised to find religion, whereas others looking for a supernatural experience end up realizing how earthbound they are.” The old man lifts his hand and makes the sign of the cross in the air. “Sí, it’s all about the contradictions, the crossroads. That’s where life’s gritty, messy, wonderful truths are waiting to be found.”

  I survey the statue of St. James, dressed like a medieval pilgrim with his staff and scallop shell. For some reason, the face of Becky Anderson, a childhood friend from my years in the Bible Belt, comes to mind. One time, after seeing Grandma Guadalupe’s impressive collection of saint figurines, a very concerned Becky informed me that my family was going to hell for idolatry. A few weeks later, we encountered my abuela on her knees in the middle of the living room, praying the rosary with a nun on TV. The final straw was the time we walked into the kitchen for an after-school snack and were greeted by an iconic image in loose, leathery skin. Abuela likes to iron Dad’s uniforms wearing nothing but her bra and underwear, since the heat of the iron makes her “tengo mucho calor, Gabrielita.”

  After that, traumatized Becky wasn’t allowed to come over anymore. That’s when I knew we Santiagos were different. That not all families asked St. Anthony to help them find their keys.

  “So why pray to saints at all?” I ask the priest. “They’re just people.”

  Yeah, dead people.

  The priest’s grin tells me this is one of his all-time favorite theological questions. “Tell me, niña, when faced with a serious problem, what do many people ask their friends to do for them? Send up a kind word to heaven on their behalf, no? It’s the same with the saints. They are just people, but perhaps they have a better perspective than we have down here.”

  The priest points down the aisle to the open door the boys left ajar. A thick beam of sunlight cuts through the shadows at the back of the church, and specks of sparkling dust float in its wake. “The road out there is long and full of trials. It can’t hurt to call on friends who have already walked the way.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” I reach for G.I. Lucas and prepare to hit that road myself, only this talkative father isn’t quite finished with his homily.

  “Never forget, niña. The brightest lights are often so dazzling that it’s hard to look at them for long. That’s because the lights aren’t meant to be adored; they’re meant to illuminate. To point beyond themselves.”

  “Thanks, father.” By this point, I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  “What’s his name?” the esoteric cleric asks as I turn to leave.

  I pause. “Who?”

  He points to the toy in my hands. “The light that symbol represents. The bright boy who’s had many people in his life who were hard on him because they cared.”

  I don’t understand how this stranger can know all that just from looking at a crumpled photo taped to an action figure’s face, but it assures me there are things in this world that cannot be rationally explained.

  “Lucas,” I reply. “Su nombre es Lucas.”

  Chapter 18

  By the time our G.I. Lucas rescue mission is complete, it’s raining again, but because it’s so late in the afternoon,
we have no choice but to put on our rain gear and continue walking.

  “Do you think he’ll follow us the rest of the way to Santiago?” I look down at the cat with the angry face and the relentless purr. He’s been walking with us for a good mile. We reach a stone bridge and the feline jumps onto the ledge, arching his back and demanding to be petted. Aggressively.

  “Hey, as traveling companions go, he’s far easier to please than you.” Seth winks, then stops to run his hand along the cat’s damp back. The purring escalates.

  I laugh. “Who knew a guy afraid of chickens would be so enamored with cats.”

  “Cats kill chickens, my friend. Which is why they’re awesome.”

  This bridge must be the end of the kitty’s turf, because he refuses to cross it. You’d have thought Seth was saying goodbye to his favorite childhood pet, based on the way he strokes the matted thing for a good five minutes before I drag him to the other side.

  I can’t help smiling at the pitiful expression on his face. “You are full of surprises, Russo. Is that an itty-bitty tear I see in the corner of your wittle eye?”

  “You’re pushing it, Santiago.” Grinning, Seth gives me a gentle shove, right into a puddle. “Do I need to repeat the muddy lesson in respect I gave you a few hours ago?”

  I hold up my hands in surrender. “I’m not stupid enough to challenge a proven war criminal twice.”

  I’m joking of course, but Seth flinches like I’ve slapped him across the face. Then it’s radio silence for the next four miles.

  Our destination is a mountaintop village that’s supposed to have the most amazing views on the entire camino, but thanks to all the unexpected stops today, the sun is long gone by the time we get close. We pull out our headlamps and continue climbing into the darkness.

  The mountain air smells of woodstove fires, fresh rain, and manure—a pungent mixture I’ll forever associate with this place. As we enter the village, my headlamp light passes over a stone hut shaped like a beehive—our first clue that O Cebreiro is something special. The round cottage has a thatched roof and low doorway that gives it a distinct hobbit-hole vibe.