Seeker of Stars: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

and Salvi navigated this terrain without getting lost. I lost myself each day in the eternal spectacle of the shining desert. It was only at night that I could relax: the stars far from home were still the same stars. Whether I was the same Melchi, I was less certain. I ran my fingers over the new scars on my right thumb to be sure of myself.
    The first night we camped alone, and I understood the appeal of nomadic life in wild spaces. Taz built a huge watch-fire, and we made tea and ate the bread and goat Reta had prepared. I had grown used to Reta’s cooking, I realized, and its pungent aroma stung me with a feeling for the home I had left already far behind. Yellow eyes peered at us from the darkness, but the fire repelled as well as attracted, and I did not feel afraid. When we had finished our meal and the fire had died down, Salvi and Taz motioned for me to climb to the top of the rugs piled high, where they had spread out skins and blankets. They insisted I sleep between them, lest I fall out. Accustomed as I was to sleeping on a mat on the floor, I acknowledged the wisdom of this plan. Nestled between them, under the stars, I also soon realized the comfort and glory of sleeping under my beauties, the stars.
    “Our moving bed,” Salvi joked before he rolled over and began snoring. “It starts out up high, and by the time the rugs are sold, I’m nearly home and ready to sleep on our father’s mats again.”
    As I lay high atop the rugs, without the village sounds I was so used to, the stars seemed closer, and I stayed awake, smiling long into the night.
    The next night could not have been more different. We encountered a caravan of desert people Taz knew. We were welcomed. Sweet wine and bread were passed around. I watched my brother become one of their tribe, laughing and dancing. The horns sang in my ears, and I felt the drums throb like a heartbeat within me. A man kissed a woman, and longing rose in my stomach. I thought of Leyla. I carried the petals of the flower she had given me the night before I left, the night I asked her to watch out for Daria. The night Leyla let me kiss her. When I walked home that night, for the first time I did not see the stars.
     
    Daria and I had had one of our frank discussions before I left.
    “Why are you going away, Melchi?”
    “To study the stars.”
    “Do they have different stars?”
    “No. The stars are always the same.”
    “So why go?”
    “If I learn all about the stars, Daria, I can serve in the king’s court and teach people about the beauties of the heavens.”
    She looked skeptical. “I’d like to meet a king, but I don’t think studying stars would be worth it.”
    I shrugged.
    “I’m going to make rugs someday, you know, Melchi. When I’m bigger.”
    “I know.”
    “Because you hurt your hand. Otherwise they’d make me cook and have babies.”
    “Lucky you.” Daria would be glad to escape the usual role, and I guessed she would enjoy working in our father’s shop. More than I had.
    “And I’ll live with our father,” she continued. “And Rena will cook for us.”
    “Reta,” I corrected. She nodded and kicked a pebble with her toe.
    “Melchi, does he like me? Our father, I mean.”
    How to answer that? Daria knew that her birth had occasioned our mother’s death, but she had been raised in Aunt Babu’s household, where she had been petted and adored, with Salvi and me dropping by to play with her. How could such a child understand our father when he was a mystery to me, who had worked next to him for seven years?
    “You’re a much-loved girl, Daria.”
    She grinned. “I know. It’s just that he seems a bit …”
    “He’s serious.”
    “No. You’re serious. He’s … more, well, not … he doesn’t … does he know how to love?”
    “He …” I started and then stopped. Daria would have to do her best with our father and get to know him for herself. She had the strength of our beautiful mother, and I was not worried about