Sonder Village

by Taylor Hobbs

  It wasn’t at all like she remembered. Or maybe it had just never been as good as she thought it was with Jack. Being with Bieito felt like he was healing parts of her she never realized were broken. Under the stars, she released her need for control and let the spirit of the moment take her away from any rational thought.

  For a second, she felt her consciousness rise out of her body and look down at the figures entwined below. There was an almost golden glow, an aura that surrounded them. Under the bright, twinkling stars, two people that should have never existed in the same time celebrated that fate brought them together. Time and space were inconsequential obstacles that could never prevent them from fulfilling their destinies to be as one. It was more than Remy could have ever wished for.

  ****

  Once upon the streets of Carral, the word was that General Narváez was on the move, under orders to crush the uprising in Santiago de Compostela.

  “We should be there,” Bieito insisted. It was all Remy could do to maintain a calm and controlled façade. Each day that ticked by while they waited made her increasingly nervous, like the rug was about to be pulled out from under her feet.

  So when the bells in Carral finally rang with Spanish victory a week later, the breath Remy had been holding for what seemed like an eternity whooshed out.

  “It’s over,” she told Bieito. “The colonel was defeated.”

  The blood rushed out of his face as Remy’s words sank in. His brother had been on the wrong side of history and would be punished.

  “They have just been captured,” she hastened to reassure him. “Lino isn’t dead.” Yet. No, that was way too morbid.

  “You cannot know that,” Bieito said. “Lino, what have you done?” he murmured to himself.

  The people of Carral seemed just as shocked as Bieito that the uprising was put down so quickly. From start to finish in just a few weeks, it hardly counted as a rebellion. A few foolish men who believed they could take on the entire Spanish army. They’d had support from the Galician people, but words of support were nothing when what they needed was action.

  The sentiment behind the coup was felt throughout the region, sparking a flash of national identity for just a moment, but not long enough. Flint striking steel. Enough for a bit of light, to catch a person’s eye, but not enough to light a roaring fire without the proper conditions. Everyone would go back to their normal lives and routines now that it was over.

  As for the Spanish General Narváez, he had casually swatted a fly that was buzzing obnoxiously around his face without a second thought. But Remy knew something that the rest of the people did not—that by executing the colonel and his followers, General Narváez would immortalize this rebellion that would have gone down as a footnote in history if they had all been imprisoned instead. It wasn’t all in vain.

  The trial of traitors would be held in Carral. Remy knew that they were all already on their way, heading for a more neutral zone than that of the city closest to the battlefield. Santiago de Compostela had not given the rebels the miracle that they had been counting on. El Camino de Santiago had betrayed them and their cause. Now they would be forced to travel back on the path to Carral to face their deaths.

  Except for Lino. Remy and Bieito would be his Milagro del Camino. They just had to rescue him before the trial and give the general one less martyr to the cause. That plan included trusting Remy at her word when she swore up and down that Lino would be a prisoner.

  “We need to intercept them outside of the city,” Bieito said, once he had processed the news. He still looked like he was going to throw up but had enough control over his emotions to start to formulate a plan.

  “Before the trial?” Remy asked.

  “They will be too heavily guarded once they enter the city. The prisoners will be locked up inside of buildings. It will be best to catch the soldiers unaware while they are traveling.”

  “But the entire army will be with them!”

  “Remy, we won’t be able to get close to Lino while he is in the city. This is our best chance.”

  “It’s stupid. It will be impossible to escape or blend in anywhere. They’ll just shoot us as soon as we get close.”

  “The Camino will protect us better than Carral will.”

  Remy couldn’t argue with that logic, as weird as that statement was. Plus, it was time she put her trust in Bieito’s plan. He had put his brother’s life in her hands for the past two weeks, trusting that Carral was the answer while his instincts had screamed at him to go to the battle where Lino fought.

  It was a relief to have Bieito call the shots. While Remy knew her plan had been correct, being in charge of their decisions had been exhausting. And while she knew to go to Carral, to be honest her plan didn’t extend much beyond that. She had spent the last few days while they were holed up in Carral trying to come up with a workable idea. None of her projections saw them all escaping in one piece, and she had started to panic.

  Bieito’s plan would eliminate the complications of the city. It was risky, yes, but striking quickly instead of waiting until after the trial results might have the best possible chances of them all making it out alive.

  “With such a large army, the general will have to stop frequently to attend to the needs of the horses and his supplies. If they camp along the Camino, it will also be impossible to hide such a large presence.”

  “So what do we do? Stroll casually into camp and ask for the keys?” It was hard for Remy to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Everything just felt too daunting, and like they were relying too much on chance.

  Bieito looked hurt at her tone, and Remy immediately felt guilty. “The chance will present itself to us,” he said.

  Though Remy didn’t want to examine their relationship too closely right now, she felt a growing distance between them the longer they were in Carral. They had started out their Camino journey on such a high, and she had felt more connected to him than anyone else in a long, long time. He had proposed, for God’s sake. Now, they spoke to each other like strangers. How had this happened in just a week?

  Their bond hadn’t been the same since they made love that last night on the Camino. It had felt like the right thing to do at the time; a sweeping, romantic gesture as they gave into the moment. Throwing all caution to the wind as they were seemingly compelled by forces outside their control to come together as one. This high lasted until the moment they stepped off the Camino and into the city, when reality came crashing down on them.

  Bieito could hardly look her in the eye as they searched for lodging. Remy felt his guilt at finding happiness with her while Lino was still in so much danger. She could also feel his frustration at the fact that the barrier he thought they could break down was still there between them. Sex hadn’t fixed it. It didn’t make the secret between them go away. She wondered if he regretted it. Maybe we should have waited until after this was all done.

  Tragedy and hardship either drove couples apart or made them stronger than ever. If Remy had been asked what she thought would happen on their journey while they were just beginning in Ortigueira, she would have said without a doubt that the journey would bring them closer together. But every day that passed since they came together in the literal, physical sense, the wall between them became more impenetrable.

  Remy knew it was her fault for hiding so much of her real story from Bieito, but he wasn’t doing their relationship any favors either. Instead of opening up to Remy, he had withdrawn further into himself each day they waited for news in the city.

  It wasn’t until arriving in Carral that Remy realized by wishing to save Lino, she might have sacrificed her relationship in the process. The best thing in her life was unraveling, and she didn’t know how to go about fixing it.

  There was an awkwardness in how they addressed each other now, as if seeing each other with their blindfolds off for the first time. Bieito was no longer infatuated by the strong, independent American painter with a penchant for disappearing at i
nopportune times and turning down marriage proposals. She was who she was, sometimes irritating, complained while they were walking, and asked too many questions.

  For Remy, Bieito was still the handsome Galician man she had fallen head over heels for, but his insistence on traditional beliefs and values had started to grate on her. What was wrong with embracing more modern ideals? Did he have to insist on treating her a certain way, just because she was a woman? Weren’t they in this together? Logically she knew he was a product of his time and upbringing, but God damn wasn’t it annoying sometimes.

  As they argued about how to free Lino, it was clear that their honeymoon stage was over. This was the first real hurdle in their relationship, and dealing with life and death was not usually the first major obstacle that a couple had to overcome. It would either make them or break them. She did love Bieito, and she knew Bieito loved her, but this love had grown in their own private bubble. She was literally outside of time and space in all the time she had interacted with Bieito. They were now living in the nitty-gritty existence with no escape for Remy back to her own time. Her dream, or fantasy or whatever it was, had been replaced with reality, like her blinders had been pulled off. Now they had to test it to see if their relationship was real, or if it belonged in Remy’s dream world.

  In many ways, it would be simpler if it did. If Remy could somehow go back to living in her own world, single and happy, and if Bieito could fall in love with a girl from his own time. No explanations, no integration, no complications. Things that looked picture perfect on paper rarely were. Maybe it was better if she embraced the tangled mess that was her and Bieito’s relationship, because at least it wasn’t a false front, like she had with Jack. She couldn’t fool herself with him anymore than he could fool her. They could fix it, because they could both acknowledge what was wrong with it.

  And right now, what was wrong was that they both needed Lino to be okay before they could progress forward. The looming presence above their heads needed to be dealt with, then Bieito and Remy could build the real foundation of their relationship, not just one on magical encounters and mutual attraction.

  I need to show him that I trust him, too. Even if the idea that the “chance will present itself” seemed a little too indecisive to ease Remy’s anxiety about the whole thing.

  It was with this attitude that Remy found herself hiding in the bushes by Bieito’s side, watching as a seemingly endless parade of soldiers and horses streamed past them. The soldiers’ postures were relaxed, jovial even, as they traveled the Camino. Their victory had been an easy one, and the trip had been short. They were on their way back to their families, having proved to the entire country that the Spanish government had things well at hand.

  There was no sympathizing with their fellow countrymen, if Spaniards even considered Galicians to be countrymen. Galicians were not Spaniards. The Spanish army was bigger, stronger, and faster. End of story. There was a conflict, now there was peace. That didn’t seem like a bad thing to the soldiers.

  Remy and Bieito had walked west on the Camino, leaving a day’s distance between them and Carral. They had to be sure that the army would stop for the night somewhere in their vicinity. Their access to the prisoners would be under cover of darkness, after much of the army had enjoyed their celebratory wine and sat around the fires talking about the battle.

  Much to Remy’s relief, the revolutionaries were near the front of the parade, and she and Bieito spotted them quickly. General Narváez rode at the front, sitting tall in his saddle. A grim slash marked where his mouth was, and he stared straight ahead. While his soldiers were celebrating, this was a man who took his role seriously at all times.

  The men surrounding the general all wore similar expressions, and none of them spoke. The forward march was bringing these traitors to their deaths. It was not a time to celebrate. Whatever trial awaited the colonel in Carral, General Narváez knew it would only have one outcome.

  The colonel and his supporters sat interspersed among several uncovered supply wagons, while soldiers rode around them, almost blocking Remy’s ability to see.

  “Do you see Lino?” Remy whispered.

  “No,” Bieito said, voice tight. “Wait, there!” He pointed to the last wagon, where a dirty and disheveled man sat slumped against the back wall. The wagon went over a bump, and the carriage jostled. Another revolutionary reached out with rope-bound hands to steady Lino’s head and keep it from hitting the side.

  “He doesn’t look well,” Bieito said. Remy had been thinking he looked like shit but was grateful not to have to be the one to say it. He doesn’t look like he is in any shape to run away.

  “He might have gotten injured. Or he could just be sick. As long has he can walk, we should be okay.” If only Remy believed half of what she was saying. These were armed soldiers on horses. They were two people on foot, three if they even managed to break Lino out.

  Bieito had been right, though. They had a hell of a lot better chance out in the open than trying to get to Lino while he was behind bars. It would all come down to timing, but ropes were infinitely easier than shackles to break.

  Remy wished she could call out to Lino, to give him hope that not all was lost yet. Desperate to hold her tongue, she grabbed onto Bieito’s arm instead. He jumped, but then relaxed a fraction under her touch. “I’m here with you, no matter what,” she told him. I told you nothing would happen to him on the battlefield. Carral was where we were supposed to find him.

  The sky darkened with a threatening thunderstorm. The air was heavy and wet on Remy’s skin, and still not a drop of rain fell. With the sun so heavily concealed, it was impossible to tell what time it really was. It felt like dusk, even though Remy knew it was only around three o’clock in the afternoon. This confusion led to the illusion that Remy was outside of space and time once again, the same feeling she had experienced more than once within the village. Her brain and body struggled to make sense of the where and when.

  The dreamlike unreality persisted as Bieito and Remy kept pace with the soldiers’ march, staying far enough away so as to remain undetected, but close enough so they wouldn’t lose which wagon Lino rode in.

  They have to stop soon. The storm was imminent, yet the general kept his troops marching for as long as he could. The jovial troops grew quieter, and eventually their celebration stopped all together, and the men rode in silence. That, more than anything, sent a chill up Remy’s spine. Hundreds of men, facing forward and riding in complete quiet while lightning cracked in the distance. They looked like a ghost army from long past, unable to make a sound. Which is, really, what they were―an army that a twenty-first century woman was never supposed to see in the flesh.

  Finally, Remy saw General Narváez put up his hand and halt the procession just as her feet started to ache. Shuffling around off-road was definitely harder than the obstacle-free path of the Camino. She kicked a tree root and almost tripped, but Bieito caught her shoulders. The couple froze where they stood and waited to see what the next order would be. The army was too far outside of Carral to make it to shelter within the buildings, and the tumultuous clouds above made it too dangerous to be out in the open, especially surrounded by so much metal and gear.

  The general motioned for his troops to make camp near the trees and off the Camino, toward where Remy and Bieito lay in wait. It was at that moment that the heavens opened up and unleashed a torrential downpour, making it impossible for anyone to see past their own hand in front of their face.

  The men started cursing and shouting as they scrambled to set up makeshift shelters, the lightning illuminating their slow progress every few minutes. Remy and Bieito shivered together as their clothes were soaked to the bone. Bieito wrapped his arms around her and they tried to conserve body heat, but it was useless. She trembled violently and tried to stop her teeth from chattering, clenching them together so tightly her jaw ached and a headache throbbed in her temples.

  “A-a-are the p-p-prisoners s-still in the
w-w-wagons?” she asked Bieito.

  Remy felt him tense, and then pull his body back from hers. “Yes,” he said. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  “Bieito!” Remy said, as loud as she dared. Her heart leaped into her throat as she watched him boldly walk into the military camp, his presence disguised by the mud and chaos and rain. He didn’t have a uniform on, but nobody could see clearly enough for it to matter or to raise an alarm. All around him, soldiers slipped and struggled as they carted supplies and their horses from the road to the tree line, their heads bent down against the wind.

  Please don’t let anyone see him. Bieito strode purposefully to one of the wagons, taking his traveler’s cloak off along the way. He leaned up against the back of the wagon, and Remy thought she saw the tail of the wagon fall open. Another lightning flash blinded her for a few crucial seconds, and by the time she located Bieito again, she saw he was not alone.

  A figure stood next to him, covered in Bieito’s cloak. Bieito’s arm was firmly around him, and still the figure swayed on his feet. Remy was doubtful that Lino could even make it a single step, much less run away from the Spanish army. As Bieito helped his brother stumble forward, Lino suddenly started thrashing against Bieito’s hold.

  What is he doing? Lino pulled away and was trying to turn back to the wagons. Remy couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it was obvious that Lino was starting to cause a scene. Stop! You’ll both be killed!

  It looked like Lino was trying to go back for the other prisoners. Whether he was fevered and hallucinating, or more of a zealot than they’d guessed, Lino was apparently not going to go along quietly with their rescue plan. Bieito had only moments before the struggle was going to attract attention. Remy watched as Bieito grabbed Lino’s head, leaning down and speaking directly into his face. Lino’s shoulders slumped as the fight drained out of him.

  Remy exhaled with relief and watched as the brothers headed toward the tree line. If they could keep a low profile, it could be hours before the general realized one of his prisoners was missing. He assumed he had squashed the rebellion. There were no other followers that would risk their lives by attacking him out in the open. The colonel was still imprisoned, and no one was expecting a lowly follower to just randomly disappear. Remy gave thanks for the bystander effect; all of the other soldiers were expecting the rest to keep an eye on the prisoners while they tried to escape the storm, and by doing so, no one was paying attention. It was so easy it was almost stupid.