Words on Fire

To be without learning is to

be without eyes.

—Lithuanian proverb

My name is Audra.

In my language, Lithuanian, it means storm.

But my language had become illegal. If the soldiers we passed on the roads heard us speaking it, we could be whipped on the spot or arrested. Or in some cases, we might disappear. That happened sometimes.

So I avoided saying my name in public, but I often wondered: If my language was forbidden, then my name was forbidden. Which meant I had no name.

Which left me perfectly free to do everything I could to defy the Russian occupiers.

I redoubled my grip on the sacks slung over my shoulder, braced myself against the wind coming at me, and continued down the path.

I’d come this far. No matter what was ahead, I could not stop now.

I would not stop now.

Too many lives depended on me. Starting with those of my parents.

June 1893

My father was made of magic.

Not real magic, of course—I knew magic wasn’t real—but if it ever might have been, then it was inside my father’s quick hands and lively voice. He was born with tricks and effects and a talent to share them with others, delighting audiences wherever he traveled.

How I wished I could be more like him, bold and adventurous, always ready with a joke or a story. Instead, I was the girl who ducked into the shadows when we had visitors, the girl who watched life from afar but rarely participated. The girl who wanted to be more than she was but knew such a thing would be the kind of magic even my father couldn’t achieve.

Mama’s magic was different. Since Papa’s work took him away so often, she found ways to fill our home with the smells of fried sweet bread, with the music she sang as we worked the garden, and with her tender good-night kisses on my cheek.

Those times were special, but nothing replaced the moments when we were all together. I loved to sit at Papa’s feet by the fire, watching him prepare for his shows, letting him test his tricks on me to see if I could guess the secrets. By now, I could, of course—I’d seen every trick a hundred times and could do many of them myself, but never in public, never like him.

“You can be like him in other ways,” Mama often said on the nights Papa was gone. “Be happy like him, be smart like him. But do not travel like him, that’s not for you.”

I had no wish for that either. Lithuania was a dangerous place to live. My parents had often explained that as their reason for keeping me on our little farm.

Our country was occupied by Cossack soldiers from Russia, the empire that claimed Lithuania as its own. Lithuanians disagreed, of course, but we were a small country of farmers and simple peasant folk. What were we supposed to do against such a vast empire?

“We’re supposed to keep our heads down and obey their laws,” Mama said whenever my father broached the question; then she’d steal a glance at me. “For Audra’s sake.”

“All of this is for Audra’s sake” was always Papa’s answer.

Those conversations continued late into the night, long after they thought I was asleep, and those were the moments when I realized that something about my father’s work had begun to make Mama nervous.

“Has this gone too far?” she’d whisper. “Have we risked too much?”

It wasn’t the first time she’d asked that question, but lately, Papa was taking longer to answer.

On this night, he finally replied, “Everything is fine, my love. This work is more important now than ever.”

Then his work wasn’t magic shows, not really. My father must have been involved in something more serious when he traveled, something that made Mama anxious.

Then she offered another question. “Do you think Audra suspects something?”

If I did, then that was all I had, a suspicion of something. And Papa’s assurance that I didn’t know what they were doing began to feel like an itch I couldn’t scratch. I needed answers.

To get them, I began secretly listening in on their conversations, becoming so good at it that I could sneak up close enough to touch them and they wouldn’t realize I was there. One scrap of information at a time, I began to understand that something in my father’s travels was illegal and dangerous, and that Mama feared one day he would make a mistake and we’d all be in trouble. Every discussion they had ended in the same way—with their agreement to keep me out of their business.

That is, until the summer after I turned twelve. On the evening of the summer solstice, Papa said to my mother, “Audra should come with me tonight.”

I immediately sat upright, wondering what might have made him suggest such a thing. He was seated in his chair at the table and had been reviewing a card trick for tonight’s performance. Laid out on the table was his brown leather shoulder bag, the one in which he carried most of his tricks. At his side was a tall canvas sack containing extra clothes and provisions for his travels from one village to the next. He wore that on his back and rarely traveled with anything more.

“Did you hear me, Lina?” Papa asked, giving me a wink as he did. “Audra should come—”

Mama didn’t even look at him to answer, “You’re going on to other villages after the show. Audra won’t know how to get back home.” Mama was stirring a stew for the night, making extra for Papa to take with him. Her voice was usually soft and gentle, but I heard the warning in her tone tonight. There was no chance of me going.

But he wasn’t giving up. “We’ll stay in our own village square, and there will be festivities all around. She won’t be in any danger tonight.”

“How do you know that, Henri? People have disappeared from our village. We both know why!”