Words on Fire

Milda tilted her head. “What changed your mind?”

My heart began pounding at what I’d just agreed to do, but I’d made the offer and wasn’t about to back down from it. “If I cannot trade a book for my parents’ return, then I’ll deliver a book in their honor. Just this once.”

While Milda smiled at me, Roze touched my arm, then gave me back the coin. “Here,” she whispered. “It gives a person extra courage. I think you’re going to need it.”

I’d expected Milda would send me out with the book right away, but she didn’t. Instead, after my ankle was fully healed, she set a spurgos in my hands. Freshly baked, it smelled of fruit and was covered in powdered sugar. I lifted it to my nose and the warm scent made my mouth water. Then she folded her ar

ms, waiting to see what I’d do with it.

What was I supposed to do? I wanted to eat it, but when I started to, she clicked her tongue and said, “I’ve got to be sure you’re ready to transport a book for me.”

I showed her the pastry, wondering if this was another of Milda’s false acts of insanity, or if she really was a bit unbalanced. “Milda, this isn’t a book. You can’t eat a book and I definitely want to eat this.”

She smiled. “This spurgos is not for eating. It’s a test, to see how you will do in getting past the Cossacks.”

“Why do they want the books?” I asked. “What do the books say?”

Milda frowned. “Don’t you know?”

I blinked back at her. Papa used to say that whenever I did that, he knew I was finished with a conversation, and the same was true now. Rather than answer Milda’s question, I held out the spurgos. “What should I do with this?”

“Go to the end of this village and back again. If anyone asks what you are carrying, you must give them the pastry. Come back and tell me how far you got.”

I didn’t see why it mattered, but I did as Milda asked, folding my hands over the dessert and walking onto the street. It was market day so the streets were full. I’d no sooner reached the road in front of Milda’s home before I happened to see Roze, the same girl who’d been hiding in Milda’s secret school. Recognizing me, she ran forward, sniffed the air, then said, “Something smells so good. What is it?”

I sighed and opened my hands to show her what I had. “You can have it.”

Her eyes brightened. “Really?”

“I suppose.” Once she’d accepted the spurgos, I turned back to Milda’s home, where she was already waiting at the door with another one.

“Try again.”

“Milda, these smell wonderful. Too wonderful!”

“Don’t they? To the end of the village and back again. Now go.”

This time, I tucked the pastry inside the folds of my dress and made it halfway down the road from Milda’s home before I was discovered by the trail of powdered sugar I was dropping and had to return empty-handed.

My third pastry was fully wrapped inside my apron. I even sniffed it to see how close I’d have to be to smell anything. That much of my plan worked fairly well, except a gentleman passing by asked what I could be carrying that was so valuable as to hide it in my apron. He walked away with a warm spurgos, and I trudged back to Milda’s home, thoroughly discouraged.

“I can’t do it!” I told her. “I can’t hide something like this.”

“Then you cannot carry a book,” she said, putting another pastry in my hands. “But I hope you’ll figure this out soon, before I feed the entire village.”

I sighed and turned around again. This one was larger than the others had been and, if possible, smelled better than any of them before. But this time, I was determined to complete the task, simply to prove to Milda that I could do it.

Milda had said I had to get to one end of town and back again, but she’d never said that I had to take the roads. So this time, I cut around to the back of her home and snuck from one yard through another, careful to be sure no one was outside at the time. When I couldn’t go any farther, I waited to be sure the road was clear, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. I lifted the pastry to smell it again, but another scent filled my nose, that of mint.

Looking down, I saw a patch of mint in the garden at my feet. Milda had said that if anyone detected the spurgos, I’d have to give it to them, but she’d said nothing about them detecting a little mint. I reached down and plucked a few leaves, rubbing them over my arms and then folding them around the fried bread.

It wouldn’t do to wrap it in my apron—that was too obvious. Instead, at the edge of the road, I saw a patch of lavender flowers. I picked as many of them as I could and formed them into a bouquet, bundling it around the pastry.

Then I walked toward the center of the market, smiling as passersby complimented my flowers and sniffed the fresh mint dangling in the air behind me. If they talked of a lingering smell of sugar as well, I wasn’t there to hear it. I didn’t wait for them to notice it, I simply moved on.

Twenty minutes later, I returned to Milda and presented her with the spurgos. She arched a brow as I showed her the flowers and the mint, then she smiled down at me. “Audra, my girl, have a seat. I would like to tell you about the books.”

She placed a cup of tea and a pastry of my own in front of me, then sat at my side, keeping her voice low. “If your parents never told you about our books, then it was because they believed that would keep you safe, and maybe they were right. Are you sure you want to know?”