Words on Fire

Lukas’s grin became crooked as it widened. “Those flowers aren’t from me, Audra. But I did bring you this. I thought you might want it.”

He’d had one arm behind his back and he brought it forward, with my father’s shoulder bag in his hand, the one with the tricks that had saved my life and introduced me to real magic.

I reached for it, uncertain of how I’d feel to have it back again, empty now. Empty forevermore. Still, I was glad to have it. There was so little I had for memories of my childhood. I would treasure this like it was gold, like it was everything to me.

“How did you find this again?” I asked.

Lukas shrugged. “It wasn’t easy. But if you want to thank me, then I hope Milda taught you to cook. We’re definitely hungry.”

My brow arched. “We?” When he didn’t answer, I added, “Lukas, where did that bouquet of flowers come from?”

He must’ve been so eager to answer that he began bouncing on his toes. “I can see I’ve traveled faster than the news. It’s happened, Audra, it’s finally happened! The press ban is over! Our books will be legal again. And if our books are no longer a crime, then—”

“Then those who smuggled them are no longer criminals!” My heart leapt. That meant I could return to the land I loved, the place I belonged. I could go home.

If only I had a home there.

Lukas stepped closer to me. “It took my last coin to purchase two train tickets.”

Then I understood. I glanced again at the flowers. I had once been nicknamed for these flowers.

“Don’t say it.” By then, tears had welled in my eyes. “Don’t say it if they aren’t here.”

“Then we’ll say it,” a woman’s voice said. More than ten years later, I knew that voice. I’d heard it every night in my dreams.

“My little Rue, you brought us home. How we’ve missed you.” I knew that voice as well. It had been imprinted onto my heart.

The tears rolled down my cheek as I turned around, then rushed forward with my arms wide open.

“Mama! Papa!”

They looked older than they ought to have, and tired, and their clothes were worn into threads. Yet they were smiling and their eyes shone with excitement and love.

My parents folded me into their embrace and there we cried and laughed and cried some more. After we parted, Lukas was invited in, where I noticed he stared at me with a very different smile on his face.

It would be another fourteen years, a world war, and an occupation by Germany before Lithuania finally gained its freedom. By then, Lukas and I had children of our own, children who were growing up with books in their language, being taught in schools in their language and of their culture. By the time we formally received our independence, Lithuania had long considered itself free.

And always would, no matter what other troubles would come.

So tonight, like every other night, I picked up a book and sat beside Lukas in front of the fireplace of our home. Our children gathered around us for story time. Like every other night, I would read a page, then Lukas, then the children would beg him to tell a story from back when we were book carriers. A true story.

And like every other night, Lukas would begin the same way.

“Well, as you all know, your mother’s name, Audra, means ‘storm.’ And so she is, children. She was a storm that helped bring freedom to all of us.”

The work of restoring Lithuania’s independence began not in 1918, but rather at the time of the book carriers. With bundles of books and pamphlets on their backs, these warriors were the first to start preparing the ground for independence, the first to propagate the idea that it was imperative to throw off the heavy yoke of Russian oppression.

—Father Julijonas Kasperavicius

Turn the page for a sneak peek at another historical thriller by Jennifer A. Nie

lsen!

October 5, 1942

Tarnow Ghetto, Southern Poland

Two minutes. That’s how long I had to get past this Nazi.