Words on Fire

My heart pulsed with anticipation. Roze hadn’t come through Milda’s house … which meant there was another entrance. An escape for us!

“Can you show me how you came in?” I asked.

“They’ll see me,” Roze said. “They’ll see this.” She lifted a book, then tucked it beneath her legs, as if to hide it.

“They won’t see us,” I said, lifting her to her feet. “I’ll protect you, but you must show me the way out of here.”

Roze sniffed, then stuffed the book inside the sack she was carrying, carefully covering it with a shawl. Then she took my hand and led me through the corridor and up another ladder. I went first and came through a door on a hinge attached to a floor. When I passed through it, I was in a tiny room surrounded by garden tools.

A shed! Milda’s shed in the back of her home. This was how her students came and went from her secret school.

I pushed the door open but couldn’t tell if the Cossacks were still in Milda’s house, so I closed it again and crouched on the floor, my back against the door should they try to come search in here. At least if they burned Milda’s home, we wouldn’t be trapped beneath it.

“How long will we be here?” Roze asked.

I shrugged. We’d stay here until I was certain it was safe to leave, and the way my heart was still pounding, that wouldn’t be anytime soon.

Roze folded her legs up to her chest. “I’m scared, Audra.”

She looked so near to crying that I began to worry she would make noise and call attention to our presence here. I was about to cry myself, but that would make things worse. For both our sakes, we needed something else to think about.

I dug into my father’s bag and pulled out a Russian coin that Milda had given me that morning, holding it flat on my open palm. “See this?”

Roze nodded, looking slightly confused.

“Watch it carefully.” I closed my fist around the coin, then moved it around in a circle. At one point, as she was distracted, I secretly transferred the coin to my left hand and held it safe. I stopped rotating my right hand and said, “Do you believe in magic, Roze?”

Her eyes widened. “Yes!”

According to my father, it was the answer that children always gave. He once said he felt bad about asking that question because he knew they were only tricks. I understood that now. But I had to keep up the ruse.

So with a smile, I opened my fist, and she saw the coin had disappeared.

“Where did it go?” she asked, her smile beaming with surprise.

I reached for her ear with my left hand, letting the coin rub for just a moment against her skin, then pulled it to where she could see it. “It was hiding in your ear!”

Roze touched her ear, likely checking for other coins, but delighted by such a simple trick. “It is magic!” she said.

I put the coin in her hands. “It is. Because this is a special coin, full of powers. Whoever holds it gets extra courage.”

“To be quiet while the Cossacks are outside,” Roze whispered.

I nodded, watching Roze close her own fist around the coin and bring it to her chest.

Several minutes later, Milda knocked on the door of the shed in the same patterned knock Lukas had used when we first came to her home. I stood and opened the door and Roze rushed past me to give Milda a hug.

Milda’s dress had a tear in the sleeve, but she seemed all right otherwise. I decided to ask her about it later, when it was just the two of us.

“Audra kept me safe,” Roze said, then whispered, “and she has magic that kept your books safe.”

Milda eyed me, but I glanced away, embarrassed and hoping she wouldn’t ask me to explain myself.

“Magic?” she asked. “Same as your father, I assume.”

I took a deep breath and spoke as quickly as possible to ensure I got through the sentence.

“That book my father promised to deliver. I think he would’ve wanted me to say yes, that I’d carry it for him.”