Words on Fire

I pressed my lips together and nodded, intensely curious.

She reached to the center of the table, where a tiny chest was placed. I’d always assumed the chest was a decoration and nothing more, but she opened it and withdrew a knife with a beautiful carved handle, handing it to me with a clear reverence. “This belonged to my father,” she said. “Thirty years ago, he joined an uprising of Lithuanians who attempted to overthrow the Russians and bring freedom to our land. It wasn’t the first uprising, but it was the largest and most well organized. They fought hard and they fought well, and for a short time, we had hope for their success. But in the end, what can our small country, most of us untrained peasants, do against the entire Russian Empire? We were crushed.”

I ran my finger along the handle of the knife. “Then your father must have been arrested, too, just like my parents, or sent to Siberia.”

“Oh, no, child, as awful as Siberia is, the fighters weren’t allowed even that much mercy. A governor was sent in from Russia who was nicknamed the hangman. And with such a name, what else could be the fate of nearly all those who were captured? But their deaths didn’t satisfy the tsar. He wanted a way to ensure that there never would be another uprising again.”

“So he banned our books?” I asked.

“Worse. He banned the idea of Lithuania. We were all to become Russian. To speak like Russians, and especially, to think like Russians. Lithuania was to be erased from the map.” Milda grimaced a moment, then picked up the knife and turned it over in her hands. “How do you destroy a people? You take away their culture. And how is that done? You must take their language, their history, their very identity. How would you do that?”

I pressed my lips together, then looked up at her. “You ban their books.”

Milda nodded. “I believe you are ready to carry that book for me. And for that, you deserve a gift.” She reached behind her to a bundle on the floor and put it in my hands. It was a new apron, embroidered in lines of bright green, yellow, and red, and far nicer than the plaid one I’d had before.

I passed it back to her. “I can’t accept this.”

“I insist—look!” Milda turned the apron over, revealing several small pockets in the lining underneath. “These may be helpful when you have a lot to carry, or to hide.”

“Such as a book?” I held out my hands for it, but Milda shook her head. “In a few more days. We must wait for Ben to return.”

I arched a brow. “Ben?” That was the same name Lukas had given me when I’d first met him in the forest. “Who is Ben?”

“A few more days.”

And that, apparently, would be my only answer.

A few days passed before Milda said everything was ready. I awoke before dawn, eager to be on the road with only the farmers and bakers for company, and, I hoped, no soldiers. When Milda heard me stirring about, finishing up tying the new apron she had given me, she peeked from her room, her eyes half-open. “Goodness, child, you can’t leave yet. What reason would you possibly have to be on the road this early?”

“This early, no one will see me.”

Milda frowned. “The Cossacks are always watching, Audra, always with someone on patrol. Be one of dozens on the road, not one of two or three.”

My brow furrowed as I was reminded again of Officer Rusakov and all that I’d lost since my parents had given me that book. I took a deep breath before asking, “Is it all Lithuanian books the empire hates, or only certain ones?”

Milda padded out from her room and began stirring the ashes from last evening’s fire to warm some coffee. As she did, she said, “All Lithuanian books. Some might be tempted to overlook an early reader book as harmless, but it is with the young that these ideas first begin.” Milda placed a book into my hands. “What is in this book, do you think?”

The cover had some letters printed on it, and when I opened its pages, I saw more shapes for letters, few of which I recognized. There were no pictures, only page after page of words. I closed it again. “It’s nothing to me.”

“Perhaps one day, you will think differently.” Milda placed her hands over mine as I held the book. She pointed to the lettering on the front and read it for me: “The History of the Ancient Lithuanians. This, Audra, is a very important book, for how can we know who we are if we do not know who we were? Succeed with this delivery and you will give someone knowledge, and with that knowledge, you’ll give them greater power in their life.”

I smiled up at her. “And I thought I was only giving someone a book.”

Milda’s laugh quickly became somber. “Being caught with even one book is dangerous, so pay close attention. You must follow the lane from my house up to the neighboring village, and in the market square, you will meet a man named Ben Kagan. This book is for him. No one else must see it, or even suspect you have it.” Then she took the book and slid it into the bottom of a deep canvas sack with straps to carry it on my back. The sack was light brown and similar to the one my father had traveled with, only slightly smaller. She began filling it with scraps of fabric. “Avoid all Cossack officers, and anyone who looks at you too carefully, but do not make it look as if you are avoiding them. Guard this as if it were your most precious possession because books are our most precious possession

s.” When she had finished stuffing the sack with the fabric, she looked me directly in the eyes. “Can you do this? It is all right to say no.”

I wanted to say no, because I had begun to understand that this would not be a game, as it had been with the spurgos. This was real, and very dangerous.

And that was more than enough to get me to tell her I wouldn’t go, except that since the moment I’d agreed to transport this book for Milda, something had come alive in me, the feeling that my parents would have wanted me to do this, that from wherever they were now, they were cheering me on, and maybe saying to each other, “I suppose Audra is braver than we had thought.”

I hoped I was. I hoped that despite my pounding heart, the sweat on my hands, and my unsteady legs, there was a small spark of courage. I needed to find it. I needed to prove to myself that it existed.

So I nodded at Milda, placed the pack with the fabric scraps on my back, pulled on my father’s shoulder bag over that, then turned and walked out the door without looking back. Maybe if I pretended to be brave, I would become more brave.

Near the same spot where I had encountered Roze with the pastry, I found her waiting again. She ran up to me, and I was sure she hoped I had another pastry for her today.

“Where are you going?” she asked.