“On an errand for Milda,” I said.
She lowered her voice. “Delivering books?”
I turned sharply toward her. “Hush, Roze!” She stepped back and her eyes welled with tears. So more gently, I added, “It’s just an errand, nothing of interest.”
I began walking again. Roze stayed at my side. “I heard your parents are being sent to Siberia.”
I stopped in my tracks, facing forward. That was the last thing I wanted to talk about right now, or think about. Through a clenched jaw, I said, “We don’t know that. Maybe they’re only in a prison.”
“Or Siberia.” Roze shifted the weight on her feet, then said, “What if you end up going there too?”
“I won’t.”
“You might.”
Yes, I might. But I couldn’t dwell on that or my journey would end right here, without me daring to take another step forward. I tilted my head toward her and, with little patience, said, “I need to go now, Roze. Alone.”
Roze wiped a stray tear off her cheek, then said, “Good luck on your errands!”
By the time I reached the center of Milda’s village, a few of the markets had begun to open for the day. I remembered Lukas saying he only went places that the soldiers did not, but an officer was already here this morning, and I feared if I turned back, it would look suspicious. He called to me in Russian, and I waved back as if I didn’t understand, hoping that would be enough.
He called again, more sharply this time. From the tone of his voice, I understood he wanted me to stop.
I turned toward him so he could look at my face rather than at a sack for which I could be arrested, then did my best to smile, all the while reminding myself to speak to him in Russian. And hoping he would not ask my name and interpret that as me speaking an illegal language.
“Little girl,” he said. “Why are you out so early?”
I shrugged. Speak in Russian. Speak in Russian. “The sooner I begin my chores, the sooner I finish them.”
“All chores? No school?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer him. I knew there were public schools designed to make its students good Russian citizens. My father would’ve hidden us in the forest before allowing me to go there. The only other school I knew of was the secret school beneath Milda’s home, and I’d never tell him about that.
“No school,” I told him.
He walked a circle around me, tugging on one end of a fabric scrap that had sprung loose out the top of the bag. “You work for a seamstress?” he asked. “Bringing her pieces to be made into a quilt perhaps?”
“Perhaps.” Whatever he wanted to believe, I’d agree with him.
“Here or the next town?”
I didn’t know any seamstresses here, so I said, “The next town.” Hopefully he wouldn’t ask for the woman’s name, and if he did, hopefully he wouldn’t know that I was lying.
“Wait here.” Then he walked back to his horse and began digging into the saddlebags. My legs went numb and I considered dropping my sack of fabric and making a run for it. I even loosened my grip on the handle so that if he turned back around with anything threatening, I could be halfway to the woods before he knew how to react.
Except Milda had said to protect that book as if it were my most precious possession. At the moment, my life was the most precious thing I owned, the only thing I owned, really. Surely she had not meant I should give my life for this book.
No, Milda would have known that might be necessary. That’s why she’d given me so many warnings.
When the officer turned around, I was surprised to see something familiar in his hands: another book, only this one with very different lettering from what was written on the books in Milda’s secret library.
“You may have this if you want it,” the officer said, holding it out to me. “It’s for you, a gift from the tsar.”
I tilted my head, instantly suspicious. The leader of the Russian Empire didn’t know me. He didn’t know any of the peasant citizens of Lithuania, and even if he did, he’d never have sent gifts to us. No one gave us gifts unless they wanted something in return.
My loyalty perhaps? I tried not to squint back at him, or to look as anxious as I was.
“You may take this book, and if it interests you, maybe we can see about enrolling you in school. Teach you to read and then you can learn how to become something more than a peasant who sells fabric scraps. Teach you to be—”