Words on Fire

“Ben, we need to leave,” Lukas said, prodding his arm.

Ben stood but took one last look at me. “I would like to have trained you more, but trust your instincts. Get yourself to Šiluva, Audra; promise me you will.”

Papa had taught me never to make a promise I didn’t know I could keep, and yet Ben looked so desperate, and in such a hurry, I needed to calm his worries so he could do his job. I stood and hoisted the heavy, smelly sack over my shoulders. “I promise, Ben. I will get there.”

After all, I was going home.

We set out immediately, each of us from different parts of the city. Ben assigned me what I was sure was the simplest, safest, and most direct route toward Šiluva, but I accepted it without complaint. The faster I got back home, the better.

I took a path off the main road, making my own way toward the forest but keeping my eyes on the road to be sure I didn’t start doing circles. Mama had once said that with so much of Lithuania was covered in forests, I ought to learn how to pass through them, but in her next breath she’d told me not to leave our farm and wander about on my own. How I wished she’d have let me explore.

For five exhausting hours, I kept to the edges of the trees, walking as fast as I could. When I crossed deeper into the forest, I finally breathed easier, even if my chances for getting lost had just increased significantly. In fact, a couple of hours later, long after dawn and when I was sure I had become lost, I knelt on the ground and built a small fire, then withdrew Ben’s note from my pocket and began warming it over the flames. Papa had taught me how the milk would heat slower than the paper, leaving the map slightly darker than the rest of the paper. Once it had warmed, I checked Ben’s directions against my current location, then memorized the rest of the map and burned the paper.

I couldn’t be too careful. If the man who had burst into the church was correct, then the Cossacks had probably come by now, and if they found nothing at the church—and they wouldn’t find anything, Ben and the priest would both make sure of that—then they’d likely continue on this way. I knew I had to be cautious, and I was being more watchful than I’d ever been in my life. But it was a beautiful morning with birds chirping overhead and fluttering happily from one branch to the other, without a care in the world. Fully unaware of the larger troubles in our country.

So I might’ve been, had I stayed in my little home, a softly chirping bird of little use or consequence to anyone. I would have been miserable, too, without even realizing why.

Tucked on top of the other twelve books I was carrying was the alphabet book from Lukas. I’d wanted to hide it beneath the rest, for it was my own, but I figured if the first twelve books were found, the alphabet book would be too. The order really didn’t matter.

I paused to hoist the heavy sack higher on my shoulders, and as I did, I heard the crunch of dry leaves somewhere off to my right. At first I froze, but I wondered if that made me look guilty. So I angled away from the noise and kept walking, faster than before.

And the noise followed, still out of my sight. By midsummer, Lithuanian forests were lush and somewhat darkened by a thick canopy of leaves overhead. They were breathtaking in beauty but also full of shadows and tricks.

If only the noises I heard could be explained away so easily. I was being followed, I knew I was.

For most of the morning, I’d been working on an explanation for why I was out here alone, for why I was carrying the smelliest flowers in all of Europe, and for where I was really going. But my mind emptied. What was I supposed to do?

If I ran, it would be a sure sign of guilt. I’d be chased, and with my sack weighed down by thirteen books, I’d surely be caught.

I could try to lose them, but every time I moved away from the noise, it followed my shift in direction.

Not far ahead, a stick lay on the trail, thin enough to lift, to swing, but thick enough to be useful for protection. I hurried forward and picked it up, using it like a walking stick, but with both hands on it so that if anyone tried to grab me, I’d be ready for them.

Then I continued walking, listening for the noises, but they’d gone quiet. Immediately suspicious, I walked a few steps more, hoping to detect the sound again, but heard nothing. Perhaps whoever had been following me had seen me pick up the tree branch for a weapon and decided to leave me alone.

Or maybe they hadn’t. I heard another crunch of leaves, coming closer. I angled the stick over my shoulder, ready to defend myself.

“Hello!” Lukas darted out from between two trees, a friendly smile on his face. I tried to stop myself, but I was already swinging the stick. It hit him across the chest, and he staggered backward until he tripped on a log and the books from his canvas sack scattered across the ground.

“I’m so sorry!” I cried. “Why’d you scare me like that?”

Lukas lay flat on the ground, trying to catch his breath. “I thought you knew it was me, that our paths had crossed. I waved at you awhile back.”

“I didn’t see that. Are you all—”

“Shh.” Lukas put a finger to his lips and sat up. “Audra, get out of here.”

“Your books—”

“Get out of sight! Now!”

I scrambled off the road and slid behind the nearby bank of a little stream just in time to see two Cossack soldiers on horseback emerge into the clearing and stop directly in front of Lukas. He’d been trying to gather up his scattered books but had been too late.

“What have we here?” an officer asked. The markings on his uniform identified him as a sergeant, but it was the cruel smile on his face that filled me with dread. “Are these Russian-language books?”

“They don’t appear so,” a man with the markings of a private replied. “But how can that be? Wouldn’t books in this dead language be illegal here?”

The sergeant said, “I do believe they are.” Then he dismounted and addressed Lukas directly. “Do you know what happens to book smugglers?”