Words on Fire

No one would take the trouble to come down here for so few books. Ben was already loading the ones Lukas and I had brought onto a shelf. There weren’t enough to make any difference at all.

I shook my head in frustration. “That’s it? You were right before, Ben—none of what we’re doing matters. We came all this way, carried the most that we could, and it doesn’t even fill a shelf!”

“Every book matters,” Ben said.

“A single taste of bread matters to the man who is starving, but it won’t save his life. We’re not making any difference.” My heart ached.

“Someone is coming!” Lukas called down, at first in alarm, then his tone calmed. “But I think it’s mostly young people.”

“Let them come,” Ben said. “They were watching for you to arrive.”

“Who was watching?” I asked.

My question was answered seconds later, when I heard the suppressed sounds of laughter and excited footsteps thump across the barn floor. Lukas’s warnings to climb down carefully were ignored as, one by one, boys and girls near my own age began descending the ladder as quickly as possible, each of them rushing over to the shelves. They peered over one another’s shoulders, pointing at the various titles and beginning their negotiations over who would get which book.

“Why, it’s you!” I looked up to see Violeta, the girl who had pretended to find the fern blossom on Midsummer’s Eve in order to save me from Officer Rusakov.

I smiled shyly, unsure of how to react. I had so much to thank her for, but how could I do that without explaining about everything else?

So I was relieved to see another familiar face, Filip, who had given me directions to Milda’s village that same night. He took Violeta by the hand, then noticed me and said, “You’re the girl who …” Then his voice became more somber. “We heard what happened to your home, to your family. We wondered what had become of you.”

“But never expected this!” Violeta nudged Filip’s arm with her elbow. “Didn’t I tell you later that I thought we had saved someone important?”

“I’m not—” I began.

“You brought us books,” Filip said. “If you ever wanted to thank us for helping you that night, you just did.”

“And if you want to thank us,” Ben said irritably, “you will choose a book and let us be on our way.”

Violeta and Filip laughed uncomfortably but hurried to the shelf to choose their books before the best titles were gone. Already half the ones we’d brought had been taken away.

“What about grammar?” one girl said. “I want to write!”

“Any newspapers?” Filip asked, looking over the mostly barren shelf.

“Only one left,” Ben said, handing over a copy. “Share it with anyone else who might ask.”

“Of course,” Filip said, then turned to me as he and Violeta left. “Thank you again, for all you do.”

By the time the last person left, the shelves were emptier than when we had first arrived. But rather than feeling discouraged by that, I was now filled with excitement. The room felt like a kind of magic of its own had swept through here, leaving a spark I almost could see lingering in the air.

I leaned against the wood-enclosed wall and sighed with contentment. “I feel like we just experienced a whirlwind. Did you see how happy they were?”

From above us, Lukas said, “They always are.”

I paused, then said, “The girl who wanted the grammar book so she could write …”

“Barely reading, and you want to write now?” Ben asked.

I stepped back. “No … I can’t write. I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“Everyone has something worth saying,” Lukas said.

I shook my head. “Not me.”

“We’ll find you some paper and let you discover that for sure.” Ben shoved a hand into one pocket and looked around the room. “In the meantime, we have more shelves to fill. These books do matter, Audra.”

I understood that now, as I hadn’t before. I practically leapt up the ladder, eager for the next adventure. Lukas turned to us and smiled, even if his once-carefree grin was still full of too much pain.