Words on Fire

But I couldn’t accept any escape that left these books behind. Not when we had worked so hard to get the books this far, and when so many people had given us what little money they had for them.

So I pointed to the man’s rifle. Lukas shook his head, but I gestured to him to get into the driver’s seat. He had better do it, for I was going to do my part of the plan whether Lukas was ready or not.

He rolled his eyes and I was fairly sure he whispered a prayer to save himself from me, or our captors … or mostly from me. But he did climb into the driver’s seat and lift the reins.

I crept toward the man, whose rifle was lying beneath one hand as he slept. I started to pull it free, but he stirred and redoubled his grip. I turned to look at Lukas again to ask what I should do and he mouthed the words “Hold on.”

I wound the rope that had tied us around a post of the wagon. That would keep me in the wagon bed. With my other hand, I grabbed a handle of the coffin, and I closed my eyes. The instant I did, Lukas shook the reins to rush the horses forward. They bolted as if fire were at their hooves. The man awoke, but I kicked him with one leg and he rolled off the edge of the wagon, landing facedown on the ground. Working against the momentum of our ride, I tried to position myself as much as possible behind the coffin, and it was a good thing I did because the man fired off a shot toward us, and I heard it pierce one side of the coffin.

“Keep going!” I cried.

“Obviously!” Lukas’s attention was on keeping our wagon balanced until we got back on the road, but once we did, he only rode us faster.

We had to expect the man and his wife would follow us, but by the time they hitched their horse to their little cart, we would have a good lead on them.

I climbed into the seat beside Lukas and said, “We’ve got to get to Kražiai.”

“Agreed. We’ve got to warn them.”

We rode as fast as we dared to push the horses, and when they began showing signs of exhaustion, we pulled off the road to wait out the night and to catch our own breaths. Luckily, by then the snow had melted so

our tracks weren’t as visible as they might have been a few days ago. Still, the ground was wet, so we couldn’t trust that we were totally safe yet, and even if we could, my heart was pounding far too fast to consider relaxing.

While Lukas tended to the horses, I crept back as near as I dared to the road, watching for any signs of the man and his wife. But though I waited for almost half an hour, I never did see them. Either they had taken a different route, or they had given up.

I finally returned to Lukas, who was sitting on the edge of the wagon, just where the man had been before we rolled him out. But Lukas’s shoulders were slumped and when he looked up at me, he merely said, “I never heard them coming toward me, not until it was too late. Maybe for once I should save you instead of it always being the other way around.”

“The first time we met, you saved me,” I said. “And we escaped together. I couldn’t have done that alone.”

He gave me a half smile, then slumped again. “It might not have mattered if the soldiers hadn’t recognized me at the border, or thought they did. Just when I thought I’d escaped my past, it comes back to me again.”

I sat beside him. “Why would they have recognized you? Did you work for that Russian family, Lukas? Or … are you in that Russian family?”

He shrugged. “My mother is Lithuanian and my father is Russian. I was born here, raised with other Lithuanian boys and girls, but when I turned twelve, my father demanded I end all friendships with anyone who wasn’t entirely Russian. ‘I’m not entirely Russian,’ I told him. ‘Should I not be a friend to myself?’ Despite what he’d said, I didn’t end those friendships. I refused. One night I couldn’t get home because of a snowstorm and my best friend, a boy named Otto, let me stay with him. His parents always read to him before bedtime, though I didn’t know then that it was from an illegal book. I just sat with them and listened to the story. They were only halfway through it when Cossacks burst into the room and took Otto’s father away. They dragged him into the square and were about to whip him. I ran after the soldiers and tried to stop it, then realized the officer in charge was my own father.”

I drew in a breath. “That must have been awful.”

“He told me to go home, but I refused. I asked him why they were doing this over a book, but he wouldn’t answer and only said that Otto’s father was getting the punishment he deserved. I stood between them and said I would not allow the whipping to happen.”

“Surely that ended it.” I couldn’t imagine any father would refuse his own child something so important.

“ ‘Back down right now, or you’ll get the same.’ ” Lukas glanced over at me. “That’s what my father said. I refused that, too, so he had one of his men grab me and drag me away. I escaped him and ran, just ran as fast as I could. The soldier I’d escaped was chasing me, but someone reached out from the shadows, grabbed my arm, and pulled me into hiding with him, whispering that if I stayed quiet, I’d be safe. That was Ben, almost a year ago.” Lukas sighed. “I haven’t been home since then. I don’t even know if my home is still there. You’ll understand why when you hear my father’s name.”

“Rusakov,” I whispered, putting together the pieces. “Your father is Officer Rusakov. That’s why you had to hide when he was inspecting wagons on the road, and why you wanted to stay in the forest when they were burning the town. You didn’t want him to see you.”

“My father isn’t evil,” Lukas said. “But he is wrong. Wrong about Lithuania, wrong about books, and wrong about the way to enforce the horrible laws. Until he changes his mind, I won’t go home.”

I put my hand over his, and we sat there in silence for a very long time, until finally Lukas sighed. “If the horses are rested, we should get on the road again. We have to get to Kražiai before the soldiers do.”

By midafternoon we arrived in the town of Kražiai with illegal books hidden inside a coffin, which now felt far too ominous. We had expected to be the first to give the warning that soldiers were on their way, but it was obvious from the moment we arrived that the warning had already come. It was as if the entire pulse of the town had changed.

Unlike on our previous visit, no one came from their homes to greet us, or in from the fields or markets. We’d passed several public places on our way there, and no one was in any of them. Maybe they were huddled in their homes.

Huddled. Hiding.

Planning. Praying.

They knew what was coming.