Words on Fire, page 14
I would have to pay a terrible price for that magic now.
Sensing my inner turmoil, Rusakov left the paper and pen on the table, then stood and said, “I’ll be back for you in one hour. I expect to see names of these criminals on that paper when I return.”
And he left. It struck me as odd that he hadn’t asked if I had any ability to write. He must have assumed I could. And I could. Maybe I wouldn’t spell everything correctly or write it in the prettiest handwriting, but I could write. I had written, was still writing, creating my own magic on paper. I could certainly do a bit of that writing now. But what to say?
Officer Rusakov had left me the box with my parents’ things. I riffled through the contents, sniffed the handkerchief that still smelled like my mother and the pipe that carried me back home again to evenings with my father in front of the fire. But it was the small key at the bottom that made me most curious. It must have some importance or my parents wouldn’t have carried it with them. I didn’t know if it had been with my father or mother but I supposed it didn’t matter. The key was yet another secret they had kept from me. I slipped it into my apron pocket and then sat in the chair in front of the paper, hoping if I stared at it long enough, the answer for what I was supposed to do would magically appear.
The longer I stared, the heavier my eyes became. Finally, I scrawled a name on the paper, and hoped I’d made the right choice, then fell asleep.
I woke up when I heard the key turn in the lock outside my room, then Rusakov marched in and snatched the paper from beneath my wrist. I sat up straight, trying to orient myself again and to appear more alert than I actually was.
But almost instantly, Rusakov pounded his fists on the table, then leaned down to look at me. “Do you think this is a joke?”
My heart began to race. “No, sir.”
He pushed the paper toward my face. “I asked for the name of that boy.”
“You asked for the name of criminals. The only one I know by name is you … sir. Lithuania should be a free country. You and the other soldiers occupy it illegally.”
He ripped the paper into strips, though I still saw the various letters of his name waft in pieces to the floor. “You will get your wish to see your parents again. You will be on the next train bound to Siberia, with nothing on your back but the clothes you now wear, and nothing in your belly but your last meal before coming here, all of which are more than you deserve. I will make an example of you, show the other peasants that there will be no mercy given to those who violate the orders of the tsar.”
I had not expected any mercy, but even the thought that I might see my parents again failed to give me any comfort. An icy shudder shot through me. Siberia sounded like a big place, a terrible place. There were no guarantees I’d find my parents, even if they were still alive. Even if I arrived there alive.
“Do you think you’ve saved your friends, that they will be safe now that you have refused to name them? I will find them, Miss Zikaris. I will see that they get what they deserve, as will you. Nothing you have done here should cause you any pride.”
“No, but I believe my parents would be proud, and that is enough.” My voice sounded stronger than I felt.
He frowned at me, doing a far better job of holding in his temper than I was of holding in mine, then knocked for the door to be opened and slammed it shut behind him.
I wished I could have felt some measure of victory at what I’d said and done, that I could dismiss my fears knowing that at least there had been a purpose in my actions.
But I couldn’t. In the end, I sank into a corner of my small room, knowing that when the door opened again, no matter what Rusakov’s orders were, I was doomed.
And worse still, knowing that I had just assured the same fate for the two people in the world I loved the most. I hoped that what I’d said to Rusakov had been correct, that my parents would be proud of my decision. If they weren’t, then at least I hoped that, one day, my parents would forgive me.
I doubted the day would ever come that I might forgive myself for failing to save them.
I wasn’t sure how many hours passed before I heard voices on the other side of the door. They seemed to be discussing me, though there was nothing of sympathy or concern. My life, my future, were simply part of the day’s business.
“… you have a young girl in there for transfer to the train station,” the voice said. “I’m here to collect her.”
To collect me. Was there anything more I needed to know about what was about to happen?
Whoever was standing guard unlocked the door. I’d hoped to see a friendly face when the door opened, or at least someone who looked like he’d accept a bribe, or be swayed by a girl who could pour out some tears at a vital moment—which I absolutely could. Instead, it was a stern-faced guard who frowned at me and only said, “Let’s go.”
My stomach was already in knots, and I hadn’t thought it could get any worse, but I’d been wrong about that too. I stood on unsteady feet, exhausted, half-starved, and certain the walk from here to the prison wagon would be the last time I’d see the world without looking through bars.
The door of the wagon was held open for me and I climbed in, sitting alone near the back. Just before closing the door, the guard said, “You must keep track of your own things on the way there.” Then he tossed in my father’s shoulder bag.
My father’s shoulder bag that was supposed to have been thrown into a burn pile back in Venska! How was this possible? My heart began racing with anticipation.
Even if the bag had escaped the fire, surely it was a violation of rules to give a prisoner their possessions during a transport. It would be far too likely that the prisoner had items that could be useful for escape.
Such as I did, if I could be clever enough.
This guard must have been bribed. Had Ben done that? He must have, because I couldn’t imagine anyone else working such a miracle. I wondered what Ben might have placed inside the bag to help me escape.
I waited for the door to shut before I darted for the bag, but once it was in my hands, I immediately began digging through it. Almost instantly, my hopes were dashed for an easy escape. Ben had ensured that I received this bag, but how was it supposed to help? All that I saw in here was what had been in here before. My father’s stack of cards, some cups, a bag of pops—
Pops!
If they had another name, I didn’t know it. I’d named them when I was very young by the sound they made. Thrown against a hard object, the pop would make an exploding sound, loud enough to make me wince each time. My mother hated them because they spooked our cow, but they had always entertained me.
Now they might save my life.
I threw the first one against the solid side wall of the prison wagon. Its pop echoed like a small cannon in this little metal space. That should get the driver’s attention.
It did. The wagon stopped. I threw another on the cobble-stone road beneath me, and had another in my fist when the driver came running around. “Did you see anything?”
“I think we’re under fire,” I cried, and if he wanted to interpret my nervousness as panic, then that was perfectly fine.
“That’s not gunfire.” But the driver withdrew a pistol anyway and began waving it around wildly with his back toward me. As he did, I threw a third pop on a stone near his feet. He jumped, then quickly unlocked my door and dragged me out. “Come with me.”
By then I had a fourth pop ready, my last one, and while he pushed me ahead of him to run away, I tried to throw the final pop, but instead, it slipped from my fingers. The mistake couldn’t have worked out better for me. The driver stepped on it and it gave a small explosion beneath his foot. He jumped in the air, then shoved me to the ground in his hurry to run for his life.
When he raced in one direction, I ran in the other. I heard him call after me, but I rounded the first corner I saw, my senses on high alert for any possible hiding place. I knew he’d follow me.
Distraction. That was always the key for success. You could do any trick out in the open as long as you got the audience to look in the wrong place.
I needed a good distraction.
At the next bend, someone had left laundry hanging from a line. I yanked a dress off the lines and pulled it over my head as I ran, placing the shoulder bag beneath the new dress, then joined a group of kids my age gathered for a game of marbles. Pushing into their center, I said, “Did you see which way that girl ran?”
“What girl?” someone asked.
I pointed down the street. “I think she went that way, running faster than I’ve ever seen anyone go. Did any of you see her?”
The kids stood, all of them craning their heads to get a look at this girl whose legs apparently moved at the speed of lightning.
And just in time, for the driver who had been chasing me ran by, and noticed the group of us. I stayed to the rear of the group with my head down as he asked, “Have any of you seen a girl run by?”
“That way!” a boy said, and all the kids pointed in the same direction I’d suggested to them with another boy near me adding, “She was faster than anyone we’ve ever seen.”
By the time they turned around, I had left the group. I returned the dress, then looked toward the forests. I wasn’t entirely sure where I was, though I knew how long it had taken to drive me here, so I had a guess for how long it would take to return to Milda’s home. If Milda’s home was still there at all.
I didn’t dare walk in the daytime. If it wasn’t dangerous enough to be a smuggler, I was now an official fugitive of the Russian Empire. Unless there was no other choice, I wouldn’t risk showing my face in daylight.
Instead, I traveled by dark, guided only by the moonlight, or the stars if the moon had yet to rise. The autumn weather was rapidly becoming colder and the nights were much too quiet, but it was safer this way. I might trip over a fallen branch or accidentally step into a pond—and I did both several times—but that was better than being spotted by a patrol of Cossacks, all of whom I assumed had been told to watch out for me.
The first night was the worst, an echo of the beginning of summer just after my parents’ arrest, how terrified I’d been, how certain I was that my next step would surely be my last. I’d known nothing of the larger world, nothing even about the package I’d been carrying in my arms.
I vaguely wondered what had happened to that book. I couldn’t imagine that Milda had given it to anyone. Considering that it was still locked, who would want it?
And I had the key for it now, I was sure of it. But the key without the book was no more good to me than the locked book without a key. The one needed the other.
By the second night of walking, the burn on my arm had begun to fade, though the memories of how I got the burn never would. I had plenty to drink from the river that accompanied my trek but little to eat other than the occasional wild berry patch or evening primrose that my mother used to find in the forests for salads. Hunger became my constant companion.
And with every step, I longed to know if Milda was safe, to know what had become of Venska following the night of burning, as I would always think of it. And to see if any of her books had survived that night. Those were the questions that made me put one foot in front of the other hour after hour.
By the third night, I felt half-starved and beyond exhausted, for I never slept well while hiding in the daytime. To keep myself awake, I began thinking of Lukas’s stories, of the snake and bear, of Rue and her father, and the boy. By now, I understood who all of them were.
Rue was me, but she was also all Lithuanians.
The snake was meant to represent the Russians, who wanted our land for themselves and who would trick us, threaten us, or even injure us to obtain it.
I was fairly sure that the bear was the smugglers, or maybe it was simply Ben, and Lukas was obviously the boy. The boy who had told his truth to a talking frog and no one else.
A frog that didn’t exist.
Which probably meant that Lukas had never told anyone the truth about where he had come from. I wondered if his parents had been book smugglers, like mine. Or maybe they were simply smugglers. If so, it was no wonder he had been sensitive about being called a thief.
I decided that when the time was right, I’d ask him more about his life. Maybe it wouldn’t be the same as confessing to a nonexistent talking frog, but I hoped he’d talk to me.
When it became light enough that I had to hide, between naps and small forages for food, I read from my father’s notebook, or pulled out the paper and pencil that had been in the shoulder bag and worked on my story, writing my ideas for what Rue might do to help the boy and the bear drive the snake out of the land. For in his retelling, Lukas seemed to have forgotten the reason why he began telling me the story in the first place. It was because Rue was a girl who could do magic.
And so would I.
Late the following night, I stepped back into the village of Venska, Milda’s town. It was eerily quiet here. I’d arrived too early for the farmers or the bakers, and in the stillness of the air, I could easily catch the bitter smell of the fires that had torn through here. I didn’t go down any of the side roads to see the damage for myself, but it appeared that the townsfolk had begun rebuilding the homes of those in need.
The homes would repair easily enough, but it was the people here I worried about. Safely inside their newly repaired homes, would they want their books back? Surely not. Surely the Russians had proven that the price for owning a book was too high to pay a second time.
Which meant as far as this village was concerned, book smuggling had probably been ended for good. It infuriated me to think that Rusakov might have won here.
Milda’s home had been burned too. Not all of it, but too much to ever be reclaimed. Her wood roof was entirely gone, and all of her store and its contents. The walls of her home were made of brick, so they had survived, but from where I stood, there didn’t appear to be anything inside worth saving.
I was too tired and hungry to cry for all that she had lost, but my heart hurt as much as if I had. Milda had been punished for something that should never have been a crime. I hoped she was all right. Desperate to see her again, I leaned against a tree near the front of her home to wait for the town to awaken.
Or, more hopefully, to watch for any sign of Milda. Surely she was still here, somewhere, watching for me to return.
But when the sun began to rise, her house remained as dark as ever. Gradually, the town came to life again, but Milda’s home did not. She wasn’t there.
She must have been captured. Of course she would have been. Milda didn’t move fast and she wasn’t used to evading soldiers. Even if she had escaped, she wouldn’t be here watching for me to return, for she likely didn’t believe I ever would.
I finally took a chance and entered Milda’s home. I didn’t dare call her name, or rather, I was terrified to call her name and have the silence answer me.
Indeed, at the front of the home, there was nothing but ash and a few items recognizable to me only because I’d seen them so often before. I wouldn’t have known what they were otherwise.
The fire must have cooled as it went to the back of her house. Surprisingly, a storage trunk remained there, and a traveling cloak, though its bright colors had been dimmed by smoke and ash. The hidden staircase was scorched but not burned through. Was it possible it had survived? If so, that must be where Milda was!
I lifted the lowest stair, then peered down below, wishing it weren’t so dark. But I needed to look. I lit a candle, then descended the ladder, and my heart sank when I saw Milda’s shelves. As I’d feared, they were completely bare, including the locked book I’d brought here from my parents. I hoped the shelves were empty because Lukas had successfully rescued all the books, but I worried that the soldiers had gotten here first.
I explored the rest of the secret storeroom, searching for anything to offer me hope, though I couldn’t begin to imagine what that could possibly be. How could I ever find hope in such an empty place, knowing what had been here once, what these rooms had meant to so many people?
What they’d meant to me.
When I had first come into this room, I had been a girl with no knowledge of books, other than understanding that they existed. And now, books had become my life. I couldn’t imagine going a day without them, without the worlds they opened up to me.
The books were gone now, and this town had been taught a lesson it would never forget.
From there, I wandered into the secret school, which was even more empty. No chalk tablets, no displays on the walls. No books. Their absence felt like ghosts wandering around me, almost real, almost here.
But not. Suddenly I froze.
Footsteps creaked on the floorboards overhead. They weren’t loud and even, like a soldier’s might have been. These were softer, and more cautious. If only that were enough to tell me whether the person upstairs was a friend.
I crept back toward the ladder, and when I was almost there, the staircase lifted and a voice called down, “Audra?”
I squinted. “Roze?”
“Yes! I was watching for you to return. Milda said there was a plan to help you escape, and as soon as I heard what happened to Officer Rusakov, I knew the plan had worked.”
My eyes narrowed. “What happened to Rusakov?”
“You don’t know? Yesterday he came through the town and gathered his things, and I overheard him tell the other officers here that he had been reassigned. But then I also noticed he’d been stripped of his badges, so we think that maybe he wasn’t reassigned, maybe he was released, and maybe it’s because of the fires here in town, that he’d gone too far.” She finished by taking a deep breath.
I tilted my head. It couldn’t be true. “You’re sure that he’s gone? He won’t be back?”
“We think he’s not a soldier anymore. No, he won’t be back, Audra.”
