“Ben fought in the uprising too,” Lukas said. “He was much younger then, of course, but every bit as grumpy, from what I’m told. He was the leader of a group of fighters near Šiauliai, where you first met him. Even when it was clear the uprising would fail, Ben refused to give up, so he and his group continued fighting until one day they were captured by the Russians. The governor of the region sentenced them to hanging, but Ben had an escape plan in mind. On the day they were to be transported to the gallows, they would fight back and overpower the soldiers …”

  Lukas’s voice drifted off then. Finally, I said, “Ben’s still alive, so it must have worked.”

  “Ben thought it had worked. They did fight the soldiers, and they ran. But Ben was the only one who got away. The rest of his group was executed that same day. Ben will probably never tell you this story—I had to hear it from someone else. He’s ashamed of himself for running when the others couldn’t. He’s ashamed for having survived when no one else did.”

  “But that wasn’t his fault! Nothing would’ve been gained if he had surrendered.”

  “I know that, and you know it, but Ben doesn’t see it that way. That’s why he continues to smuggle: because he feels he owes it to the friends he lost that day. But it’s also why he’s so protective of you now, and of me too. He’s terrified of being in charge of anyone again who doesn’t make it out alive.”

  I sat with that thought for several minutes, pondering Ben’s gruff, distant nature and finally understanding him. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. It was that he cared too much.

  “We shouldn’t wait here any longer,” Lukas said. “Let’s get back on the road.”

  “Your back—”

  “My back will hurt whether I’m lying down or walking upright. We have books to deliver.” I stood to help him, but he hesitated, pointing upward. “What’s that?”

  The sun had shifted angles enough for Lukas to see what I hadn’t been able to from my position. Holding my breath with anticipation, I grabbed a nearby stool and reached up to a beam overhead. On it was a notebook covered in brown leather.

  I pulled it down and blew off the thin layer of dust that had settled on its surface. “This is my father’s notebook, where he keeps all the secrets of his magic tricks!”

  I crouched beside Lukas so that he could see the notebook, too, but when I opened it, my shoulders fell.

  “What’s wrong?” Lukas asked.

  “I can’t read it.”

  “Let me help you.”

  He reached for it, but I pulled it closer to myself. “No,” I said. “I can’t read this … yet. But I will. Let’s go.”

  While Lukas steadied himself on his feet, I tucked my father’s notebook deep inside the shoulder bag that had been his once. Then we set out again in the early morning light to meet Ben. The walk was far more difficult for Lukas than he would admit. We had returned to the forest, and with every stumble over an exposed root in the road or a low-hanging branch, he had to stop and make himself breathe until the worst of the stinging had passed.

  I’d added half his load of books to mine, and now with nineteen books in a sack slung over my shoulders, I was feeling an ache from my neck down into my legs. But I didn’t complain. Things were worse for Lukas.

  Hoping to turn his mind elsewhere, I said, “When we first met, I accused you of being a thief. I’m sorry about that.”

  He smiled over at me. “Don’t be sorry. In fact, your accusation reminded me of the story I’ve been telling you of Rue. Well, not Rue, but the boy I told you about when we were back in the church. You may not know his story, but I do, for it was told to me from the very mouth of the frog who lives in a pond near the boy’s home.”

  My eyes narrowed. “A frog?”

  “A rather special frog, as you may have already imagined. For I have spoken to a thousand frogs in my life, and this was the only one who answered.”

  I giggled. “Does the boy know of this talking frog in the pond near his home?”

  “Of course he does! In fact, the boy has never told the full truth of his life to anyone but this frog. You see, the boy has lied about himself for so long, that sometimes he forgets why he started working on Rue’s land in the first place.”

  “Oh? Why did he start?”

  “Do you remember the snake, the creature who first bargained for Rue in exchange for her father’s life?”

  “Yes.”

  Lukas shrugged. “Well, the boy knows certain things about the snake, about why he wants Rue’s land. It isn’t because the snake cares for Rue or her family—he doesn’t. He only wants the land, and whether Rue gives it to him or he has to take it from her, it’s all the same to him. The boy sees that and knows it is wrong and knows he has to help Rue and everyone on her land.”

  “Why did the boy care so much?”

  Lukas didn’t answer for a while, but finally said, “Because he understood that he had to make a choice. He had to fight the snake, or one day he might become the snake. So he began living in the forest, determined to start a new life on his own.” Lukas paused again, briefly licking his lips as he stared down at the ground. “But it’s nearly impossible to survive in the forest on your own. The boy met the bear, and they became friends. The boy knew that if he truly was friends with the bear, and with Rue, and all those she cared about, then he would have to help them fight against the snake.”

  My smile over at Lukas had changed to one of sympathy and warmth. “I don’t think there was ever any worry of the boy becoming like the snake.”

  Lukas’s eyes momentarily widened before he said, “We’re all at risk of becoming the snake one day. The moment we start to choose what’s easy or safe, instead of choosing what’s right, we start to become like the snake.”

  “Maybe. But Rue would never do that. I’m sure in your story that Rue is looking forward to the day when her father recovers and the land is theirs again.”

  “When her father recovers,” Lukas said softly. “Or when he returns.”

  After an hour of walking, we arrived in Šiluva. Ben dashed out from the barn where we were supposed to deliver the books, his face nearly as white as his hair and his eye patch on crooked, from what must have been a terrible night of worrying.

  “Where were you—” he began, then noticed Lukas hunched over. Gingerly, he lifted Lukas’s bag off the one shoulder where he’d been carrying it and set it on the ground, then stood behind Lukas and pulled his shirt back enough to see what the soldiers had done to him. “Mercy upon you,” he breathed.

  “It would’ve been worse, if not for Audra,” Lukas said.

  “He wouldn’t have been caught, if not for me,” I said. “I’m no good at smuggling.”

  “Let’s get these books inside,” Ben said. “Then we’ll decide what to do next.”

  I followed Ben and Lukas into what appeared to be an ordinary barn, like any other that might be found in the countryside.

  Ben directed Lukas to sit on a hay bale to rest, then glared back at me. “You say that you’re the reason Lukas was caught?”

  I lowered my eyes at the same time that Lukas said, “I made the mistake, not her. And her quick thinking probably saved my life.”

  “This is why I don’t want either of you smuggling.”

  “I know the risks, Ben! And you’ve had your encounters with the soldiers too!”

  That didn’t help. Ben was becoming more upset, his face reddening as he spoke. “Neither of you should’ve been there in the first place! We should’ve stayed together. Or I should’ve sent you on different routes—”

  I touched his arm. He hadn’t seen me come so close to him, but now he looked down at me with eyes that were widened by fear. “Ben, we made it here alive, and we’re both still on our feet. Everything will be all right. Can we finish delivering the books now?”

  He drew in a slow breath and nodded. “Wait here,” he mumbled to Lukas, then walked to a nearby stall and led the horse out. He gave me the reins with a gesture to tie it off to a post while he grabbed a rake to muck out the stall. Sure enough, beneath it all was a door cut into the floor, large enough for a single person, probably leading to an illegal bookshop like Milda’s.

  “Careful as you go down,” Ben said as he descended. “It’s a steep ladder.”

  “They’re always steep,” I said, putting my feet on the rung and smiling down at him.

  “Too steep for me today,” Lukas said from above. “I’ll keep watch up here.”

  He sounded disappointed, and of course he would be. But the climb would be hard on his back. I was excited to describe to him how many shelves of books there were, to estimate the number of books and whether we’d brought any that weren’t already down here. I’d describe it so well that he would feel he was seeing it for himself.

  Except that when I reached the bottom, Ben was just lighting a candle, and instantly, all my anticipation vanished. This was a much larger room than what Milda had, with at least a dozen shelves for books. A dozen wide shelves that had been intended to hold hundreds of books. But only two shelves were partially filled.

  If this were a pantry, the family would starve. If this were a shop, nobody would have any reason to bother coming in. At most, there were only fifty books in here.

  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.

  Ben followed up behind me. “Lukas, we have a place nearby where it’ll be safe for you to stay and recover. I’ll borrow a wagon and get Audra back to Milda’s home.”

  “No!” I said. “Ben, I did a good job!”

  “You were better than that,” Ben said. “And so was Lukas. But I won’t let what happened to him happen to you too.”

  And so, despite my protests and frustration, it was arranged. An hour later, Lukas was settled in at the home of the same girl who had requested the book on grammar. Ben must have mentioned my interest in learning to write to her, because before we left on the wagon, she handed me a small tablet of paper and a pencil.

  I tried to give it back to her. “This is too much.”

  But she pushed it toward me. “For what you did, this is too little a gift. Please, take it.”

  I tucked it inside a pocket of my apron for safekeeping, then settled in for the trip back to Milda’s home.

  “I want to carry books again,” I said to Ben.

  He glanced over at me. “It’s not safe. The Cossacks know that Lukas escaped, so they’ll be extra watchful of our usual routes.”

  “And when they find nothing, they’ll go into the villages and search there,” I said. “We need a safe place for the books.”

  Ben sighed. “Nowhere is safe, Audra. Not for the books, not for those who read them. And certainly nowhere is safe for a book carrier. It’s not a question of when we are caught, only how much good we can do until it happens.”

  “Will you be caught one day? I can’t believe that would ever happen to you.”

  Ben frowned and shook the reins of our horses to go faster. “I’m getting old and I’m not as quick as I used to be. Lukas is the next generation of book carrier, maybe you too, so your lives matter more than mine. I’ll never be caught, but this is the work I’ll be doing right up to my last day on earth.”

  I stayed with Milda for another three months without a word from either Ben or Lukas. Three long months during which people came to Milda’s shop for baked goods and left with books tucked deep at the bottoms of their bags. Three months in which nothing new came in and her crowded shelves began to dwindle. Milda started offering trades on books rather than selling them, but that only slowed the problem, not solved it. She still held school, and for three months I sat in the back, watching the other students pore over the books as if nothing else existed but the words on the page.

  I sat in the back … at first.

  Roze was there every single day, having finished whatever book Milda had loaned to her the day before and eager for a new one. She invited me to sit beside her in school but I always declined. I didn’t want her to know how dim I felt trying to decipher a single word in the same time as she finished an entire page.

  Gradually, I began to understand that if I wanted to read, I needed to study the books for myself, not simply watch as others did it. So after school hours, when no one was looking, I returned to the secret schoolhouse and opened the same pages. At first, they were only words, just as before. Words I could speak and think, so why was it necessary to read them? But slowly, almost without my realizing what was happening, the words came to mean more because of how they were combined with other words. Words became ideas and thoughts, and it was just as Lukas had said—those thoughts were seeds that sprouted new ideas in my mind, growing and taking me to places I’d never even known existed.

  Words!

  They weren’t simply a formation of letters to identify an object or an action. How could they be so little when one sentence set my heart pounding and another caused me to gasp with delight? How could they mean nothing when they lingered in my mind, followed me into my dreams, and challenged everything I’d always believed?

  The Russian Empire wasn’t afraid of a country that spoke a different language. They were afraid of a country whose language denied Russia’s right to control it. The words wouldn’t lead to our independence—words themselves, their very existence, were our independence. If we surrendered our books to them, we’d surrender our minds, leaving us hollowed-out puppets, ready to be controlled.

  That’s what Ben and Lukas and Milda and the kind priest and everyone else I’d met so far understood. If we lost our books, what was there left to live for?

  “Did you write this, Audra?”

  I turned with a start, realizing Milda had come into the secret school. It was nearly suppertime, and she was usually upstairs in the kitchen at this hour, so I hadn’t expected her. I must have been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t heard her approach. She was in a rather clever costume today, wearing a pair of crocheted shoes, one significantly longer than the other and stuffed with bits of fabric, and a pair of glasses with the lens in one eye particularly thick, making that eye seem almost double the size of the other. She removed those glasses now to focus on me properly. In her hands were a few papers I recognized.

 

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