This time, I tucked the pastry inside the folds of my dress and made it halfway down the road from Milda’s home before I was discovered by the trail of powdered sugar I was dropping and had to return empty-handed.

  My third pastry was fully wrapped inside my apron. I even sniffed it to see how close I’d have to be to smell anything. That much of my plan worked fairly well, except a gentleman passing by asked what I could be carrying that was so valuable as to hide it in my apron. He walked away with a warm spurgos, and I trudged back to Milda’s home, thoroughly discouraged.

  “I can’t do it!” I told her. “I can’t hide something like this.”

  “Then you cannot carry a book,” she said, putting another pastry in my hands. “But I hope you’ll figure this out soon, before I feed the entire village.”

  I sighed and turned around again. This one was larger than the others had been and, if possible, smelled better than any of them before. But this time, I was determined to complete the task, simply to prove to Milda that I could do it.

  Milda had said I had to get to one end of town and back again, but she’d never said that I had to take the roads. So this time, I cut around to the back of her home and snuck from one yard through another, careful to be sure no one was outside at the time. When I couldn’t go any farther, I waited to be sure the road was clear, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. I lifted the pastry to smell it again, but another scent filled my nose, that of mint.

  Looking down, I saw a patch of mint in the garden at my feet. Milda had said that if anyone detected the spurgos, I’d have to give it to them, but she’d said nothing about them detecting a little mint. I reached down and plucked a few leaves, rubbing them over my arms and then folding them around the fried bread.

  It wouldn’t do to wrap it in my apron—that was too obvious. Instead, at the edge of the road, I saw a patch of lavender flowers. I picked as many of them as I could and formed them into a bouquet, bundling it around the pastry.

  Then I walked toward the center of the market, smiling as passersby complimented my flowers and sniffed the fresh mint dangling in the air behind me. If they talked of a lingering smell of sugar as well, I wasn’t there to hear it. I didn’t wait for them to notice it, I simply moved on.

  Twenty minutes later, I returned to Milda and presented her with the spurgos. She arched a brow as I showed her the flowers and the mint, then she smiled down at me. “Audra, my girl, have a seat. I would like to tell you about the books.”

  She placed a cup of tea and a pastry of my own in front of me, then sat at my side, keeping her voice low. “If your parents never told you about our books, then it was because they believed that would keep you safe, and maybe they were right. Are you sure you want to know?”

  I pressed my lips together and nodded, intensely curious.

  She reached to the center of the table, where a tiny chest was placed. I’d always assumed the chest was a decoration and nothing more, but she opened it and withdrew a knife with a beautiful carved handle, handing it to me with a clear reverence. “This belonged to my father,” she said. “Thirty years ago, he joined an uprising of Lithuanians who attempted to overthrow the Russians and bring freedom to our land. It wasn’t the first uprising, but it was the largest and most well organized. They fought hard and they fought well, and for a short time, we had hope for their success. But in the end, what can our small country, most of us untrained peasants, do against the entire Russian Empire? We were crushed.”

  I ran my finger along the handle of the knife. “Then your father must have been arrested, too, just like my parents, or sent to Siberia.”

  “Oh, no, child, as awful as Siberia is, the fighters weren’t allowed even that much mercy. A governor was sent in from Russia who was nicknamed the hangman. And with such a name, what else could be the fate of nearly all those who were captured? But their deaths didn’t satisfy the tsar. He wanted a way to ensure that there never would be another uprising again.”

  “So he banned our books?” I asked.

  “Worse. He banned the idea of Lithuania. We were all to become Russian. To speak like Russians, and especially, to think like Russians. Lithuania was to be erased from the map.” Milda grimaced a moment, then picked up the knife and turned it over in her hands. “How do you destroy a people? You take away their culture. And how is that done? You must take their language, their history, their very identity. How would you do that?”

  I pressed my lips together, then looked up at her. “You ban their books.”

  Milda nodded. “I believe you are ready to carry that book for me. And for that, you deserve a gift.” She reached behind her to a bundle on the floor and put it in my hands. It was a new apron, embroidered in lines of bright green, yellow, and red, and far nicer than the plaid one I’d had before.

  I passed it back to her. “I can’t accept this.”

  “I insist—look!” Milda turned the apron over, revealing several small pockets in the lining underneath. “These may be helpful when you have a lot to carry, or to hide.”

  “Such as a book?” I held out my hands for it, but Milda shook her head. “In a few more days. We must wait for Ben to return.”

  I arched a brow. “Ben?” That was the same name Lukas had given me when I’d first met him in the forest. “Who is Ben?”

  “A few more days.”

  And that, apparently, would be my only answer.

  A few days passed before Milda said everything was ready. I awoke before dawn, eager to be on the road with only the farmers and bakers for company, and, I hoped, no soldiers. When Milda heard me stirring about, finishing up tying the new apron she had given me, she peeked from her room, her eyes half-open. “Goodness, child, you can’t leave yet. What reason would you possibly have to be on the road this early?”

  “This early, no one will see me.”

  Milda frowned. “The Cossacks are always watching, Audra, always with someone on patrol. Be one of dozens on the road, not one of two or three.”

  My brow furrowed as I was reminded again of Officer Rusakov and all that I’d lost since my parents had given me that book. I took a deep breath before asking, “Is it all Lithuanian books the empire hates, or only certain ones?”

  Milda padded out from her room and began stirring the ashes from last evening’s fire to warm some coffee. As she did, she said, “All Lithuanian books. Some might be tempted to overlook an early reader book as harmless, but it is with the young that these ideas first begin.” Milda placed a book into my hands. “What is in this book, do you think?”

  The cover had some letters printed on it, and when I opened its pages, I saw more shapes for letters, few of which I recognized. There were no pictures, only page after page of words. I closed it again. “It’s nothing to me.”

  “Perhaps one day, you will think differently.” Milda placed her hands over mine as I held the book. She pointed to the lettering on the front and read it for me: “The History of the Ancient Lithuanians. This, Audra, is a very important book, for how can we know who we are if we do not know who we were? Succeed with this delivery and you will give someone knowledge, and with that knowledge, you’ll give them greater power in their life.”

  I smiled up at her. “And I thought I was only giving someone a book.”

  Milda’s laugh quickly became somber. “Being caught with even one book is dangerous, so pay close attention. You must follow the lane from my house up to the neighboring village, and in the market square, you will meet a man named Ben Kagan. This book is for him. No one else must see it, or even suspect you have it.” Then she took the book and slid it into the bottom of a deep canvas sack with straps to carry it on my back. The sack was light brown and similar to the one my father had traveled with, only slightly smaller. She began filling it with scraps of fabric. “Avoid all Cossack officers, and anyone who looks at you too carefully, but do not make it look as if you are avoiding them. Guard this as if it were your most precious possession because books are our most precious possessions.” When she had finished stuffing the sack with the fabric, she looked me directly in the eyes. “Can you do this? It is all right to say no.”

  I wanted to say no, because I had begun to understand that this would not be a game, as it had been with the spurgos. This was real, and very dangerous.

  And that was more than enough to get me to tell her I wouldn’t go, except that since the moment I’d agreed to transport this book for Milda, something had come alive in me, the feeling that my parents would have wanted me to do this, that from wherever they were now, they were cheering me on, and maybe saying to each other, “I suppose Audra is braver than we had thought.”

  I hoped I was. I hoped that despite my pounding heart, the sweat on my hands, and my unsteady legs, there was a small spark of courage. I needed to find it. I needed to prove to myself that it existed.

  So I nodded at Milda, placed the pack with the fabric scraps on my back, pulled on my father’s shoulder bag over that, then turned and walked out the door without looking back. Maybe if I pretended to be brave, I would become more brave.

  Near the same spot where I had encountered Roze with the pastry, I found her waiting again. She ran up to me, and I was sure she hoped I had another pastry for her today.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “On an errand for Milda,” I said.

  She lowered her voice. “Delivering books?”

  I turned sharply toward her. “Hush, Roze!” She stepped back and her eyes welled with tears. So more gently, I added, “It’s just an errand, nothing of interest.”

  I began walking again. Roze stayed at my side. “I heard your parents are being sent to Siberia.”

  I stopped in my tracks, facing forward. That was the last thing I wanted to talk about right now, or think about. Through a clenched jaw, I said, “We don’t know that. Maybe they’re only in a prison.”

  “Or Siberia.” Roze shifted the weight on her feet, then said, “What if you end up going there too?”

  “I won’t.”

  “You might.”

  Yes, I might. But I couldn’t dwell on that or my journey would end right here, without me daring to take another step forward. I tilted my head toward her and, with little patience, said, “I need to go now, Roze. Alone.”

  Roze wiped a stray tear off her cheek, then said, “Good luck on your errands!”

  By the time I reached the center of Milda’s village, a few of the markets had begun to open for the day. I remembered Lukas saying he only went places that the soldiers did not, but an officer was already here this morning, and I feared if I turned back, it would look suspicious. He called to me in Russian, and I waved back as if I didn’t understand, hoping that would be enough.

  He called again, more sharply this time. From the tone of his voice, I understood he wanted me to stop.

  I turned toward him so he could look at my face rather than at a sack for which I could be arrested, then did my best to smile, all the while reminding myself to speak to him in Russian. And hoping he would not ask my name and interpret that as me speaking an illegal language.

  “Little girl,” he said. “Why are you out so early?”

  I shrugged. Speak in Russian. Speak in Russian. “The sooner I begin my chores, the sooner I finish them.”

  “All chores? No school?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer him. I knew there were public schools designed to make its students good Russian citizens. My father would’ve hidden us in the forest before allowing me to go there. The only other school I knew of was the secret school beneath Milda’s home, and I’d never tell him about that.

  “No school,” I told him.

  He walked a circle around me, tugging on one end of a fabric scrap that had sprung loose out the top of the bag. “You work for a seamstress?” he asked. “Bringing her pieces to be made into a quilt perhaps?”

  “Perhaps.” Whatever he wanted to believe, I’d agree with him.

  “Here or the next town?”

  I didn’t know any seamstresses here, so I said, “The next town.” Hopefully he wouldn’t ask for the woman’s name, and if he did, hopefully he wouldn’t know that I was lying.

  “Wait here.” Then he walked back to his horse and began digging into the saddlebags. My legs went numb and I considered dropping my sack of fabric and making a run for it. I even loosened my grip on the handle so that if he turned back around with anything threatening, I could be halfway to the woods before he knew how to react.

  Except Milda had said to protect that book as if it were my most precious possession. At the moment, my life was the most precious thing I owned, the only thing I owned, really. Surely she had not meant I should give my life for this book.

  No, Milda would have known that might be necessary. That’s why she’d given me so many warnings.

  When the officer turned around, I was surprised to see something familiar in his hands: another book, only this one with very different lettering from what was written on the books in Milda’s secret library.

  “You may have this if you want it,” the officer said, holding it out to me. “It’s for you, a gift from the tsar.”

  I tilted my head, instantly suspicious. The leader of the Russian Empire didn’t know me. He didn’t know any of the peasant citizens of Lithuania, and even if he did, he’d never have sent gifts to us. No one gave us gifts unless they wanted something in return.

  My loyalty perhaps? I tried not to squint back at him, or to look as anxious as I was.

  “You may take this book, and if it interests you, maybe we can see about enrolling you in school. Teach you to read and then you can learn how to become something more than a peasant who sells fabric scraps. Teach you to be—”

  “A Russian?” I’d spoken before I thought better of it, thinking of my parents and wondering if this man in front of me had been there the night they were arrested. He probably hadn’t been, but I still couldn’t help but wonder. And I instantly knew it was a mistake. My tone had been too sharp, too angry.

  To cover, I quickly reached for the book he’d offered me. “Thank you. I’d like to learn to read.”

  His suspicion cooled, even as my cheeks heated. Not because I was frightened, or because I’d made an enormous error, but because I’d just spoken aloud a truth that had stayed at the back of my mind for years, even when I’d denied it to my father.

  Papa had asked me that very question once as we sat together at the supper table. I’d begun to answer, but before I could, Mama told Papa she needed his help outside, and they remained out there until long after our supper was cold. When they returned, my parents quietly continued eating, as if they hadn’t been gone at all. Finally, hoping to ease the tension in our home, I said, “I have no wish to read, Papa. Another time perhaps.”

  That other time may have finally come. I wanted to learn to read.

  “Don’t waste time with a peasant girl!” The officer who shouted to the Cossack I was speaking to must have been his superior, for this soldier quickly straightened up and saluted. “We’re going to monitor all roads north of here. We heard there might be trouble that way.”

  That way happened to be the same direction I was headed, which meant I needed to avoid all roads from here on. My head had been ducked low while he spoke, and it was only after he left that the soldier I’d been speaking to sent me on my way.

  I kept the book tucked under my arm as I walked. I figured it made me less suspicious to any other soldiers who might notice me—or at least, they’d see I already had a Russian book, so what would I ever want with a hidden Lithuanian one?

  By midday, I’d made it to the next town, just as Milda had instructed. I hoped I was in the right place since she hadn’t given me its name, nor did this small village appear to have one. I ducked my head inside a blacksmith’s stables. Just to be safe, I asked my question in Russian, “Do you happen to know a Ben Kagan?”

  The blacksmith looked me over like I was a bit of mold to be scraped off his bread. “Who are you?”

  I drew back, unprepared for that question. Finally, in my scrambling to say something coherent, I mumbled, “A friend of his sent me here.”

  “You’re no friend of his, speaking as you do, and holding that Russian book. Go away.” The blacksmith returned to his work, making it clear he was finished with me.

  I sighed and immediately felt someone tap on my back. With a start, I looked and saw Lukas behind me, arching his brows as if I’d done something to amuse him.

  “Not bad, Audra, really, for your first try.”

  I balled up my hands into fists. “You followed me?”

  “Not followed you exactly. I only walked here on a separate path that allowed me to observe your actions without you, or that Cossack soldier, ever seeing me. Milda asked me to be sure you were safe.” He smiled and glanced down at the Russian book. “But what are you doing with that?”

  I held it up. “It was a gift—that soldier gave it to me. I didn’t ask for it.”

  “Why do you think it was a gift? Because no one will buy these little hatchets!”

  My brows pressed together. “Little hatchet?”

  “Their books are their weapons, meant to swallow us up if we allow it.” He took the book from me. “I know you’re supposed to meet Ben, but before you do, we must make sure this book is put in a safe place, somewhere special where no one will ever bother it.” He walked across the road and I followed.

  An old farmer happened to be passing us by, pulling a load of manure. Lukas ducked in immediately behind the cart, then shoved the Russian book into the center of the foul-smelling load. Then he turned back to me with a wide smile. “Now it’s just where it belongs. Come with me and I’ll introduce you to Ben.”

  Lukas and I had taken no more than three steps forward when a wagon barreled down the street straight toward us. Its driver had a patch over one eye, and the other was zigzagging in wild alarm. His white hair stuck out in every direction and his clothes seemed so much a part of him that I suspected he might’ve grown into them from birth, and simply slept, bathed, and prayed in them year-round. He held the reins with one hand and, with the other, tossed a long piece of canvas fabric behind him, letting it flutter in the wind to spread out its folds.

 

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