“They are remembered as heroes of Lithuania!” Lukas shouted defiantly.
“There is no Lithuania!” the sergeant said, marching toward Lukas. “You are Russians and you are part of Russia. When will you accept that?”
“When will you accept that we cannot be crushed, and that we will not go to our knees for invaders!”
“Oh, you will go to your knees,” the sergeant said. “Do it, or else.”
A slight movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention. I jumped at first to see a long snake slithering up the side of the stream toward me, but it was only a grass snake. We had these near our home all the time. They were harmless.
These soldiers were not.
I peeked out from the bushes to see Lukas swallow hard, then sink to his knees. The private had dismounted by now and directed their horses toward a copse of trees nearer to me than I would’ve liked. He broke off a branch from a fallen tree, then stood behind Lukas and said, “Count.” From his position on his knees, Lukas lowered his head and got his first lash across his back, receiving it with a grunt of pain.
“I didn’t hear you,” the sergeant shouted. “If I don’t hear you, it didn’t happen.”
“One!” Lukas shouted back. It sounded as if his teeth were gritted, but his tone remained angry and defiant.
Another snap against his back, then, “Two!” in greater pain, as if he was holding back tears.
By the third snap, I’d had enough. I couldn’t sit here and listen to this, wouldn’t sit here and let it happen.
I left my sack tucked in the bush where I’d been hiding, then reached down and grabbed the snake from directly behind its head. I carried it up to the horses, releasing it beneath the restless legs of the private’s horse. Eager to escape me, the snake quickly slithered forward, startling the horse, which bolted forward. The second horse followed, though I was out of sight by then and didn’t get to see either of them run.
I heard the sergeant order his companion to chase after their animals, then he followed. The instant
they were out of sight, I grabbed my sack and darted toward Lukas, taking him by the arm. “Let’s run!”
Holes had been sliced into his shirt from the stick and through them I saw lines of blood. He was still bent over and tears streaked down his cheeks.
“Gather the books.”
“They could be back at any minute!”
Lukas spoke more sharply this time. “Then gather the books, Audra! Or else what just happened here is for nothing.”
While Lukas slowly forced himself to his feet, I gathered the books. He took as many as he could carry in one arm pressed against his chest, then wrapped his other arm around me to prop himself upright, and we hurried away into an even darker part of the forest.
Sometime later, I stopped. “I recognize this place.”
Indeed, I would never forget it. This was the clearing where I had hidden on Midsummer’s Eve two weeks ago. In this very spot, Officer Rusakov had announced to a gathering of young people a reward for turning me in to him, and he seemed to have been pursuing me ever since.
Me, and Lukas as well. Perhaps he was after all young book smugglers, hoping to suffocate the next generation of smugglers from existence. The old would pass away in time, but if they crushed the young, they would crush the movement.
Beside me, Lukas let out a soft groan and fell again on his knees. “I’m all right,” he said when I reached for him, more in a whisper than aloud, and probably more as a reminder of it to himself than for me to hear. “I just need to rest.”
“My home … the place where I’ve lived my entire life … is not far from here,” I said. “Can you make it that far?”
He looked up at me. “Maybe … maybe you should go check on it, then come back for me if it’s safe.”
That wasn’t really the reason. Lukas had obviously been holding back his emotions for most of our walk and needed time alone. So I agreed to his suggestion and left. As soon as I rounded a bend, I heard his first sob.
It broke my heart, too, and I was determined to find some way to cheer him up or to comfort him after I returned.
Which might’ve been a fine idea, if there had been anything happy inside me once I saw my home, or what was left of it.
I peered out from the woods behind where my home had been and drew in a breath I didn’t know how to release.
The entire back half of my home was gone, nothing left but a burnt frame and mounds of ashes. Most of the front was destroyed as well, except for the area around our brick chimney and a few scorched items of furniture that were beyond saving.