“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 pos
t 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.