Words on Fire

I left the basket where it was and scrambled back toward the house, crying, “Papa!”
He must have already seen them, for he and my mother were frantically moving about the kitchen, placing small wrapped packages inside Papa’s traveling sack. Why should they care about that right now? The soldiers were almost here!
“Did they see you?” Papa asked.
“I-I don’t know.”
“Go with your mother out the back door. You’ve got to run!” I stared at him, barely understanding his words. “Run? Where?”
“Get to the forest. Hurry!”
I grabbed his hand, my fingers trembling… No, that was his hand shaking in fear. My father wasn’t afraid of anything, had never been afraid before, not until now. He steered me toward the back door, but I kept pulling him with me, crying, “Let’s all go together!”
“I can’t, Audra.” He drew in a sharp breath. “I’m going to stall the soldiers here, give you and your mother a chance to get away. Don’t you come back, don’t you even look back. Now go!”
He grabbed his shoulder bag from the table and gave it to my mother. She slung it over one arm, then put a hand on my back and pushed me forward, running behind me.
We had a small yard and our farmland lay beyond that. It’d be a long run across those fields before we reached the forest. My father couldn’t possibly stall long enough for us to make it all that distance.
Even as I ran, I heard the soldiers break down our front door and shout orders in Russian. But before I heard my father’s reply, Mama and I were already crossing the farmland. I was faster, so I didn’t realize at first that Mama had fallen.
When I heard her call my name, I turned to see her foot had become tangled in some low-hanging wire for our climbing plants.
“No, Audra,” she cried. “Keep running!”
Nothing could make me leave her, not as Papa had just forced us to leave him.
I hurried back to her, my heart pounding in my chest so forcefully that I hardly could think.
“You must get to the forest,” Mama said.
“I can untangle you.” My trembling fingers were working at the wire that had somehow twisted around her leg. How could this have happened? How could the wire be gnarled like this?
I knew the answer. This was a job my mother had asked me to do a week ago, to straighten these wires from where our cow had trampled over them. I’d completely forgotten about this chore… until now.
“Take your father’s bag,” Mama said. “Take it and go.”
“No, I can do this!”
“I’ll untangle myself,” Mama said. “But you must get to the safety of the trees. I’ll follow you.”
“No!”
Mama thrust the shoulder bag into my hands. “Keep running!”
I started to protest, but she waved me away. I got to my feet, but stood there, unsure of what to do.
“If I can’t… if I don’t follow you, then inside that bag is a package. You must take it to a woman in Venska named Milda Sabiene. Promise me you’ll get that to her. Only her.”
“Mama, I don’t know where-”
At that moment, the sound of a loud crash came from our home, followed by the tinkling of breaking glass. I jumped and Mama briefly closed her eyes, then in a low voice said, “Audra, you will obey me now. Run and don’t you stop.”
This time, I did as she said, though tears were streaming down my cheeks. I was barely halfway across the field, each footstep crushing the tender shoots of potato plants in the earth, when Cossack soldiers burst from our rear door, shouting for me to stop.
I raced toward the forest, looking back only when I heard my mother call for me to keep running. A few of the soldiers had already surrounded her and were tying her hands behind her back, arresting her.
The others pointed at me and began to give chase. If I could get into the trees, I would be safe. I knew the area directly behind my home better than anyone, certainly better than these soldiers. I could hide in there, if I was fast enough.
Before crossing into the forest, I turned back at a sudden whoosh, just in time to see my home explode into flames. What had they done? Had my father been inside? Had they brought my mother back to the home as well? I couldn’t see her anymore.
My parents could have been inside. What if they were inside? My chest burned with horror and despair… even as my home burned.
Flames continued to rip through the back of our small wood home, consuming first the corner that served as my bedroom. I had nothing in there of value, but the fire was spreading fast, taking with it my peace, my comfort… my family. Everything that mattered to me in the world was engulfed in flames. I swallowed down the pain that was destroying me, too, then turned again to run, almost blind with panic. Fully aware that the soldiers weren’t far behind me, and that whatever had happened to my parents could happen to me next.
The Cossacks were fast, but I was more nimble in jumping over the low-hanging branches to enter the woods. I dove into the thicket and took a sharp right toward what I knew was a steep slope down into some dense underbrush. When I was near it, I clutched the shoulder bag against my chest and leapt into the air, then fell through nothing until my body caught up with the slope and I half slid, half rolled the rest of the way to the bottom.
By that time, I heard the first soldier enter in the same way I had come, shouting orders to the others to join him in the search. I crawled as deep beneath the thick leaves as I could, praying they would see the slope and go around it. Praying one of them wouldn’t accidentally take a tumble and end up falling right beside me. This was a good hiding place but not a secure one.
I didn’t dare look out, but from the voices around me, I believed there had to be thirty or forty soldiers here now, rather than only ten. It wasn’t possible for there to be so many, I knew my fear was exaggerating their numbers, but what did it matter if there were forty men brushing through the leaves, or ten? They were looking for me. I barely dared to breathe, and before I knew it, thick tears were rolling down my cheeks. It was everything I could do not to sob aloud.
What had happened to my father, to my mother? Were they even still alive?
Mama had warned me once that drawing the attention of the Cossack soldiers could cost a person their life.
Her life. Papa’s life.
I curled into a ball, burying my head in my arms so that if I did cry out, if I screamed out the pain I felt at what had just happened, no one would hear me.
By now, my home was surely engulfed in flames, though nothing I could imagine explained why they had burned it, or why they had even come.
Except that maybe I could explain it.
My father had hidden a wrapped package inside his shoulder bag. My mother had chosen to pass it to my care rather than to save her own life. I had just lost my parents because of that package.
Whatever it was, the soldiers considered it valuable enough that they were after me now. I had to deliver it to this woman, Milda, or else my parents’ sacrifice would be for nothing. But once it was in her hands, I wanted nothing more to do with it. Whatever it was, it had just cost me everything I loved.