Wildfire

  “Eh… lizards?” I began cautiously, trying not to feel too silly. “Are you there?”

  Of course there was no reply. Did I hear a faint scurrying in the darkness? I wasn’t sure. Besides, I didn’t know what a lizard sounded like when it moved.

  “This is stupid,” I mumbled to myself. And this time I thought I could hear a faint echo whisper stupid-stupid-stupid after I had stopped talking.

  I bit my lip. Now what? Simply shouting GOAWAY wouldn’t get me anywhere, and that was the only witchery I knew.

  Perhaps it’s time for you to learn something new.

  I hesitated.

  “Cat? Is that you?”

  But the cat didn’t reply either. Perhaps that hadn’t even been it. I couldn’t always tell whether the voice belonged to the cat or to me.

  Closing my eyes when it was already so black that I couldn’t see a thing seemed pointless, but I did it anyway. This was how Aunt Isa had first taught me to find my wildsense and it was still easier this way.

  If you could call it easy.

  See nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing.

  Connect with this other sense that had nothing to do with the eyes, ears or nose. The one that could hear every living creature in the whole wildworld – including the creatures hiding in the darkness of the cave.

  There.

  Very close to me, in fact. So close that I would have tripped over one if I’d taken another step. A small, cool spark of life flickered in the darkness, a tiny heart beat slowly and coldly.

  The poor thing is cold, I thought, and I immediately wanted to pick it up and hold it in my hands so I could share my own warmth with it.

  Hssssssssss…

  A flame shot out between us, so bright that I could sense it through my closed eyelids. I opened my eyes. For a moment a glowing cloud hung between me and the lizard and I could see it. It was yellow with black spots, its scaly body was warty and spiny and its eyes bulged as if there weren’t enough room for them in its broad, toady head. It wasn’t very big, either – maybe the size of a guinea pig or a kitten, but a lot less cute. I had time to see it take a few waddling steps towards me before the gas cloud dispersed and the light faded away. Soon I felt its claws against my trouser leg.

  Heat. I knew that was why it was attracted to me. It had sensed my wish to share my body heat, and now I was stuck with it. After all, I had made a kind of promise.

  All right. Nobody is saying you have to kiss it, I thought. Just hold it for a little while. I bent down and carefully lifted up the rough and gnarly animal and held it close to my heart. It wasn’t actually that difficult, although the lizard certainly wasn’t soft, warm or furry. It was a bit like stroking coarse sandpaper with prickles on it, but I could feel that the lizard enjoyed it and needed all the heat I could give it. After a few minutes it even started grunting with pleasure and contentment, and the sound became a throaty hum strangely like the Raven Mothers’ wildsong.

  Hisssssssss. Hisssssssss. Hisssssssss.

  Suddenly the whole cave was ablaze with light. On the walls, on the ceiling, along the floor, anywhere there was even the slightest protruding rock or a hint of a hollow… the fire lizards were everywhere and they breathed their glowing clouds into the air as if they were singing in a choir. A fire song, golden, warm and red, lighting up the dark.

  I held “my” lizard close and I nearly cried because it was so beautiful. Just as beautiful as the dance of the fireflies – or possibly even more so because I understood it better. They liked the warmth. They liked me. They sang their fire song because they were happy.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as I slowly stroked the lizard’s neck with my index finger. It arched its neck and pushed against my touch, making it a little firmer, and hummed even louder. Still holding the little lizard, I started to walk.

  It wasn’t very far. One hundred paces, perhaps, if it had been a straight path, but it wasn’t. I had to climb and crawl and squeeze myself through the narrowest of places and everywhere sharp rocks shot up from the floor or hung down from the ceiling. Hidden among the rock spikes were cracks and chasms, some so deep and wide that a twelve-year-old girl could have easily disappeared into them. Without the light from the lizards I would never have found my way out.

  The exit from the cave was somewhat bigger than the entrance, a jagged hole in the roof seven or eight metres above me. A rope ladder hung down from two solid beams and I could see the torches and the moonlight outside and hear voices even though I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  I put the fire lizard down on a small rock and stroked its neck one last time.

  “I’ll come back one day,” I promised it, “… and warm you up again.”

  There were fewer gas clouds now and they glowed for shorter intervals. “My” lizard burped a final, golden fire greeting into the air. Then it crawled down from the rock and disappeared into the darkness. I grabbed hold of the rope ladder and started my climb towards the moonlight. My knee hurt and I didn’t like the way the rope creaked, but I would be up and out in a few seconds and then I would have passed the third trial.

  Or so I thought.

  When I reached for the next rung of the rope ladder, my hand didn’t touch rope. Instead it closed around something cold and furry. A piercing screech rang out and a set of very sharp teeth sank into my finger.

  Suddenly the darkness of the cave came alive with claws and teeth and flapping and screaming. Leathery wings hit my face and the back of my neck, I couldn’t breathe, there were furry bodies everywhere scratching and biting and shrieking in a high-pitched tone that drilled into my ears and all the way to my brain. My heart pounded and I lost my grip on the rope ladder. I slipped and fell; my leg got caught in one of the rungs and I briefly hung upside down before I crashed onto the stony and uneven cave floor below.

  Nothing.

  All the creatures went away.

  Darkness.

  Pain.

  A tingling sensation of wings and claws all over me.

  Then that, too, disappeared and I no longer knew where I was.

  CHAPTER 20

  A Friend in Need

  “Clara!”

  Someone was shaking me.

  “Clara, come on! Sit up.”

  I had no desire to sit up. I had no wish to move at all. Everything hurt and my stupid knee had found new and interesting ways to torture me – a fiery dart, a prickling of acid, needles pushing in behind the kneecap and sending electric shocks up through my thigh muscle.

  “Clara. You have to!”

  It was Kahla.

  Kahla? What was she doing here?

  “What…” I mumbled. “Why are…”

  But I couldn’t finish my sentences. The words slipped away when I reached for them and my tongue felt numb. All that came out were grunts of pain.

  “Where does it hurt?” Kahla asked.

  “Knee. Head.”

  She placed her hands either side of my head. I noticed in my dazed state that she was still wearing mittens. But what was she doing to me?

  “Lie still. I’ll see if I can make it go away.”

  And then she did pretty much the same as Aunt Isa had done that first night. She stroked my temples and the back of my head with woolly mitten fingers while her wildsong curled around me as subtly as my black cat. It helped. Perhaps not as much as when Aunt Isa did it, but it did help. I could think again, I could move again.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Helping you,” she said through gritted teeth. “What did you expect? That you could manage everything on your own?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Aren’t those the rules?”

  “Chimera doesn’t play by the rules. It might explain why she always wins.”

  “Chimera?” I looked around frantically. There was a torch lying next to Kahla and it cast strange shadows between the rocks. I caught a glimpse of curious lizard eyes, but I couldn’t see a four-metre-tall non-angel.

  “Don’t
worry. She’s up there waiting with the others.”

  “Then how can she be mixed up in this…”

  Kahla scoffed. “Perhaps you think it was just bad luck that a colony of bats decided to attack you just as you were about to pass the third trial?”

  Bats. Yes. That was why I had fallen.

  “But…”

  “Clara. Bats are shy. They would never attack a human – unless someone made them.”

  I reached for the torch and swept the beam across the roof of the cave. There they hung, the bats – in furry clusters, heads down, their wings folded around their bodies. They hardly stirred now; they swayed a little and occasionally there was the soft rustling of a wing. I thought they still looked fairly scary, but I had to admit that they showed no sign of wanting to attack us. Perhaps I’d just seen too many vampire movies.

  I shuddered.

  “How do you know that’s what happened?” I asked.

  “Because I followed you. As soon as the grown-ups had moved away from the hole you were lowered into, I climbed down as well.”

  “Why? I didn’t think… I mean, I didn’t think you liked me.”

  Kahla looked away.

  “I don’t. Or… it’s a bit difficult to explain. It’s… it’s incredibly important that I become a good wildwitch. Far more important than you can imagine. Isa is supposed to teach me all the things my dad can’t because he’s a man. That’s why we come to see her, day in, day out, even though it’s a terribly long way to travel and it’s dreadfully cold and I freeze half to death every single day. Because it’s important.” She glanced up at me. Her dark eyes shone as if she were about to cry. “And then you came. And you knew nothing. Isa had to tell you everything, even the basics, and you still couldn’t do it. You would cheat or guess at most of the answers, and sulk when you didn’t get things right straight away. Suddenly I had to wait for the new girl to catch up all the time, and to top it all you couldn’t even be bothered to make an effort. When I’ve been practising my entire life. You’ve no idea how angry it made me.”

  I squirmed. She was right: I’d sulked and been stroppy at the beginning, and I’d cheated in some of the tasks because I didn’t understand them.

  “Why is it so important to you?” I asked. “Becoming a good wildwitch, I mean.”

  Again she avoided looking at me.

  “I want to be just as good as my mum was,” she said quietly. “It’s absolutely essential.”

  “Your mum?”

  She lifted her head abruptly.

  “Stop asking so many questions,” she snapped.

  “You hated me right from the start,” I said.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Yes. Or rather hated that you were there. After all, I didn’t know you.”

  “Then why are you helping me now?”

  She snorted.

  “I hadn’t planned to. I decided to follow you to see if you cheated.”

  That made more sense. Now I recognized her.

  “I didn’t.”

  “No,” she said. “But Chimera did. So it was probably just as well that I was here, don’t you think?”

  I sighed.

  “Yes,” I said. “I guess so.”

  “And now you have to climb up that rope ladder and show them that you really are a wildwitch. You understand Chimera has to be beaten, don’t you?”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll go back to the entrance and get out that way. It’s probably best that they don’t find out I helped you. Even though Chimera cheated first.”

  I did as she told me. I heard her clamber over the rocks in the darkness while I stretched out my battered body and prepared to limp back to the rope ladder. Kahla. She was a bit like the cat. I didn’t think that we’d just become best friends forever, but she’d helped me when I needed it and I knew that I owed her a favour. Perhaps that was a kind of friendship.

  When I struggled up the last few rungs of the rope ladder, all the grown-ups were waiting – friends, enemies and Raven Mothers. Aunt Isa smiled and I could see an extra sparkle in her brown eyes. Chimera’s scowl was more evil than ever. And there was a look on her face which made me fairly sure that Kahla had been right – she really had tried to stop me with the bats. But she’d failed, I thought. Kahla had seen to that.

  “Clara Ash has passed Earthfire,” Thuja said out loud so that everyone could hear it.

  Only one trial remained – the one Mrs Pommerans had called the Heartfire.

  CHAPTER 21

  Heartfire

  “It has been a long time since we last saw a wildwitch undergo this fourth and final trial,” Thuja said. “This is the most dangerous one for Clara, but it also carries a certain risk for the rest of us. Therefore I now ask both parties if they still maintain their allegations. Clara, is there anything in your testimony you wish to change?”

  I shook my head.

  “Everything I said is true,” I said. My voice sounded slightly croaky, but otherwise loud and clear and very calm. Was that really me? I hardly recognized myself.

  Thuja faced Chimera, who was standing next to me in the circle of trees in Raven Kettle. She was so close that I could have touched her wing if I’d stretched out my hand. I didn’t.

  “Chimera, Clara stands by her testimony. What is your answer?”

  “That she’s lying.” There was no hesitation in Chimera’s voice either, but something had changed. She wasn’t quite as arrogant as she’d been at the start, back when she thought I was a bug she could easily squash.

  “You know that if Clara walks through the fire unhurt and comes out on the other side then she has proved her case?”

  “So you say.”

  “Listen, Chimera,” Valla suddenly intervened. “She passed the first three trials. No one here seriously doubts that she’s telling the truth.”

  Wow! Was this the same Valla who’d been so crotchety with me at the start? He’d certainly changed his tune. Or perhaps he just wanted the case over and done with. It must be nearly midnight now, possibly even later. And he was the one who’d been the least enthusiastic about walking all the way to the jellyfish pool and the lizard cave.

  “Will you deny me my right, Valla Raven?”

  He grunted. “No, but your sentence will be less harsh if you don’t endanger us all by persisting. Can’t we end it here?”

  “Are you scared, Valla?” The contempt in Chimera’s voice was as sharp as a knife. “Then give me the girl and go home to bed. If you give her to me now, I’m willing to release her after only one year.”

  One year! Twelve months. Three hundred and sixty-five days. Eight thousand seven hundred and sixty hours. No thanks. No way.

  “It appears we’ll have to continue,” Thuja said. “Very well. So be it.”

  I was told to stand exactly at the centre of the circle of trees. Everyone else – including Chimera – had to withdraw to the far side of Raven Kettle, beyond the trees. I wondered if Kahla was hiding somewhere out there and watching what was happening. I thought so, even though I couldn’t see her.

  The seven Raven Mothers took up position by the trees that made up the circle.

  They started singing.

  This time it was more than a quiet hum. They were still singing without words, but so loudly that I wanted to cover my ears with my hands. It was as if the trees, the earth and the air quivered. The sound grew louder and louder until it was almost unbearable.

  The snow melted. Not slowly and gradually, but within seconds, like a knob of butter on a red-hot frying pan. Under my feet the earth stirred restlessly and then started to crack. Lines of fire raced across the ground from each of the seven Raven Mothers towards me. Just before the lines of fire reached me, they diverted to form a ring, a wall of flames that burned so hot and hungry that I was forced to close my eyes. I felt my eyelashes and eyebrows crumble and turn to ashes.

  I was standing at the heart of a fire star. And I wasn’t alone.

  There was something else in
side the fire. I couldn’t see it, I was too scared to open my eyes, but I could feel it with my wildsense. The fire was alive. It wasn’t just something, it was someone.

  Who are you?

  It was the fire asking the question, not me. The roaring, all-consuming fire that could swallow me up in one single breath, burn me to a crisp and reduce me to bones and ashes.

  It wasn’t just asking for my name. It wanted to know who I was.

  “A wildwitch,” I whispered, trying not to inhale too much of the boiling hot air into my lungs. “I’m a wildwitch.”

  And what is that?

  I panicked for a moment. How would I explain that? Was there even a right answer? Or a wrong one?

  “Someone who loves animals. Someone who loves the whole wildworld.”

  It wasn’t wrong, I could feel it. But the fire’s heart was still waiting. There would seem to be more.

  Something Aunt Isa had once said suddenly mingled with the memory of the happy song of the fire lizards.

  “Someone who never takes without giving…” I began.

  The flames retreated noticeably. It didn’t get much cooler, but at least it no longer felt like a thousand sunburns. But it still wasn’t enough. I was missing something.

  The cat. The cat was a part of it now, a part of me.

  “Someone who doesn’t flee without having fought first.”

  You have fought, little wildwitch. But did you do it alone?

  Oh no.

  The fear sent a shiver down my spine and set my heart racing. I couldn’t breathe and the flames closed in on me again. It felt as if my skin were seconds from bubbling up like pork crackling under the grill, and I knew why.

  Because I hadn’t fought alone. Kahla had helped me. Only because Chimera had cheated, but even so.

  Lie, I thought. Say that you were alone. After all, nobody saw her…

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie to the fire. It would either have to take me or leave me alone; I had to speak the truth.