The ravens followed us. Squawking, they flitted past us in the moonlight like shadows, landed on trees and waited for us to catch up before taking off and flying on again. They quite clearly knew where we were going.
Because of my bad knee I was allowed to ride on Star even though I think it was against the rules. Everyone else was walking, even Mrs Pommerans. The forest around us was so big and dark that our torches and lanterns looked like tiny fireflies. I shuddered, and suddenly thought I could hear something rustle in the thicket behind us. A fox, maybe, or a bigger animal? I wondered if there were wolves in a place like this.
Then it struck me that a wolf or two would be nothing compared to what awaited me, and I stopped looking over my shoulder.
The jellyfish pool lay in a valley surrounded by snow-topped rocks. There was, however, no snow near the pool and the dark water was steaming slightly.
“How deep is it?” I asked Mr Malkin, who was walking on one side of Star. “I won’t drown, will I?”
“No,” he said. “Not if you stay on your feet. I think the water will come up to your chest at its deepest point.”
Chimera was there, too, of course. Her wings cast blue shadows across the snow in front of us.
“You know this can kill you, don’t you?” she said. “They say people scream for hours while they try to scratch off their own skin. And then they die. Why don’t you just admit that you lied? Then you won’t have to endure that kind of pain.”
Mr Malkin turned around.
“Be quiet, Chimera,” he said. “The law doesn’t allow you to threaten and intimidate a witness.”
But it was too late. The words had been spoken and I couldn’t get them out of my head.
Star carefully descended the last stretch of the slope, which was clear of snow, and stopped. I patted her and thanked her for the ride, sincerely hoping that it wouldn’t be the last time I sat on her round back.
I was supposed to take off almost all my clothes. My fingers were shaking so badly that Aunt Isa had to help me with the buttons on my raincoat and again I heard a snort of derision from Chimera.
“The girl’s terrified,” she announced. “Let’s put an end to this ridiculous performance so we can all go home.”
No one responded. But Aunt Isa kissed my cheek and whispered into my ear. “Trust in nature – and in yourself. They won’t hurt you.”
Thuja and the other Raven Mothers formed a circle around the rock pool and again started humming monotonously, as they had done with the fireflies. Something in the water began to glow. It was the jellyfish. I could see them now. And they weren’t the clear little blobs of jelly I’d imagined. They looked like large, transparent church bells floating through the water, their tentacles as long, fat and knobbly as those of an octopus.
“Let the trial commence,” Thuja said.
Steps had been carved into the rock and I was supposed to walk down them. As I stepped onto the first one, I was shaking all over and couldn’t feel my legs at all. They won’t hurt you, I kept whispering to myself, but it was hard to believe it, and when the water touched my ankles at the first step, I stopped. It was warm. Not as warm as bathwater, but after the cold, frosty air it almost felt like it.
I looked up. Chimera was standing at the edge of the pool, right behind two of the Raven Mothers. Her yellow eyes met mine.
“They scream for hours,” she said in a low voice, just loud enough for me to hear.
Now that ought to have terrified me even more. But it didn’t. I think I was already as scared as a human being could get. And it was then that I realized she didn’t want me to go into the water. That was the reason she was intimidating me, the reason she was trying to frighten me into giving up.
She thinks I can do it.
The thought came out of the blue, or rather, out of her menacing, yellow gaze: if she was so sure that I didn’t stand a chance, why was she trying so hard to make me give up?
How strange that Chimera apparently had more faith in me than I did.
This realization made me walk down the next steps, deeper into the water.
I waited for the pain, but it didn’t come.
The jellyfish floated around me and one of them softly bumped against my leg, a strange rubbery sensation. But they didn’t sting me. Aunt Isa was right. I could trust nature – and possibly myself a little bit.
Slowly I waded across the pool and out the other side.
I got soaked, but that was all.
“Clara Ash has passed Waterfire,” Thuja announced.
“You’re halfway,” Aunt Isa said while she dried my shoulders with a towel. “And you’ve done brilliantly. Here, put this jumper on before you freeze to death.”
I pulled the jumper over my head with shaking arms. And this time it was because I was cold. Winter bathing was definitely not a sport I would ever want to take up.
I felt very odd. Almost as if I could never be scared again. Or at least, not as scared. At long last I felt just as big on the inside as everybody else. It was wonderful.
“They didn’t hurt me,” I said, probably for the fifth time. “They actually didn’t hurt me.”
“No,” Aunt Isa said and smiled. “I told you so.”