Saturday, April 4, 2009
My Certificate of Being a Companion!!!
" Well done! You have been chosen as a companion to the phoenix. For you, there will always be a fresh start with your companion as, when it dies, it is reborn from the ashes. As a desert-dweller, the phoenix likes hot sunny places. It is loyal and has a beautiful voice. "
Sea Creatures & Reptiles
If you are a member of the Company of Sea Creatures and Reptiles. As a Sea Snake you will be mixing with creatures as fearsome as the kraken, or as ancient as the dragon. The sea is home to many of us, but as a companion you will find it will not be all plain sailing. Can you rise to the challenge? We are sure you can!
Winged Creatures
Congratulations, you are a member of the Company of Winged Creatures. All of us in this company love to take flight. As a High Flyer you will be mixing with creatures as dangerous as the sirens, or as miraculous as the phoenix. Only the most intrepid are selected to join us, so get ready for take off!
[I belong to the Company of Winged Creatures and I am the Companion of Phoenix!]
[I belong to the Company of Winged Creatures and I am the Companion of Phoenix!]
Two & Four Legged Creatures
If you are a member of the Company of the Two and Four Legged Creatures. As a Two-Four you will be mixing with creatures as brave as the minotaur, or as swift as the pegasus. We are a company that rejoices in the natural world's diversity - all that go on two or four legs are welcome. As someone who loves beasts and beings, you will make many new friends among us.
Four Elements
If you are a member of the Company of the Creatures of the Four Elements. All of us in this company have a strong connection to the materials that make up our planet - to earth, water, air and fire. As an Elemental you will be mixing with creatures as powerful as the weather giants, or as tricky as the unpredictable fire imps. It is not a company for the faint hearted but we are sure that, having passed the selection, you will rise to the challenge!
The First Chapter of the First Book
"Seagulls"
'GO on, I dare you.’ The beady eye of the
seagull twinkled at Connie from on top
of the lifebuoy.
‘But, Scark, I can’t!’ Connie whispered back,
scuffing her trainers on a coil of blue rope on the
quayside. ‘What if someone sees?’
Scark cocked his head and opened his yellow
beak in silent mockery of her cowardice. Connie
glanced furtively over her shoulder. She really
wanted to do it. No one was watching her. She was
just another young girl spending her holidays
hanging out by the marina. There was no one close
enough to see that she was set apart from others
by her mismatched eyes, one green, one brown,
and by the fact that she talked to seagulls. The
fishermen were too busy washing down their
decks to notice the girl with ripped jeans and a
mop of black hair. The parties of tourists by the
coach park had eyes only for the straw hats and
seashell mementoes in the gift shops. Nobody
seemed to care that something extraordinary was
about to happen a stone’s throw away.
‘OK, I’ll do it!’ Connie said, giving in to her
desire. ‘Bet I’ll beat you this time.’
Taking a crust from her pocket, she threw a few
crumbs into the air as practice runs. Scark flapped
from his perch and caught them easily. Play begun,
other herring gulls circled out of the sky and
landed on the harbour wall, a row of eager
spectators. White heads bobbed impatiently,
waiting for the real fun to begin.
‘Here goes!’ called Connie to them. ‘It’s me
against you lot. If one crumb falls to the ground, I
win.’
The seagulls screamed their approval and
flapped into the sky. Connie threw a handful of
crusts high. Birds mobbed them from all sides,
effortlessly plucking them from the air. Scark gave
an ear-splitting mew.
‘So, I can’t catch you out that easily?’ laughed
Connie. She threw the bread faster and faster,
spinning on her heels in an attempt to confuse her
opponents. Gulls darted nimbly left and right,
splitting their flock, spinning on the wing, diving,
anticipating every feint, every low trick she could
devise to outwit them. The billowing cloud of
birds swarmed around her, responding to the
movements of her body as if she was a conductor
and they her orchestra, becoming an extension of
her mood and music. She swirled them around her
like a vast cloak, wrapping herself in their delight
in showing off their skill on the wing. A power
flowed from her to the birds: it seemed to them
almost as if she had shed her human skin and
become flight itself, the heart of the flock. The
seagulls shrieked with joy, urging her to fly with
them out to sea and join them in their raucous
colonies on the ledges of the cliffs and rock stacks.
The mass of birds formed into the shape of two
vast wings extending from her fingertips. She felt
that if she just tried a little harder, she too would
lift from the earth and fly, but her feet could not
quite leave the ground. Taking the last piece of
crust in her fist, Connie threw it high into the sky.
‘Catch!’ she cried.
The seagulls zoomed upwards like Spitfires in a
dogfight, vying with each other for the prize. With
a beat of his broad, grey wings, Scark snatched the
morsel from under the beak of a small white
female and returned to the lifebuoy, ach-aching
triumphantly.
‘Hey, that wasn’t very polite of you,’ Connie
scolded him affectionately, ‘stealing it from her
like that! Whatever am I teaching you?’
Scark bobbed his head in indignation, telling
her with a puff of his wings that a mere chick—
for so he considered her—could teach him
nothing.
‘I s’pose not,’ Connie conceded. Sitting down
on the cobbles beside him, she suddenly felt
deflated. The other gulls drifted away on the
breeze to seek new sport by the rubbish bins and
fishing boats. ‘I know I’ve got a lot to learn. I just
wish I didn’t have to go to school to do it. I hate
school. I just know it’s going to be a disaster.’
Scark shook his head sceptically.
‘I haven’t survived more than a term or two at
my other schools. Something always happens:
foxes start following me around, or mice invade
the classroom, and it soon becomes pretty clear
that it’s all my fault.Why should it be any different
in Hescombe? I don’t stand a chance. At the other
schools, it was only me that people found strange;
here, there’s my aunt as well.’
Connie threw a stone listlessly into the harbour.
It plopped out of sight, leaving worried wrinkles
to disturb the seaweed and the litter collected by
the seawall. When her parents had moved abroad
recently, they had considered sending Connie to
boarding school but in the end decided that, in
view of her terrible record in the classroom, she
would be safer with a relative, even if that meant
Mr Lionheart’s strange sister, Evelyn. Boarding
school had sounded grim, but now that she had
met her aunt she wondered if it would not have
been a better choice. Who else had an aunt who
wailed mournfully from her bedroom window at
five in the morning and disappeared for hours
running on the moors dressed in a long black
ragged cloak? As Connie had swiftly realized,
Evelyn was strange, not to mention scary, but,
unlike her niece, she did not wish to hide her
oddness.
The tide was at its height. The multicoloured
boats bobbed eagerly on their moorings, ropes
ringing against masts, summoning their owners
to set sail. Connie stood up and brushed down
the seat of her jeans, which were damp from the
fish-slick cobbles.
‘OK, Scark, it’s time to go. See you tomorrow.’
The seagull fluttered his wings once and
shook his beak at her in farewell. She watched
with admiration as he launched himself gracefully
off the lifebuoy, heading out to the wave-flecked
sea.
‘Good fishing!’ she called, her voice whipped
away like an autumn leaf scuttling before the wind.
She wished she could go home with him far away
from the humans who found her so odd.
Only when she turned from the sea did she
notice the old man, long white hair streaked with
ginger at the temples, half-hidden in a shelter ten
metres away, equipped with a motorbike helmet, a
thermos flask, binoculars, and a folded newspaper.
By his side lay a pair of scarlet ear protectors, the
sort worn by construction workers who use
pneumatic drills, but there was not a piece of
heavy machinery in sight and nor did he look
anything like a builder. Had he been watching her
all this time? Embarrassment flooded Connie in a
hot wave: she hated to think that anyone had seen
her playing with her friends. It always spelt trouble.
People in Hescombe would soon be whispering
that she was weird as they had in London.
Mortified, Connie did not wait to return the warm
smile he gave her when she met his gaze. She ran
off, threading through a party of tourists boarding
their coach, and pelted as fast as she could down the
High Street in the direction of her aunt’s house.
Dashing past the gaudy shops spilling plastic
buckets, spades, and carousels of postcards onto
the pavement, Connie collided with a group of
people gathered outside the Anchor Tavern.
‘Sorry!’ she said, jumping back from an elderly
lady, only to ricochet into a sturdily-built man in
wellington boots. He caught Connie before she
could fall and set her on her feet.
‘Careful,’ the man said. ‘You’ll do yourself an
injury if you carry on like that.’
Connie’s murmured apologies died on her lips
as she stood pinned to the spot in the circle of
people. They stopped talking and looked at her
with polite concern. Connie hesitated, unable and
unwilling to leave the group. She had caught an
echo from them of what she had felt when playing
with the seagulls. This was where she should be.
The place was rightfully hers.
‘Something the matter?’ asked the man with a
frown.
‘No, no, sorry,’ Connie said, shaking herself out
of her paralysis. She was being stupid. Of course
she shouldn’t stand there all day. She didn’t know
any of these people—she had no business
interrupting them like this. Their expressions told
her they had not felt anything special as she stood
there, other than entertaining vague doubts about
her sanity. She backed off hurriedly. Yet, after
running a few paces down the street, she could not
help glancing behind her, feeling called back to the
gathering of people. She was wrong: no one was
looking at her, let alone calling her. They had all
gathered around the elderly lady who was handing
out scarlet ear protectors from her shopping bag.
Connie turned and ran all the way to her new
home, Number Five Shaker Row, eager to be alone
with her thoughts about what had just happened.
Her aunt’s house was the last of a terrace of
fishermen’s cottages that clung to the bottom of
the cliff, seeking protection from the ocean that
beat hungrily at their front-steps. Number Five
shrank back from the waves, drawing itself taller
and thinner than its neighbours, like the last person
to enter a cupboard in a game of sardines. The
house seemed to anticipate that the waves would
at any moment rip the cupboard door open and
that Number Five would be the first to tumble out.
Madame Cresson, her aunt’s rather superior
marmalade cat, was stalking down the path, tail
purposefully erect. She miaowed when she
saw Connie, who paused briefly to greet her
before clattering into the kitchen to hang up her
jacket. She stopped dead. There on the spindly
umbrella-stand by the back door lay a pair of
scarlet ear protectors. What was going on? Her
first thought was that she should run straight back
out again and keep on running until she had left all
these strange people behind, especially her aunt.
Then she changed her mind. Surely, as she had no
real choice but to stay here, it would do no harm to
find out more about Evelyn Lionheart and her
odd goings-on? Perhaps the ear protectors
themselves might give her a clue? She glanced over
her shoulder to check she was alone and then
picked up the headset to study it at close quarters.
A small silver bird was stamped on both earpieces.
She put them over her ears experimentally, and
shut out all sounds so effectively that she did not
hear the footsteps until somebody tapped her on
the shoulder. Startled, she ripped them off.
‘You know what they say about curiosity and
the cat, don’t you?’ a voice asked smoothly—but
with the smoothness of thin ice. Tall but lightfooted,
and dressed as usual in black, Evelyn
Lionheart stood over her, her face ghostly white
against her long brown hair. Madame Cresson
padded in through the cat flap and wound round
Evelyn’s ankles, greeting her mistress.
‘Er . . . no—what do they say?’ Connie asked
awkwardly, her heart pounding.
‘That curiosity killed the cat,’ said Evelyn lightly,
taking the ear protectors from her to hang them
back on the stand.
Madame Cresson yowled in protest, offended
by this talk of death, and defected to Connie. She
arched her back as she rubbed herself against
Connie’s jeans, seeking comfort from her special
friend.
Connie stroked the cat’s head. ‘I’m sorry. I was
just . . . It’s just that I saw some other people in
town with them today. I thought it a bit strange,’
she ended lamely, thinking she must say something
to excuse herself.
‘Did you?’ Her aunt’s green eyes flicked to
Connie’s face with a shrewd expression, her silverhoop
earrings twinkling in the light from a small
window in the back door.
‘What are they for?’ Connie ventured, blinking
hard to shake off the mesmerizing effect of the
glinting rings.
‘That is none of your business,’ said Evelyn,
keeping her gimlet-gaze fixed on her niece.
Connie felt anger bubble up inside her, but it
was almost immediately burst by a prick of fear
when her aunt added, ‘Forget you ever saw them.’
Evelyn was so mercurial: at one moment full of
wild laughter and enthusiasm, the next showing
some alarming sparks of menace and temper.
Connie did not know what Evelyn really thought
about having her niece dumped on her. From the
reception she had received so far she suspected
that her aunt felt resentful and annoyed, and that
only a sense of duty to the family had persuaded
her to undertake the charge. Yet there seemed to
be something else too—something Connie could
not quite put her finger on. It did not help that,
though they shared the same house, Evelyn shut
herself away from Connie, keeping conversations
to a minimum and inviting no confidences.
Refusing to explain the ear protectors was all part
of this behaviour and Connie was beginning to
resent it. She wished that her parents had found a
more sympathetic guardian for her, someone who
at the very least would welcome her into their
home. But she dared push the question of the ear
protectors no further. The matter was dropped
and the next time Connie passed the umbrellastand,
the headset had gone.
'GO on, I dare you.’ The beady eye of the
seagull twinkled at Connie from on top
of the lifebuoy.
‘But, Scark, I can’t!’ Connie whispered back,
scuffing her trainers on a coil of blue rope on the
quayside. ‘What if someone sees?’
Scark cocked his head and opened his yellow
beak in silent mockery of her cowardice. Connie
glanced furtively over her shoulder. She really
wanted to do it. No one was watching her. She was
just another young girl spending her holidays
hanging out by the marina. There was no one close
enough to see that she was set apart from others
by her mismatched eyes, one green, one brown,
and by the fact that she talked to seagulls. The
fishermen were too busy washing down their
decks to notice the girl with ripped jeans and a
mop of black hair. The parties of tourists by the
coach park had eyes only for the straw hats and
seashell mementoes in the gift shops. Nobody
seemed to care that something extraordinary was
about to happen a stone’s throw away.
‘OK, I’ll do it!’ Connie said, giving in to her
desire. ‘Bet I’ll beat you this time.’
Taking a crust from her pocket, she threw a few
crumbs into the air as practice runs. Scark flapped
from his perch and caught them easily. Play begun,
other herring gulls circled out of the sky and
landed on the harbour wall, a row of eager
spectators. White heads bobbed impatiently,
waiting for the real fun to begin.
‘Here goes!’ called Connie to them. ‘It’s me
against you lot. If one crumb falls to the ground, I
win.’
The seagulls screamed their approval and
flapped into the sky. Connie threw a handful of
crusts high. Birds mobbed them from all sides,
effortlessly plucking them from the air. Scark gave
an ear-splitting mew.
‘So, I can’t catch you out that easily?’ laughed
Connie. She threw the bread faster and faster,
spinning on her heels in an attempt to confuse her
opponents. Gulls darted nimbly left and right,
splitting their flock, spinning on the wing, diving,
anticipating every feint, every low trick she could
devise to outwit them. The billowing cloud of
birds swarmed around her, responding to the
movements of her body as if she was a conductor
and they her orchestra, becoming an extension of
her mood and music. She swirled them around her
like a vast cloak, wrapping herself in their delight
in showing off their skill on the wing. A power
flowed from her to the birds: it seemed to them
almost as if she had shed her human skin and
become flight itself, the heart of the flock. The
seagulls shrieked with joy, urging her to fly with
them out to sea and join them in their raucous
colonies on the ledges of the cliffs and rock stacks.
The mass of birds formed into the shape of two
vast wings extending from her fingertips. She felt
that if she just tried a little harder, she too would
lift from the earth and fly, but her feet could not
quite leave the ground. Taking the last piece of
crust in her fist, Connie threw it high into the sky.
‘Catch!’ she cried.
The seagulls zoomed upwards like Spitfires in a
dogfight, vying with each other for the prize. With
a beat of his broad, grey wings, Scark snatched the
morsel from under the beak of a small white
female and returned to the lifebuoy, ach-aching
triumphantly.
‘Hey, that wasn’t very polite of you,’ Connie
scolded him affectionately, ‘stealing it from her
like that! Whatever am I teaching you?’
Scark bobbed his head in indignation, telling
her with a puff of his wings that a mere chick—
for so he considered her—could teach him
nothing.
‘I s’pose not,’ Connie conceded. Sitting down
on the cobbles beside him, she suddenly felt
deflated. The other gulls drifted away on the
breeze to seek new sport by the rubbish bins and
fishing boats. ‘I know I’ve got a lot to learn. I just
wish I didn’t have to go to school to do it. I hate
school. I just know it’s going to be a disaster.’
Scark shook his head sceptically.
‘I haven’t survived more than a term or two at
my other schools. Something always happens:
foxes start following me around, or mice invade
the classroom, and it soon becomes pretty clear
that it’s all my fault.Why should it be any different
in Hescombe? I don’t stand a chance. At the other
schools, it was only me that people found strange;
here, there’s my aunt as well.’
Connie threw a stone listlessly into the harbour.
It plopped out of sight, leaving worried wrinkles
to disturb the seaweed and the litter collected by
the seawall. When her parents had moved abroad
recently, they had considered sending Connie to
boarding school but in the end decided that, in
view of her terrible record in the classroom, she
would be safer with a relative, even if that meant
Mr Lionheart’s strange sister, Evelyn. Boarding
school had sounded grim, but now that she had
met her aunt she wondered if it would not have
been a better choice. Who else had an aunt who
wailed mournfully from her bedroom window at
five in the morning and disappeared for hours
running on the moors dressed in a long black
ragged cloak? As Connie had swiftly realized,
Evelyn was strange, not to mention scary, but,
unlike her niece, she did not wish to hide her
oddness.
The tide was at its height. The multicoloured
boats bobbed eagerly on their moorings, ropes
ringing against masts, summoning their owners
to set sail. Connie stood up and brushed down
the seat of her jeans, which were damp from the
fish-slick cobbles.
‘OK, Scark, it’s time to go. See you tomorrow.’
The seagull fluttered his wings once and
shook his beak at her in farewell. She watched
with admiration as he launched himself gracefully
off the lifebuoy, heading out to the wave-flecked
sea.
‘Good fishing!’ she called, her voice whipped
away like an autumn leaf scuttling before the wind.
She wished she could go home with him far away
from the humans who found her so odd.
Only when she turned from the sea did she
notice the old man, long white hair streaked with
ginger at the temples, half-hidden in a shelter ten
metres away, equipped with a motorbike helmet, a
thermos flask, binoculars, and a folded newspaper.
By his side lay a pair of scarlet ear protectors, the
sort worn by construction workers who use
pneumatic drills, but there was not a piece of
heavy machinery in sight and nor did he look
anything like a builder. Had he been watching her
all this time? Embarrassment flooded Connie in a
hot wave: she hated to think that anyone had seen
her playing with her friends. It always spelt trouble.
People in Hescombe would soon be whispering
that she was weird as they had in London.
Mortified, Connie did not wait to return the warm
smile he gave her when she met his gaze. She ran
off, threading through a party of tourists boarding
their coach, and pelted as fast as she could down the
High Street in the direction of her aunt’s house.
Dashing past the gaudy shops spilling plastic
buckets, spades, and carousels of postcards onto
the pavement, Connie collided with a group of
people gathered outside the Anchor Tavern.
‘Sorry!’ she said, jumping back from an elderly
lady, only to ricochet into a sturdily-built man in
wellington boots. He caught Connie before she
could fall and set her on her feet.
‘Careful,’ the man said. ‘You’ll do yourself an
injury if you carry on like that.’
Connie’s murmured apologies died on her lips
as she stood pinned to the spot in the circle of
people. They stopped talking and looked at her
with polite concern. Connie hesitated, unable and
unwilling to leave the group. She had caught an
echo from them of what she had felt when playing
with the seagulls. This was where she should be.
The place was rightfully hers.
‘Something the matter?’ asked the man with a
frown.
‘No, no, sorry,’ Connie said, shaking herself out
of her paralysis. She was being stupid. Of course
she shouldn’t stand there all day. She didn’t know
any of these people—she had no business
interrupting them like this. Their expressions told
her they had not felt anything special as she stood
there, other than entertaining vague doubts about
her sanity. She backed off hurriedly. Yet, after
running a few paces down the street, she could not
help glancing behind her, feeling called back to the
gathering of people. She was wrong: no one was
looking at her, let alone calling her. They had all
gathered around the elderly lady who was handing
out scarlet ear protectors from her shopping bag.
Connie turned and ran all the way to her new
home, Number Five Shaker Row, eager to be alone
with her thoughts about what had just happened.
Her aunt’s house was the last of a terrace of
fishermen’s cottages that clung to the bottom of
the cliff, seeking protection from the ocean that
beat hungrily at their front-steps. Number Five
shrank back from the waves, drawing itself taller
and thinner than its neighbours, like the last person
to enter a cupboard in a game of sardines. The
house seemed to anticipate that the waves would
at any moment rip the cupboard door open and
that Number Five would be the first to tumble out.
Madame Cresson, her aunt’s rather superior
marmalade cat, was stalking down the path, tail
purposefully erect. She miaowed when she
saw Connie, who paused briefly to greet her
before clattering into the kitchen to hang up her
jacket. She stopped dead. There on the spindly
umbrella-stand by the back door lay a pair of
scarlet ear protectors. What was going on? Her
first thought was that she should run straight back
out again and keep on running until she had left all
these strange people behind, especially her aunt.
Then she changed her mind. Surely, as she had no
real choice but to stay here, it would do no harm to
find out more about Evelyn Lionheart and her
odd goings-on? Perhaps the ear protectors
themselves might give her a clue? She glanced over
her shoulder to check she was alone and then
picked up the headset to study it at close quarters.
A small silver bird was stamped on both earpieces.
She put them over her ears experimentally, and
shut out all sounds so effectively that she did not
hear the footsteps until somebody tapped her on
the shoulder. Startled, she ripped them off.
‘You know what they say about curiosity and
the cat, don’t you?’ a voice asked smoothly—but
with the smoothness of thin ice. Tall but lightfooted,
and dressed as usual in black, Evelyn
Lionheart stood over her, her face ghostly white
against her long brown hair. Madame Cresson
padded in through the cat flap and wound round
Evelyn’s ankles, greeting her mistress.
‘Er . . . no—what do they say?’ Connie asked
awkwardly, her heart pounding.
‘That curiosity killed the cat,’ said Evelyn lightly,
taking the ear protectors from her to hang them
back on the stand.
Madame Cresson yowled in protest, offended
by this talk of death, and defected to Connie. She
arched her back as she rubbed herself against
Connie’s jeans, seeking comfort from her special
friend.
Connie stroked the cat’s head. ‘I’m sorry. I was
just . . . It’s just that I saw some other people in
town with them today. I thought it a bit strange,’
she ended lamely, thinking she must say something
to excuse herself.
‘Did you?’ Her aunt’s green eyes flicked to
Connie’s face with a shrewd expression, her silverhoop
earrings twinkling in the light from a small
window in the back door.
‘What are they for?’ Connie ventured, blinking
hard to shake off the mesmerizing effect of the
glinting rings.
‘That is none of your business,’ said Evelyn,
keeping her gimlet-gaze fixed on her niece.
Connie felt anger bubble up inside her, but it
was almost immediately burst by a prick of fear
when her aunt added, ‘Forget you ever saw them.’
Evelyn was so mercurial: at one moment full of
wild laughter and enthusiasm, the next showing
some alarming sparks of menace and temper.
Connie did not know what Evelyn really thought
about having her niece dumped on her. From the
reception she had received so far she suspected
that her aunt felt resentful and annoyed, and that
only a sense of duty to the family had persuaded
her to undertake the charge. Yet there seemed to
be something else too—something Connie could
not quite put her finger on. It did not help that,
though they shared the same house, Evelyn shut
herself away from Connie, keeping conversations
to a minimum and inviting no confidences.
Refusing to explain the ear protectors was all part
of this behaviour and Connie was beginning to
resent it. She wished that her parents had found a
more sympathetic guardian for her, someone who
at the very least would welcome her into their
home. But she dared push the question of the ear
protectors no further. The matter was dropped
and the next time Connie passed the umbrellastand,
the headset had gone.
About the books
THE COMPANIONS QUARTET IS COMPLETE!
The Chimera's Curse
Book Four of the Companions Quartet
‘How shall we kill the Universal?’ asked the serpent, its tongue flickering between its teeth. ‘Bite, burn or venom?’
Connie is a the world's last Universal – the only person who can communicate with all creatures. The only person who can keep peace between humans and the hidden mythical beings that are being destroyed by pollution.
But the shapeshifer Kullervo craves her power. He wants to wipe out humanity.
During a long, hot summer, as the sun beats down and the earth gets dryer, Kullervo prepares for war. The serpent-like chimera is just one part of his frightening army. As the inferno blazes into life, Connie and her best friend Col must stop him. But how? And who will survive this battle to the death?
'The Chimera's Curse' is available in hardback in all good bookshops now.
Other titles in the Companions Quartet:
Mines of the Minotaur
Book Three of the Companions Quartet
‘Something’s wrong,’ Col said urgently. The wind was buffeting him back, trying to prevent him reaching his friend. ‘Connie!’ he yelled. ‘Connie! Stop it!’ She was standing very close to the cliff edge, her toes curled over the crumbling lip . . .
Connie is a Universal – she can talk to animals and mythical creatures. But something dark is calling to her, giving her dangerous power, and her best friend Col doesn’t know what to do.
When her strange behaviour means Connie is rejected by the Society for the Protection of Mythical Creatures - the very group of people who are supposed to protect her - she hides away in an abandoned tin mine. There she is befriended by a blinded Minotaur, and feels safe amongst the other wounded creatures the Society and the world have forgotten.
But even deep underground she can’t block out the dark voice inside her head. Who is it, and where does it come from? And why does Connie feel so terrified by the power it gives her?
'Mines of the Minotaur' is available in all good bookshops now.
The Gorgon’s Gaze
Book Two of the Companions Quartet
‘The dark eyes of the gorgon blazed at Connie, beating down upon her with awesome power. Connie felt a burning coldness scorching her skin, entering her flesh and freezing her to the spot. Now the gorgon would begin the slow process of killing her, turning her pounding heart to stone…’
Mallins Wood is under threat, and with it the home of the last remaining gorgon-a mythical creature that can kill with a look. Only a handful of people know that she still exists. Col and his mother are among them, and both are determined to save her, and the forest.
While Col tries to rally support amongst the locals, his mum is hatching a more deadly plan. Egged on by the evil shapeshifter Kullervo, she is ready to sacrifice Col’s best friend, Connie, to protect the gorgon. But first she needs Col to lure Connie to the gorgon’s lair…
'The Gorgon's Gaze' is available in all good bookshops now.
Secret of the Sirens
Book One of the Companions Quartet
‘Col felt a stab of fear in his stomach. The Sirens were now close enough for him to see their crimson mouths open in a scream, pale faces blazing with white-hot anger, their bird-claws tearing at the air…’
When Connie is sent to live with her aunt by the sea, she’s not expecting anything much-not to make friends with Col, the coolest boy in town, and certainly not to discover that mythical creatures still exist, that an ancient society has protected them for centuries and that a dark and powerful force is now trying to destroy it.
Above all, she doesn’t expect to discover that she has a special talent-greater even than her secret ability to talk to animals-which with Col’s help, could give her unimaginable power…
'Secret of the Sirens' is available in all good bookshops now.
What people are saying about Julia's books
Reviews
'... this is absolutely great and keeps you hooked on every page. I would definitely recommend it...'
Red House Reader Ambika Pugalia (12 yrs)
on The Gorgon’s Gaze
Hard to put down.
T. Noonan,
on The Gorgon’s Gaze
Crackles with tension
TES,
on Secret of the Sirens
5/5… so brilliant you simply have to read it.
Jenii, age 10
on Secret of the Sirens
The most excellent book I have ever read.
Mrs. J. E. Thomas,
on Secret of the Sirens
Real excitement and adventure run through every chapter.
Andy,
on Secret of the Sirens
A lovely, lovely book. And the first of a series too - can't wait for the next one!
Amazon,
on Secret of the Sirens
‘This has all the ingredients of a must-read series’
Publishing News
on Secret of the Sirens
‘I really like it - it reminded me of Susan Cooper's Over Sea Under Stone.’
Amanda Craig
on Secret of the Sirens
‘Loved the book’
Wendy Cooling
on Secret of the Sirens
‘This is a brilliant book... I would definitely recommend this to everyone. It is amazing how authors invent totally new things and all the details about them; like the Society. I look forward to reading the sequels.’
Lilliane, age 11
on Secret of the Sirens
Kept me up all night with its fantastic storyline and gripping characters.
Alessandra,
on Diamond of Drury Lane
Sent shivers down my spine
Soobin,
on Secret of the Sirens
Please write more and never stop.
Catherine,
on The Gorgon’s Gaze
The Future is in your Hands
Now, more than ever, you are needed to help make a difference and ensure the safe future of all livings things.
The Society for the Protection of Mythical Creatures is looking for dedicated new recruits to join them in their fight against the evil shapeshifter Kullervo.
Do you have what it takes to be a creature companion?
Books about The Companions Quartet by Julia Golding
''Secret of the Sirens''
"The Gorgon's Gaze"
"Mines of the Minotaur"
"The Chimera's Curse"
"The Gorgon's Gaze"
"Mines of the Minotaur"
"The Chimera's Curse"
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