Winter at Bear Cottage

By Sally Startup

Winter doesn’t believe the Halloween Amulet really has supernatural powers and he certainly doesn’t think Brendan deserved to have it first. Unfortunately, the amulet seems to have plans of its own.
Book Two in the Halloween Amulet Series for readers aged 8-12.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bees Nest Books
• Release date: Oct 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311051462

Sally Startup

Sally Startup lives in Hampshire, England. She writes books for children and young adults and has a PhD in writing for children from the University of Winchester, UK. She used to work as a medical herbalist and is interested in plants, nature and green issues.

Book preview

Sally Startup

Winter at Bear Cottage

The Halloween Amulet Book Two

Bees’ Nest Books

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

Smashwords edition published 2015 by Bees’ Nest Books

Copyright 2012 Sally Startup

The right of Sally Startup to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cover picture copyright Martyn Startup 2015

Smashwords edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share the book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The Halloween Amulet stories were originally created as part of an academic thesis. Throughout that process I received kind support and advice from many people.

With thanks to all.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

About The Author

WINTER AT BEAR COTTAGE

ONE

One of the stones in the amulet was clearly green. Winter held out the grubby piece of old jewellery in the palm of his hand for his three friends to see.

I wonder what it means, said Juliette.

It means Winter’s been scraping the dirt off with his fingernails, Taz replied, sounding bored. Winter knew Taz very well and could tell that underneath, Taz was just as surprised as he was himself.

I have tried to clean it loads of times, Winter admitted, but it never made any difference. Yesterday all the stones were dirty and it looked just the same as it did when I took it off Brendan at Halloween. This morning, that one was clean. It’s done it all by itself.

It was a soggy Saturday in late November, and they were all in Winter’s living room. They had planned to go to the park, but Juliette thought it was too wet. A drizzling rain was falling.

You shouldn’t have snatched the amulet away from Brendan, Wally said. The amulet-seller gave it to him, not you. She was holding the controller for Winter’s games console. After a nervous glance at the amulet, she turned her attention back to the game on the screen.

It’s not like I stole it off him, Winter replied, feeling irritated. We all earned it together. We hardly know Brendan and I don’t trust him.

You mean you don’t like him, said Wally. But I do. So does Juliette.

This irritated Winter even more, but Wally wasn’t even looking at him. She was already playing Monster Mosh-up, the only game all four of them liked. Winter preferred sports games and so did Taz and Wally. But Juliette hated sport and Winter hated the kind of fantasy stuff that Juliette loved. In Monster Mosh-up, there were monsters in the mosh pit in front of the stage at a rock concert. If you barged into enough of them while your character danced around, you got superpower points that gave you more interesting ways of fighting. Wally almost always won. Unlike the others, she never jiggled along to the music and distracted herself. Winter groaned aloud as she exploded another monster on the screen.

Remember what the amulet-seller told Brendan when she gave him the amulet? Wally asked, as she carried on playing.

Secretly, Winter thought it might be better not to remember anything about what had happened that night, so he didn’t reply.

It was just for getting us home when we were lost, Taz said.

But we shouldn’t have been lost at all. What was that place? Wally continued, keeping her eyes on the game.

You called it a thought forest, Juliette reminded her.

Well that was the best name I could think of at the time. Anyway, the amulet-seller told Brendan that the amulet might be able to bring other things here as well as us. Did she mean it can bring imaginary things here?

Taz laughed. You mean like those stupid monsters on the screen suddenly turning up in Winter’s living room for real? He sounded like he was joking, but Winter could tell he was definitely worried.

We did see monsters in the thought forest, Wally pointed out.

Taz picked up a cushion from the sofa and threw it at Wally’s head, putting an end to the conversation. Wally chucked the cushion back at Taz and then she returned her attention to the game. I like monsters that stay where they’re supposed to, she said after a while.

Me too, Winter agreed with her. On Halloween night, when they had gone into Doone Road chapel graveyard and met Brendan Black, they had seen things that ought to have been impossible. No wonder Taz didn’t want to talk about it. Nervously, Winter closed his fingers around the amulet and put it back in his jeans pocket.

Not all supernatural things are bad, Juliette insisted, brightly. What if the amulet could give us superpowers like in Monster Mosh-up, Winter?

Great! I wouldn’t mind if I could have the superpowers without the monsters, he admitted.

I’ll shoot lightning bolts out of my fingers like Electric Man, announced Taz. You can have an elastic arm, Winter, like Slingshot. Winter knew he was remembering the imaginary games they used to play when they were younger.

What about me and Juliette? Wally called out. At that moment, her character on the screen was using her flashing red eyes to