Jim Henson's Enchanted Sisters

by Elise Allen

  “I’m in,” Autumn said.

  But the second the words were out, she felt uncomfortable. She didn’t want to do a Powers Contest, but she did want to prove something to Winter … and to Mother. She gave the soft edge of Serenity’s blanket a final touch to make sure it was safe, then smoothed it down over Whisper’s back. She pulled out her scepter and held it so the orb rested close to her heart. Her Sparkle Power was creating wind, but if she was going to do this contest, she wanted to use her power in just the right way. Something that would give Winter a little nudge for pushing her into this.

  She smiled when it came to her. She’d send a light gust right at Winter. Nothing big, just enough to blow Winter’s hood off her head. Autumn chanted:

  Autumn flicked her wrist … but something was wrong. Her emotions were all mixed up and wild, and that made her power wild too. The orange sparkles that were supposed to do no more than nudge Winter’s hood swirled in the air. They kicked up a massive gust that grew twisted and tumultuous. Leaves slapped at Whisper and the Sparkles as the wind grabbed every red, yellow, and orange leaf from the ground and whipped them in a dizzying kaleidoscope.

  Spring wiped leaves from her face. “Fireflies and frights!” she exclaimed. “Please make it stop!”

  “I can’t!” Autumn wailed. A leaf flew into her mouth, and she plucked it out before adding, “I can only make the wind! It always stops on its own!”

  “Duck down under Whisper!” Summer cried. “He’ll cover us!”

  Autumn could barely see through the flying leaves, and her own braid kept smacking her in the cheek, but somehow she managed to slide down Whisper’s back and join her sisters. They huddled together under Whisper’s belly. As the pelting died down, Autumn felt a sickening chill run up her spine.

  “The blanket!” she gasped. She’d left it on Whisper’s back! She jumped to her feet to reach for it … but it was gone.

  “No!” she cried.

  Her heart pounding, she dropped to her knees and tore through piles of newly fallen leaves. “Help me!” she called to her sisters … but none of them joined her. Instead they all stared at a spot on the horizon. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Autumn followed their gaze.

  Serenity’s blanket—the gift Mother had trusted her to protect—was sailing far off into the sky.

  All four sisters stood completely still.

  “No,” Autumn whispered. “This isn’t happening.”

  “I’m so sorry, Autumn.” Spring’s voice was quiet. She slipped her hand into Autumn’s.

  “We have to do something,” Winter insisted.

  “You already did!” Autumn snapped. “You made me do the contest! This is all your fault!”

  “It is not!” Winter retorted. “And I didn’t make you do anything!”

  “You guys—stop!” Summer said. “Look!”

  She pointed into the sky, where the blanket had floated even farther away. Its rainbow of colors now looked washed out and white, almost like a cloud.

  “It’s reflecting the snow,” Summer said. “It crossed into Winter’s Sparkledom.”

  “So we can still catch up with it?” Spring asked hopefully.

  Summer nodded. “If we ride the rainbow.” She turned to Autumn. “This is not over. We’ll get the blanket back before tonight, and Mother will never know. But we have to work together. Can you do that?”

  Autumn glared at Winter, but she was already a lot less angry. She knew it was her own fault the blanket was gone, not Winter’s. She felt lucky her sisters wanted to help get it back.

  “Yes,” she told Summer, “thank you. I would love your help. All your help,” she added to Winter.

  Winter smiled, and all four Sparkles pulled out their scepters, touched the orbs together, and recited:

  They touched their scepter orbs to the gems on their headbands and soared magically through the sparkling rainbow light. This time, however, none of them were turning somersaults or enjoying the view.

  “There!” Winter cried as they neared her icy Sparkledom. Autumn looked where she pointed and saw the blanket. It had landed in a tall evergreen tree, and was almost entirely covered by a fresh dusting of snow. Autumn never would have picked it out without Winter’s help.

  “Daisies and dragonflies, we’re going right to it!” Spring squealed.

  It was true. The rainbow was leading them straight to the blanket. They were going to pass right through it on the way to the ground!

  “Grab it!” Summer screamed.

  She and Winter both turned and dove headfirst with their arms stretched out in front of them. Autumn did the same. It was the first time she ever turned upside down in the rainbow, and it made her so dizzy she had to close her eyes a moment so she wouldn’t get sick.

  Here it came … closer … closer …

  “Agggggghhhh!” Winter screamed.

  They passed clean through the blanket as if it weren’t even there.

  Of course. Just like when they soared through Whisper’s carriage canopy, just like every time they rode the rainbow, they couldn’t touch anything around them. All the Sparkles knew this, but they were so eager to snatch Mother Nature’s blanket that they forgot.

  Autumn turned right side up again and squinted to keep her eyes on the blanket, but the rainbow’s arc took them too far away. The blanket disappeared into the distance. Soon its tree was just one among hundreds, impossible to pick out.

  Autumn was so concentrated on the blanket that she didn’t even sense the rainbow’s end. It ejected her with a THUMP, and she fell flat on her bottom into a foot of powdery snow. Falling snowflakes quickly coated her braid. Yet even though it was cold, Autumn wasn’t uncomfortable. The temperatures in one another’s realms never bothered the Sparkles. Winter never felt hot wearing her snowsuit in Summer’s land, just like the other sisters felt perfectly warm wearing light clothes in the middle of a wintery blizzard.

  “Nice dismount,” Summer teased.

  “We were right there,” Autumn said. “Now we’ll never find the blanket.”

  “Never say never in my realm!” Winter declared. “I know this Sparkledom, and I know exactly how to get back to that tree. Come on! Follow me!”

  Winter strode across the landscape with giant steps. Her boots were natural snowshoes that carried her easily over the piles of powder. Summer and Autumn knew they couldn’t follow, but stopping Winter when she had a full head of steam was nearly impossible. They were confident Winter would remember soon enough and come back for them.

  Spring, however, had come out of the rainbow behind her sisters, and did not think as many steps ahead as Summer and Autumn. When Winter told them to follow, she obeyed, but her sandals were not natural snowshoes. She took one step and crunched into the snow. It buried her halfway to her knee. Not willing to give up, she took another long step … and crunched deeper into the snow. Still she kept going. She struggled to lift each leg out of its thick pile of snow, then swing it around and set it down once more.

  She made it three steps before she tromped into Summer and Autumn’s view. By then both her legs were buried as deep as her thighs and she couldn’t move another inch. Summer and Autumn gasped when they saw her. “Spring, stop!” Autumn cried.

  “I don’t think I have a choice,” Spring moaned.

  “Winter!” Summer shouted. “Winter! Spring needs you!”

  That stopped Winter in her tracks. She bounded back to her sisters. When she saw Spring, she smacked her forehead with her palm. “Snowshoes!” she remembered. “The three of you need snowshoes.” She flung her head back as far as it could go and screamed, “Flurry! FLURRY! FLUUUUUUURRRR-RRRYYYYY!!!!”

  Nothing.

  Winter sighed, reached into her coat, and pulled out a candy cane. She peeled off the tiniest corner of its plastic wrapping.

  Suddenly, the ground shook. A moment later, the world’s largest polar bear bounded over the horizon, his tongue flapping behind him. He leaped into the air, threw himself onto his belly, an
d slid across the snow. He stopped right in front of Winter, nose to nose with his Sparkle. He widened his eyes to make himself extra cute and whined high in his throat.

  “Really?” Winter said. “It had to be the candy? You couldn’t just come when I called?”

  Flurry batted his eyes and licked Winter’s nose.

  “It’s yours,” Winter said. “And there’s one more if you bring my sisters’ snowshoes from the chalet, okay?” Winter peeled off the rest of the wrapper, threw the candy cane as hard as she could, and cried, “Go get it, boy!”

  Flurry raced after the treat. He grabbed it and gulped it down in midair, then disappeared into the distance. A long moment passed, so long that Winter’s sisters weren’t sure he was coming back. Then Winter grinned. “Three … two … one …”

  Again the ground shook as Flurry zoomed toward them, only this time he pulled a sleigh behind him. He tugged it by a long red strap he held in his mouth. He stopped in front of Winter, halted the sleigh with his paw, then showed off what was on the seat inside: three pairs of snowshoes. Job done, he sat up on his back legs and looked hopefully at his Sparkle.

  “Snowshoes and a sleigh!” Winter enthused. “That’s worth two candy canes.” She unwrapped the treats and tossed them into his mouth. Flurry swallowed them in one delighted gulp, then happily fell back into the snow with a mighty FOOMP.

  “You are ridiculous.” Winter said it sternly, but she meant it with love. Flurry had been with her since he was so small he could fit in her palm. Aside from her sisters, he was her best friend in the world.

  As Winter scratched Flurry’s belly, Summer grabbed the three pairs of snowshoes off the sleigh. She and Autumn put theirs on first. Autumn felt very clumsy in the large snowshoes, but she managed them well enough to help Summer pull Spring out of her snow pile. As Spring put on her own shoes, Winter hooked Flurry to the sleigh, then her sisters climbed aboard. Winter herself jumped onto Flurry’s back.

  “Hey, Flurry,” Winter said. “I just realized I left a huge stash of candy canes in a knothole of one of the trees. I’ll tell you the way, and if you pull us there, half the stash is yours.”

  Flurry took off so quickly, Autumn had to clutch the sides of the sleigh so she wasn’t thrown into the snow.

  “Do you think this sleigh is safe?” she shouted over the whipping wind.

  “No idea!” Summer shouted back. “But it sure is fun!”

  “Fun” wasn’t the word Autumn would have used, but it definitely was fast. Before she could truly register how completely terrified she was, Flurry had whipped the sleigh across miles of snowy landscape, up a staggeringly steep mountain, and pulled to a stop next to an evergreen.

  “This is the one!” Winter cried, hopping off Flurry’s back.

  Autumn looked around. Winter was talking about one tree at the edge of a giant copse of look-alikes, all with branches so high it was impossible to see them all. “How can you be sure?” she asked.

  “I know my trees,” Winter said. “Plus I’ll show you.” Winter beckoned her sisters over, then positioned them in just the right spot beneath the tree. “Look up … now tilt to the right … now crouch a little … now squint … now look through a bunch of branch layers to the one all the way …”

  “I see it!” Spring squealed. “I see the blanket!”

  Autumn did too, and she threw her arms around Winter. “Thank you,” she said. “You are amazing.”

  “I will be amazing,” she replied, “when I bring it down. Flurry, give me a boost! Flurry?”

  When Winter had failed to pull candy canes from the tree’s knothole, Flurry had gone nosing around, and found a large box of candy canes stashed under the sleigh seat. He promptly cuddled up in the snow to enjoy the prize. When Winter found him, his entire snout was pink, and half-eaten sticky canes clung to his face, paws, and neck. “Flurry?” she asked. “Are you going to help me?”

  Flurry cuddled deeper into the snow, his tongue working around several candies at once.

  “Flurry’s out,” Winter said, tromping back to the tree. “I’ll get it myself.”

  She had only just started scrambling up the thick evergreen trunk when an ice-cold voice sliced into the Sparkles’ ears.

  “Get what yourself?”

  The sisters wheeled around. An angry-looking boy stood with his hands on his hips, his glare pure ice.

  It was Sleet, one of Bluster Tempest’s Weeds and one of the Sparkles’ greatest enemies. If he found out about Serenity’s blanket, he’d do anything to steal it.

  Sleet slowly moved closer to the Sparkles.

  He walked easily on the snow like Winter, but his shoes left dirty footprints. “You need to speak up. Whatever you’re going to get, I might want to take. But first I need to know what it is.”

  Summer placed one hand on her scepter, ready to draw. “You’re not taking anything from us, Sleet.”

  “That’s right,” Winter added, thumping down from the tree trunk, “because there’s nothing to take. I was just teaching my sisters some climbing skills.”

  Sleet laughed. It sounded like ice clinking around in a glass. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I think there’s something in that tree. And if you want to keep it a secret, it’s probably something very interesting.” He tried to take another step forward, but Winter blocked his path.

  “Why do you hang out in my realm so much, Sleet?” she asked. “You’re not welcome here.”

  She stood toe-to-toe with the Weed. They were the exact same height, and they both flourished in wintery weather, but the similarities ended there. Unlike Winter, everything about Sleet looked cold and dangerous, from his blue-black spiked hair to his raincloud-gray clothes to his winter-storm eyes. His eyebrows pointed down in a wide V, so he always looked angry.

  “I can go wherever I like,” Sleet retorted. “And I can take whatever I find. Like the thing you’re hiding. I bet I can get it before you.”

  “Good luck with that,” Winter said.

  “That’s kind of you,” Sleet replied, “but I won’t need luck.”

  He feinted one way, then ran the other, dodging around Winter and leaping onto the tree trunk. Like all the Weeds, Sleet spent most of his time wrestling, climbing, running, and digging for trouble, so he was very fast—almost as quick as Summer and Winter. He scrambled up the tree so quickly it looked like he had extra arms and legs. Winter just watched him, which Autumn couldn’t understand.

  “Winter,” she said nervously, “what if he gets the blanket?”

  “He won’t,” Winter replied. Autumn wanted to believe her, but it was hard when Sleet was climbing higher and higher.

  Finally, when he was about halfway up the trunk, Winter threw back her head and called, “WHOOOOO-OOP!”

  Flurry was still licking candy cane from his fur, but when Winter hollered, he rose onto his hind legs, sauntered to the tree, reached up, and hooked a claw through the collar of Sleet’s shirt. Sleet kicked his feet and shook his arms as the giant polar bear pulled him away from the tree and held him in midair. “Hey!” he cried. “Come on! You’re supposed to play fair!”

  “Fair?” Spring cried. “You’re trying to steal Mother Nature’s blanket!”

  The instant she said it, her eyes went wide and she clapped her hands over her mouth.

  Too late. Sleet stopped kicking and grinned.

  “Mother Nature’s blanket?” he said. “Interesting. That sounds like something you wouldn’t want to lose. It also sounds like something Bluster would looooove to have.”

  “Tough talk from someone dangling in the air from a polar bear claw,” Winter said.

  “You think this bothers me?” Sleet asked. He pulled a short, twisted stick from his belt and pointed it into the air. Then he aimed it at Flurry’s head and shouted, “Scraggofrakakika!”

  A sleet storm poured down from the sky. It was aimed directly at Flurry. Keeping Sleet firmly in his claw, Flurry darted this way and that. He tried to get away from the ice, but it followe
d him wherever he went.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Sleet laughed, untouched by the pummeling storm. “My ice is awfully sharp.”

  “I’ve got this,” Summer said. She pulled out her scepter and chanted:

  A blaze of yellow sparkles shot from Summer’s scepter and melted every bit of ice they touched, but it wasn’t enough. The sleet kept coming, and Summer’s sparkles couldn’t keep up with it all. Flurry snapped at the icy barbs, batting them away with his free paw, but he was still getting pelted.

  “Leave him alone!” Winter hollered.

  “Of course!” Sleet said. “Give me the blanket!”

  “Never!” Spring shouted.

  Sleet shrugged as best as he could while hanging in midair from Flurry’s claw. “So sad. Guess you don’t really care about the bear.”

  He swirled his stick in the air, hollered another terrible spell, then snapped his wrist toward Flurry. Now the sleet fell harder and faster. Flurry whimpered. It was horrible to watch. Autumn couldn’t take it. “Maybe we should give Sleet the blanket,” she said.

  “Forget it,” Winter shot back. Then she called out, “Just get rid of him, Flurry! Now!”

  Flurry gave a questioning growl, but when Winter nodded, the bear pulled back his paw and whipped it forward. Sleet screamed as he soared through the air, but the sound grew softer and softer as he disappeared into the faraway distance.

  The sleet storm vanished.

  Autumn, Spring, and Summer stared at Winter, openmouthed.

  “Is Sleet okay?” Spring asked.

  “Of course he’s okay,” Winter said. “We wouldn’t actually hurt him.” She scrambled up Flurry’s back, stood on his head, and squinted into the distance. “There,” she said. “He landed in a snowbank on the other side of the pond. He’s fine. Now let me get the blanket before he comes back.”

  Winter leaped from Flurry’s head to the highest branch she could reach. From there, she swung like an acrobat from limb to limb. More than once, Winter came so close to falling that Autumn had to close her eyes. Finally, Winter jumped to the branch that held the blanket, and grabbed hold with both hands. It shook wildly with the weight of her swinging body.