THE WINTER OF ENCHANTMENT

The teapot winks; the clouded mirror becomes a swirl of mist clearing to pure emerald green and out of the burning light appears the face of a young girl, beseeching, dissolving into tears, depositing one diamondlike teardrop on the frame; and with the help of his Power Object the Teapot, and her companion the orange cat, Sebastian is transported to the Enchanter's Treasure House where Melissa has been imprisoned for a hundred years: ""'Gosh,' said Sebastian, when they'd all recovered from the shock, 'I can hardly believe all this is happening. I keep expecting to wake up. Supposing you tell me how we can get you out of here. You did say something about everything being in a book when we were talking through the mirror earlier up.'"" Sebastian is a dull boy, Melissa hardly more than a pretty puppet, their exchanges prosaic in the extreme -- as are by and large the quests for the remaining Power Objects. At the close it comes as no surprise that the ""surprise"" promised Sebastian by his father returning from India with a new bride (apparently the sun never sets on this situation) is a stepsister in Melissa's image. Portentous emanations, bread-and-butter fantasy.