Post by StoryGirl83 on Mar 20, 2009 18:38:16 GMT -5
Chapter Eleven – The Book
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Paige had listened closely as Piper explained what she knew. The longer Piper talked the longer the frown on Paige’s face grew. And it wasn’t as if there was much to be said either. It just worried her. “Well, that’s not much to go on.”
Before Piper could respond a voice just outside the room called their attention to it. “Mom?”
Paige looked up as her twin daughters, Alanna first, and then Janice peeked in. Hank was right behind them, his face kind of wry. “Come in, girls.”
The three teens entered the room and Alanna plopped down on the couch next to Piper. “Hank says you’re Aunt Piper.”
Piper sighed. “Yes, Alanna.”
“Then, why don’t you look like her?” Alanna wanted to know with the open curiosity of someone a decade younger than her seventeen years.
Janice and Hank walked over to the couch, but both remained standing and silent. Janice’s eyes mirrored her twin’s curiosity, even if as the more reserved and quiet twin, she wouldn’t easily ask.
“I don’t know what caused this,” Piper informed her. “And I don’t know how to change it. It’s not like I can just flip a switch and fix it.”
“Why not?” Alanna wanted to know. “Hank also said you have Chris’ powers, so why don’t you just glamour?”
Piper frowned. “I don’t even know if that’s one of his powers, but even if it is, I wouldn’t begin to know how to use it.”
Alanna turned to look at her younger brother. Though she spoke to Piper, she asked for confirmation from him at the same time as she stated, “Hank can teach you.”
Hank raised his eyebrow. It was quite like her to volunteer him, but no one ever volunteered him to teach magical things, especially to adults who had practiced magic longer than he had been alive, adults who had taught them magic.
Piper considered the idea and looked at Hank. “It’s worth a try, if you are willing. You obviously have control of that ability, if what I saw at the door was anything to go by.”
Hank frowned at that. “Not really,” he informed them trying to figure out how to phrase his response. “It’s just something I can do. I think about someone I want to look like and suddenly I change so that I do look like them.” He looked at his mom. Trying to take the attention off him he asked, “Mom, you can glamour, can’t you?”
Paige nodded. “I suppose I can. It’s been a while since I’ve tried.”
“Then, you need to start relearning your powers, Mom,” Janice spoke up for the first time since entering the room. “If only half of what I’ve heard these last several weeks is true, then we need to be prepared. Magic is back, yes, but so is evil, and evil has not changed what it wants. It wants us. And it wants those most innocent, those we are to protect. That’s what you taught us, Mom, you and Dad.”
Piper and Paige looked at each other before Paige turned back to face her daughter. “I think sometimes I forget that, but you are right.” She glanced back at her sister for a moment and then back at Janice. “And since you are right, what is your take on this situation? Do you have any ideas here?”
Janice sat down on the couch next to her mom. “I think it’s a distraction. No one’s attacked, right?”
“Right,” Piper agreed.
“So I think we have two problems,” Janice continued, “the obvious one and the question of what’s going on while we are distracted.” She looked worried at her mom. “But I don’t know what to do about it.”
Paige considered this and looked at her three children. “I think what we need to do is work on both problems, but I don’t see any way to find out what this demon wants without finding out who he is, so we’ll need the Book of Shadows.”
“We could check the one you made first,” Alanna suggested. “It has a lot of info in it. Maybe the demon is in there.”
“Isn’t there any other way we can try looking for this demon?” Hank asked, almost forgotten by the others in the room.
Piper looked at her nephew as she thought about that. “Maybe, but only if we can find something of the demon’s.”
“Or get a premonition off of something,” Hank retorted.
Alanna looked questioningly at her brother, surprised at his tone, before she got up from her seat and left the room.
“Which we can’t do with Phoebe missing,” Piper returned, “so it’s no use bringing it up.” She turned to Paige. “Any luck on that front?”
Paige shook her head. “I haven’t found anything. I even summoned Grams. At least I can say with some confidence that she isn’t dead.”
Piper sighed. “That’s something anyway.” She looked across the room at a clock in the wall. “I worried about Wyatt.”
Janice and Hank both looked at her curious. Paige turned her head to look at her, but like her two younger children, said nothing.
“He’s at my restaurant,” Piper explained, “pretending to be me.”
“He’s not cooking is he?” Alanna asked, horrified at the thought.
Hank rolled his eyes heavenward. “Wyatt can cook.” Three sets of eyes were on him instantly, making Hank squirm. “Well, he can. I’ve seen him. I’ve eaten his cooking.”
“You ate something Wyatt cooked?” Piper asked stunned.
Hank nodded. “It was something out of a box and he messed up with the first attempt, but yeah, I’ve eaten something he made and it tasted good.”
Piper shook her head, amused. “Wow. I still don’t feel comfortable with him at my restaurant pretending to be me.”
Hank shrugged. “Unless you started cooking stuff out of boxes and didn’t tell us, I imagine you still have reason to be. He can make dinner for himself, but he’s not the cook you are.”
“Chris says he burns water.”
“Chris also says that Wyatt is in charge of dinner every other night and that they don’t always have take-out.” Hank grinned. “He doesn’t like cooking.”
Piper sighed. “I’m not sure what’s worse, a son who can’t cook or one who won’t.”
Paige laughed. “Focus, Piper.”
Piper sighed. “And it was so nice to not focus on the fact that I look like my husband for a moment there.
Alanna returned to the room just then with the unmarked book her brother had been reading spells from earlier. She sat back down on the couch, this time next to her twin and opened up the book. She looked over her twin at her mom. “Did you only copy specific spells to this or just as much as you could?”
Paige chuckled. “I’ve had almost twenty years to work on it, Sweetie. That book has every spell, demon, and family history I could find. So I guess, yes, if the Book of Shadows has anything, it should be in there, too.”
“Great,” Alanna looked over at Piper. “So, Aunt Piper, you never saw the demon, right?”
Piper nodded. “That’s right.”
“Then, we are going to have to put this together using what he did to the four of you.” Alanna opened the book and peered down at the image drawn onto the page in her mother’s artistic hand. She held out the book for her mother and aunt to see. “This name is familiar. Who is he? A demon?”
Paige and Piper looked at the picture and exchanged glances. Paige sighed and turned to her daughters. “A demon, yes, but not a normal demon. He was only half demon and he’s been gone for many years.”
“Half demon,” Hank spoke up. “Like Seth?”
Paige laughed. “Yes, like Seth, only unlike Seth he was raised as a demon. If you three want, I will tell you about him and some of the other demons in there, but after we get this problem fixed.”
“May I see the book?” Piper requested. When Alanna had handed it over to her, she started flipping through. She looked at the pages, hundreds of them, pages she hadn’t looked at much in years. This demon was something new to her and this was going to take time, time they didn’t know if they had.