Post by StoryGirl83 on Jul 31, 2010 23:53:18 GMT -5
Chapter Nineteen – Past Meets Present
Several minutes had passed since the door opened, but nothing had happened in the meantime, nothing with the door at any rate. Chris had allowed Wyatt to heal his injuries from the battle. They weren’t severe, but at least he walked without a wince now.
“Aunt Piper,” Vicki’s voice came over the speaker.
Everyone gathered toward the phone before Piper replied. “Is everything all right, Vicki?”
“Yeah,” Vicki informed them. “There’s a lot of kids here and some of them are taking convincing to leave. I’m about ready to head back to Mom and Dad, but I’m sending some people your way. ‘Kay?”
“Sure,” Piper agreed, “but who are you sending?”
“Just some kids with . . .” The rest of what she was saying was cut off as Prue’s cell finally died.
Piper groaned as she reluctantly hung up the phone. “What was she trying to tell us?”
“How about part the crowd so I can get to my little sister?” Ladybug Halliwell suggested from the doorway.
Next to her, her sister, Cilly Halliwell, grinned at them. “Some sort of adventure there, huh? Do we have all of you to thank?”
Hope wiggled her way around her family members and hugged Ladybug around the torso. “I was so scared.” She turned her hug on Cilly and added. “You weren’t there. You just weren’t there. And what would I have done without you?”
“Let’s hope you never find out,” Ladybug suggested as she hugged both of her sisters. “I sure don’t want to.”
“Wow!” a girl’s voice exclaimed from the sitting room. “This room is massive.”
Piper and Paige looked at each other worried. Leaving Phoebe’s three daughters to their reunion everyone started toward the sitting room.
“Not so much,” a boy’s voice argued. “I believe this is where Mrs. Campbell resided before her marriage. I think she lived with her cousins.”
“And who is Mrs. Campbell?” Piper asked as she looked at the four children in the room. Brian looked up at her and blinked in surprise. “Mrs. Johnson?”
Paige chuckled and sent an amused looked at her sister. “Do you have something to tell us, Piper?”
Piper shook her head as she tried to remember why that name sounded familiar. As people entered the room behind her she gasped. “Oh!”
“Do you know who Mrs. Johnson is?” Paige asked.
“I think I was,” Piper whispered, “in my past life.”
“Like the evil enchantress?” Paige asked, remembering her own encounter with her past life.
“Like that,” Piper agreed, “but Mrs. Johnson also was Grams’ mother.”
Brian looked at her for several seconds. “Of course you aren’t Mrs. Johnson. I’m sorry. It’s just this house matched with your face and that is what I think of.”
“Did Vicki send you?”
“She’s nice,” Charity announced. “I like Victoria.”
“Victoria, huh?” Piper repeated amused. “If she’s anything like her mom, she probably doesn’t want to be called that.”
“She didn’t seem to mind,” Faith commented.
“Everyone’s out,” Charles announced as he stepped out of the door. As he headed toward him the door slammed closed and the door imploded stunning everyone. Charles turned around and looked behind him with wide eyes. He gulped breathed, “I’m sure glad that waited to do that until after I was out. After two hundred years of waiting I didn’t want it to just end when I got out.”
“Two hundred years,” Chris mouthed at Wyatt.
Wyatt pointed a finger at the twins and mouthed back, “I think they’ve been there longer.”
“That maybe so,” Piper responded, having heard them despite their attempt to be quite, “but what do we do with them now that they are here. We can’t exactly tell people that they are hundreds of years old.”
“I’m only one hundred,” Brian offered. “Well, one-hundred-and-fourteen.”
Piper sighed and offered him a weak smile. “I know you mean well, but that doesn’t really help. It means we might be able to find your birth certificate and we might even be able to find living grandkids of your parents, maybe, but what then? What do we do with you?”