Post by StoryGirl83 on Nov 6, 2011 21:50:52 GMT -5
Chapter Eighteen – What’s in the Box
Piper turned around at the sound of orbing. She grinned at the sight of Prue and Paige. “It’s good to have you here.”
“Is Chris all right?” Paige asked concerned.
“Chris’ is fine other than his powers being gone,” Piper informed her. “It’s Wyatt I’m worried about. Unfortunately Chris seems to think he can handle it and won’t give me much information.”
“I don’t like this,” Paige announced, “not going after the demon behind this. We may not be able to cast a power of three spell, but we’re still Charmed Ones.”
“Oh, we’ll go after the demon,” Piper informed her. “But first we need to at least see if we can figure out what’s up with Chris’ powers.”
“Kind of hard without Chris here,” Prue retorted.
“Well, we aren’t going to get him here,” Piper lamented, “so let’s see what we can find out.”
The sound of the doorbell had all three of them turning toward the front door.
“Paige, would you get that?” Piper requested.
“Sure,” Paige agreed as she headed into the front hall. She opened the door and saw Emily standing there with a box. “May I help you?”
“I need to speak with Mrs. Halliwell,” Emily announced.
Paige glanced back at her two sisters in the other room. “She’s kind of busy right now. Maybe I can help?”
Emily considered this. One question popped to the top. “Who are you?” She had a vague memory that she’d seen her before, probably as The Manor, but she wasn’t sure.
Paige stared at her. “You come to my sister’s place and you ask who I am?”
With those words Emily relaxed. “Oh, then you know about . . . white . . .”
Paige pulled her in before she could finished the word.
“. . . Lighter,” Emily finished surprised as the door was closed behind her.
“Careful where you say stuff like that?” Paige cautioned her.
“How is putting a door between us and the outside going to affect anything?” Emily wanted to know.
Paige glared at her. “You never know who might be listening and you never know who might be watching. Who are you?”
“Emily,” came the quick reply. “I work for Mrs. Halliwell at The Manor. She held out the package still in her hands. “Someone left this on my doorstep.”
Paige took the package from her. “Paige Matthews-Mitchell, Piper’s sister. Thank you for delivering this.” She reopened the door.
“Have you heard anything from Wyatt?” Emily asked before she took a step.
Paige froze. “What do you know about that?”
“Nate called me,” Emily informed her. Her eyes widened. “Did you not knowing anything about what’s going on at the museum?”
“Not a whole lot,” Paige announced through slightly gritted teeth. “Chris wants to handle this on his own.”
“Oh.” Emily was silent, unsure what to say.
Paige sighed and shut the door, again. “Come in and meet Prue.” She lead the way back into the front room.
Emily followed her and looked at the unfamiliar woman next to her boss.
Paige put the package down on the coffee table. “Emily, you know Piper. This is Prue.”
“Emily Colson,” Emily informed her as she held out her hand to Prue. “You can call me Em.”
Piper raised an eyebrow at that. “Prue, this is one of my employees. She’s also the reason that Chris and Wyatt weren’t able to join us a few weeks ago when we went to your place to try and come up with some way to find Phoebe and Coop.”
“Phoebe,” Emily mouthed. “That’s your other sister, isn’t it?”
Piper nodded. “Yeah, Phoebe’s the baby of the family.”
“Two years older than me,” Paige added with a laugh.
Emily frowned and looked at them confused. “You lost me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Prue instructed. “Why did you bring her in, Paige? We’re kind of busy here.”
“Emily knows something about Wyatt, so I thought she might be able to help,” Paige suggested.
“Well, I can call Nate,” Emily offered, “but I don’t know that I can do much more than that. Don’t you want to see what’s inside the package?”
Piper looked down at the package on the table. She frowned when she noticed her name on it. “This was delivered to you?”
Emily nodded. “Someone put it on my front porch and ran, I guess, because no one was there when I opened the door.”
“Why deliver it to your house instead of here?” Piper wondered aloud.
“Open it and find out,” Prue suggested picking it up and handing it to Piper.
“It says fragile,” Piper warned grabbing it. “We should be careful with it.” She placed the package back down on the table and sat down on the couch in front of it. “Back away in case it’s bad.”
“In that case, I’m opening it,” Prue protested trying to pick it up.
Piper stopped her hand. “No. It has my name on it. You are not going to do anything to risk yourself.”
“I’m a . . .” Prue looked at Emily.
“She knows,” Piper assured her. “Chris used the truth spell on her.”
Prue winced. “Yeah, that never goes well,” she commented remembering using the spell on Andy to see how he took he being a witch.
Emily looked at her surprised.
“You find out things you don’t want to know,” Paige added, remembering using it on her own boyfriend only to learn he was married. That had ended fast.
“Really?” Emily looked at them both. “Cause I thought it was interesting. Though it’s clear Chris has a lot of dark secrets.”
The three sisters looked at each other, Prue with a little bit of confusion.
“I told you Chris did some time traveling and changed his future, right?” Piper asked Prue.
Prue shook her head. “Nope.”
“Oh.” Piper considered this. “Well, he did and back in January that Chris combined with my Chris, so my Chris has his memories as well. There’s a lot we don’t know about that time line, but we know it was bad.”
Emily nodded. “That explains what he said about losing a lot of people to his brother.”
“He said that,” Piper stared at her amazed.
Emily nodded, again. “I don’t think wanted to. It was the spell. We both said things that we didn’t plan to. I told him, and the other three, things I hadn’t planned to, stuff I really wasn’t supposed to share, but I guess that’s the price I pay for agreeing. He sounds kind of tortured about it all. So what’s in the package?”
“Right.” Piper pulled her attention away from what Emily was saying and looked down at the package. She opened the flap, surprised to find no tape holding it closed. She pulled it all the way opened and found a stopped up potion vial laying in a lot of tissue paper to keep it from moving. She picked it up and looked at the small amount of blue liquid inside.
“That does not look good,” Paige commented.
“No kidding.” Piper took the tissues out and revealed a folded piece of paper at the bottom she lifted this out and unfolded it. She read the typed note aloud.
“Dear Mrs. Halliwell,
“I am sorry for the necessity of this, but it was the only way to protect someone I love. A demon approached me yesterday and threatened someone if I did not obey. Had I turned them down, they would have found someone else. I am sure you believe you could have dealt with it, but I am not so sure. And I am not willing to risk that.
“I have dealt with the demon, but I do not believe that he was working for himself. In fact he stated that he was working for someone and had reported back to them. Therefore anything following this should be seen as the extraordinary efforts of the Halliwell witches, the Charmed Ones. I do not believe there is a demon out there that truly would doubt that you are capable of bringing back the powers of someone.
“I did give Christopher the stripping potion, but I altered it in hopes that you could undo it. I am including a portion of the potion with this note in hopes that you will be able test it and find some way to use it to find some sort of antidote or cure. I have also included a copy of the spell I used to alter the potion. I am unsure about you, but I have seen stripping potions before. They were not blue. That might be important.
“This is not my war. I do not appreciate being forced into it and so I prefer to remain anonymous. I hope that you are able to use this to find a way to reverse the potions effects, but if you do not, I will not lose sleep over it.”
Piper frowned and flipped over the paper. On the back she saw only the words of the spell in careful block print letters. What was planned, shall not last. A chance not had in the past, shall be given the one who hast, the cunning to reverse this cast. Piper looked up at her sisters and Emily. “That’s it other than a spell on the other side. It doesn’t give us a whole lot to work with, but it’s a whole lot more than we had before.” She turned her attention to Emily. “I know you want to help and I appreciate that. That’s not what I need you to do, though. I need you to tell us everything you know about Wyatt’s situation and then see if you can get an update of any sort by calling . . . Nate, was it?”
Emily nodded.
“After that, I need you to go home,” Piper told her. “This is dangerous business and you shouldn’t deal with it unless you have the ability to do so. You don’t.”
“I can learn,” Emily offered. She looked at the three women around her and shook her head. “Clearly not today though. What do you want to know?”