Post by NubianWitch on May 29, 2011 13:50:46 GMT -5
"THE POWER OF PRUE" Part 2
It's so unfair, Paige mused, blowing out in frustration with tired lips. She was lounging in the conservatory, three hours after they had tried to summon Prue from the Spirit Realm. What about how I feel? I've just found out this year that I have this amazing family, and a wonderful big sister. I'm thankful for being Charmed, but why did Prue have to die so I could be a part of it? If she never died, would I have never met them? What if she lived and they still came into contact with me? Would I still have a chance to be Charmed? She glanced at her reflection in the wicker mirror by the doorway to the living room.I'm basically second-rate.
Get it together, Paige Matthews, you're just as special as Prue was! This voice was her own, but its energy felt different, more powerful. Her subconscious, a Guardian Angel?
No, I'm not. I've only been a witch for half a year and I still can't understand myself! The spirit of doubt, colder than the dead, weaved its path through her mind, perforating her skin with goosebumps. She knew the Truth. Prue loved Piper and Phoebe, and, in time, Prue would love her from the Spirit Realm, but Paige had the hurtle of physical mortality to climb. How can you love someone you never knew? A dead person whose spirit couldn't comfort the two people you cared the most about besides your parents? Paige imagined her mother and father in the Spirit Realm with Prue, Grams and Patty, altogether, two families becoming one even after death. Death couldn't stop their joy.
“Paige,” someone whispered from the dining room.
“Prue?” Paige's insides gathered as she swiftly looked up.
Phoebe blinked, sighed, clasped her hands together. “No, sweetie, not Prue. Phoebe. What're you doing in here?” She started to walk closer.
“Just thinkin'.” Paige's eyes fell away. Is lying a family trait? I can't lie to Phoebe, she's psychic.
“Paige, you're a Warren now, more specifically a Halliwell,” said Phoebe sharply, “and there's something we've all got in common. We make bad liars. So, scooch over, scooch over.” Paige obeyed without a response, letting Phoebe share part of the wicker couch with her; beneath the afternoon light glaring through the windows. Chinks of stained-glass light covered their arms and half of Phoebe's face as she looked to Paige. “Tell me what's up?”
“How do you feel about Prue's spirit not being...ready?” Paige's neck went hot.
Phoebe's head tilted. I've been trying not to think about it. “I warned Piper. It's only been a year since she died. Starting yesterday.”
“I should've gotten the hint that she wanted to be alone yesterday, but, when she said 'let's summon Prue' and that she was ready, why didn't I trust her feelings?”
“Because she's Piper,” Phoebe snorted, “she's not the best at being honest with herself. She does too much. Now that Prue's gone, she's trying to fill shoes she doesn't think she was meant to fill.”
Paige smiled. “D'you think she's meant to fill them?”
“Well...” Staring at the wall that'd killed Prue, Phoebe took in a breath. “Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But that's what you and I are for.”
“What d'you mean?”
A scream tore from upstairs, high-pitched and horrifying. By a sister's instinct, Paige and Phoebe took hands and muttered, “Piper,” and went flying from the conservatory, up the stairs to the second floor. BANG. A crash echoed overhead. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them, Phoebe ahead, Paige panting behind, crying out, “Piper! Piper!”
Through the attic doorway they saw Piper throw up her hands, freezing a spinning athame in midair, a hairsbreadth from her face. The figure of a creature with a woman's face and a body clothed in tattered cloth soared at Phoebe her eyes wreathed in flame. Arms lifted, fists balled, Phoebe's body levitated into a circling kick, but the figure dodged round her and leapt to Paige, who shouted and was consumed by orbs, reappearing at Piper's side as Phoebe hit the floor like a rock.
“Demon!” Paige roared, thrusting out her hand. But the attacker did not become orbs and fly to its death, it stayed in the air, hovering, whispering. Its form began to shift in and out, tendrils of energy swarming through it like a swarm of flies, and it gave a triumphant sneer, melting away into the air.
“What—the—hell—was—that?” demaned Phoebe, wrenching herself from the floor to join her sisters.
Piper's lungs stung with the effort to breathe. “Spirit Mover.”
“Spirit what?” Paige was still holding onto Piper's head in her lap, a strange confusion etching over her own face as she struggled to hoist her older sister to her feet. “What's a Spirit Mover?”
“I...I remember seeing it in the Book when Prue was attacked by that Darklighter last year, the--”, Phoebe began, but Piper's words slashed through hers.
“Spirit Killer, yeah, I know,” she quipped, stalking to the Book of Shadows resting on its stand. Her hands flipped through its yellowing, inky pages, as if she was searching for everything, but wanted nothing. “The Spirit Mover isn't a demon, Paige, it's a ghost. It says that the Spirit Mover intercepts spirits those moving through the astral plane and bends them to evil's will,” she quoted from the Book. Silence reigned. “Damn it.”
Phoebe's tongue shook in her mouth, the feeling she always received when she knew one of her sisters was being a secret-keeper. “So the Spirit Mover just attacked you? Randomly?”
“No.” Piper flushed, blew, smacked her hands to the Book's pages. “It came when I tried to summon Prue.”