I: Flies In The Attic

"Phoebe. Turn on the flashlight!"

"I'm trying, Piper. Would you stop freaking out?"

"Don't tell me not to freak out! We have no power, the flashlights aren't working, and you read a spell from our grandmother's old spirit board!"

Even in the dark, the pair of Halliwell sisters bickered until a brief flicker gave way from the rusted flashlight. A rustling of wings caused the girls to shriek once more.

"What are you guys doing?"

"AHHHHHHH!" The pair shrieked in unison.

"PRUDENCIA ANNE HALLIWELL! Don't scare me like that!"

"You got the attic open," Prudence remarked as if nothing phased her, walking past the pair that clung onto each other for dear life. Piper cleared her throat and sent a knowing glance to Phoebe, who swatted it away with another step into the attic.

The wing's rustling grew into a brief flapping before the noise settled once again.

"AHHH!"

"Will you two stop screaming already? I have a headache!" Prue called out to her sisters while she walked towards the stained glass window at the other side of the attic. The eldest Halliwell sister unlatched the clasped lock and opened up the window. "It's probably a bird that got trapped here."

"Oh, great. It's only a bird! Birds carry diseases, you know!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Piper." Prue said, peering over her shoulder to her sisters whose normally tanned skin was now stark white with fear. Stepping away from the window, she wrapped her arms around her solar plexus.

"Aren't you going to welcome me home, Prue?" Phoebe snorted as she stepped off to the side, leaving Piper alone near the doorway.

"I don't think we should be up here," Piper insisted, shifting on her two feet as she continued to play with the long sleeves of her pajamas.

"You look ridiculous, Phoebe." Prue said, narrowing her eyes while stepping over to a podium near the top of the room.

"It's good to see you too, Prue."

"Why are you here, Phoebe? We're not keeping the house."

"Excuse me, Apathy International, but my college roommate just died. I'd like to grieve her without the guilt trip. I'm not made of steel like you, Prue." Every word was laced with vitriol, the spite caused her eyes to glint against the darkness. Prue remained at the head of the podium, a sneer of resilience and deflection rising to meet her sister's pathetic tirade.

"Surprising how you came here to grieve your college roommate but you went running as fast as you could back to New York when your grandmother died." Prue shrugged sarcastically while the youngest approached, poised with fists clenched at her side.

"Is that what you really wanted to get off your chest, Prudencia? Or did you really want to talk about Jeremy?"

A growl formed at the back of Prue's throat, her spine beginning to upright as the tension caused the veins in her neck to pop. "Stop shining that light in my face, Phoebe!"

"What are you going to do about it, Prue?!"

With a huff of her nose and a squint of her eye, Prue raised her arms to block the light while she felt static in the air. The flashlight rattled in her youngest sister's grip who struggled with the trembling tool before it went flying towards Piper's feet as if taken by an invisible force.

Prue had remembered that threat as if it was yesterday.

"What are you going to do about it, Prue?!" Phoebe had yelled when escorted to the front steps by the gruff truancy officer. "Tell Grams I was caught at the mall?!" The youngest sister's face was lined with defiance, her chin raised at a sharp angle to face her sister who stood above her at the top step near the front door of their family's estate.

"She doesn't have to, Phoebe Halliwell." Their grandmother retorted with a slam of the car's trunk that her granddaughter completely missed, freshly parked in front of the garage. Penelope Halliwell crossed the pavement in a few fell strides and shoved the bag of groceries into the angst ridden teen's chest.

"Grams! I didn't see you there."

"I see that. Get inside." Phoebe lifted her chin with indignance and strutted up the stairs, brushing past her sister who opened the door with a smirk on her face. "Thank you, sir."

"You have to sign the paperwork, ma'am."

Penelope wiggled her fingers in the truancy officer's face, who scrunched his nose. "No, I don't."

"You're right, ma'am. You don't." The truancy officer said with a nod, bewitched by the matriarch before he turned at the heel of his shoe and descended down the stairs back to his school vehicle.

Prue shook her head in disappointment as she descended the concrete stairs, "You bent the mortal's will? I thought you signed the oath of white."

"No, dear. The Warren witches signed the oath. The only promise I made is to myself and to you girls; that I would raise you in the way of righteousness so that one day the Charmed Ones can be ushered to preserve the balance." Penny's hand raised to stroke the side of her eldest granddaughter's cheek.

"You look so much like Patty." Penny said with a heavy breath.

"You always do that."

"Do what?"

"Talk about mom and guilt trip me into actually caring about my duties as coven head."

"How am I doing?"

"Wonderful. What are we going to do about Phoebe? She's a ticking time bomb with enough karmic curses to last her another five lifetimes. How am I supposed to teach her how to be in touch with mystical forces when she isn't even in touch with reality?" Prue huffed before turning her cheek away from her grandmother's warm touch.

"The same way I did with you. Lots and lots of patience." Penny said with one last pat on the cheek before she began to ascend the stairs in a hurried pace. "Phoebe! You better not be hiding in your bedroom!"

Piper's voice interrupted the warring sisters and the flash of memory that lingered at the water's edge. "Why does Grams have a bottle labeled 'baby's first laugh?'" Piper raised the flashlight she had picked up from the ground and pointed it at a dusted cabinet against the attic's side wall. "Or how about this one? Aardvark tears?"

Phoebe kept her gaze fixed on her eldest sister before turning her attention back towards the shelf. "What do you mean? Ouch! Dammit! My foot!"

"Are you okay?! Is it broken?!" The light whipped from the cabinet towards Phoebe's face, flush with heat from her injury. With one arched brow from the youngest, the light darted to the source of her pain. An oak chest with innate carvings of three women dancing underneath a fool moon had wound up at the base of Phoebe's foot.

Phoebe bent over to examine the decorative artifact, "Grams had such weird stuff. Of course this is locked too."

Prue lowered her gaze and the latch of the chest rattled dramatically, opening up in a fury which startled Phoebe, causing her to take a few steps back. "Did you see that?!"

"No." Prue said flatly. "I can't see anything. It's dark."

"I did!" Piper said, her voice strangled. "I've watched enough scary movies to know when to walk away! I'm out of here!"

"What are you even talking about, Piper?! There's not enough Latino representation in horror!" Phoebe cried out in dismay, rifling through the contents of their grandmother's aged furniture. "I knew it!"

"Knew what, Phoebe?!"

"Grams was a witch!"

High above her head, Phoebe held up a leatherbound book with a smile stretching from ear to ear. "It's a book of witchcraft!" Phoebe lowered the book. With one foot, she closed the top lid of the chest and sat on it, the heavy tome on her lap. "We are the culmination of an ancient prophecy made by our ancestor witch, Melinda Warren, a servant of Tituba and a slave… blah blah blah… the Charmed Ones, a powerful line of witches who can bend magic to their will… blah blah blah…"

"Um, I think the culmination of ancient prophecy deserves more than a blah, blah, blah, Phoebe! We're witches?! I can't be a witch! I did my first communion! Am I going to Hell?"

Prue bit her bottom lip, enjoying every stage of grief that Piper Halliwell experienced simultaneously while she considered the possibility that the sisters might be witches.

"Phoebe, put the book away. We'll look through this in the morning when Darryl comes over." Prue said, taking on a more gentle tone. The discovery of their family's Book of Shadows was her intended goal but Phoebe's voracious appetite was getting the best of her.

"You can always leave if you're scared, Prue." Phoebe said, ignoring the eldest as she flipped through the first page. "Ooh, look! A spell!"

"Cut it out, Phoebe!"

"No, Piper! It's just a bit of hocus pocus. Bwahahaha!" Phoebe added for dramatic effect before she continued, "Hear now the words of the witches, the secrets we hid in the night. Daughters of space, time, and sight, no longer bound and shrouded in angel's light. The faces of the Goddess are sought in this hour. Mother, maiden, crone, we take on the mantle of our legacy. We seek the power, shared by us sisters three. As we will it, so mote it be."

Another crackle of thunder roared just as a glittering sea of eyes appeared from a darkened corner at the far end of the room. A tidal wave of bats flew past the Halliwell sisters, darting out the window and into the night sky.

A shriek erupted from Piper, who closed her eyes shut and raised her arms to shield her face. Prue flicked her focus from side to side, some winged rodents spiraling off course before making their way back to the gliding stampede.

Phoebe ducked her head low, arms covering the top of her crown before she wretched onto the cold, attic floor.