Third Time Charmed

NOTICE: Welcome to Third Time Charmed by @TEZofAllTrades on Inkitt.com! If you’re reading this message on another website, my work has been reproduced without permission. Please support the original work on Inkitt.

This story is dedicated to the memory of Shannen Doherty, who sadly passed away on 13 July 2024. I hope I’ve done Prue justice. Blessed be.

The Victorian bones of Halliwell Manor creaked softly as the cold night air whispered through unseen cracks. A solitary candle cast a dim glow on the exposed wood of the attic. Kneeling before an altar laden with herb jars, chalices, and other ceremonial items, Piper Halliwell flipped through the Book of Shadows, the ancient leather-bound tome she and her sisters had found in that very room three years prior, when life as they knew it changed.

Within its pages, they had learned of their birthright. They were witches. Moreover, they were the three sister witches prophesied to become the world’s most powerful and protect the innocent from the forces of evil, the wielders of the Power of Three—the Charmed Ones.

Brimming with spells, potions, and knowledge accrued from generations of magical ancestors, the Book of Shadows had been a steadfast support as they struggled to fulfill their destiny. Now, though, it seemed to Piper that the book had abandoned them, and at their lowest moment, when their mission had cost them their sister.

Her long, brown hair flat, and her pallid face stained with tears, Piper located the first of the spells she was looking for—the incantation that had awakened their powers. This time, one of them would work. They had to.

“In this night and in this hour, I call upon the ancient power,” she recited solemnly. “Bring back my sister. Bring back the Power of Three.” Piper kept her eyes closed for a prayerful beat, then opened them, scanning the dark room for some sign of magic in the air, some sign that her plea had been heard. But there was nothing.

Blindly determined, she began flipping pages again, landing on the spell to call a lost witch. Mixing rosemary, cypress, and yarrow root into a silver bowl, she chanted, “Power of the witches rise, course unseen across the skies, come to us who call you near, come to us and settle here.”

After a brief pause, she reached for a ceremonial athame and used it to slice open her left index finger. She allowed blood to symbolically spill from her heart and into the bowl of herbs, and then uttered, “Blood to blood, I summon thee. Blood to blood, return to me.”

To Piper’s surprise, upon completion of the spell, a faint breeze caused the flame of her candle to flicker. She looked around expectantly, but when nothing else occurred, she buried her face in her hands, the weight of defeat heavy on her heart. A draft was hardly uncommon in the old house, which had felt colder and draftier than ever over the last week.

“Piper?” a distant voice spoke.

Piper looked up hopefully. “Phoebe?” she called out in response. Her faint glimmer of hope was extinguished when her husband appeared through the attic door, wearing a blue flannel robe.

“Honey, it’s four o’clock in the morning,” Leo said gently, his dirty blonde hair standing on end. “I rolled over in bed, and you weren’t there. What are you doing up here?”

Her expression blank, Piper didn’t answer. It was obvious what she was doing in the attic, after all, sitting in front of the open spell book and a table full of occult paraphernalia. Even a normal person could see that, never mind a Whitelighter like Leo, whose calling it was to protect and guide the good witches of the world.

“You’re bleeding,” he said with concern, leaning down to take Piper’s left hand in his, which proceeded to shine with warm golden light. The small wound healed instantaneously.

Barely registering the caring gesture, Piper pulled her hand away and motioned wildly with it at the Book of Shadows. “I don’t understand why magic can’t fix this,” she said, “and why we can’t bring Phoebe back. It’s not like we haven’t cheated death before. I don’t understand why this time is any different.”

“Because I can’t heal the dead, Piper. You know that,” said Leo for what seemed like the umpteenth time, hearing the impatience in his voice.

“There’s other magic, magic that we’ve used before,” Piper argued, turning the book’s pages at speed as if to demonstrate her point. “Scrying, calling a lost witch, finding a lost love, reversing time… Not to mention….”

“Not to mention what?” Leo challenged, anticipating what was to come.

“I died once,” said Piper with noticeable reluctance, “and you saved me. You used magic to bring me back to life, but you didn’t save Phoebe!”

“Piper...” he started, reaching out for her, but she withdrew from his touch.

“You didn’t save her, Leo! Our baby sister!” Piper accused, her voice breaking.

“That’s not fair, Piper,” said Leo calmly. “What I did for you was only possible because I abused my powers. That action almost cost me more than just my wings. Even if I had been willing to put everything on the line again, I wasn’t with Phoebe when she passed. It was too late…for her and for Dr. Griffiths. I barely got to you and Prue in time. I wouldn’t have had it not been for—”

“I know,” said Piper exasperatedly, taking a breath and closing the heavy book with a thud before getting to her feet. “I know. I’m sorry, Leo. I’m just….”

“It’s okay to be angry.”

“I’m not angry. I am pissed off!” Piper expelled. “Why didn’t they let you heal her? Why can’t they bring her back?”

“The Elders? They can’t. They don’t have that kind of power.”

“Then what the hell good are they?” Piper snapped. “Why did they put us through so much for it to end this way? Even the book deserted us, deserted Phoebe, and I don’t understand why!”

Leo paused before responding, “You and Prue tried everything in the book, Piper, but death isn’t something we’re supposed to understand. Magic can’t change it because it’s part of the natural order of things.”

She tensed, not in the mood for one of her well-meaning husband’s lectures right now.

“I miss Phoebe too,” Leo added in a quieter voice, “I just thank God that I didn’t lose you as well.”

Upon hearing these words, Piper’s tough façade broke. She leaned in to rest her head on Leo’s chest and cried with his arms wrapped tightly around her. When her sobs ceased a few minutes later, Leo lovingly kissed her on the top of the head and broke their embrace.

“Come on. Let’s get some rest. We’ve got a big day ahead of us,” he advised.

“Yeah,” Piper agreed with a sniff, wiping her damp cheeks. “And Phoebe would never forgive me if I looked bad at her funeral.”

Leo smiled sympathetically, and then they left the attic hand-in-hand, shutting the door behind them. As they descended the staircase, Piper asked airily, “I don’t suppose you heard Prue come home?”

“Sorry, no,” Leo answered. “I checked her room when I went looking for you, but her bed was empty.”

Piper sighed, “Of course it was.”

“I’m sure she’ll be at the service,” Leo offered somewhat uncertainly.

“I’m glad one of us is sure,” mumbled Piper.

Moments later, in the now-vacant attic, the triquetra that adorned the Halliwell Book of Shadows—the symbol of the Charmed Ones—began to glow ominously. This was followed by a mysterious gust of wind, which reopened the book and magically turned its pages to the last spell Piper tried to cast, To Call a Lost Witch.

Paige Matthews enjoyed her assistant job at South Bay Social Services. It was rewarding work, and she was pretty darn good at it, in her humble opinion. Though not officially a social worker, she was qualified to be one and regularly carried out duties associated with the role. Still, until her boss, Mr. Cowan, found room in the budget for a promotion, her ambition, not to mention her creditors, would have to wait.

She was patient, though. At twenty-four years old, Paige had plenty of time to work her way up the employment ladder, especially when doing so would probably require a rethink of her attire. For now, her style choices weren’t a problem, but a real social worker probably couldn’t get away with the short denim skirt she had paired with her vintage lace top, cute as it was.

While Paige was paying her dues, it helped that she shared the office with some amazing coworkers, including Mr. Cowan, who was a great boss. He might seem prickly at times, but he was a big ol’ teddy bear at heart, and she had learned a lot from him in her two and a half years on the job.

Sweeping her straightened, near-black locks over her shoulder, Paige put the finishing touches on the file Mr. Cowan was waiting for and saved a copy to disk. “Printing!” she called out in an effort to preempt his imminent arrival at her desk.

Out of the blue, Paige felt a chill run down her spine, which was odd considering how warm the office was. As if to confirm a sudden change in the air, the lit candle on her desk petered out. She’d have put this down to a gust of wind, but neither her hair nor any of the papers on her desk had moved. Looking around, she saw that while the windows were open, it was a glorious San Francisco day outside.

Paige dismissed the strange occurrence and waved her hand surreptitiously to disperse the candle’s smoke. Strictly speaking, she shouldn’t have had it burning. Mr. Cowan had rebuked her in the past for using scented items in the shared environment, which she gently reminded him wouldn’t be an issue if she were given her own office. He had also warned that they were a fire hazard, but she was careful, and this one didn’t have a strong fragrance. Just a little vanilla for relaxation.

Getting up from her chair to go and collect her printout, a faint rustling and a soft thud caught Paige’s attention. Turning, she saw a folded newspaper lying in her path. Unbeknownst to her, it had appeared out of thin air in a wisp of white light and dropped to the floor.

She scanned her surroundings curiously. It surely hadn’t been there a second ago. Had somebody thrown it at her? But who would do that? Or had she unknowingly tripped on it? No, she would have felt that. Bending to pick it up, however, all questions vanished from her mind. The paper was open at the obituaries, and her dark brown eyes were immediately drawn to one of the names listed there.

PHOEBE HALLIWELL

BELOVED SISTER

Funeral Services will be held today at Memorial Cemetery, 11:00 AM…

Phoebe. She was one of them—the Halliwell sisters, the ones that Paige… And the funeral was that morning. Lost in thought, she didn’t notice the boss emerge from his office and approach her.

“Paige, did you find that study yet?” asked Bob Cowan, a besuited, frowning man in his early forties with a shaved head and a goatee. “Paige, did you hear me?”

Not fully aware of herself, or of her boss’s presence at that moment, Paige felt an inexplicable need to attend the funeral. Her eyes still fixed on the newspaper, she absently grabbed her cream jacket from her cubicle peg and replied in a spacey manner, “Yeah. It’s in the printer. I’m sorry, I have to go.”

“What do you mean, go? Go where?” the man exclaimed in disbelief as she departed without a backward glance. “Paige! Hey, Paige!”

To get you in the mood for what's to come, check out this fan-made Season 4 opening credits sequence featuring Prue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl9LSfFee6k