10th November, 2024
TamKat – Chapter One
Tamora Matthews was not a morning person, in fact she wasn't an anything person, she hated everything and everyone, except her family.
Mom always said she seemed to take more after her than Kat, besides being identical of course, Tam as she liked to be called was rebellious, and had more of a bull in a china shop approach, her sister Kat, was the opposite, shy, emotional and conflicted. Mom joked how she took more after their father.
"Uh I hate mornings" Kat's voice floated in to Tam's head.
"Me too, sis, me too" she replied.
Tam smiled as she rose from her slumber.
The twins did this often, using their power to communicate to each other, they were both telepathic, and had always had fun with it, running their parents ragged whilst growing up just for the hilarity that ensued.
Now they were 17, and at High School.
Tam yawned as she threw back her duvet and stood, looking in the mirror, her normally straight long hair had frizzled in her sleep, she looked like she'd been dragged backwards through a bush.
"Gross" she sighed as she sat in front of her vanity, pulling out the hair straighteners.
Ten minutes later and Tam was done, dressed in her usual attire of jeans, t-shirt and her black leather jacket which her Aunt Phoebe had gotten for her on her last birthday, she loved it.
Kat plumped her hair up, she loved looking good, loved the feeling it gave her, she stood and her short, wavy bobbed hair bounced, that new lotion her friend from school suggested was doing wonders.
She put the finishing touches on her look for the day, a pink leather jacket and black mini skirt and knee-high pink boots, she looked awesome if she said so herself.
She grabbed her books and left her room, coming face to face with her sister.
"Ew, you look like a fairy just barfed all over you" Tam said, her disapproving tone holding no subtly whatsoever.
"And as usual you look like a hobo" Kat said teasingly.
The two gave each other a hug and walked downstairs.
This was how they were with each other, they both had different styles, but both sisters loved each other unconditionally, being a beacon of support for the other.
"I wish you'd let me curl your hair" Kat said wistfully, eyeing Tam's long, straight tresses.
"Hmm, let's see, for the thousandth time, no way in hell" Tam replied.
"See you later honey" the girls heard a deep voice from the kitchen, and out walked their father, Henry.
"Have a good day daddy" Kat said, perking up, definitely a daddy's girl.
"Aww you two sweetheart, both of you" he said smiling, giving each twin a kiss on the forehead.
Kat walked into the kitchen, she loved her father very much, they both did, but she butted heads a lot with their mother, too alike Tam thought, though neither willing to admit it.
"Finally!" Paige said, exasperated.
"Here, I made you some pancaked for breakfast" she said, smiling.
"Ooh yummy" Tam said, grabbing a fork.
"Are these low fat?" Kat asked.
"Are these from a box?" she wondered.
Paige sighed and turned around.
"Well I never was the cook in the family" she said, smiling tightly.
"Hmm, I guess I'll pass" Kat said, reaching for a banana.
"Don't tell me you're trying that stupid fruit diet again?" Paige asked her daughter, a worried expression on her face.
"Well, I wanna lose a few pounds before the dance next weekend, Danny invited me" she said happily.
"We know" Paige and Tam said together, they'd been hearing about the "wonderful", "talented" and "gorgeous" Danny for weeks.
"Any man who wants you to lose weight just to look good at a dance is not worth dancing with" Paige said sternly.
"Yeah well you're old, what would you know?" Kat asked sarcastically.
"Believe it or not, I was young once" Paige said nostalgically.
She did this a lot Tam noted.
Remembering the old days she guessed, fighting demons and working together with her own sisters.
Those days were long past though, and truth be told, The Charmed Ones did not get on well anymore, ever since their mother had uprooted their lives and moved them to LA, not wanting to stay in San Francisco anymore, the consequence of that of course, was that they didn't get to see their extended family so often, and their mom had it the worst, her and Aunt Piper had been on eggshells, after she disagreed with them all moving away, thinking that it was in the family's best interest to stay together.
Paige felt a ringing in her ear and looked momentarily anxious for a second.
"Everything ok?" Tam asked, concerned.
"Of course sweetie, just your Aunt Phoebe calling".
"Ooh tell I said hi" Kat said cheerfully.
"I will" Paige promised.
"You want me to orb you to school or you wanna get the bus?" their mother asked.
"Danny's picking me up" Kat said absent minded.
"I'll get the bus, I'm gonna meet Travis before school" Tam explained.
"Ok, well I'll see you later, love you" Paige said before orbing away.
"You're still dating that Travis guy?" Kat asked.
"We aren't dating, we're just friends" Tam clarified.
"Hmm" Kat said.
"He smells funny".
"Ugh, just stop, look, your rides here" Tam said, pointing out the window.
"See you later!" Kat said, kissing her sister on each cheek.
"What was that?" Tam asked, perplexed.
"Oh, I saw it on that show, the one about French people" Kat said brightly.
"How helpful" Tam said as her sister walked out the front door.
Lord knows she loved her sister, but even Tam had to admit, sometimes she was a little overwhelming.
Tam sat in class a few hours later, thinking about her mother, the expression on her face, she'd looked worried, she supposed she'd just ask her mother about it later.
She wished she could orb, but it wasn't meant to be, her Uncle Leo had explained it years ago, since their mother was only half-whitelighter, she wasn't able to pass down the genes that carry the whitelighter trait, it was recessive, whilst witch DNA and mortal DNA was dominant, so the twins hadn't been able to inherit any Whitelighter abilities. Tam had always wanted to orb though, she admitted it, she was lazy, and orbing would solve all her problems.
She felt a tap behind her, it was Travis, he passed her a note.
"Saw your sister round the greenhouses before school, making out with Danny, I vomited up my breakfast burrito".
She wrote back "Gross" and passed it back. Now she was going to have a word with her sister.
"Kat?" she asked tentatively, projecting her thoughts, she could sense her sister in Chemistry class, on the other side of the building, whilst she was stuck in Spanish.
"What?" she got back a few seconds later.
"Were you making out with Danny this morning?"
"Oh My God that is so none of your business!" Kat yelled back.
"It's pretty tacky doing that in public you know" Tam said.
"I'm putting you on mute now" Kat snarled.
Kat was popular, and she knew it, if this were "Mean Girls" that old movie from the early 2000's she'd be Regina, hmm, but Regina was a bitch, maybe Lindsay Lohan instead? They did both have the same hair colour.
The truth is, though she'd never admit it was that Kat was a lot smarter than people gave her credit for, "Ms Misunderstood" her father called her.
But she knew her crowd, and she knew how to work it, being smart would ruin that, and if there was one thing she had been working towards for the past two years, it was to be recognised, some people may call her shallow, but she thought it was savvy of her to recognise her audience and appease it accordingly.
Take Danny, his curly blonde hair, his bright blue eyes, he'd have never been interested in her if she acted all intelligent, for example she knew that the square root of 400,389 was 632.7.
Don't ask her how she knew that, she wasn't reading anyone's mind, she just knew it, she was a math kid on the inside.
But on the outside, she was the version of herself she had carefully crafted in order to remain popular. She walked down the hallway towards the cafeteria, lunch was her favorite time of the day, she would go up to the counter and smell all the foods. This counted as her treat for the day.
Tam thought she was ridiculous, but it worked, she'd already lost two pounds this week.
She grabbed a tray and got into line, she had to at least look like she was going to eat, she'd already had to see the councillor once this month, and she hated that guy, he stank of gin.
Waiting patiently Kat started to feel an odd sensation in her head, like a weird buzzing noise, at first she thought it was some kind of insect and waved her arm around to bat it away. But then it got worse.
She dropped her tray and fell to the floor, her hands covering her ears.
"Help me!" she yelled.
The line dissolved as people stared, the pain was so strong, it was like someone was drilling in to her brain.
She pain dissipated and she got to her feet, she was embarrassed, everyone had seen, how would she live this down?
"Come on dear, nurse's office for you I think" Miss Kit said, coming over to see if she was alright.
Kat staggered out the cafeteria, Miss Kit holding her up, she felt groggy, whatever that was it was huge.
Tam sat in the nurse's office, Travis had marched her here about ten minutes ago after she'd had the mother of God of all headaches, she still felt ringing in her ears. The nurse flashed a light in them.
"Well they look ok, but I'm no doctor, I'd say you should head up to the ER young lady" she said.
Tam left the office and almost bashed into her sister.
"What's up?" she asked Kat, worried.
"I just had the worst headache of my life" Kat said.
"Me too" Tam projected into her sisters mind.
Kat's eyes widened in shock.
"We should go home, see what our mother says" Kat said.
"Thank you for bringing me here Miss Kit" Kat said, thanking the history teacher.
She looked them both in the eyes.
"Yeah, go see what your mother says, maybe she'll know" she said, winking and then slinking off down the corridor.
Miss Kit had always been known as the "weird" teacher.
"Come on" Tam said, grabbing her sister's arm and dragging her to an empty room.
"Ow, that hurt" Kat said, rubbing her upper arm.
"Mom!" Tam yelled up at the sky.
"You try" she suggested.
"Mom" Kat said with less enthusiasm.
No reply.
"She's never not replied before, this is serious, we both get what I can only assume is a huge psychic headache and then mom doesn't answer our call?" Tam said quickly, anxiously.
Kat took control. Seeing her sister freaked out freaked her out more than anything.
"It's fine, I'll get Danny to drive us home and we'll see what's up" she said.
Tam nodded.
"Let's go".
"Mom, we're back!" Tam yelled out as the twins entered their home.
"What's that smell?" Kat asked, wrinkling her nose.
Tam peered around the hallway, darkness was all she could see.
"I get the feeling that we aren't alone" Tam said to Kat telepathically.
"Me too" her sister replied.
The duo held hands as they made their way upstairs, the smell was getting stronger.
"Look!" Tam yelled as they both reached the landing, smoke was billowing out of their parents' bedroom.
"Mom!" they both yelled as they ran into the room.
What met them was a gruesome sight.
A figure cloaked in black stood imposingly in the centre, a small fire blazing on the floor.
"What the hell?" Kat asked.
Before they could do anything the figure launched a stream of fire at the sisters, they both screamed and covered their eyes, before hearing a sharp yell and a pop.
"You can open your eyes now" a familiar voice said.
The two looked behind them, it was their cousin, Chris.
"Thank God!" Kat sighed in relief.
"But what happened to that guy?" Tam wondered.
"I vanquished him with one of these" Chris said, holding up a potion.
"Here, take some" he said, handing out a couple each to the sisters.
"But what was he?" Tam insisted.
"A demon" Chris said gravely.
"But I thought the demons were gone" Kat said, disbelief colouring her voice.
"So did I, but they're back, and they took my mom".
"Aunt Piper is missing?" Tam asked in horror.
Chris nodded.
"Me and Wyatt split up, he went to look for Phoebe's kids, and I came here, it's as we feared" he said, massaging a crick out the back of his neck.
"What do you mean by that?" Kat questioned.
"Piper is missing, and now so is Paige, I'm guessing Wyatt won't reach Phoebe in time".
"Someone is targeting The Charmed Ones, we're not sure why yet" he said simply.
"The way mom explained it they were the most powerful witches of all time, getting rid of them ends the threat to evil" Tam said.
Chris nodded, "your mom is right, if evil is trying to get a foothold back in the world, the first targets logically would be to erase what destroyed them so thoroughly last time".
"You think our moms are dead?" Kat asked, her eyes welling up.
"Do you?" Chris asked her.
"No" Tam said confidently.
"I don't have much experience fighting evil, but I think I'd know if my mom were dead, I can't explain it, I can kind of sense her in the back of my mind, you probably can as well Kat, use your power" Tam urged.
Kat shut her eyes and concentrated.
"You're right" she said quietly.
"It's faint, but it's there, I just can't work out where".
"Wait, guys" Tam said suddenly.
"Look at the floor" she said, her eyes widening.
"It's a message".
The trio stepped back, it hadn't just been a random fire, as the flames and smoke cleared words began to form from their ash.
"You will find us in the light" Kat read aloud.
"What does that even mean? And who is this from?" Tam asked, stumped.
"We can work that out later, right now we need to pool our resources, our magic and find The Charmed Ones, you with me?" he asked, holding out his hands.
The twins looked in each other's eyes and nodded defiantly.
"Just one minute" Tam said, running out the room, she returned seconds later with a big leather bound book.
"Is that a….?" Chris began.
Kat nodded.
"It's the Matthew family Book of Shadows, mom started it just after we moved here, she wanted to keep her own individual magic separate from her sisters" Tam explained.
"Maybe there's something here that can help" she finished.
Chris nodded, impressed.
"What about dad?" Kat asked.
"He'll come home and find us all gone, he'll be so worried".
"We'll come back later and explain, he's at work right now so he won't get back until tonight anyway" Tam said confidently.
"Ok then, let's get outta here" Chris said, grabbing a hand each from the twins.
Kat was saddened at the sight as her cousin orbed her and her sister away from the now partially destroyed house they had grown up in. The smoke finally finished clearing, revealing a figure, almost invisible to the eye, looking directly at the ruined house from across the street.
The figure slowly faded away in the ground, blending with the shadows of the overcast sky.
TO BE CONTINUED?
Note – Not sure if I will continue this, think of this chapter as sort of like a "Pilot" episode, depends on what kind of feedback I get, if any.