Portia Bennet stared out the window of her San Francisco apartment, trying to
comprehend what her father had just told her. She had always wanted a big sister, but
she'd never thought she'd ever actually have one. Now her father had come home from
work one day and, completely out of nowhere, told her that she had three. 'Why didn't he
ever tell me?' Portia thought. She was so confused. This was what she had always
wanted, but now that it had happened, she didn't know how she should feel.
Portia thought back to a part of their conversation. "I know this is confusing, but
please try to understand," her father, Victor, had said. "I wanted to wait until the right
time to tell you. That's why we moved here. Your sisters can help you with your... gift..."
Portia extended one arm and waved it toward her hairbrush. It flew across the
room and narrowly missed hitting her in the face. She looked at, wondering if she would
ever get her powers under control. 'I really hope he's right.' she thought.
~*~
"What is it? What did you see?" Piper Halliwell asked her younger sister, Phoebe.
Phoebe blinked hard. Her premonitions always left her feeling a bit dizzy.
"I saw a young girl being attacked by a demon. She was about 12 or 13. The
demon was green and black, with big horns. They were in some kind of allyway. Behind a
building." she said, trying to recall every detail of her vision.
"Right. Green and black demon with big horns. Let's go check the Book of
Shadows." said the eldest Halliwell sister, Prue, taking charge as usual. Piper and Phoebe
followed her upstairs to the attic of their old Victorian manor.
Once there, Prue went straight to the stand that held the BOS and started flipping
through it's pages. Her sisters decided to try another source of information.
"Leo!" they called in unison. Piper's husband, and the girls' whitelighter,
appeared in a flash of white light.
Piper went over to him. "Baby, we need your help finding a demon." she said.
Phoebe described her vision. When she finished, Leo turned to Prue, who was still
looking through the BOS.
"Find anything?" he asked her.
"Not yet." she replied, without taking her eyes off the magic book.
"I'll see what the elders know." he said, then orbed out in the middle of kissing
Piper goodbye.
"I hate it when he does that." she muttered, then sat down on the couch and waited
for either Leo to come back or Prue to stop flipping through the Book, neither of which
was likely to happen soon. Phoebe got out a map and crystal. She sat down next to Piper,
and they began scrying for evil, but there were too many demons on too many side streets
to even begin to guess which was the right one without more information. They quickly
gave up. Prue also abandoned her search, having looked through the Book of Shadows
twice without finding anything that fit Phoebe's description. As the sisters turned to leave
the attic, Phoebe's hand brushed against their old dollhouse, which set off another
premonition.
it was just like the one she'd had earlier, only from a different angle. She could
clearly see a street sign reading Paulson Ave. Phoebe immedeately recognised the area.
After a few seconds, the scene faded, and Phoebe was again standing in the attic with her
sisters.
"They're on Paulson, right behind the old werehouse." she told them.
"Are you sure?" Piper asked. Phoebe nodded.
"Allright, let's go then." Prue said, already heading downstairs.
~*~
Portia was walking home from school late. She hadn't been able to think of
anything but her sisters and what her father had said, and as a result she got detention for
not concentrating in class.
"Great job, Portia," she scolded herself. "You've been in the school for two
weeks, and already you've managed to get on the bad side of every one of your teachers.
Hey, maybe tomorrow you can get the principal pissed at you, too."
She came to her least favorite part of the walk - a cold allyway behind a deserted
building. She involuntarily shivered, and abruptly pulled her sweater tighter. She
suddenly noticed how dark it was getting, and began to walk a little faster. She heard
footsteps behind her, and was debating whether or not to use her powers against a mortal,
even one as creepy as this one sounded, when someone grabbed her around the neck.
No, make that something. Portia spun around and saw that her 'mortal' had green
and black, scaly skin and horns. She tried to use her powers to throw it, but she wasn't
strong enough, and it threw her against the wall instead. She blacked out.
~*~
Prue, Piper, and Phoebe got to the allyway just in time to see the demon throw
their innocent against a wall. "Hey!" Piper yelled, as she froze the demon. She ran over to
the girl, who was unconcious. A second later, the demon unfroze.
"Did you really think you could freeze me, witch?" he taunted. Prue threw him
against the building, but he got up unharmed. Phoebe got out the Power of Three spell she
had written, and the sisters started chanting. It didn't work.
"Don't you get it? You witches can't defeat me." he said, and shimmered out.
"Leo! Leo!" they called. Leo orbed in.
"What the hell just happened?" Piper demanded crossly, and her sisters looked at
him questioningly.
"He found me." their innocent had woken up. "He followed me here."
"What do you mean, sweetie?" Piper asked gently.
"He always finds me." the girl said softly, then turned to go.
"Wait. We can help you." Prue said, but she ignored her and kept going.
~*~
Victor Bennet sat in his car outside his daughters' house for what seemed like
hours before he found the courage to ring the doorbell.
"Hi, Daddy." his oldest daughter, Prue, greeted him. He followed her into the
kitchen, where Piper and Phoebe were discusing their latest brush with a demon.
"Uh, girls, I've uh, got to tell you something that might be a bit, uh, hard t-to
believe." he stammered. he was terrified of their reaction to what he was about to say. "I
guess I'd better just say it. You... well, you've, uh, got a little sister. Her name is Portia,
she just turned 13, and she's a witch, just like you."
For a while, the sisters just sat in silence, thinking about what their father had just
said.
"I guess I should go and let you think." he said, not knowing what else to do.
"Wait," Piper said, then asked the only question any of them could think of.
"When can we meet her?" Prue and Phoebe looked at him anxiously.
"As soon as you want to." Victor replied, surprised and relieved that this was their
first question.
"Tomorrow," Prue said, wanting to meet this new sister as soon as possible.
"How's tomorrow?"
"Great. I'll bring her here after school." he said, thenturned to go.
Prue again took charge. Wordlesly, she led her sisters up to the attic. She went
straight to the Book of Shadows and flipped through it until she came to the spell that
they were all thinking of, the only spell that could give them answers. The spell to
summon the dead.
She took her sisters hands, and together they said the spell.
"Hear these words, hear my cry, spirits from the other side. Come to me, I
summon thee, cross now the great divide."
In a second, the ghost of their grandmother was standing before them. "Hello,
girls." she said cheerfully.
Prue was in no mood for pleasantries. "Grams," she began, her voice shaking in a
very un-Prue-like way, "why didn't you ever tell us about Portia?"
Grams' next words weren't directed at them. "Patty, it's time."
The girls watched as the ghost of their mother appeared. "We wanted to tell you,
honey," she said, "we really did. But we knew that it would put all of you in greater
danger than you were in already. We did what we knew we had to."
"So it is true, then." Piper said softly. "But... how?"
"You know about the legends that fortold what you would become. The Charmed
Ones. There was another one,one that told of a fourth sister, more powerfulthan the
others. We thought this was just a story, a fairy tale, until I became pregnant, when
Phoebe was barely a year old. That's when we knew, that it really was right, and all of
you were in more danger than we had previously thought.
"We tried to keep the baby a secret, even from you girls, hoping that by the time
she was born we would have found a way to raise her safely. It was working fine, until-"
at this point Patty paused. Prue, Piper, and Phoebe could see that this was very hard for
her. So could Grams. She placed a hand on Patty's shoulder and continued the story for
her.
"Somehow - we still don't know how - a lower-level demon, Mal, found out. He
was going to steal her powers, and use them to steal yours, to rise to power. There was
only one way to keep him from getting her. Your mother, your father, and I came up with
a plan. I bound her powers the day she was born. Then, when she was barely a day old,
you mother cast a spell to bring herself and Portia into the future. I believe the year they
ended up in was 1988. She left the baby there, with your father. The plan was perfect,
except for one thing. Her powers were too strong to be bound indefinitely, like yours
were. The spell I cast to bind her powers would only last until her thirteenth birthday.
Then she would get her powers back."
"Your father raised her as a normal child, like your grandmother did with you,"
continued Patty, "she had no knowledge of her magical heritage until her birthday, last
month. That's when she had her first premonition. It was the same one that you had,
Phoebe. She saw herself being attacked by that demon. Mal.
"Two weeks ago, your father took Portia and moved back here from where they
had been living in New York City. That's when he came back into your lives, and, well,
here we are."
The air in the attic was thick with tension as the sisters thought about what they
had just heard. Phoebe spoke slowly. "I can see why you had to do this, but why couldn't
you tell us? I mean, when we got our powers. Why didn't you tell us then? To give us
some time, to get used to it, to prepare, to... oh, I don't know, do something." She looked
at her older sisters, and could tell that they had been thinking the same thing.
"I wanted to tell you, girls. We all did." Patty said softly.
"Then why didn't you?" Piper asked.
"Because you girls had had enough to handle just learning your craft and worrying
about yourselves. Besides, you would have wanted to meet her, and she wasn't ready to
know about who - what - she is yet." Grams replied, as if stating the obvious.
"We weren't ready!" Piper snapped.
"Yes you were." Grams responded insistantly. "You just didn't know it yet. All
you needed was a little guidance, which I gave you as best I could. Your sister needs that,
too. She needs you."
Grams looked like she wanted to say more, but suddenly she stopped and looked
up abruptly. Patty followed her gaze and sighed. Prue, Piper, and Phoebe all knew very
well what this meant, and protested feircely.
"Oh. Oh, no," Piper said forcibly. "You can't leave us now."
"She's coming tomorrow." Prue added, "What are we supposed to do? What
should we say?"
"You'll be fine." said Patty, as she disappeared.
"Grams, don't." Phoebe said, turning to their grandmother.
"Girls, you know I don't have a choice." she said, and then she, too, disappeared.
comprehend what her father had just told her. She had always wanted a big sister, but
she'd never thought she'd ever actually have one. Now her father had come home from
work one day and, completely out of nowhere, told her that she had three. 'Why didn't he
ever tell me?' Portia thought. She was so confused. This was what she had always
wanted, but now that it had happened, she didn't know how she should feel.
Portia thought back to a part of their conversation. "I know this is confusing, but
please try to understand," her father, Victor, had said. "I wanted to wait until the right
time to tell you. That's why we moved here. Your sisters can help you with your... gift..."
Portia extended one arm and waved it toward her hairbrush. It flew across the
room and narrowly missed hitting her in the face. She looked at, wondering if she would
ever get her powers under control. 'I really hope he's right.' she thought.
~*~
"What is it? What did you see?" Piper Halliwell asked her younger sister, Phoebe.
Phoebe blinked hard. Her premonitions always left her feeling a bit dizzy.
"I saw a young girl being attacked by a demon. She was about 12 or 13. The
demon was green and black, with big horns. They were in some kind of allyway. Behind a
building." she said, trying to recall every detail of her vision.
"Right. Green and black demon with big horns. Let's go check the Book of
Shadows." said the eldest Halliwell sister, Prue, taking charge as usual. Piper and Phoebe
followed her upstairs to the attic of their old Victorian manor.
Once there, Prue went straight to the stand that held the BOS and started flipping
through it's pages. Her sisters decided to try another source of information.
"Leo!" they called in unison. Piper's husband, and the girls' whitelighter,
appeared in a flash of white light.
Piper went over to him. "Baby, we need your help finding a demon." she said.
Phoebe described her vision. When she finished, Leo turned to Prue, who was still
looking through the BOS.
"Find anything?" he asked her.
"Not yet." she replied, without taking her eyes off the magic book.
"I'll see what the elders know." he said, then orbed out in the middle of kissing
Piper goodbye.
"I hate it when he does that." she muttered, then sat down on the couch and waited
for either Leo to come back or Prue to stop flipping through the Book, neither of which
was likely to happen soon. Phoebe got out a map and crystal. She sat down next to Piper,
and they began scrying for evil, but there were too many demons on too many side streets
to even begin to guess which was the right one without more information. They quickly
gave up. Prue also abandoned her search, having looked through the Book of Shadows
twice without finding anything that fit Phoebe's description. As the sisters turned to leave
the attic, Phoebe's hand brushed against their old dollhouse, which set off another
premonition.
it was just like the one she'd had earlier, only from a different angle. She could
clearly see a street sign reading Paulson Ave. Phoebe immedeately recognised the area.
After a few seconds, the scene faded, and Phoebe was again standing in the attic with her
sisters.
"They're on Paulson, right behind the old werehouse." she told them.
"Are you sure?" Piper asked. Phoebe nodded.
"Allright, let's go then." Prue said, already heading downstairs.
~*~
Portia was walking home from school late. She hadn't been able to think of
anything but her sisters and what her father had said, and as a result she got detention for
not concentrating in class.
"Great job, Portia," she scolded herself. "You've been in the school for two
weeks, and already you've managed to get on the bad side of every one of your teachers.
Hey, maybe tomorrow you can get the principal pissed at you, too."
She came to her least favorite part of the walk - a cold allyway behind a deserted
building. She involuntarily shivered, and abruptly pulled her sweater tighter. She
suddenly noticed how dark it was getting, and began to walk a little faster. She heard
footsteps behind her, and was debating whether or not to use her powers against a mortal,
even one as creepy as this one sounded, when someone grabbed her around the neck.
No, make that something. Portia spun around and saw that her 'mortal' had green
and black, scaly skin and horns. She tried to use her powers to throw it, but she wasn't
strong enough, and it threw her against the wall instead. She blacked out.
~*~
Prue, Piper, and Phoebe got to the allyway just in time to see the demon throw
their innocent against a wall. "Hey!" Piper yelled, as she froze the demon. She ran over to
the girl, who was unconcious. A second later, the demon unfroze.
"Did you really think you could freeze me, witch?" he taunted. Prue threw him
against the building, but he got up unharmed. Phoebe got out the Power of Three spell she
had written, and the sisters started chanting. It didn't work.
"Don't you get it? You witches can't defeat me." he said, and shimmered out.
"Leo! Leo!" they called. Leo orbed in.
"What the hell just happened?" Piper demanded crossly, and her sisters looked at
him questioningly.
"He found me." their innocent had woken up. "He followed me here."
"What do you mean, sweetie?" Piper asked gently.
"He always finds me." the girl said softly, then turned to go.
"Wait. We can help you." Prue said, but she ignored her and kept going.
~*~
Victor Bennet sat in his car outside his daughters' house for what seemed like
hours before he found the courage to ring the doorbell.
"Hi, Daddy." his oldest daughter, Prue, greeted him. He followed her into the
kitchen, where Piper and Phoebe were discusing their latest brush with a demon.
"Uh, girls, I've uh, got to tell you something that might be a bit, uh, hard t-to
believe." he stammered. he was terrified of their reaction to what he was about to say. "I
guess I'd better just say it. You... well, you've, uh, got a little sister. Her name is Portia,
she just turned 13, and she's a witch, just like you."
For a while, the sisters just sat in silence, thinking about what their father had just
said.
"I guess I should go and let you think." he said, not knowing what else to do.
"Wait," Piper said, then asked the only question any of them could think of.
"When can we meet her?" Prue and Phoebe looked at him anxiously.
"As soon as you want to." Victor replied, surprised and relieved that this was their
first question.
"Tomorrow," Prue said, wanting to meet this new sister as soon as possible.
"How's tomorrow?"
"Great. I'll bring her here after school." he said, thenturned to go.
Prue again took charge. Wordlesly, she led her sisters up to the attic. She went
straight to the Book of Shadows and flipped through it until she came to the spell that
they were all thinking of, the only spell that could give them answers. The spell to
summon the dead.
She took her sisters hands, and together they said the spell.
"Hear these words, hear my cry, spirits from the other side. Come to me, I
summon thee, cross now the great divide."
In a second, the ghost of their grandmother was standing before them. "Hello,
girls." she said cheerfully.
Prue was in no mood for pleasantries. "Grams," she began, her voice shaking in a
very un-Prue-like way, "why didn't you ever tell us about Portia?"
Grams' next words weren't directed at them. "Patty, it's time."
The girls watched as the ghost of their mother appeared. "We wanted to tell you,
honey," she said, "we really did. But we knew that it would put all of you in greater
danger than you were in already. We did what we knew we had to."
"So it is true, then." Piper said softly. "But... how?"
"You know about the legends that fortold what you would become. The Charmed
Ones. There was another one,one that told of a fourth sister, more powerfulthan the
others. We thought this was just a story, a fairy tale, until I became pregnant, when
Phoebe was barely a year old. That's when we knew, that it really was right, and all of
you were in more danger than we had previously thought.
"We tried to keep the baby a secret, even from you girls, hoping that by the time
she was born we would have found a way to raise her safely. It was working fine, until-"
at this point Patty paused. Prue, Piper, and Phoebe could see that this was very hard for
her. So could Grams. She placed a hand on Patty's shoulder and continued the story for
her.
"Somehow - we still don't know how - a lower-level demon, Mal, found out. He
was going to steal her powers, and use them to steal yours, to rise to power. There was
only one way to keep him from getting her. Your mother, your father, and I came up with
a plan. I bound her powers the day she was born. Then, when she was barely a day old,
you mother cast a spell to bring herself and Portia into the future. I believe the year they
ended up in was 1988. She left the baby there, with your father. The plan was perfect,
except for one thing. Her powers were too strong to be bound indefinitely, like yours
were. The spell I cast to bind her powers would only last until her thirteenth birthday.
Then she would get her powers back."
"Your father raised her as a normal child, like your grandmother did with you,"
continued Patty, "she had no knowledge of her magical heritage until her birthday, last
month. That's when she had her first premonition. It was the same one that you had,
Phoebe. She saw herself being attacked by that demon. Mal.
"Two weeks ago, your father took Portia and moved back here from where they
had been living in New York City. That's when he came back into your lives, and, well,
here we are."
The air in the attic was thick with tension as the sisters thought about what they
had just heard. Phoebe spoke slowly. "I can see why you had to do this, but why couldn't
you tell us? I mean, when we got our powers. Why didn't you tell us then? To give us
some time, to get used to it, to prepare, to... oh, I don't know, do something." She looked
at her older sisters, and could tell that they had been thinking the same thing.
"I wanted to tell you, girls. We all did." Patty said softly.
"Then why didn't you?" Piper asked.
"Because you girls had had enough to handle just learning your craft and worrying
about yourselves. Besides, you would have wanted to meet her, and she wasn't ready to
know about who - what - she is yet." Grams replied, as if stating the obvious.
"We weren't ready!" Piper snapped.
"Yes you were." Grams responded insistantly. "You just didn't know it yet. All
you needed was a little guidance, which I gave you as best I could. Your sister needs that,
too. She needs you."
Grams looked like she wanted to say more, but suddenly she stopped and looked
up abruptly. Patty followed her gaze and sighed. Prue, Piper, and Phoebe all knew very
well what this meant, and protested feircely.
"Oh. Oh, no," Piper said forcibly. "You can't leave us now."
"She's coming tomorrow." Prue added, "What are we supposed to do? What
should we say?"
"You'll be fine." said Patty, as she disappeared.
"Grams, don't." Phoebe said, turning to their grandmother.
"Girls, you know I don't have a choice." she said, and then she, too, disappeared.