The old house sat serenely on a tree-lined street atop a gentle grade in the rolling San Francisco hills, its dark magenta exterior appearing almost mauve against the sunless, overcast winter sky. A black SUV pulled up alongside the house, and after a lengthy pause, turned into the empty driveway. The engine shut off, and a moment later, a young woman emerged from the driver's side door. She buttoned up her beige jacket, walking slowly back along the driveway she'd just entered and then up the sidewalk, choosing to approach the house from the front. A light breeze tugged at her shoulder length nut-brown hair, and she irritably pushed her bangs to one side of her forehead. She stared up at the house, her face impassive, stopping at the first of a series of steps cut into the hillside, leading up to the porch. She sighed heavily.
"What the hell, Grams," she murmured.
She stood there for several moments, obviously not wanting to go up to the house. As she wavered with indecision, an off-green pickup truck, dented and battered from many years of hard use, pulled up alongside the curb. An attractive young man smiled at her as he emerged from the cab.
"Miss Halliwell?" he asked.
The young woman nodded. "I'm Piper Halliwell."
"Leo Wyatt," the man introduced himself, extending a hand in greeting. "From the inspector's office."
"Oh." Piper took his hand, and shook it perfunctorily. "Thank you for coming over."
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Piper noted that the young man was stunningly handsome, and apparently unmarried - he wore no ring on his finger. He was dressed in a flannel work shirt, jeans and boots, none of which hid his chiseled figure. At any other time, Piper might have entertained a notion to flirt with him. But today her heart was heavy, and she had no stomach for what she needed to do this day.
Leo glanced up at the old house, carefully noting external features of the building, and he nodded approvingly. "This is your place?"
"It is - it was - my grandmother's house," Piper answered tonelessly. She forced herself to look at the young man and smile at him.
"Was," Leo repeated, noting the correction to past tense.
"My Grams died last month," Piper tried to explain in as few words as possible. "I've been designated her successor trustee, and I need to make arrangements to sell the house. But before I can do that, I need a property assessment."
"I see." Leo paused for a moment. "I'm sorry for your loss."
"Thanks." Piper was by this time responding to all expressions of sympathy by rote.
"So, you'll need a full appraisal of the house." Leo's statement was actually a question.
Piper gave him a humorless smile. "I need an ultra-detailed list of everything that's broken, chipped, scratched, stained or dented," she declared. "God only knows what potential buyers are going to want to haggle over." She sighed again, a barely masked exhalation of grief.
Leo regarded the young woman with genuine concern. "I'll be sure to document everything for you," he promised.
Piper caught the sympathetic tone in Leo's voice, and she managed to give him a much warmer, friendlier smile. "Thank you."
Leo stepped over to his truck, and returned a few moments later with a large tool belt fastened around his waist, and a large clipboard in one hand.
Piper still didn't seem inclined to move, so Leo prompted gently, "Shall we go up?"
"Yeah," Piper agreed reluctantly, shifting her purse a little higher on her shoulder. "Yeah. Might as well. Day's not getting any younger."
She began to mount the concrete steps, moving slowly and unwillingly. Leo fell in pace behind her, a step and a half back. By the time they reached the steps of the porch, Piper's gait was less forced and her footsteps less leaden. She began to dig inside her purse for a house key. As he waited, Leo surreptitiously inspected the wide porch, the doorframe, and the paneling. The double doors each had an inset pane framed by stained glass panels of pastel blues and greens, with orange highlights.
"Do you know how old the house is?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," Piper answered. "It was built after the big quake in '06, but I don't know the exact date. I'm sure there's paperwork around somewhere that can tell you."
"It's Eastlake style," he said appreciatively. "A good example, too."
"Sorry, what?"
"The architectural style. Eastlake Victorian."
Piper merely gave a slight shake of her head in response, she couldn't have cared less.
"Looks like it's been kept up pretty well," Leo ventured. "The paint job looks to be about four years old, but it's still in good shape."
Piper found the key she was looking for and withdrew it from her purse. As she fitted the key into the lock, she cautioned, "Most everything is turned off. I was last here about a month ago, and I just took the perishables from the kitchen and shut off everything I could think of."
Leo nodded. "I'll need to turn all the power back on, so I can check the fixtures and outlets."
The key turned in the lock, and Piper gave the right side door a gentle push. It opened easily. "You'll probably want to check the circuit breakers first, then. They're in the basement."
She pushed the door open wide, but the weak winter sunlight barely penetrated the gloom inside. Piper ran her hand along the inside wall, feeling for the light switch. As she pushed it, there was a loud click, but no illumination.
"No luck, huh?" Leo took a large flashlight from his tool belt and turned it on. The bright beam cut a ghostly swath through the entryway, leaving deep, elongated shadows in the corners. Even in this dim light, a fine layer of dust was easily visible atop all the furniture.
"Which way to the basement?" he asked.
"Back towards the kitchen," Piper pointed. "It's under the main stairwell, but on the opposite side of the wall."
"Okay. Give me a minute. I'll get the power back on, and then we'll see what we're really dealing with."
Leo ambled with unhurried ease into the darkness. Piper shivered, but not from cold; she stood motionless in the foyer, barely a step inside the door, and hugged herself tightly. She did not want to be here. She didn't want to begin the long, arduous and grief-inducing process of sorting through her grandmother's belongings. When she was a child, this old house had been home to Piper, her mother, her grandmother and her sisters; she remembered being immensely happy here. But Piper's mother and eldest sister were many years dead, Piper and her other sisters had grown up and moved away, and now her Grams was gone as well. The house was not so much haunted as empty - achingly, unnaturally empty. The house should have resembled a decaying ruin, the better to match the emptiness within. Piper had to fight the instinct to turn and run, to flee the house forever, and never once look back.
As she stood in the gloom, Piper jumped, startled, as the overhead lights suddenly came on. Leo must have found the breaker box and was evidently restoring power to the rest of the house. Shuddering involuntarily, Piper hurried through the foyer, trying not to look at anything as she passed. She made a beeline for the kitchen, the one room in the house where she knew she would feel the least uncomfortable.
The windows in the kitchen were all shuttered, but Piper hastily unfastened all the clasps, and opened each blind as wide as the slats would allow; a feeble amount of winter daylight streamed in. She pushed the light switch, and sighed with relief as the overhead lights came on instantly, adding to the ambient light. Despite a fine layer of dust on every surface, the room immediately seemed more cheerful.
Piper shrugged her purse off her shoulder and set it on a corner of the table. Before she could do anything else, even before removing her jacket, she felt she had to wipe the countertops and table surfaces clean, to give her both an emotional and practical workspace from which to start. She found dishtowels in one of the drawers and carefully wiped down first the island in the center of the room, then the open areas of the counters, and finally the top of the dinette table. Surveying her hasty cleaning efforts with ill-concealed dissatisfaction, Piper shrugged herself out of her jacket, returned to the foyer and hung the jacket on a peg near the door. She had almost made it all the way back to the kitchen, when she heard a light tapping sound behind her. Piper turned to see a young dark-haired woman standing in the doorway and smiling broadly at her.
"You left the door standing open," she said in greeting.
"Paige." Piper hurried forward and hugged the girl tightly.
With a grunt of surprise, Paige Matthews did her best to return the hug, but her left arm was pinioned by Piper's embrace, and her right was weighted down with the large paper grocery bag she was carrying.
"How you doing, honey?" Paige asked, when Piper finally released her. "You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," Piper sighed, discreetly wiping a tear away with the back of one hand. "I'm fine. It's just gonna be a lousy day, that's all." She managed a mournful smile. "It's really good to see you, Paige."
"Good to see you, too," Paige assured her.
Piper looked at her baby sister almost longingly. They had not seen each other since Gram's funeral six weeks ago, but to Piper the interval seemed more like years. Paige had dressed appropriately for the work day ahead - a dark grey t-shirt under her jumper, frayed and faded jeans, and a pair of sneakers that had definitely seen better days. Her long dark hair, normally cascading in gently curled ringlets on either side of her face, had been pulled back into a loose ponytail. The effect made her naturally round face appear almost moon-shaped.
"You had a good flight?" Piper asked.
"Actually, I drove," Paige admitted.
"You did what?!"
"Well, since I'm moving back up here, I thought, why wait, so I just packed whatever I could into the bug and headed up yesterday. Got in around midnight. Grabbed a hotel room just outside of Oakland."
"Paige, why didn't you call me?" Piper moaned, aggrieved.
"It was late. I didn't want to wake you. It's fine. I'm probably going to crash on your couch tonight, though."
"It's yours," Piper promised.
"Anyway, before we start in on everything, I brought us some breakfast," Paige announced, hoisting her bag a little higher. "Juice, coffee, breakfast sandwiches and fruit cups."
Piper grimaced. "Oh, Paige, that's really sweet of you, but - I'm really not very hungry."
"Piper, you have to eat something," Paige admonished gently. "We're going to be working all day, and you don't need an empty stomach to give you even more stress. And I know you haven't eaten anything today. Am I right?" Without waiting for an answer, Paige took Piper's hand and tugged it gently. "Come on," she coaxed. "Let's have a bite to eat before we start digging into this whole mess. Okay?"
"Okay." Piper allowed herself to be dragged back into the kitchen. As Paige set her paper bag down on the kitchen island, she looked around almost in reverie.
"God," she murmured. "I can't even remember the last time I was in here. Probably been over a year."
"One year, two months, and three days," Piper informed her. "But I'm not counting."
Paige grinned. "Of course you're not."
The sound of clomping footsteps caused both women to look towards the cellar door. Leo Wyatt emerged, smiling broadly.
"Power's back on," he announced.
"Thanks," Piper nodded. "Paige, this is Leo Wyatt. He's here to do the home inspection for us. Mr. Wyatt, this is my sister, Paige Matthews."
Paige held out a hand. "Hi. Nice to meet you."
"Likewise." He clasped the young woman's hand, and shook it gently in his strong grip. He gave them both an embarrassed smile. "And call me Leo. Please."
"Well then, Leo, where would you like to start?"
Leo gave Piper a smile warmer than the winter sun. "Well… since I started in the basement, I thought I might as well begin by checking the foundation, and then work my way upstairs. If that's okay with you."
"Whatever works for you," Piper demurred. "I'm not the expert."
"Would you like some fresh coffee, Leo?" Paige invited him. "I picked up a carton at the market on my way over here. There's enough to share."
"I'm good, but thanks for offering." He started to turn away, to head back down the stairs, but then stopped in mid-turn. "If you ladies need anything, just give me a shout," he offered.
"We will," Paige promised, and with a friendly smile, Leo disappeared into the stairwell.
"He's cute," Paige ventured, as she began to unpack her grocery bag.
"Yeah, I suppose," Piper agreed without enthusiasm.
"He likes you," Paige added in a coaxing tone.
Piper rolled her eyes. "Oh, Paige, don't start," she sighed.
"What?" Paige protested. "All I said was, he's cute and he likes you. It wouldn't hurt you any to notice." She opened the coffee carton and carefully poured some of the hot, bitter liquid into an insulated paper cup. She added two single-serve packages of half and half, a teaspoon of sugar, then stirred it gently and handed the cup to Piper. She took it with a subdued smile.
"Thanks."
Paige pushed two of the chairs out from the dinette, and proceeded to brush away the dust on the seats and chair backs with the palm of her hand.
"Paige!" Piper remonstrated.
Paige gave her sister a tolerating smile. "Piper, we're going to be hip deep in dust and grime all day today. Deal with it."
She carefully wiped off her hands with a clean towel, then settled herself into one of the chairs, and held out a wrapped breakfast sandwich to her sister. Piper accepted it grudgingly and sat heavily in the chair across from her.
"Thank you."
As she began to unwrap her sandwich, Paige asked, "So, have you talked to Phoebe?"
"I spoke to her two nights ago."
"And?"
"And she's staying in New York." Piper could see that Paige was going to argue, and raised a preemptive hand. "She says there's none of Grams' belongings that she wants. And she says she'll approve any financial arrangements we make regarding the liquidation of assets, selling the house, and so on. She won't contest anything."
"So, she won't come back at all?"
Piper shrugged wearily. "Phoebe seems to be happy where she is. I can't make her do anything she doesn't want to do."
"Well, that's… disappointing." In truth, Paige was downright annoyed; she bit deeply into her sandwich, to focus her anger on something other than her wayward older sister. "You don't think Phoebe's not coming because I'm here, do you?" she asked reluctantly.
Piper sighed. "Paige, don't be ridiculous."
"I'm not, it's just - she's never really considered me family."
"Well, she's wrong," Piper declared forcefully, giving Paige a reassuring smile.
"I wish she would have come to Grams' funeral," Paige said quietly.
"Yeah," Piper answered, with genuine sadness in her voice. "So do I."
The two women sat in silence for a time, finishing their breakfast. Once she was sure Piper had finished her meal, Paige smiled at her sister. "Better?"
"Yeah," Piper admitted with a nod. "That did help, actually. Thanks."
"Hey, it's the least I could do." Paige shifted in her seat slightly, feeling awkward about the question she was about to ask. "Piper - have you ever thought about… instead of selling the house, maybe we should just keep it?"
Piper looked up in surprise. "What? Keep this place?"
"Well, I mean, it's been in the family four generations."
Piper looked at her sister incredulously. "Paige, do you have any idea what the property taxes are like around here?"
"I'm not saying it wouldn't be difficult -"
"Impossible is the word," Piper cut her sister off. "The taxes alone would take almost my entire salary for a year. And that's not even dealing with the upkeep and maintenance."
Paige's expression turned wistful. "I know. It's just - we grew up here."
Piper shook her head. "It's just a house."
"You don't mean that."
"Sure I do."
"Well, I'll tell you what. I'll believe you when you say it's just a house, when you can walk into Prue's bedroom and stand in there for more than ten seconds, and not get completely creeped out. I'll bring a stopwatch."
"That's not fair," Piper complained bitterly.
"My point is, it's not just a house," Paige said quietly. "If it was, you wouldn't feel such a terrible ache in your heart, like you do now."
Piper looked up at her younger sister with a dumbfounded expression. Paige always had the ability to surprise with her sudden insights. If Paige couldn't read minds, she could certainly read hearts - and none more clearly than the one belonging to her big sister.
"I'm sorry you had to be the one to take care of Grams," Paige continued. "And I'm sorry you're the one who's stuck with the job of cleaning up her financial affairs. But you're not alone any more, Piper. I'm home now, and I'll be right here with you. I'm not going anywhere. And I will do anything I can, to help you."
Piper reached across the table and clasped her sister's hand. "You're very sweet. You know that, right?"
Paige smiled as she gave her sister's hand a gentle squeeze. "Look. I just want you to consider, now that I'm moving back to San Francisco, we don't have to share an apartment that's only eight hundred square feet, with just a sheet of drywall between the bedrooms. We could share this place. If we're going to have to shell out a fortune for living space no matter where we go, then why not stay here?"
She leaned back in her chair slightly and gave her sister an appraising stare. "Come on. Tell me you're not the least bit tempted."
"Well…"
"Don't think of it as Gram's place. Or even mom's place. This could be OUR place. Just look around, think of everything you could do with all this space."
Piper seemed to be wavering, so Paige added coaxingly, "I'll let you have first dibs on any of the bedrooms. And I'll help you make it over any way you want. Do you really want to rent a place no bigger than a cardboard box for the rest of your life?"
"No, I don't," Piper admitted.
"Well, then?"
"Let me think about it." Paige was about to protest, so Piper added quickly, "I'm not stalling. This is hard for me. Okay? I'll think about it."
Paige knew her sister well enough to know that it was time to let the matter drop - at least for now. "Okay," she relented. "So, are we going to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves, or are we going to try to get some work done around here?"
"We should," Piper agreed, and then sighed. "I just don't even know where to start."
"Can I make a suggestion?"
"Sure."
"We start by dividing everything into one of four categories. Things you want to keep, things I want to keep, things to be sold, and things to be donated or thrown away."
"Nothing for Phoebe?"
"You gave her a chance," Paige pointed out. "She doesn't want in, that's her problem."
"Okay, so, where do we start? By that I mean, where in the house."
"You could start by helping yourself to that really cute home inspector in the basement," Paige giggled.
Piper rolled her eyes. "Okay. Enough. I forgot how annoying you can be."
"Endearing," Paige corrected her.
"Yeah. Whatever. All right, he's starting at the bottom and working his way up. So we'll start at the top and work our way down."
"You want to start with the attic?" Paige asked dubiously.
"No better place to start building the junk pile," Piper pointed out.
Paige shrugged. "Fine by me."
After finding a spare garbage bag in one of the cupboards, Paige placed the discarded wrappers and emptied paper cups into it. The housekeeping done, the sisters left the kitchen and trudged up the stairs towards the attic. Paige noted with dismay that Piper barely even glanced at the second floor landing as they passed it.
As they reached the attic door, Piper gave a little cry of vexation. "Oh, damn."
"What is it?"
"I just forgot - this door is locked. And I don't have a key for it."
"Well - maybe we could pick the lock?" Paige suggested. "Or maybe our home inspector has a skeleton key on him?"
"I am NOT trudging up and down four flights of stairs looking for a key," Piper said firmly.
"Piper, you're going to be doing this all day today, like it or not," Paige pointed out. "Embrace your stair destiny. Unless you're thinking of putting in an elevator."
Before Piper could reply, there was a loud and sharp clacking sound - like a rusty deadbolt being pulled back. The noise had come from the other side of the attic door. Piper and Paige looked at one another apprehensively.
"You heard that, right?" Piper asked.
"Yeah," Paige agreed uncomfortably.
They both stared at the door.
"You don't suppose …"
Cautiously, Piper put her hand on the doorknob and gently turned it. The latch withdrew from its mortise, and the door opened easily on slightly creaking hinges. Piper turned to Paige.
"I swear, this door was locked," she insisted.
Paige made a helpless shrug of her shoulders. "Well… it's not locked now."
There was some faint light coming into the attic from the far window that faced the street, but not nearly enough to see clearly. Piper ran her hand along the inside wall, feeling for a light switch. Finding one, she pressed the switch, and a single bare incandescent bulb in the center of the room winked on. The room was still quite dimly lit, but at least it was enough to see. The sisters walked into the room slowly, looking around.
The attic was no mere crawl space - at its height, the sloping roof was easily ten feet from the floor. The space was large enough, and wide enough, to have made a decent sized sitting room. Only the fact that the temperature was considerably colder than the rest of the house kept it from being an inviting space. Paige craned her neck, looking along the bare crossbeams overhead.
"No insulation," she noted.
The room itself was far from bare, however. Several pieces of upholstered furniture, including a pair of chairs and a loveseat, were tucked away under heavy sheets, also coated with a heavy layer of dust. A set of shelves filled with corrugated boxes and two old dressers lined one wall, and a freestanding mirror almost six feet tall stood in one corner. Near the window, an ancient steamer trunk sat squatly in the space where light from the window would fall directly on it.
"This was a bad idea," Piper sighed despairingly. "We could spend an entire day going through this one room."
"We just need to be ruthless," Paige attempted to bolster her sister's courage. "We can spend all our time weeping over broken toys mom saved from when we were kids, or we can pitch 'em and say, good riddance." She glanced over at the window and frowned. "That's odd."
"What is?"
Paige walked the short distance across the room to where the steamer trunk stood in a pale beam of winter sunlight.
"This trunk…"
"What about it?"
"Nobody's been up here, right?"
"Not for months or maybe even years, as far as I know."
"This trunk is clean. Everything else in here is covered in a thick layer of dust, but this…" she ran her finger along the lid. "Not so much as a speck."
Piper made a moue of bemusement. "Maybe it was just put up here recently."
"No, look at it, Piper. It's so clean and polished, it almost shines. No way it could have been sitting up here for any length of time, and not have some dust on it." She cocked her head and stared at it in puzzlement. "Do you recognize it?"
Piper shook her head. "No. Never seen it before."
"Yeah, me neither." She stole a glance at Piper. "Should we see what's inside?"
Piper made an off-handed shrug. "It's not locked. Knock yourself out."
Paige knelt down beside the trunk, and gently lifted the heavy metal latch. The faceplate contained a metal ring to fit a padlock, but apparently none had ever been added. Paige put a hand on either side of the lid and gently pushed up.
"Please tell me it's full of pirate treasure," Piper said, leaning over to look. "Gold doubloons that will make us filthy rich."
"No…" Paige said slowly, reaching inside. After a moment, she lifted out a massive, hand bound volume that was easily a foot and a half wide and tall, and at least ten inches thick.
"A book," she reported, struggling to stand up while balancing the tome's evident weight in her arms. "A really big, really heavy book."
"Good grief," Piper murmured, marveling at the size of the book. "It's lovely… whatever it is. What is it?"
They both stared at the leather cover, stained dark green, with an embossed triquetra in red in the center. Piper cautiously reached over and let her fingertips skim the surface of the design.
"I'm guessing you've never seen this before, either," Paige said.
Piper shook her head solemnly. "No clue."
With Piper's hand to steady the book, Paige carefully turned up the cover to reveal a title page.
"The Book of Shadows," she read aloud, staring at the faded calligraphy on the yellowed paper.
"What the hell…?" Piper murmured.
Paige carefully lifted the sheet, noting its brittleness, and turned to the next page. "Hear now the words of the witches," she recited. "The secrets we hid in the night. The oldest of Gods are invoked here, the great work of Magic is sought." She looked up from the text and stared at Piper in astonishment.
"It's a grimoire," she gasped.
"A what?"
"A recipe book for magic."
They started thumbing through some of the following pages - slowly and carefully, as many of the sheets of paper were quite old and extremely brittle.
"Look, it's full of spells," Paige marveled. "Real spells. A whole book full of them."
"My God," Piper murmured, shocked.
Paige carefully passed the book into Piper's arms, so she could continue browsing. Paige knelt down beside the trunk again to see what else might be inside.
"There's more stuff in here," she reported, reaching in again.
"Ha!" Piper snorted with amusement. "There's a spell in here to turn a rude guy into a toad. Man, what I wouldn't give for that to be a real spell!"
"How do you know it isn't?" Paige asked, gently pulling a flat, wooden object from the trunk.
"You don't think Grams was into this stuff, do you?"
"Well, I don't know about Grams, but mom certainly was," Paige declared, standing up again with a new item in her arms.
"What is that?" Piper gaped. Paige was holding a flat wooden board, polished so its surface shined like a gemstone, and burnished with letters and numbers running across its face, and another triquetra in its center.
"A spirit board," Paige informed her sister.
"Why do think mom has something to do with it?"
"Because she left us a note on the back of it." Paige carefully turned the board over, and on the opposite surface, a carefully handwritten note was etched into the wood.
"To my beautiful daughters," Paige read aloud. "May this give you the light to find the shadows. The power of three will set you free. Love, Mom."
Piper gave her sister a blank look. "Why do you think it was our mom who wrote that?"
"Look at it, Piper. That's her handwriting. I'm sure of it."
Piper looked, and almost swooned, as her sister was right. It was her mother's hand and no mistaking.
"Maybe this is why we were never allowed to go into the attic?" Paige wondered aloud. "Mom and Grams were up here turning their ex-husbands into toads?"
"My dad is only a toad in spirit," Piper retorted.
"Hey, at least you know who your dad is." Paige knelt down again, leaving the board resting gently against the side of the trunk. "Well, if we have a spirit board, there must be a planchette in here somewhere."
"A what?"
"A pointer. You know, so you can let the spirits pick which letters they want to -"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, already," Piper cut her off.
"What's the matter, Piper?" Paige grinned. "Believe in ghosts much?"
Piper shook her head incredulously. "I can't believe mom was into this stuff, all this time, and none of us ever knew."
Paige pulled out a dark red drawstring bag from the trunk, and removed a large silver double-bladed knife from its sheath.
"Damn," she whistled, holding up the knife. The blade gleamed brightly, even in the faint light of the attic. "That ain't no letter opener."
Piper stepped over to one of the covered chairs, and despite the dust, settled herself on the edge of the cushion. She left the heavy book slip to the floor beside her, and buried her face in her hands.
Paige, seeing her sister's reaction, quickly left the artifacts by the trunk and hurried to her sister's side.
"Honey, you okay?" she asked worriedly, putting a comforting hand on Piper's shoulder.
Piper slowly raised her head. She wasn't crying, but her eyes were tear-bright.
"I knew we had family members who were bipolar, or drunks," she sighed. "But crazy? Believe in magic crazy?"
"Mom wasn't crazy."
"Paige, mom thought she was a witch!"
"How do you know she wasn't one?" Paige countered.
"A real witch?" Piper snorted. "Seriously, Paige, are you gonna tell me you believe in that stuff too?"
"Well… mom obviously did," Paige pointed out. "I'm going to guess Grams did, too."
"I can't deal with this," Piper moaned despairingly.
Paige dragged over a small three-legged joint stool, setting it in front of Piper's chair. She settled herself down on it, and took her sister's hands in hers.
"Look, we knew there was a chance we might find some family time bombs when we started poking around in here," she said quietly. "So we find out our ancestors are a little more colorful than most. So what? It gives us an interesting heritage."
"It just makes me want to cringe," Piper groaned.
Paige grinned in response. "It makes me want to find out more about them," she declared. "Think about it, Piper. Mom and Grams were witches. There's a whole other side to them we never knew about. Doesn't that interest you at all?"
"NO," Piper said flatly.
Paige sighed, and stared at her sister for a long moment. Piper was more than despondent - she was on the edge of true clinical depression. Paige stood up and held out her hand.
"Come on," she said.
Piper looked up at her. "What?"
"We're going back downstairs. We'll start at ground level instead. Leave the witchy stuff to me. I'll take care of it later." She gestured for Piper to take her hand. "There won't be anything spooky or supernatural about appraising a dinette set or a living room couch. Right?"
Reluctantly, Piper slipped her hand inside her sister's. Paige helped her to her feet, and put a comforting arm around Piper's shoulder as they walked back to the attic door.
"I'm so glad you're here," Piper murmured. "I really missed you."
"That's good," Paige declared solemnly. "Because I really missed you, too."
Arm in arm, the sisters left the attic behind. A few moments after they had descended the steps, the steamer trunk lid raised up, and flipped itself closed, indignantly.