"I can't believe, after all this time, I finally get to see the inside of the attic," Phoebe remarked as she and Paige headed up the stairs.

"I know, right?" Paige grinned. "And wait until you see it. It sure wasn't what I was expecting."

"I remember, Grams used to go up there, and lock the door behind her," Phoebe replied. "And I would kick the door, and yell and scream, but she would never let me in. Then I would sit on the top step and pout until she was done. There's probably still scuff marks from my shoes on the bottom of the door."

"Well, this door will never be locked to you again," Paige vowed, throwing open the door and gesturing that Phoebe should precede her inside.

Phoebe stepped in, and her mouth fell open in astonishment. "Oh, wow. It's - huge," she marveled, and then she shivered and rubbed her arms. "And really cold!"

"Yeah, no insulation up here," Paige agreed, flipping on the light. Winter light was filtering in from the bay window, but the interior was still fairly dim without the electric light.

Phoebe walked into the middle of the room and turned around slowly, taking it all in. "This could be another living room! I always thought the attic wouldn't be much bigger than a hall closet."

"Leo offered to insulate it for us, and put in a heater."

"We should take him up on that." She wandered over to the trunk. "Is this where you found all the magic stuff?"

"Yeah. Go ahead, Phoebe. You can open it."

Phoebe knelt down, and lifted the trunk lid. It opened with a slight creak, and then creaked again as the hinges latched. Phoebe reached inside and pulled out the grimoire.

"Oh, my," she exclaimed excitedly. "This is amazing!"

She sat down cross-legged on the floor, and let the heavy book balance between her knees.

"This thing is practically a piece of furniture by itself. It weighs a ton."

"Yeah," Paige agreed. "We should get a stand for it. Go ahead, take a look inside."

Phoebe opened the grimoire carefully, as her sisters had done before her; and flipped through the first few pages in a mixture of astonishment and curiosity.

"There's no way mom or Grams wrote this," she commented. "It's too old."

"How old do you think it is?" Paige asked, sitting down beside her sister.

"No idea," Phoebe shook her head, a wide grin slowly spreading across her face.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing, it's just - a lot of things are making sense to me now. If mom and Grams really were witches - well, let's just say, it explains a lot."

"Yeah, I've been playing a few rounds of connect-the-dots myself, ever since Piper and I found it."

"If this book is as old as it looks, then maybe mom and Grams weren't the only witches in the family."

"You mean our great-grandma?"

"Maybe even further back than that." She pointed to one of the pages she had turned to, it was distinctly yellower and more brittle than the others, and the ink so faded she had to squint to read it. "This page here had to have been written more than a century ago. Look at the spelling. It's like from the 1800s. Maybe even earlier." She flipped through a few more pages. "And it's not the same person writing, either. Different spellings, different hands. This book must have been passed down from family to family for - well, a really long time."

As Phoebe turned over another page, a standard size letter envelope slipped out from between the pages and fluttered to the floor. Paige picked it up.

"What is it?" Phoebe asked.

Paige drew in a sharp breath. "Oh, my God," she murmured. "It's a letter from Grams. To us."

"Seriously?"

She held up the envelope so Phoebe could see the writing.

"For Piper, Phoebe and Paige," Phoebe read aloud. "And yep, that's Gram's hand. And that weird purple ink she always wrote with. Really. Who writes anything with purple ink?"

"Our grandmother," Paige said proudly.

"What's it say?"

The envelope was not sealed; Paige lifted the flap and carefully shook out the paper inside. The note was carefully handwritten in cursive, also in purple ink, but the unevenness of the letters suggested a shaky hand. Paige held the paper up, so Phoebe could see while she read aloud.

"To my beautiful darling granddaughters," Paige read. "If you have found this letter, and you have found the Book of Shadows, then it is time for you to receive the legacy your mother and I have prepared for you. On the page where I have placed this letter, you will find a spell. It has been written especially for the three of you, to restore the gifts that are your birthright."

Paige and Phoebe exchanged a dubious glance, before Paige continued: "You must follow the instructions precisely as written, and then speak aloud the words at the bottom of the page, all three of you, together. I'm sure you have many questions. And I wish with all my heart I could be there with you, to guide you properly into your heritage. I could not share this knowledge with you when you were younger. I suspect now I will not live long enough to share it with you at all, and knowing that breaks my heart. There are demons in the shadows, my darlings, and they are very real, and very dangerous. Read the book. Learn from its wisdom. Above all, look after one another, love each other. You are, each of you, a precious, irreplaceable gift to your sisters. I can only hope that one day, you will be able to forgive me for taking from you what is rightfully yours, for your own protection. Your mother and I love you always, and forever. Grams."

Paige found herself blinking back tears. Phoebe mulled over the words from her grandmother in complete bemusement.

"Okay," she said finally. "That was… really sweet, and really weird."

Paige sniffed discreetly, and wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. "She said she left us a spell, let's see it."

Phoebe had left the book open to the page where the letter had fallen out. "To unbind a witch's powers," she read haltingly from the top of the page, and then stopped. "Wait, what? Does that mean we're witches, too?" Her mouth fell open in a delighted laugh. "Oh, my God! I can't believe I'm actually reading this!"

"What does it say we need to do?"

"This is hilarious. It's written like a recipe! Okay, first we need some chalk… where are we going to find chalk?"

"Hang on," Paige said, scrambling to her feet. "I never did get a chance to finish emptying this chest. Let's see what else is in here."

She quickly began to pull items out of the chest, and lay them out on the floor, beside herself and Phoebe. The spirit board. An athame in a leather scabbard, inside a red felt drawstring bag. Several candles of various sizes and lengths. A box of chalk sticks. Two silver bowls - one wide and shallow, the other almost goblet-shaped.

"Damn," Phoebe whistled low. "Those are real silver. They must be worth a fortune."

"I think they're meant to be used as cauldrons," Paige said uncertainly, and Phoebe laughed again, nervously.

Paige pulled out another wooden box, not unlike a jeweler's box, but it was filled with glass vials containing different colored liquids and powders, along with several packets of incense. Another box was filled with what almost looked like pieces of costume jewelry, labeled "amulets and talismans". These were followed in turn by a mortar, a pestle, and a tube-shaped Cim bucket filled with Chi Chi sticks. The missing planchette for the spirit board was hiding beneath the mortar. Finally, Paige pulled from the very bottom of the chest an ancient and evidently well-used deck of Tarot cards.

The sisters stared at the arrangement of artifacts for a long time in complete bewilderment and amazement, and then looked at one another, bursting into peals of helpless laughter.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Piper had finished cleaning the breakfast dishes - in icy dishwater - then dried them, and put them away in the cupboards. Her mind was beginning to churn, thinking how she might want to reorganize the cabinets for her own use. As she put the last few items away, she thought she could faintly hear laughter coming from somewhere upstairs. Curious, she dried her hands on a clean dish towel, and then walked over to the stairwell.

From where she stood at the foot of the stairs, she could hear her sisters conversing in excited tones - but she was too far away to make out any of the words. Wondering what they could possibly be discussing with such interest, she hurried up the steps - only to find her sisters were nowhere to be found on the second floor. Another peal of laughter told Piper that her sisters were up in the attic. She quickly ran up the last flight of steps.

As she entered the attic, she stared in bewilderment at the sight of her sisters, apparently in the process of casting a spell. Paige was kneeling on the floor, inside a large chalk circle, and on the inside of the circle she had marked out a large pentagram. Phoebe was standing beside her, holding the massive Book of Shadows in her arms.

"I'm telling you, Phoebe, that's East," Paige was saying. "I promise, it's East."

"Okay, just as long as we have the top pointing in the right direction. The book says if the pentagram is inverted, it invites evil into the house."

They both looked up to see Piper staring at them.

"Hey, Piper," Paige greeted her with a meek voice.

"What are you doing?" Piper asked.

"We're, uhh… well, Phoebe and I were just about to call you. We need your help… casting a spell."

"A spell," Piper repeated tonelessly. "A spell to do what, exactly?"

"To receive our powers," Phoebe couldn't help giggling nervously as she answered.

"We found a letter from Grams," Paige tried to explain, getting to her feet. "Apparently, all three of us have magical powers, and Grams bound our powers when we were kids to protect us. From demons," she added, after a moment's hesitation.

"We're witches," Phoebe added, barely managing to keep from laughing out loud.

Piper stared at her two sisters in dumbfounded amazement, then slowly shook her head. "My sisters are insane," she muttered to herself. "You two are insane! I leave you alone for five minutes, and immediately you start marking pentagrams on the floor and casting spells? Seriously, are you nuts?"

"We haven't cast a spell yet," Phoebe objected.

"This particular spell needs all three of us to work," Paige seconded.

"That's not the point, Paige! This is loony! There's no such thing as magic, and we are NOT witches!"

"But Grams -"

"Grams, nothing! Yes! She thought she was a witch. So did mom. But guess what? That doesn't make them witches! It just means they were crazy!" Realizing she was nearly shouting, Piper halted herself, then sighed deeply. "And crazy runs in the family, apparently."

"Piper, I know this looks weird," Paige pleaded. "But we really did find a letter from Grams. It's really from her, addressed to all three of us. And - you really need to read it."

She retrieved the letter and held it out to Piper, who finally took it. She scanned the first few lines, then looked up at Paige in open-mouthed dismay.

"Go on," Paige urged her quietly. "Read the rest."

Piper sank down into one of the upholstered chairs, still under its dust cover, and carefully read the entire note, top to bottom. After reading it, she sat there, one hand clutching the paper, the other hand clamped over her mouth, tears welling in her eyes. Paige knelt beside her.

"Honey, are you okay?" she asked in a worried voice.

"No, Paige, I am not okay," Piper answered, her voice low and choked. "Nothing about this is okay." She was clearly fighting back tears. Phoebe put the book down on the floor and knelt beside Piper on the other side of the chair.

"Sweetie, what's the matter? Why are you so upset?" Phoebe ran her hand along Piper's arm, stroking her, intending to comfort. "You don't really think we've gone off the deep end playing make-believe … do you?"

Paige looked at Phoebe, then back at Piper, then back to Phoebe again.

"No," she said quietly. "She's not upset because she thinks we're crazy. She's scared, because she knows that magic is real. That's right, isn't it, honey?"

Piper glared at Paige, but not in anger; huge tears began spilling down her cheeks.

"Ever since we found the Book of Shadows, you've been trying to pretend we didn't," Paige murmured softly. "You've done everything you can, to put it out of your mind completely. Something's been bothering you, Piper, for a long time now. Why don't you tell us what it is, and let us help you."

Piper let out a ragged sigh, and then irritably wiped away her tears with the palms of her hands. She sat quietly for several moments, clearly trying to gather the courage to speak her thoughts aloud. Her sisters waited patiently.

"Yeah. It's real." Piper's voice was barely audible.

Phoebe frowned in puzzlement. "Wait, so, magic's real? And, we're really witches? But that's a good thing, right? Doesn't that mean we get to do really cool stuff?"

"What is it, honey?" Paige urged gently.

"Grams isn't lying about the demons." Again, Piper's voice was so low her sisters could barely hear her. Phoebe and Paige exchanged a worried glance.

"How do you know?"

Piper looked at both her sisters, her eyes wide and very sober. "Because I think mom and Prue were killed by one."