Hello my dear readers, I hope all of you had a great Easter time with lots of chocolate.

I am a bit stuck with this story, not because of a lack of ideas rather the contrary. But let's see where it goes. For now, I have this little chapter for you :)

Thanks, Chris' Adorer, for proof reading.

Chapter 36

Wyatt put a box of "Froot Loops" in his shopping basket. He had been told by his aunt, that Junior's favorite breakfast was a bucket of "Froot Loops" mixed with "Cocoa Pebbles". The teenager also enjoyed buttered toast, if he couldn't get pancakes.

"Everything that causes civilization illnesses," Henry had said.

Paige had defended her son, saying, he also ate fruits and vegetables. But only, if it was cut into bite-sized bits.

"He won't starve, I promise," Wyatt had replied, and already regretted to even having asked what his cousin would enjoy.

He checked his list and went to the shelf with the sanitary products to grab a bottle of shower gel.

"Showering is something, Junior spares during the holiday," Paige had added. "Force him, if necessary."

"Oh, we will have to smell decent, when we'll go out into the clubs to hit on some girls," Wyatt had joked but his aunt didn't react humorous.

"He's 15. No clubs, no alcohol, no girls."

Wyatt had stopped himself from adding: "No fun?" Instead, he had promised to take good care of Junior.

He finally got the picture, why his teenaged cousin wasn't the greatest fan of his mother at the moment. It wasn't like Aunt Paige to be so clucking.

He remembered what he had been up to at the age of 15; and his brother, too. He found his aunt's worries not that trivial, anymore. Chris had been drunk for the first time, when he was 14 and Wyatt should have looked after him. But his aunt probably didn't know of that. Moreover, Wyatt had been barely 17 then himself. Now, he was grown up and knew better. However, he had no idea yet what to do with his little cousin. It seemed so long ago that Wyatt had been 15. What did teenagers enjoy these days? Suddenly he realized that the age difference between 15 and 25 was rather respectable.

Wyatt threw a bottle of shampoo in his basket as well. When he turned around, he spotted Brooke in front of the opposite shelf. He greeted her asking how she was, and she looked at him bewildered, as if he had caught her doing something inappropriate.

"I'm fine, thanks," she replied. "And you? You have been out of town for a while, haven't you?"

"I thought you didn't watch me anymore." He winked.

"I don't," she protested at once. "I just realized there was never any light on."

Wyatt waved her explanation aside. "I don't mind, really. Actually, I had to go to San Francisco unexpected."

"Nothing bad, I hope."

"Unfortunately, yes. My grandfather had died."

Her words of condolences sounded sincere and sympathy showed in her eyes.

"It was unexpected. He always only had minor health problems, but no serious disease. It's consoling that he didn't need to suffer."

"That's right. Still, it's sad." Brooke scanned the shelf, while contemplating what to say next. Then she changed the topic, saying: "I don't want to worry you, but there was a girl in your apartment the other day. I saw her walking past the window."

"A girl?"

"I mean a young woman. I was wondering, how she got in as you hadn't been home." She blushed, realizing it sounded again, as if she was observing him.

Wyatt thought how anyone could get into his apartment. No one had a key except for the landlady, who was no young woman anymore. The only way, he could imagine someone getting in, was magically. Then he understood one of his cousins must have come to New York searching for him, when he and Michael had been captured.

"No, right, I gave the key to a neighbor to take the mail in and water the plants," he lied. He hoped Brooke didn't remember that he had no plants in his apartment. Why had he added that anyway? He was such a horrible liar.

Brooke seemed doubtful, but nodded. "I'm just too suspicious. I guess, you would have noticed, if you had been robbed."

Wyatt laughed. "There's nothing valuable to rob at my place."

The young woman smiled, too, but avoided his gaze. Wyatt couldn't help, but try to get her into a conversation. She appeared so insecure and without self-confidence. He felt her shifting her weight uncomfortably.

"My cousin will come for a visit. Any idea what I could do with a 15 year old boy?" he asked.

Brooke looked up. "In New York? Probably everything will be exciting for him. I would just ask him, what he'd like to see. And if you don't know anything at all, just go to Central Park and play some ball game. A boats tour is quite fun, too. At least as long as neither of you gets sea sick. I think you can also lease Jet Skis somewhere at the harbor."

"You have great ideas." Wyatt made a mental note to check out for this Jet Ski thing. That could be fun for Junior, who was always very active and liked sports and being outside.

"I was just recapturing what I had read in a tourist guide," she shrugged. To accept a compliment, even if it was this simple, seemed to be hard for her. Wyatt wondered why. She had no reason to be so shy.

She briefly gazed at the shelf, she was standing in front of, and got pink cheeks again. "I just noticed, that we are standing right in front of a shelf full with tampon," she said. "And if I hadn't said anything, you probably wouldn't have noticed at all." She shook her head about herself.

"No big deal," Wyatt assured smirking. "I know those things. We are a family with a majority of women that don't hesitate to talk about all female issues in front of any of us."

Brooke nodded, but still looked embarrassed.

Wyatt knew, he shouldn't, but he was amused by her uptightness. He had never experienced that before.

"Come on, my shopping is much more embarrassing," he tried to ease the situation.

She peeked into his shopping basket. "Because of your appetite for unhealthy, sugared cereals? I don't think so. It's sort of cute. I mean, I hadn't expected that from you, because…well…" She trailed off but gestured with her free hand up and down in front of his body.

"Actually, it's for my cousin," Wyatt admitted. "Well, I better get going," he said. He understood, she'd like to get out of this situation. But he couldn't refrain one more tease. He grabbed a yellow box from the shelf and pretended to read the label. "I'm no expert, but my ex-girlfriend more than once sent me to get those." He put it back in the shelf. "I'll see you around."

"Sure, this store is just around the corner of our houses." she said with a small smile.

Wyatt approached the cash point, wondering why Brooke was so easily discountenanced. She was good-looking and clever, but she couldn't present herself in the right light.

After he had taken his groceries home, Wyatt orbed into the conservatory of the Manor, where he had sensed his brother. However, when he looked around, he found the armchair and sofa empty. The blond just wanted to call out Chris' name, when he was struck down on the tiled floor by a body, which fell down on him.

A sound like the hiss of a cat could be heard.

"What the hell are you doing?" Wyatt exclaimed, pushing Chris off of him.

"Me? What are you doing here?" his brother replied, gathering himself off the floor.

"I wanted to pick up Junior." Wyatt replied sitting up and rubbing the back off his head.

"Wrong address." Chris sat down on the sofa.

"I thought, I drop by here first to-"

"Check whether I misbehave?"

"To talk to you."

"To scold me? Can't you just let it be? I got it. What I did was stupid."

"I don't want to scold you."

"Either way you disturbed my meditation."

Wyatt frowned surprised, forgetting the reason for his visit for the moment. "Meditation? I've never known that you meditate."

"It's my first try and obviously I'm not meant to do it."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. Although, how was I supposed to know that?"

"You could just not orb in unannounced. After all, I'm not allowed to orb in on you either."

Wyatt sighed defeated. So, that was the moment, when his complaint, that he didn't want Chris to drop by in New York unannounced, would fall back on him. "Let's say we can orb in on each other, but call first."

"Nah, too much stress."

The older brother took a deep breath and decided it was useless to argue with Chris on this now. Wyatt rather wondered about his try to practice relaxation exercises. It was more than unusual. Chris was too restless to sit down and do nothing. Imagining him in a quiet, unmoving meditation posture for more than 30 seconds, maybe with perfumed candles around him and relaxing panpipe music or sounds of the ocean, was almost antic.

Even as a child, Chris always lost the game in which you had to sit still staring at each other, because he shifted or laughed. Only when it was necessary to fight a demon, he could persevere motionless for hours. Thinking of demons reminded Wyatt of why he was here at all.

He decided to only ask one more question about his brother's new found interest in sensitivity training: "Why are you meditating underneath the ceiling?"

Chris shrugged. "I thought, it would be safer. Demons won't look searchingly up at once. I guess, it's just not the right thing for me anyway. But if I had known, I'd fall down, I would have stayed on the floor."

"At least you had me as a cushion."

"Even I'm lucky sometimes."

"Well, you sure look as if you needed to relax."

"Why, thanks." Chris scoffed, but didn't seem to disagree that much.

Wyatt looked around in the conservatory. The small white table was covered by Chris' working supplies. The laptop was switched on, but in sleeping mode – the tiny red lamp blinked regularly. His mobile was buried underneath an open book; pencils with various points and sheets of paper lay crisscrossed on top of his tablet computer, which he had gotten from his aunts while he was in the hospital. Wyatt wondered, if Chris was using his former bedroom as an office anymore, at all. An easel with a canvas showing the outlines of a painting stood in the room near the glass door; some canvases in different sizes lent against the shelf. When Noelle had still lived in the Manor, Chris had barely left any of his supplies anywhere other than in his room or Wyatt's old room upstairs. It had started, after she accidently had thrown something away. Wyatt had forgotten what it had been, but they had had a big fight about it. And he had been the one caught in the middle of it.

Wyatt looked back at his brother; a frown appeared on his face. "What's with the cat?" he asked surprised.

A red tabby cat lay coiled up on the sofa so close to Chris that its back and head was pressed against his tight.

Chris petted her ears and the cat started to purr loudly and stretched its legs.

"Yes, apparently, I have a cat now," Chris said, and Wyatt could hear the soft tone in his voice. He suppressed a grin. His little brother had a soft spot for animals and children.

"Obviously, the cat feels well. Is it a Familiar?"

"Nonsense. Just a normal cat. Familiars are for witches that are new to magic, which I'm not. Nothing evil either. I sat her down on the Book of Shadows and she just lay down to sleep on it."

"Okay, then where did she come from?"

"She decided to stay with me after we had met in P3."

The younger brother told Wyatt, how he had heard noises from the storage room when he was in P3 in the afternoon a few days ago. "Obviously, I thought it was a homeless or a burglar or a demon or – worst of all – mice or rats."

Wyatt smirked. Who would have thought that mice would be worse than a demon?

"Anyway, it was only the cat."

When Chris had entered the storage room, he had spotted the tumbled down boxes and a broken bottle of liquid. "Luckily, it was almond syrup – that sticks to the floor nicely."

When Chris had bent down to pick up the boxes a growling and hissing, fluffy thing had tried to scratch and bite his calf. The cat had hidden further underneath the boxes. When Chris had taken them all away, it had tried to flee, but its hind leg had been injured as it only humbled a bit before trying to crawl behind a pile of beverage cases.

"You know, how I sympathize with anyone who has a hurt leg. So I cleaned up the mess, sat down and waited. Eventually, she came out and I healed her leg."

The cat purred even louder than gave a satisfied sigh. "I thought, I give her something to eat, when I realized there was nothing proper, especially not for a cat, in P3, so I orbed us here and after sharing a tin of tuna, we became friends."

"I can see that. Are you sure, the cat does not belong to anyone, though? I mean, what if someone's searching for it?"

"I'm sure, it's the same straying cat, I saw plenty of times around the club. Moreover, I don't lock her up. She did go out a few times since she is here, but returned every time. She wants to stay."

"And you don't throw anyone out of the Manor." Wyatt shook his head realizing he started to speak of the animal like of a person, too.

"Makes me the classical wicked witch now," Chris said with a tiny smile.

"Now? You think the cat makes you wicked?"

"At least, she is nothing magical. Especially nothing evil."

"I hope so."

"I did check it out. You know me."

"I sure do." Wyatt took a deep breath. He knew, his slightly paranoid brother sure had tried everything to ensure nothing evil was, related to this straying cat, that now lay totally satisfied on the sofa, fast asleep. He also noticed how his brother stood up carefully to not wake up the animal. He smiled to himself as he realized how important the well-being of the cat was to Chris and he seemed even proud that he had won the trust of such a shy pet. At the same time, it made the older brother a bit sad. He understood that Chris needed someone to care for. It was in his nature. Just, it shouldn't be a cat.

"Well, as long as you are happy," he said. "Although, one more word of advice, if you don't mind. If you are certain that the cat is a female, rather take her to the vet; you wouldn't want lots of kittens eventually. Unlike you the cat won't live abstinent."

"Funny. Actually, I had that on the list. I'm sure, I will hate doctors for animals just as much as doctors for humans. However, Brandon insists, too. He's afraid of lice or acarians. I told him, the cat has more right to stay here than him. At least, we decided, he will pay."

Chris scanned the outlines of the picture, he had started on the canvas. He searched for the tablet computer under the papers and opened a photo of a young woman; probably the person he was drawing. Wyatt sat down in one of the armchairs. He saw a set of cards on the sideboard.

"Alright," he said. "What's the matter?"

Chris looked at him from behind the aisle and his eyes also fell on the cards. He shrugged – at least Wyatt thought so, the canvas on the aisle blocked his view partially.

Wyatt knew exactly that Chris only used his tarot cards when he was desperately searching for answers, or already had an assumption but wasn't satisfied with it, or when he doubted an important decision. Basically, when he was insecure about a circumstance.

Usually, he asked the cards privately and avoided anyone noticing. Just today, he didn't have a chance to put them away, as he hadn't expected, Wyatt would drop by on his way to get Junior.

"Come on," the 22 year old said to his brother motivating. "Pick your card," Chris teased.

"You know, I don't believe in those cards."

"That's what the people say, who are afraid of what they might learn."

Wyatt stared on the fan-shaped spread of cards suspiciously. He raised his hand above the reversed laying cards.

"Just any, yes?" he asked foolishly. Wyatt didn't want to admit it, but he always had an uncomfortable feeling when it came to anything that sort of told the future. He knew that there were ways to foresee the future – even if there always was a chance to change it; or rather that it was changed by a tiny twist. The problem was, he did believe in that.

"Sure, Wyatt, just any. That's the trick. It's not going to bite."

Wyatt threw a card of the deck. The picture showed a man hanging upside-down by the angle of his right foot from a T shaped tree. His left foot was free and bent at the knee and tucked behind his right leg. A calm expression was on his face. His arms were bent and his hands were hidden behind his back, forming an inverted triangle. The man was wearing red pants, a blue coat, and yellow shoes. Around his head was a bright yellow halo.

"The Hanged Man," Wyatt read out loud.

The cat jumped off the sofa and stretched, making a cat's arched back. She rubbed her head and body against Chris' leg.

"Okay. What does it mean?" Wyatt asked.

"You need to find that out yourself. But the Hanged Man represents that you are at a crossroad with only two options; for example yes or no; left or right. It indicates that you feel the need to do something, but you don't know what that is. The card can tell you to stop and let go."

"Let go of what?" Wyatt threw the card back on the stock.

"Ask yourself."

"Thanks, great help. Seriously, I have no idea what that means." He could hear a scoff again, but ignored it. "What card did you get?" he asked instead.

"Death," Chris stated choosing a brush from the old tea pot, he used to store them in.

Wyatt jumped up. "What?"

"Calm down. It doesn't mean I'm going to die literally. Only that an era will come to an end. It's nothing positive or negative exactly – just like death itself. It only means unexpected changes. You know, one door closes, another opens." Chris sighed. "I hate changes. Especially unexpected changes. I thought you didn't believe in the cards, anyway. Why are you nervous? Trust me, no one will die, because of that tarot card. It simply advices to let go of the past to be open for a new beginning."

"So, we both should let go of something?"

"Nothing unusual. Our destines are connected somehow. I mean not like the Charmed Ones' but yes, I do think our destinies are connected in a way, we don't understand yet." Wyatt pondered about the words. Being siblings always involved some sort of connection and shared destiny as a family.

"Do you sometimes wonder, what our lives would be like, if mum hadn't died?" Chris asked suddenly. .

"All the time," Wyatt replied. "You?"

"No, never."

The older one of them was surprised of that answer. "Really?"

"Yes. Why should I think about that? Mum had to die."

"Had to die? Why?"

"I don't know."

"Chris, it's insane. Mum had seen herself retired, playing Demon-scrabble with dad. She had told us. She had seen her future."

"She had seen a possible future. Another possible future would have been that she died when I was 14. That's what I have seen in my memories. Moreover, how do you think she would have lived her life, if she had known, she had only so little time?"

Wyatt watched his brother disbelievingly. Chris mixed two shades of green with white oil paint. He didn't know what to say. He didn't understand why their talk had taken this path. "Did you come to this awareness through meditating?" He wanted to end that topic. It made him sad and kind of upset.

"I'm just saying, that I think, because of mum's death we are bonded like this; and that it is the reason, why our destinies are connected. That's all."

"Maybe so," Wyatt agreed after a while of silence. "I guess, we will find out one day."

"Probably." Chris changed the subject. "Do you know, where those cards come from?"

"Mum gave them to you to a birthday?"

"To my 14th birthday. A short time before her death. But do you know, where she got them?"

Wyatt shrugged. "In a store?" He was sure, it couldn't be that simple and usual. Chris wouldn't have asked then.

"I brought them with me from the future. The only thing, I brought were those cards. How weird is that?"

"I don't know, what the common equipment for a time-traveler is. I guess, they meant something to you."

The older brother walked around the aisle. He stood two steps behind Chris and followed the movement of the brush on the canvas. At this stage, he couldn't imagine the complete picture yet. He only saw lines of various widths in different shades of green.

"It will be a painting of Mrs. Harlow," Chris said. "A present from her husband to their 40th wedding anniversary. Forty years of marriage, can you imagine? It's funny though, isn't it? How we feel about time so differently. Forty years of marriage appear like a long time. If someone dies at the age of forty, you feel like this person had missed his whole life. I mean, it's always forty years. But once you think of it as a long time, and once as a short time."

"Einstein already told us that time's relative."

"He meant in a physical way, I'm talking about philosophy."

"You are in a weird mood today. I mean the meditation, the tarot cards. Why?"

"Honestly, I try to find out what's wrong with my powers – and me, for that matter."

"Come on, your powers are working in a way. Moreover, it had been a lot emotional stress lately, we were all mixed up."

"But only my powers are affected. Very convenient considering demon attacks usually take place here in the Manor. And the only other witch in this house has no active powers. We have potions all around the Manor. Can you believe that?"

"It's not the worst idea, actually. Hey, maybe your powers are blocked by demons."

"By every existing demon? I don't think so. Moreover, they aren't gone, but out of control."

"Okay. Maybe your powers are expanding."

"Haley had the same ludicrous idea."

Wyatt shrugged. "Well, it turned out neither me nor she inherited many of the intelligences genes of the family." Chris frowned at his brother. "Forget it." Wyatt considered his next question before asking: "Would you feel better, if I came back home?"

"Would you feel better?" Chris sighed. "See, I doubt that it would help my powers, if you were here."

"I didn't mean your powers. I meant you. I could take some of the pressure, you put yourself under, off of you; regarding the demons, I mean. And the club, too, maybe."

"No, I'm fine. I enjoy having the house to myself," Chris interrupted him.

Wyatt heard the sarcasm clearly. The problem was, Chris didn't tell him everything. He wanted Wyatt to focus on his powers only, whereas in fact there was more to it. Something Chris already expected, but either wasn't sure about or didn't want to accept it. And he was searching for answers by himself to not worry anyone.

Wyatt understood there was no sense in questioning further. His brother would just find ways to distract him and wouldn't give him a straight answer.

"Do me a favor," Wyatt said. "Stay away from demons as long as you don't trust your powers, okay? Call me for help. Don't put yourself in danger. Can we agree on that?"

"Tell the demons," Chris replied. The phone started to ring. "I have to take that. Have fun with Junior."

Chris put the brush in a glass with a transparent liquid that looked like water, but smelled chemical. He wiped his hands on a cloth. Their phone already had so many splashes of paint it didn't matter, if there was one more. Chris went to the kitchen to answer the call.

No bad idea, Wyatt thought. There were ways to pass messages to demons and also to make them listen. He could make a quick stop in the underworld with his little cousin. Only his aunt wasn't allowed to know.

Author's note: There are plenty of websites on the topic of tarot. I got most information from .com, .com (which is a really lovely designed website, I think),