PROLOGUE
To Bind a Witch
Phoebe Halliwell shifted her leg while reaching for the remote control tucked underneath a pillow. Restlessly clicking the power button, her eyes fixed on the television's glow just in front of her. Anything to take her mind off of Clay. The youngest sister of the Halliwell clan held her breath, waiting to hear the familiar turn of the doorknob and pouted when no one walked through the threshold of her shoe-box apartment.
New York felt so lonely these days. Even the ambulance's roar as it sped past the open window gave her no comfort. With a heavy sigh, she ignored the pang of longing in her chest and attempted to focus on the housewives slurring their words through bubbling glasses of champagne and Casamigos shots.
Mindless entertainment.
Or so she kept reminding herself while snuggling deeper into the couch in her desperate quest for rest. Yet, how could she find rest when something was brewing within? Scoffing to herself, she snatched the remote control from the fluffy pillow off to her side and turned off the TV.
"You're just being paranoid, Phoebe," she said underneath her breath while stretching her legs to stand at the foot of the couch. With a slouch near the coffee table, she reached for a black beautiful lighter in order to light the cucumber-melon candle, shimmering the faintest of green against the darkness.
Or was she?
With a tilt of the head, she considered reaching out to Piper, the middle child too afraid to know anything else other than neutrality. Perhaps Piper could be the voice of reason for her instead of taking Prudence's side all the time.
"What do you mean, he touched you?" Piper had asked her once, nervously attending to the food being served at their grandmother's repast dinner. Phoebe was leaning into the counter, lazily wiping the counter with a rag while they spoke in low voices as to not distract from the sadness that came with the occasion.
"That Chardonnay slugging, Armani clad bas-"
"Phoebe! Seriously? Right now?" Piper replied with a flick of her chestnut bang while cutting up the deviled eggs about to be served to the guests morning their grandmother, Penelope Halliwell. "He helped up pay for all the food here."
"So we owe him, Piper? Prue owes him because he helped us out?" Phoebe said through gritted teeth before tossing the rag into the kitchen sink just behind her elder sister.
"That's not what I'm saying, Phoebe." Piper replied, lifting her head to reveal the puffiness at the edges of her eyes. "I'm just asking you. Not right now. Let me talk to Prue."
"I don't need you to talk to Prudence, Piper. I should go back out there and throw a whole glass of Cabernet right in his face." Phoebe said indifferently with one hand at her waist, pinching in the form fitting black cocktail dress that hugged her waist.
Rolling her eyes in her apartment, Phoebe used the candle's light to guide her to the light switch that illuminated the scantily decorated apartment on the Lower East Side.
"I need a drink," she said sarcastically, while walking over to the lit candle. Gingerly tucking a strand of honeysuckle hued hair, she blew out the candle and began to saunter towards the switch once more.
Losing her lover and her sisters at the same time was a pill too hard for even her to swallow. Taking another step into her bedroom, she sighed heavily while glancing at the beat-up cell phone charging on her nightstand.
Unfortunately, her plan to call Piper backfired once she reached the bed. Tuesdays were Piper's double as a cocktail server at a hip bar in Half Moon Bay, California where the Prescott Manor still stood despite the passing of their matriarch.
Ignoring the well of emotion that gripped her throat, she shrugged it off while climbing into bed. The youngest sister placed the covers over her head, afraid of another night alone. A sniffle escaped her. As Grams would say, "Pray and pray until you go to bed, mija."
And so she did.
She prayed and prayed until her lids felt heavier. Her breath began to even. She began to dream…
Wearing all black after the mother's wake, their grandmother gathered up the Halliwell sisters in her bedroom while they wept over the loss of Patricia Halliwell. Patty, for short.
"One day, you will understand," their grandmother whispered into their ear.
Grabbing a red ribbon from the corner of her armoire, she tied them gingerly around Prudence's wrist to form a fist. "Sister of the third eye, the one who moves through space and time. I bind your powers until you can reveal the secret of how we feel."
Slinking past the middle sister, Piper Halliwell, she placed her hands over the young girl's eyes, "Sister of time and space, find the grace that will bind you to time." Phoebe, barely three years could feel a chill crawl down her spine.
Grams hugged Phoebe the hardest while she continued to weep, the tears falling like raindrops onto the wooden floor of their Grandmother's manor. "All seeing sister, one day you will dream. I bind you until you move through time and space."
"Take my hands," their grandmother gently cooed into their ear as the sniffles began to clear. "Say these words with me. It's a poem," A small smirk creeped at the small of her mouth.
Warm and welcoming. Their grandmother was their refuge.
The sisters gathered together, willing to recite the poem that their grandmother had gingerly concocted to ease their minds, "I bind you three for you are Charmed. Only till I'm gone, so shall it be. Alright, girls, are you ready? Repeat after me."
"Ready," Prudence said, while brushing off the tears. She had just turned seven two months before and knew the loss of losing her mother.
"The Power of Three will set us free. As I will it, so mote it be."
Although they struggled, in unison they replied, "The power of three wil set us free. As I willow-"
"No, Phoebe, will." Prudence called to her sister.
"One more time, girls."
"The power of three will set us free. As I will it, so mote it be."
The thud startled her, jolting Phoebe upright on her bed. Her head cocked to the side, the familiar static of the television crackling in her ears. "I thought I- Hmm." Grabbing Clay's baseball bat from the side of her dresser, she rose from the bed and made her way into the living room once more.
She certainly hadn't been watching CNN until she fixed her eyes on the anchor and the picture just above his left shoulder.
Occult related murder in Half Moon Bay.
"Oh my God. Serena."