Piper slowly trudged down the stairs, the humidity in the air making her
sluggish. The air was stifling and it was hard for her to breathe. She was
bored, hot, and tired all at the same time, and it was all making her
cranky. Every little noise seemed to annoy her and she couldn't even bring
herself to talk to anyone without getting aggravated. While she was
upstairs, she had decided that playing under the sprinkler might lessen
some of the edginess and cool her off, and she was on her way to ask her
grandmother if she could set it up in the backyard.
"Grams, I'm telling you, the girl is driving me crazy!"
Piper gasped and quickly ducked down on the stairs, hiding behind the decorated wood of the banister. She had a funny feeling that Prue was talking about her, and she wanted to know what she was going to say. Prue and her grandmother stepped into her view and she kept perfectly still, silently praying that no one would look up and see her.
"Keep your voice down," Penny hissed, glancing from side to side. Once she was satisfied that she and Prue were alone, she turned back to her oldest granddaughter, keeping her voice low and quiet. "What's been going on?"
"Piper keeps disappearing into the woods for hours at a time," Prue answered in a rush. "She won't tell me what she does in there, she won't tell me where she goes, and she won't listen to me when I tell her I don't want her in there. You need to tell her to stop going in there." She finally stopped to catch her breath.
"Whoa, whoa," Penny said, holding out her hand. "First of all, if I tell her that she can't go into the woods, it's just going to make her want to go in there even more. Making it forbidden makes it attractive. And secondly, it's not that bad, Prue. So she disappears for a couple of hours. Maybe she just wants to be alone. It's not like this house is buzzing with alone time."
"But why all the secrecy?" Prue persisted. "Why won't she tell me where she goes or what she does?"
"Sweetie, your sister's getting older," she replied, smiling gently. "When you were her age, did you tell me everything?"
"No, but--"
"Okay, then," she interrupted. She rested her hand on her granddaughter's shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. "Sweetie, she's not going to share everything with you anymore, and I know that hurts, but it's part of growing up."
"But that's not even what I'm worried about," Prue said frantically. "What if she's playing somewhere and something happens? What if she gets hurt? She'd be all alone and I wouldn't know where to find her!"
"Okay, okay, I'll talk to her," Penny said, sighing. She did have to admit; Prue had a very good point. She wanted to allow Piper some freedom, but she also wanted her to be safe. "I'm not going to tell her to stop going in there, but I will tell her to be careful, okay?"
Piper didn't stick around to hear Prue's answer. She quietly crawled back up the stairs and headed back to her room, hoping to make it look like she had upstairs the entire time. As she flopped down on her bed and grabbed a book to pretend she had been reading, she felt herself growing angry. Why was Prue making such a big deal about her going into the woods? Who cared if she spent her time in the woods? It wasn't like she was in there getting into trouble. She was just sitting on a rock and using the quiet serenity to think.
A minute later, there was a quiet knock on the door. "Piper?" Penny asked softly.
Piper looked up and saw her grandmother standing in the doorway. Even if she hadn't been listening on the stairs, she would have known just from the look on her grandmother's face that the two of them were about to have a talk. She closed the book and set it down on the foot of the bed. "Come on in, Grams."
Penny entered the room and sat down on Phoebe's bed, directly across from Piper. She quickly looked her granddaughter over. "Prue told me about the woods," she said matter-of-factly.
Piper dropped her gaze to her hands, hoping that she looked surprised and saddened enough. "Are you going to tell me to stop going in there?"
"No," she answered, a smile on her face. "I'm not even going to ask you why you go in there. All I'm going to tell you is to be careful. If you get hurt, no one will be able to find you."
Piper grinned and jumped up off the bed, running over to her grandmother and wrapping her arms around her. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" Even though she had heard Penny tell Prue that she wasn't going to make her stop going into the woods, it still felt like a great relief when her grandmother told her herself. "I'll be very, very careful, I promise."
"Good girl," Penny said. She patted her granddaughter's back, then let her go a moment later. "I have to start dinner. Want to help?"
"Sure!" Piper smiled. Suddenly, all of her anger and aggravation was completely gone. She didn't even feel as hot or tired. She didn't know whether it was because her tiny bit of freedom had remained intact or because she was asked to help in the kitchen, but it didn't matter. She slipped her hand into her grandmother's and practically skipped downstairs, excited to helping with dinner.
**********
The next day dawned hotter than the day before. Piper didn't think it was possible, but when she awoke that morning, she was already sweating. The heat was making everyone cranky. She had already gotten into a fight with Prue. The fight itself wasn't even really that bad, but the heat made it seem much worse. Despite her grandmother's warnings to the contrary, Prue had asked Piper what she does in the woods. Piper had refused to go into details, telling Prue instead that it was none of her business. Prue got angry, then Piper got angry in return, and they both had said things they didn't mean.
As soon as the sisters and Andy had arrived at the park, Piper had taken off into the woods, eager to escape into the quiet solitude of the tall trees. She headed straight for the rock and plopped down on the top, hugging her knees to her chest. She didn't even realize she'd been crying until she felt a tear slip off her cheek and drip onto her knee. Sniffling, she wiped her eyes and stared out at the flowers. Normally, the scene would have relaxed her, but she was too wound up from the fight for anything to calm her down.
"Piper? Are you crying?"
Piper gasped, startled, and looked over her shoulder. She found herself staring at Melody. The girl was wearing the same long dress she had been the day before, and her hair was done the same way. Piper nodded and turned back around, looking out at the flowers once again. "You don't have to stay. I'm in a bad mood and I won't be very fun."
"Nonsense." Melody sat down next to her and wrapped her arm around Piper's shoulders. "What's upsetting you?"
"My sister and I got into a fight," she said, sniffling.
"What about?"
"About me coming here," she answered, a hint of bitterness in her voice. "She doesn't like me coming in here by myself, but my grandmother told her to leave me alone and let me do my own thing. But she doesn't know how to leave me alone. Why can't she understand that she's my sister, not my mother?" She trailed off, starting to cry again.
Melody tightened her grip around Piper's shoulders. "Did your mom tell her to stop?"
"My mom died a few years ago," Piper said, letting her tears drip off her cheek. "My grandmother takes care of us, but she relies on Prue a lot to help her. Sometimes Prue takes the parenting too far, though." She buried her face in her knees, trying to stop sobbing. "I don't need her to be my mother. I need her to be my sister."
"Oh, Piper, I wish I knew what to say to you," Melody said.
"It's okay." Piper looked up and wiped her eyes, sniffling. "You don't have to say anything. I just . . . I'm so angry right now!"
Melody sighed and released her grip on Piper's shoulders, hugging her own legs tightly instead. She shook her head slightly, wondering what she could do to make Piper feel better, then smiled. "Come here." She stood up and grabbed Piper's hands, pulling her onto her feet. "I want to show you something." Piper frowned in confusion, but she allowed Melody to drag her through the woods.
They were going deeper into the woods than Piper had ever gone before. She didn't recognize anything, and she didn't think she could find the way back. She hoped that Melody knew how to get out, or at the very least, how to get back to the rock. After a few minutes of trudging through dead leaves and low bushes, they reached a small clearing surrounded by tall evergreens. In the middle of the clearing stood a little wishing well, complete with a bucket and a ladle for scooping water. "Oh, this is so cute!" Piper exclaimed.
"Isn't it?" Melody asked with a grin. "This is my other little thinking spot. I climb the rock quite a bit, but sometimes I like to just sit here at the well, dropping pebbles into the water."
"Doesn't your mom get mad at you for being out here by yourself for so long?" Piper asked as she turned the crank to lower the bucket into the water. She smiled when she heard the quiet plop of the wood hitting water.
Melody shrugged, her face falling slightly. "It doesn't matter anymore."
Piper turned back to Melody, catching the shift in the girl's mood. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she answered, shaking her head as if to clear it and smiling.
Piper nodded, not really believing her. There was something about Melody that she couldn't quite figure out. It wasn't any one thing; just a lot of little things. This was only the second day she had spent time with Melody and it was the second time that Melody had said something that made Piper stop and think. Why wouldn't it matter if Melody's mother got mad at her? And it wasn't even as if Melody simply didn't care. She had said that it didn't matter anymore, which meant that it had mattered once.
"Are you feeling better?" Melody asked.
Piper nodded, shaking herself out of her reverie, and smiled. "Yeah, I am."
"Good. I'm glad."
The girls played at the well for a little over an hour. Piper had calmed down considerably and Melody's sudden mood swing had gone away. Suddenly, Melody gasped and grabbed Piper's hand, starting to lead her back to the rock.
"We should get back! If your sister calls you, you won't be able to hear her all the way out here."
"Okay," Piper said, shrugging. She really didn't want to go back, but she also didn't want Prue traipsing through the woods looking for her. She followed Melody back through the maze of trees and bushes. Unwittingly, she stepped through a patch of briars and winced as the sharp thorns scraped her legs. She didn't have time to stop and see if she was bleeding, though, because Melody had run through them unharmed. Just as she was trying to figure out how she could have run through a patch of thorns and not have been hurt at all, she heard Prue calling her name.
She groaned, wondering what her sister could possibly want, and continued to follow Melody. Prue can wait, she thought bitterly. Maybe she'll even get herself lost. She gasped at the thought, surprised at how angry she still was over their fight that morning.
She turned a corner on the path as Melody slipped out of her view, and for the second day in a row, she ran right into her sister. After catching her breath from the fright of colliding into someone, she looked past Prue, trying to find Melody. The girl was nowhere to be found. "Oh, Prue, now I lost her!"
"Lost who?"
"My friend Melody," she replied. "I was following her back to . . ." She trailed off, reluctant to reveal where she had been or where she was going.
"Piper, you were alone. I didn't see anyone else."
"But--" Piper glanced around and was sorry to find that Prue was right. There was no indication at all that someone had been accompanying her. There were no swaying branches ahead of them and no other sounds in the woods. "She was here, I swear!"
"Is that what you do in here?" Prue asked. "Meet a friend?"
Piper nodded distractedly, trying to figure out where Melody went. "I just . . . where did she go?"
Prue wrapped her arm around Piper's shoulder, giving her a small hug. She knew beyond a doubt that Piper had been alone. Through the trees, she had seen her running before they collided, and there was no one else with her, either in front of her or behind her. "I don't know where she went, but I have something that might make you feel better. Andy and I are going to buy Phoebe some ice cream and we were wondering if you want some, too."
"Sure," Piper said with a smile.
"Good." Prue smiled and started walking her sister out of the woods. "I'm sorry about this morning."
"I am, too," Piper said. She looked up at Prue and grinned, telling her sister that she meant it. Prue smiled back and the two of them silently made their way out of the woods. As they emerged from the trees, Piper looked over her shoulder just once, then sighed. Melody was still nowhere to be found. She glanced over at Prue and caught her looking at her with a concerned expression on her face. Piper just smiled, trying to calm her sister's nerves, but the truth was, Piper was concerned herself. Where in the world had Melody disappeared to?
"Grams, I'm telling you, the girl is driving me crazy!"
Piper gasped and quickly ducked down on the stairs, hiding behind the decorated wood of the banister. She had a funny feeling that Prue was talking about her, and she wanted to know what she was going to say. Prue and her grandmother stepped into her view and she kept perfectly still, silently praying that no one would look up and see her.
"Keep your voice down," Penny hissed, glancing from side to side. Once she was satisfied that she and Prue were alone, she turned back to her oldest granddaughter, keeping her voice low and quiet. "What's been going on?"
"Piper keeps disappearing into the woods for hours at a time," Prue answered in a rush. "She won't tell me what she does in there, she won't tell me where she goes, and she won't listen to me when I tell her I don't want her in there. You need to tell her to stop going in there." She finally stopped to catch her breath.
"Whoa, whoa," Penny said, holding out her hand. "First of all, if I tell her that she can't go into the woods, it's just going to make her want to go in there even more. Making it forbidden makes it attractive. And secondly, it's not that bad, Prue. So she disappears for a couple of hours. Maybe she just wants to be alone. It's not like this house is buzzing with alone time."
"But why all the secrecy?" Prue persisted. "Why won't she tell me where she goes or what she does?"
"Sweetie, your sister's getting older," she replied, smiling gently. "When you were her age, did you tell me everything?"
"No, but--"
"Okay, then," she interrupted. She rested her hand on her granddaughter's shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. "Sweetie, she's not going to share everything with you anymore, and I know that hurts, but it's part of growing up."
"But that's not even what I'm worried about," Prue said frantically. "What if she's playing somewhere and something happens? What if she gets hurt? She'd be all alone and I wouldn't know where to find her!"
"Okay, okay, I'll talk to her," Penny said, sighing. She did have to admit; Prue had a very good point. She wanted to allow Piper some freedom, but she also wanted her to be safe. "I'm not going to tell her to stop going in there, but I will tell her to be careful, okay?"
Piper didn't stick around to hear Prue's answer. She quietly crawled back up the stairs and headed back to her room, hoping to make it look like she had upstairs the entire time. As she flopped down on her bed and grabbed a book to pretend she had been reading, she felt herself growing angry. Why was Prue making such a big deal about her going into the woods? Who cared if she spent her time in the woods? It wasn't like she was in there getting into trouble. She was just sitting on a rock and using the quiet serenity to think.
A minute later, there was a quiet knock on the door. "Piper?" Penny asked softly.
Piper looked up and saw her grandmother standing in the doorway. Even if she hadn't been listening on the stairs, she would have known just from the look on her grandmother's face that the two of them were about to have a talk. She closed the book and set it down on the foot of the bed. "Come on in, Grams."
Penny entered the room and sat down on Phoebe's bed, directly across from Piper. She quickly looked her granddaughter over. "Prue told me about the woods," she said matter-of-factly.
Piper dropped her gaze to her hands, hoping that she looked surprised and saddened enough. "Are you going to tell me to stop going in there?"
"No," she answered, a smile on her face. "I'm not even going to ask you why you go in there. All I'm going to tell you is to be careful. If you get hurt, no one will be able to find you."
Piper grinned and jumped up off the bed, running over to her grandmother and wrapping her arms around her. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" Even though she had heard Penny tell Prue that she wasn't going to make her stop going into the woods, it still felt like a great relief when her grandmother told her herself. "I'll be very, very careful, I promise."
"Good girl," Penny said. She patted her granddaughter's back, then let her go a moment later. "I have to start dinner. Want to help?"
"Sure!" Piper smiled. Suddenly, all of her anger and aggravation was completely gone. She didn't even feel as hot or tired. She didn't know whether it was because her tiny bit of freedom had remained intact or because she was asked to help in the kitchen, but it didn't matter. She slipped her hand into her grandmother's and practically skipped downstairs, excited to helping with dinner.
**********
The next day dawned hotter than the day before. Piper didn't think it was possible, but when she awoke that morning, she was already sweating. The heat was making everyone cranky. She had already gotten into a fight with Prue. The fight itself wasn't even really that bad, but the heat made it seem much worse. Despite her grandmother's warnings to the contrary, Prue had asked Piper what she does in the woods. Piper had refused to go into details, telling Prue instead that it was none of her business. Prue got angry, then Piper got angry in return, and they both had said things they didn't mean.
As soon as the sisters and Andy had arrived at the park, Piper had taken off into the woods, eager to escape into the quiet solitude of the tall trees. She headed straight for the rock and plopped down on the top, hugging her knees to her chest. She didn't even realize she'd been crying until she felt a tear slip off her cheek and drip onto her knee. Sniffling, she wiped her eyes and stared out at the flowers. Normally, the scene would have relaxed her, but she was too wound up from the fight for anything to calm her down.
"Piper? Are you crying?"
Piper gasped, startled, and looked over her shoulder. She found herself staring at Melody. The girl was wearing the same long dress she had been the day before, and her hair was done the same way. Piper nodded and turned back around, looking out at the flowers once again. "You don't have to stay. I'm in a bad mood and I won't be very fun."
"Nonsense." Melody sat down next to her and wrapped her arm around Piper's shoulders. "What's upsetting you?"
"My sister and I got into a fight," she said, sniffling.
"What about?"
"About me coming here," she answered, a hint of bitterness in her voice. "She doesn't like me coming in here by myself, but my grandmother told her to leave me alone and let me do my own thing. But she doesn't know how to leave me alone. Why can't she understand that she's my sister, not my mother?" She trailed off, starting to cry again.
Melody tightened her grip around Piper's shoulders. "Did your mom tell her to stop?"
"My mom died a few years ago," Piper said, letting her tears drip off her cheek. "My grandmother takes care of us, but she relies on Prue a lot to help her. Sometimes Prue takes the parenting too far, though." She buried her face in her knees, trying to stop sobbing. "I don't need her to be my mother. I need her to be my sister."
"Oh, Piper, I wish I knew what to say to you," Melody said.
"It's okay." Piper looked up and wiped her eyes, sniffling. "You don't have to say anything. I just . . . I'm so angry right now!"
Melody sighed and released her grip on Piper's shoulders, hugging her own legs tightly instead. She shook her head slightly, wondering what she could do to make Piper feel better, then smiled. "Come here." She stood up and grabbed Piper's hands, pulling her onto her feet. "I want to show you something." Piper frowned in confusion, but she allowed Melody to drag her through the woods.
They were going deeper into the woods than Piper had ever gone before. She didn't recognize anything, and she didn't think she could find the way back. She hoped that Melody knew how to get out, or at the very least, how to get back to the rock. After a few minutes of trudging through dead leaves and low bushes, they reached a small clearing surrounded by tall evergreens. In the middle of the clearing stood a little wishing well, complete with a bucket and a ladle for scooping water. "Oh, this is so cute!" Piper exclaimed.
"Isn't it?" Melody asked with a grin. "This is my other little thinking spot. I climb the rock quite a bit, but sometimes I like to just sit here at the well, dropping pebbles into the water."
"Doesn't your mom get mad at you for being out here by yourself for so long?" Piper asked as she turned the crank to lower the bucket into the water. She smiled when she heard the quiet plop of the wood hitting water.
Melody shrugged, her face falling slightly. "It doesn't matter anymore."
Piper turned back to Melody, catching the shift in the girl's mood. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she answered, shaking her head as if to clear it and smiling.
Piper nodded, not really believing her. There was something about Melody that she couldn't quite figure out. It wasn't any one thing; just a lot of little things. This was only the second day she had spent time with Melody and it was the second time that Melody had said something that made Piper stop and think. Why wouldn't it matter if Melody's mother got mad at her? And it wasn't even as if Melody simply didn't care. She had said that it didn't matter anymore, which meant that it had mattered once.
"Are you feeling better?" Melody asked.
Piper nodded, shaking herself out of her reverie, and smiled. "Yeah, I am."
"Good. I'm glad."
The girls played at the well for a little over an hour. Piper had calmed down considerably and Melody's sudden mood swing had gone away. Suddenly, Melody gasped and grabbed Piper's hand, starting to lead her back to the rock.
"We should get back! If your sister calls you, you won't be able to hear her all the way out here."
"Okay," Piper said, shrugging. She really didn't want to go back, but she also didn't want Prue traipsing through the woods looking for her. She followed Melody back through the maze of trees and bushes. Unwittingly, she stepped through a patch of briars and winced as the sharp thorns scraped her legs. She didn't have time to stop and see if she was bleeding, though, because Melody had run through them unharmed. Just as she was trying to figure out how she could have run through a patch of thorns and not have been hurt at all, she heard Prue calling her name.
She groaned, wondering what her sister could possibly want, and continued to follow Melody. Prue can wait, she thought bitterly. Maybe she'll even get herself lost. She gasped at the thought, surprised at how angry she still was over their fight that morning.
She turned a corner on the path as Melody slipped out of her view, and for the second day in a row, she ran right into her sister. After catching her breath from the fright of colliding into someone, she looked past Prue, trying to find Melody. The girl was nowhere to be found. "Oh, Prue, now I lost her!"
"Lost who?"
"My friend Melody," she replied. "I was following her back to . . ." She trailed off, reluctant to reveal where she had been or where she was going.
"Piper, you were alone. I didn't see anyone else."
"But--" Piper glanced around and was sorry to find that Prue was right. There was no indication at all that someone had been accompanying her. There were no swaying branches ahead of them and no other sounds in the woods. "She was here, I swear!"
"Is that what you do in here?" Prue asked. "Meet a friend?"
Piper nodded distractedly, trying to figure out where Melody went. "I just . . . where did she go?"
Prue wrapped her arm around Piper's shoulder, giving her a small hug. She knew beyond a doubt that Piper had been alone. Through the trees, she had seen her running before they collided, and there was no one else with her, either in front of her or behind her. "I don't know where she went, but I have something that might make you feel better. Andy and I are going to buy Phoebe some ice cream and we were wondering if you want some, too."
"Sure," Piper said with a smile.
"Good." Prue smiled and started walking her sister out of the woods. "I'm sorry about this morning."
"I am, too," Piper said. She looked up at Prue and grinned, telling her sister that she meant it. Prue smiled back and the two of them silently made their way out of the woods. As they emerged from the trees, Piper looked over her shoulder just once, then sighed. Melody was still nowhere to be found. She glanced over at Prue and caught her looking at her with a concerned expression on her face. Piper just smiled, trying to calm her sister's nerves, but the truth was, Piper was concerned herself. Where in the world had Melody disappeared to?