Dinner that night was quiet. Everyone was thinking the same thing, and none of them wanted to say it out loud.

"We should probably go back up to the attic." Mark said after the meal was over.

"I was afraid you were gonna say that." Khrystalia grumbled.

"Hey, it's not that bad, Khrys," Carolyn said comfortingly. "I mean, look at it this way. You and I were both babies when our moms died, and Cammie and Julie were too young to remember Aunt Piper. This, whatever it is, it was obviously a big part of them. Maybe we'll get to know who they really were somehow."

Carolyn's little speech seemed to calm everyone's fears, at least for the moment. Camille even looked eager to get up to the attic, though Julianne still looked a bit wary.

They cleared the table and went upstairs, Julie clutching Starr for comfort. She put the cat down when they got inside the attic.

Apprehensively, they began looking around. They started noticing some things that they hadn't last night, such as the candles in various sizes and colours, the glass vials, and an athame.

"Mark, look!" Carolyn exclaimed. "Kit's collar." She held up the small, red cat collar, admiring the strange sybol ingraved on the tag. Suddenly, the tag started to glow. "Ohh..." Carri breathed. "Guys, you better come see this."

Her cousins gathered around her, as the symbol began to change, as if being ingraved by some invisible hand. When it was finished, there was another identical, upside-down symbol on top of the first. For a while, they just stared at it, in shock. Camille took the collar from Carolyn.

"Starr," she called, "come here, kitty." Starr lept obediently into Cammie's arms, and she put the collar around the cat's neck.

"Cammie, do you really think that's a good idea?" Julianne asked nervously.

"Relax, Julie. See? She's fine." Camille said.

"Still, maybe we should get out of here." Julie said pleadingly.

"No." Khrys said firmly. Everyone looked at her, surprised. "I... I want to know what all this has to do with my mom. Please. I want to know what she was like."

The little girl was fighting back tears, trying to be strong. Greg went over and hugged her. "It's okay, Khryssi. We'll stay. We'll figure this out, I promise."

"Greg's right, Khrys." Carolyn stepped in. "And I..." she paused. "I want to figure this thing out, too."

"Here would probably be a good place to start." Mark said, gesturing to the Book of Shadows. "I only read a page or so last night, and this thing's frickin' huge."

As he said that, the pages started turning.

"How.. the hell...?" Camille's voice trailed off.

"Holy shit, that was weird." was Greg's input.

"Well, what does it say?" Khrys demanded impatiently.

Taking a deep breath, Mark started reading. "In this night and in this hour, I call upon the anceint power."

Greg peered over his shoulder, and saw the spell his cousin was reciting. "Hey, try substituting 'cousins six' for 'sisters three' and see what happens. Maybe it'll be cool, like fireworks or something." He suggested jokingly.

Mark either missed the note of sarcasm in Greg's voice, or else he chose to ignore it. Without looking up, he continued reading. "Bring your powers to we cousins six. We want the power.... Give us the power."

A bright, white light appeared above them. In an instant it was gone, but it left them with a strange, ominous feeling.

"Mark!" Julie tried to scream, but it came out as a whisper. "What the hell did you do?"

"Well how the hell was I supposed to know it would work?" he shot back.

"Work how? I mean, come on. A light flashed for about a second. That's it. It's over, and I hardly think it's something to panic about." Greg scoffed.

"Okay, but how do you that was the end of it? How do you know we didn't just unleash some kind of energy or power or something? What makes you so sure that the light we saw was all there is to it?" Cammie asked, her voice rising.

"Greg's probably right." Carolyn said with a confidence she sure as hell didn't feel. She took a deep breath. 'They need you, Carri, this is no time to play chicken shit.' she scolded herself. "I don't feel any different, none of you look any different. It's over, there's nothing we can do about whatever just happened. Now, let's just go back to normal and forget we ever found the stupid thing."

Her cousins nodded their heads in silent agreement. Khrys pouted a bit, but didn't protest this time as Carolyn led them out of the attic.

"And speaking of normal," she said as they were coming downstairs, "I have to get to work. Stay out of the attic while I'm gone, okay? All of you." she added, looking at Khrys. She kissed her youngest cousin good-bye, and strolled calmly out the door as if nothing had happened.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Carolyn got to P3 and hung out by the bar for a little while, forcing herself to concentrate on mixing drinks for the customers. When that proved useless as a distraction, and the bartender, Jillian, came back from her coffee break, Carolyn went into the back room to think.

"Hey, what are you doing back here?" Daniel asked when she'd been back there a while.

Carolyn jumped. She hadn't heard him come in. "Oh, I'm just thinking." she answered.

He smiled. "Odd place to do that, what the noise from the club. Jillian and I can handle things here, and you look exhausted. Why don't you take the night off?"

Carolyn shrugged. "I don't mind the noise. Truthfully, I'd rather stay here. There are some things I need to sort out, and I... I don't want to scare the kids."

The old man nodded. He wanted to tell her he understood, but he knew she wouldn't believe him, and she wasn't ready to see him for what he really was just yet. Sighing heavily, he left her alone with her thoughts.

She wasn't alone for very long. "Hey, Carri, do we have any more straws back there?" called Roger, a waiter.

"Hold on, let me check." Carolyn called back. She made a mental note to order a replacement bulb for the one that had gone out in the stock room as she squinted, trying to tell which box was the one she needed. "Where are the damn straws?" she muttered. Suddenly, one of the boxes flew open, and a single straw came floating toward her. She stood there in shock, staring at it.

"Carri, did you find them?" Roger's voice broke her out of her trance.

"Yeah, Roge, there back here." She shoved the straw back into the open box, and brought the box to Roger.

"Thanks, Care - Hey, Carolyn, where are you going?" he asked when she grabbed her coat and purse.

"Tell Daniel I decided to take the night off after all, okay?" she told him. She didn't know why, but she felt that after what happened, she needed to go back to the Book of Shadows, and no messing around with spells this time. She left the confused waiter with the box of straws and dashed out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A/N: Sorry about the long-time-no-update. I really shouldn't start fics during the school year, I know I'm not going to finish them what with all the projects and homework and such, but anyhoo, I'm going to try finishing all my fics over the summer. The ones with the most reviews get the most attention, so yeah.