The Dark Years
Part Four- The Secret's Out
Disclaimer: see first chapter
Originally Posted: June 23, 2004
Author's Notes: Ok, this is ALL that I have, because it's been forever since I've updated, and I'm going to my dad's for three weeks. I don't know when I'll have enough to update again, but I'll try. And you get a crash course in Slayer history! Lol...you'll see what I'm talking about...
July 26, 2004- I had the wrong Part number, and was confusing myself!
Reader Responses:
leodalyon073: Ok, first off, thanks for the review. Secondly...it was Drusilla, but it's not. I can't remember the specifics of a certain spell, but no Spike does not know. He is suffering just as much as everyone else. He really loves Andrea, not the fake love he had for her mother, and she won't marry him, even though they have a child, because she feels she can't leave her mother and her sister. If you check the last chapter, Joyce calls the figure MOM. PART OF PREVIOUS CHAPTER: She shifted from the image of the crazy vampire; she didn't feel like being crazy anymore, to a petite blond number, much more suited for the seriousness at hand. She waved her hand and the woman was released from the bonds that held her, and she crumpled to the floor.
The woman picked herself up with the grace of her kind, and stood sharply at attention. "This is your first target." She handed her the glossy photo that another minion had taken. "Don't let me down, slayer." "I won't, Mom." She bowed her head, shimmering out of their dimension, the one she was stuck in, while her minions came and left as they pleased.
"She remembers this form. Why does she remember?" she asked a quailing minion. "Strong emotion bonds, such as that between mother and daughter are almost impossible to sever, my liege." He bowed. "Never mind that. It could turn out to be in our favor. Your blunder will be overlooked."
This particular passage will be crucial in coming chapters. If you don't get it now, you will later...
Bluie: Thanks for the congrats, and thanks for reviewing!
"Guys, I thought up another person we could summon, who'd know mom," Melinda said a couple days later.
"We have to be careful," Grace said, "If Grams or Grampa found out, they'd be really mad."
"We'll be careful, Grace. Don't worry. Who do you have in mind, Giles. He died when we were six, but he must have known mom, he was a watcher. Gram's watcher."
"But he's authority. Don't you think he'll tell Grampa?" Grace asked.
"No, he sounds like a really great guy. Grams wasn't so together girl when she was younger."
"But would he definitely know mom?"
"He was the one that told Gram and Grampa Summers, that Mom was going to be a slayer."
"How do you know all this?" Faith asked suspiciously.
"I asked Aunt Paige about mom, just a few questions, about how she became the slayer."
Faith shook her head, surprised that they hadn't been caught in the act yet. "So, we're agreed that we're going to summon this Mr. Giles?" they all nodded, "Friday night?"
Piper was idly twirling the crystal, almost with no expectance to find anything, after so long trying. The crystal dropped on Budapest, and she just stared in shock.
"Leo!" she called shakily.
"What?" he came into the room.
"I-I was scrying. Not really looking to find anything...A-And..." she pointed.
"What do you mean?"
"I think it found Joyce."
"Don't tell the girls. Or your sisters. They don't need to know, if it ends up being wrong." She nodded. "Try it again, and if you get her, then we'll check it out." She nodded, sitting up to begin scrying once more. "Don't worry, baby, we'll find her."
"I know," Piper murmured, swinging the crystal.
Half an hour later, she was fed up, and pissed off.
"It can't be her, and yet it has to be!" she told Leo once he came to check up on her, "It's jumping all over the globe, and then it disappears."
"We'll try again later."
"Those girls need a mother NOW Leo!"
"I know, I know," he placated her, as she put her head in her hands to hide her tears.
The three girls were doing homework around the table in their room, when something went through them, it seemed. Each stopped, Faith in the middle of a complex math problem, and Mel in the middle of a sentence. Grace dropped her pencil completely; it rolled off the table and landed on the floor.
"Did you feel that?" she whispered. They nodded. "It was Mom, wasn't it?" they shrugged. They waited, but it didn't come again.
"We have to find her, you guys. She's out there, somewhere."
"We will, Grace. Don't worry," Faith told her.
"But I always do. That's my job, I think. To worry."
"No, it's Grams job to worry. It's our job to make her worry," Melinda joked, trying to ease the tension.
"That not funny!" Grace said, pouting.
"Yes, it is. We all know that Grams is super worry wort. It's her job," Melinda defended herself. They all went back to the homework. Grace went to pick up her pencil, but it was missing. After picking up all of her books and papers, looking for the stupid pencil, and not finding it, she looked on the floor, and there it was, under Mel's chair.
"Angel Investigations, we help the helpless. Angel speaking."
"Angel. Something's going on. Could we use the hotel?"
"Buffy? What's going on?" he asked, confused.
"Someone's targeting potentials again."
"Like the First was?"
"Yes," she sighed. "We're gonna round them all up again, Ashley found this Master List thing. We'll keep them all in one place, until we know what's targeting them, and how I kill it."
"Buffy, there's a reason slayers generally don't live as long as you have. A human body, as it ages, cannot deal with the stress that comes with the strength of the slayer."
"I know what I'm doing. I've been patrolling every night for the past ten years."
"What? Why? There are others that can and should do that. You put yourself in needless danger." Though they had divorced because of mutual grief, he still cared deeply for his ex-wife, his only true love.
"Because I can't give up hope," she whispered.
"Hope for what? That you'll find her? Buffy, we can never give up hoping, praying, but working yourself to an early grave won't help anyone."
"Do you ever think of the prophecy?" she asked suddenly.
"Everyday. I endlessly search through scrolls and ancient texts, looking for an answer, even if it's the wrong one."
"The prophecy says 'the child,' but with triplets, how could it still be true?"
"There were too many specifics for it not to be Wyatt and Joy-their child."
"Why do we never say her name?"
"Why did we get divorced?" he answered her question with a question.
"Because...I don't know. You worked too much; I cried and moped too much. We grew apart in our grief, I guess."
"Is it too far gone to bring it back?
"Angel...I don't know. I-I'm still getting over loosing her. There are days when I barely remember; I just think she's at work, or living her own life, too busy to involve her mother. She doesn't even cross my mind. Other days, I wake up crying, and can't stop. I can't get out of bed, it hurts so much."
"I guess we never say her-Joyce's name, to detach ourselves. If we don't recognize that it's her, by using her name, then it doesn't hurt as much, theoretically."
She was silent.
"You can use the hotel. I'll get some rooms ready."
"Thanks."
"Goodbye, Buffy."
"Goodbye, Angel." She hung up, and wiped her tears away. Tears for her missing daughter. Tears for her three young granddaughters, orphans. And tears for herself.
The girls said their goodnights, then went upstairs and went to bed, turning off the lights. It had been three weeks since they had started their intense magic program, lots and lots of extra help from their aunts, studying both the Book of Shadows, and the book Grams gave them at night, after they were to be in bed, asleep. They even read farther in their textbooks, and practiced extra. Nowadays, when they went to bed, they would be asleep within moments, on those nights that sleep would claim them, and on others, they were up for hours, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the fickle sleep to come.
Just before the girls had fallen into a deep sleep, a man blinked in, and sprinkled a powder over their faces. Grace scrunched her face, before drifting deeper into sleep.
The man then blinked out, as silent as he came.
"They still asleep?" her sister nodded.
"Maybe they've been staying up too late." Paige suggested.
"No," Piper said, "The Sandman stopped by, I saw him. Let them sleep, they're growing, they need it."
"They're up to something," Paige declared.
"I know. Their grades are the best they've ever been, and we've all been helping them with their individual powers, and Leo's been helping them with whitelighter stuff. I just can't figure out what they're up to yet."
"You're both right. They've been on their best behavior. They're definitely up to something. I just hope it's nothing bad," Piper worried.
Grace stretched, sitting up in her bed, and looked blearily at the clock. Her eyes bulged when she saw the time, before she remembered it was Saturday. They had never slept so late! But then, they had never stayed up so late.
She silently got up and dressed, heading downstairs. She heard her grandparents and aunts in the kitchen, so headed that way. But something stopped her, before she entered the kitchen, or made her presence known.
"Buffy got in touch with me last night," she heard Piper say.
"Oh? What'd she want?" Phoebe asked.
"There's something threatening the potentials again. Willow thought that the girls might also be targets, so Buffy wanted to let us know...She sounded really tired."
"She took losing Joyce really hard," Paige reasoned.
"We all did. Joyce was a daughter to us, before she and Wy ever started going out."
"You think it's something more?" Phoebe asked.
"I do. Andrea and Amanda are almost pulling out of it, they're finally trying to go on with their lives, but Buffy...I just don't know," Piper sighed.
"Guys...Do you think that there is any truth behind the prophecy still?" Paige asked, "I mean, because...well, it was Joyce and Wyatt's child, and they obviously had triplets..."
"I don't know anymore. That prophecy was so terrifying and everything...but we couldn't have screwed up time so much that it wouldn't come true, right Leo?" Phoebe asked.
"I don't see what could have happened to make it not come true. Wyatt was supposed to be a girl, and everyone thought him as that, but still, here's a prophecy, claiming him to be a boy."
"Or Joyce a boy," Piper reminded them. Then a look of confusion came over her face, and she cocked her head, "Grace...? Would you like something to eat?" she called, and she heard a more distinctive sigh from the doorway, and the girl emerged.
"How do you do that?" Grace asked mildly as she accepted the glass of orange juice.
"How long were you there?" Piper asked in return.
"Not long." Grace lied, feeling bad about it immediately.
"Well, come sit down and eat. Are your sisters up yet?" she shook her head as she pulled out a chair. Five minutes later, Piper slapped a plate of cheesy scrambled eggs in front of her granddaughter. "What are your plans for today?" she asked as she started cleaning the kitchen.
"Don't know if I have any. We were thinking of walking to the mall later, but..." she shrugged.
"Are you up for visiting Aunt Willow and the English crew? It's been what...? Three or four months since you last went over?"
She nodded.
Something dawned on Piper, "Maybe she could help you on your search for your mother," she said slowly, putting the pieces together. Phoebe, Paige and Leo stared at her, shocked.
Grace gapped at her grandmother. She wanted to deny it, but knew she had seen the look on her face, and knew that she would be lying.
"Sweetie, you do know that we've tried everything to find her, right?" Grace nodded. "I'm not going to stop you from looking, but don't get your hopes up," Piper ran a hand through her granddaughter's light blond hair.
"I-I know, Grams. It's just...it's like I can almost feel her. She's alive. I know it," she whispered.
"I feel it to, baby, I know," she whispered back, then cleared her throat, "Eat your eggs before they get cold. Would you like more orange juice?"
"What?! How did she find out?!"
"It's not my fault! I swear! She was talking about going to see Will and Ashley, and then she was saying we were looking for her...you know I can't lie!"
"Maybe it's best this way," Faith murmured, to pacify both of her sisters, "No more spells on the sly. She said she was willing to help?"
"No, she said she wouldn't stop us. She never said anything about help."
"Well, it's a start, at least..."
"Grams...can you help me with this?" Grace asked a few days later. They were studying for finals, and she was having the hardest time with her history.
"Sure." She nodded her into her bedroom, where she was folding laundry.
"It's history. We just did a unit on slayers, and...I just can't memorize all the facts. It didn't help that I couldn't concentrate on what Professor Gage was saying..."
"I understand, sweetie. What can I do?"
"Could you quiz me?" "Sure..." she took the paper offered. "ok, so...Who was the youngest slayer called?"
"C-Kishi Mino-something?"
"Carissa Avenhaus, called at age 12. Ok...Who was India Cohen's watcher?"
"Oh, um...Kit...something..."
"Kit Bothwell. In what year did India die?"
"Oh, 1996."
"And which slayer was activated at that time?"
"Grams."
"Good. How many slayers fought against Skymir?"
"Oh, two. , from Barcelona, who was only active for like...ten minutes and....Elanor...Boudrea, from England," she said happily.
"Good. Uh...." Piper scoured the sheet, "Who killed Kendra?"
"Drusilla."
"Right, and last question.... Which slayer was active only one day?"
"Oh, um...Britta...Kessler Lichtermann. She was betrayed by her watcher, and sired in 1923."
"Good. May I ask if you had anything to do with the studying of this topic?" Piper asked with a smile.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Grace said, smiling.
"Anything else I can do to help?"
"No, I know what I need to study. Thanks." She got up to leave.
"Hey, Grace, can I give you an idea? Why don't you call Ashley, in England? I'm sure they have tons more information than your professor does, and you can blow his socks off."
"Couldn't I just find a charm for that?" It was the first time Piper had laughed in awhile.
"Ug," Paige groaned as she threw her car keys on the hallway table. She found her family in the kitchen, "I have never heard of so many people having so many problems!" she complained.
"Tough day at work?" Grace asked, though she already knew.
"You can say that again. Call, after call, after call from people needing demonic help. By nine thirty, we were out of teams. Something wiggy is going on, and I don't like it."
"Maybe we could help," Melinda spoke up, "I mean, we may be young, but we are witches, and my lowest grade was an 89.9 this past semester, which will be rounded to a 90, and I'm always the worst at school. We could help you."
"Yeah, we could answer phones-" Faith jumped in.
"And do research!" Grace jumped in also.
"And that way, you wouldn't have to have others do it for you." The three girls watched in anticipation as their grandmother and aunts conversed silently in a way only close sisters can.
Paige silently asked Piper if it was ok with her, being the triplet's legal guardian, and she gave an imperceptible nod, and the three girls grinned.
"Sure, we'd welcome the help. How about you come with me tomorrow morning, you don't have school, right?" the girls nodded, having taken their last final that day, "And then we can set up a work space for you. You guys can answer phones and do research. I might even be able to put your premonition power to work, Grace."
Grace nodded, "Grams, do you want help cooking supper?"
"Sure, any ideas from the peanut gallery?"
"Tacos," was Faith's idea.
"Cajun chicken," was Melinda's idea.
"I'll think of something," Piper assured them, leading the way into the kitchen.
"I have a column to finish, so if anyone needs me, I'll be in my room," Phoebe headed towards the stairs.
Paige looked at Faith and Melinda, "Well, it's just the three of us, I guess. Do you guys wanna play a board game, or something?"
TBC...
What do you think? Reviews make me work faster! hint, hint
Part Four- The Secret's Out
Disclaimer: see first chapter
Originally Posted: June 23, 2004
Author's Notes: Ok, this is ALL that I have, because it's been forever since I've updated, and I'm going to my dad's for three weeks. I don't know when I'll have enough to update again, but I'll try. And you get a crash course in Slayer history! Lol...you'll see what I'm talking about...
July 26, 2004- I had the wrong Part number, and was confusing myself!
Reader Responses:
leodalyon073: Ok, first off, thanks for the review. Secondly...it was Drusilla, but it's not. I can't remember the specifics of a certain spell, but no Spike does not know. He is suffering just as much as everyone else. He really loves Andrea, not the fake love he had for her mother, and she won't marry him, even though they have a child, because she feels she can't leave her mother and her sister. If you check the last chapter, Joyce calls the figure MOM. PART OF PREVIOUS CHAPTER: She shifted from the image of the crazy vampire; she didn't feel like being crazy anymore, to a petite blond number, much more suited for the seriousness at hand. She waved her hand and the woman was released from the bonds that held her, and she crumpled to the floor.
The woman picked herself up with the grace of her kind, and stood sharply at attention. "This is your first target." She handed her the glossy photo that another minion had taken. "Don't let me down, slayer." "I won't, Mom." She bowed her head, shimmering out of their dimension, the one she was stuck in, while her minions came and left as they pleased.
"She remembers this form. Why does she remember?" she asked a quailing minion. "Strong emotion bonds, such as that between mother and daughter are almost impossible to sever, my liege." He bowed. "Never mind that. It could turn out to be in our favor. Your blunder will be overlooked."
This particular passage will be crucial in coming chapters. If you don't get it now, you will later...
Bluie: Thanks for the congrats, and thanks for reviewing!
"Guys, I thought up another person we could summon, who'd know mom," Melinda said a couple days later.
"We have to be careful," Grace said, "If Grams or Grampa found out, they'd be really mad."
"We'll be careful, Grace. Don't worry. Who do you have in mind, Giles. He died when we were six, but he must have known mom, he was a watcher. Gram's watcher."
"But he's authority. Don't you think he'll tell Grampa?" Grace asked.
"No, he sounds like a really great guy. Grams wasn't so together girl when she was younger."
"But would he definitely know mom?"
"He was the one that told Gram and Grampa Summers, that Mom was going to be a slayer."
"How do you know all this?" Faith asked suspiciously.
"I asked Aunt Paige about mom, just a few questions, about how she became the slayer."
Faith shook her head, surprised that they hadn't been caught in the act yet. "So, we're agreed that we're going to summon this Mr. Giles?" they all nodded, "Friday night?"
Piper was idly twirling the crystal, almost with no expectance to find anything, after so long trying. The crystal dropped on Budapest, and she just stared in shock.
"Leo!" she called shakily.
"What?" he came into the room.
"I-I was scrying. Not really looking to find anything...A-And..." she pointed.
"What do you mean?"
"I think it found Joyce."
"Don't tell the girls. Or your sisters. They don't need to know, if it ends up being wrong." She nodded. "Try it again, and if you get her, then we'll check it out." She nodded, sitting up to begin scrying once more. "Don't worry, baby, we'll find her."
"I know," Piper murmured, swinging the crystal.
Half an hour later, she was fed up, and pissed off.
"It can't be her, and yet it has to be!" she told Leo once he came to check up on her, "It's jumping all over the globe, and then it disappears."
"We'll try again later."
"Those girls need a mother NOW Leo!"
"I know, I know," he placated her, as she put her head in her hands to hide her tears.
The three girls were doing homework around the table in their room, when something went through them, it seemed. Each stopped, Faith in the middle of a complex math problem, and Mel in the middle of a sentence. Grace dropped her pencil completely; it rolled off the table and landed on the floor.
"Did you feel that?" she whispered. They nodded. "It was Mom, wasn't it?" they shrugged. They waited, but it didn't come again.
"We have to find her, you guys. She's out there, somewhere."
"We will, Grace. Don't worry," Faith told her.
"But I always do. That's my job, I think. To worry."
"No, it's Grams job to worry. It's our job to make her worry," Melinda joked, trying to ease the tension.
"That not funny!" Grace said, pouting.
"Yes, it is. We all know that Grams is super worry wort. It's her job," Melinda defended herself. They all went back to the homework. Grace went to pick up her pencil, but it was missing. After picking up all of her books and papers, looking for the stupid pencil, and not finding it, she looked on the floor, and there it was, under Mel's chair.
"Angel Investigations, we help the helpless. Angel speaking."
"Angel. Something's going on. Could we use the hotel?"
"Buffy? What's going on?" he asked, confused.
"Someone's targeting potentials again."
"Like the First was?"
"Yes," she sighed. "We're gonna round them all up again, Ashley found this Master List thing. We'll keep them all in one place, until we know what's targeting them, and how I kill it."
"Buffy, there's a reason slayers generally don't live as long as you have. A human body, as it ages, cannot deal with the stress that comes with the strength of the slayer."
"I know what I'm doing. I've been patrolling every night for the past ten years."
"What? Why? There are others that can and should do that. You put yourself in needless danger." Though they had divorced because of mutual grief, he still cared deeply for his ex-wife, his only true love.
"Because I can't give up hope," she whispered.
"Hope for what? That you'll find her? Buffy, we can never give up hoping, praying, but working yourself to an early grave won't help anyone."
"Do you ever think of the prophecy?" she asked suddenly.
"Everyday. I endlessly search through scrolls and ancient texts, looking for an answer, even if it's the wrong one."
"The prophecy says 'the child,' but with triplets, how could it still be true?"
"There were too many specifics for it not to be Wyatt and Joy-their child."
"Why do we never say her name?"
"Why did we get divorced?" he answered her question with a question.
"Because...I don't know. You worked too much; I cried and moped too much. We grew apart in our grief, I guess."
"Is it too far gone to bring it back?
"Angel...I don't know. I-I'm still getting over loosing her. There are days when I barely remember; I just think she's at work, or living her own life, too busy to involve her mother. She doesn't even cross my mind. Other days, I wake up crying, and can't stop. I can't get out of bed, it hurts so much."
"I guess we never say her-Joyce's name, to detach ourselves. If we don't recognize that it's her, by using her name, then it doesn't hurt as much, theoretically."
She was silent.
"You can use the hotel. I'll get some rooms ready."
"Thanks."
"Goodbye, Buffy."
"Goodbye, Angel." She hung up, and wiped her tears away. Tears for her missing daughter. Tears for her three young granddaughters, orphans. And tears for herself.
The girls said their goodnights, then went upstairs and went to bed, turning off the lights. It had been three weeks since they had started their intense magic program, lots and lots of extra help from their aunts, studying both the Book of Shadows, and the book Grams gave them at night, after they were to be in bed, asleep. They even read farther in their textbooks, and practiced extra. Nowadays, when they went to bed, they would be asleep within moments, on those nights that sleep would claim them, and on others, they were up for hours, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the fickle sleep to come.
Just before the girls had fallen into a deep sleep, a man blinked in, and sprinkled a powder over their faces. Grace scrunched her face, before drifting deeper into sleep.
The man then blinked out, as silent as he came.
"They still asleep?" her sister nodded.
"Maybe they've been staying up too late." Paige suggested.
"No," Piper said, "The Sandman stopped by, I saw him. Let them sleep, they're growing, they need it."
"They're up to something," Paige declared.
"I know. Their grades are the best they've ever been, and we've all been helping them with their individual powers, and Leo's been helping them with whitelighter stuff. I just can't figure out what they're up to yet."
"You're both right. They've been on their best behavior. They're definitely up to something. I just hope it's nothing bad," Piper worried.
Grace stretched, sitting up in her bed, and looked blearily at the clock. Her eyes bulged when she saw the time, before she remembered it was Saturday. They had never slept so late! But then, they had never stayed up so late.
She silently got up and dressed, heading downstairs. She heard her grandparents and aunts in the kitchen, so headed that way. But something stopped her, before she entered the kitchen, or made her presence known.
"Buffy got in touch with me last night," she heard Piper say.
"Oh? What'd she want?" Phoebe asked.
"There's something threatening the potentials again. Willow thought that the girls might also be targets, so Buffy wanted to let us know...She sounded really tired."
"She took losing Joyce really hard," Paige reasoned.
"We all did. Joyce was a daughter to us, before she and Wy ever started going out."
"You think it's something more?" Phoebe asked.
"I do. Andrea and Amanda are almost pulling out of it, they're finally trying to go on with their lives, but Buffy...I just don't know," Piper sighed.
"Guys...Do you think that there is any truth behind the prophecy still?" Paige asked, "I mean, because...well, it was Joyce and Wyatt's child, and they obviously had triplets..."
"I don't know anymore. That prophecy was so terrifying and everything...but we couldn't have screwed up time so much that it wouldn't come true, right Leo?" Phoebe asked.
"I don't see what could have happened to make it not come true. Wyatt was supposed to be a girl, and everyone thought him as that, but still, here's a prophecy, claiming him to be a boy."
"Or Joyce a boy," Piper reminded them. Then a look of confusion came over her face, and she cocked her head, "Grace...? Would you like something to eat?" she called, and she heard a more distinctive sigh from the doorway, and the girl emerged.
"How do you do that?" Grace asked mildly as she accepted the glass of orange juice.
"How long were you there?" Piper asked in return.
"Not long." Grace lied, feeling bad about it immediately.
"Well, come sit down and eat. Are your sisters up yet?" she shook her head as she pulled out a chair. Five minutes later, Piper slapped a plate of cheesy scrambled eggs in front of her granddaughter. "What are your plans for today?" she asked as she started cleaning the kitchen.
"Don't know if I have any. We were thinking of walking to the mall later, but..." she shrugged.
"Are you up for visiting Aunt Willow and the English crew? It's been what...? Three or four months since you last went over?"
She nodded.
Something dawned on Piper, "Maybe she could help you on your search for your mother," she said slowly, putting the pieces together. Phoebe, Paige and Leo stared at her, shocked.
Grace gapped at her grandmother. She wanted to deny it, but knew she had seen the look on her face, and knew that she would be lying.
"Sweetie, you do know that we've tried everything to find her, right?" Grace nodded. "I'm not going to stop you from looking, but don't get your hopes up," Piper ran a hand through her granddaughter's light blond hair.
"I-I know, Grams. It's just...it's like I can almost feel her. She's alive. I know it," she whispered.
"I feel it to, baby, I know," she whispered back, then cleared her throat, "Eat your eggs before they get cold. Would you like more orange juice?"
"What?! How did she find out?!"
"It's not my fault! I swear! She was talking about going to see Will and Ashley, and then she was saying we were looking for her...you know I can't lie!"
"Maybe it's best this way," Faith murmured, to pacify both of her sisters, "No more spells on the sly. She said she was willing to help?"
"No, she said she wouldn't stop us. She never said anything about help."
"Well, it's a start, at least..."
"Grams...can you help me with this?" Grace asked a few days later. They were studying for finals, and she was having the hardest time with her history.
"Sure." She nodded her into her bedroom, where she was folding laundry.
"It's history. We just did a unit on slayers, and...I just can't memorize all the facts. It didn't help that I couldn't concentrate on what Professor Gage was saying..."
"I understand, sweetie. What can I do?"
"Could you quiz me?" "Sure..." she took the paper offered. "ok, so...Who was the youngest slayer called?"
"C-Kishi Mino-something?"
"Carissa Avenhaus, called at age 12. Ok...Who was India Cohen's watcher?"
"Oh, um...Kit...something..."
"Kit Bothwell. In what year did India die?"
"Oh, 1996."
"And which slayer was activated at that time?"
"Grams."
"Good. How many slayers fought against Skymir?"
"Oh, two. , from Barcelona, who was only active for like...ten minutes and....Elanor...Boudrea, from England," she said happily.
"Good. Uh...." Piper scoured the sheet, "Who killed Kendra?"
"Drusilla."
"Right, and last question.... Which slayer was active only one day?"
"Oh, um...Britta...Kessler Lichtermann. She was betrayed by her watcher, and sired in 1923."
"Good. May I ask if you had anything to do with the studying of this topic?" Piper asked with a smile.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Grace said, smiling.
"Anything else I can do to help?"
"No, I know what I need to study. Thanks." She got up to leave.
"Hey, Grace, can I give you an idea? Why don't you call Ashley, in England? I'm sure they have tons more information than your professor does, and you can blow his socks off."
"Couldn't I just find a charm for that?" It was the first time Piper had laughed in awhile.
"Ug," Paige groaned as she threw her car keys on the hallway table. She found her family in the kitchen, "I have never heard of so many people having so many problems!" she complained.
"Tough day at work?" Grace asked, though she already knew.
"You can say that again. Call, after call, after call from people needing demonic help. By nine thirty, we were out of teams. Something wiggy is going on, and I don't like it."
"Maybe we could help," Melinda spoke up, "I mean, we may be young, but we are witches, and my lowest grade was an 89.9 this past semester, which will be rounded to a 90, and I'm always the worst at school. We could help you."
"Yeah, we could answer phones-" Faith jumped in.
"And do research!" Grace jumped in also.
"And that way, you wouldn't have to have others do it for you." The three girls watched in anticipation as their grandmother and aunts conversed silently in a way only close sisters can.
Paige silently asked Piper if it was ok with her, being the triplet's legal guardian, and she gave an imperceptible nod, and the three girls grinned.
"Sure, we'd welcome the help. How about you come with me tomorrow morning, you don't have school, right?" the girls nodded, having taken their last final that day, "And then we can set up a work space for you. You guys can answer phones and do research. I might even be able to put your premonition power to work, Grace."
Grace nodded, "Grams, do you want help cooking supper?"
"Sure, any ideas from the peanut gallery?"
"Tacos," was Faith's idea.
"Cajun chicken," was Melinda's idea.
"I'll think of something," Piper assured them, leading the way into the kitchen.
"I have a column to finish, so if anyone needs me, I'll be in my room," Phoebe headed towards the stairs.
Paige looked at Faith and Melinda, "Well, it's just the three of us, I guess. Do you guys wanna play a board game, or something?"
TBC...
What do you think? Reviews make me work faster! hint, hint