Jumping-jo, thanks for your review!! I also liked Prue, but I found out, that there are some people, who really don't like her. Well I don't know why. But whatever, I hope you'll like the next chapter.
15. Chapter
When Prue arrived at home late in the evening, Mrs. Jennings told her, that Cole and Danny were in the park. And Clara should pass on a message to Prue, that she would have enough time to take care of the special matter. Mrs. Jennings raised asking an eyebrow, but Prue just nodded.
Prue went into her room and after all she to go on the attic to take a close look at Mrs. Turner's book of shadows. When she opened the door, she regretted her decision immediately. Outside were already 30 °C, but it was even oppressive on the attic. She opened the window, but no gust of wind blew in the room. Prue looked out of the narrow window to the chestnut tree. It's branches and leafs didn't move. She turned around angrily and went to the altar.
Meanwhile Mrs. Jennings called from downstairs, that she would go now. Prue shouted goodbye and listened until the door slam shut. Now she was alone. Prue took the old book and looked at it thoughtfully. She was still standing and started to leaf through it, but at first sight nothing looked familiar to her. She put it aside and looked around, there was junk everywhere. She raised her hand without thinking twice and threw the next best object against the wall. A vase smashed to pieces noisily. Probably it hasn't been such a good idea, Prue thought and tried to lift the pillow on an armchair. She could move it without a problem again. Prue dropped into the dusty armchair with a sign and embraced the pillow. She had to accept it, she also had magical powers here, definitely telekinesis. She didn't know if she was able to do astral projection or if spells would work. And actually she didn't want to know that. That wasn't really what they have intended, she had made a different deal with the Angel of Destiny. She didn't know what to with it now. Magic and her sisters that belonged together, magic had no use for her without them.
One hour later she was still sitting in the chair and didn't know what to do. Cole and Danny weren't at home yet and Prue didn't want to budge. Finally she got up anyhow and went downstairs into the kitchen. Mrs. Jennings has prepared the diner just for one person. Therefore she guessed that Cole and Danny wouldn't come home for dinner. Still lost in thoughts she opened the fridge, but she couldn't find orange juice there. She looked up and saw a pile where Mrs. Jennings always put every receipt into the right place on the kitchen cupboard. Prue took the last receipt and noticed that Mrs. Jennings had gone shopping this day, but Prue couldn't find orange juice on it. Prue remembered angrily that she had specially told Clara this morning to buy juice. She would tell her a thing or two the next day, Prue thought angrily. But no, one moment, it was slowly coming back to her, that she had forgotten to tell Clara about it, because she had to deter Clara from going into her room. She was mad at herself and took her keys for the car. She decided to drop by at the next supermarket.
When she arrived at the first crossing, she saw Cole and Danny on their way back home. Cole looked at her surprised, but Prue decided not to turn around and went on to the supermarket. She arrived at the car park shortly after. It was full of cars and when Prue entered the store she regretted her decision immediately, it was overcrowded. She took one of the last shopping carts and threw herself into the crowd. When she just heaved a box of juice into her shopping cart, she saw Vivian Wingrove. The young woman behaved oddly and it was obvious, that she wasn't interested in foodstuff. Prue left her shopping cart at the side and followed Vivian to the vegetable and fruit department. Vivian stopped in front of an employees' exit and looked around carefully. Prue hid behind a stall quickly. A man, who thought that she wanted to snatch the last melon away from him, gave her an angry look.
"Don't worry, you can have it." Prue snapped at him and stepped aside to let him take it. If he had set his heart on the melon, he could have it, she was not interested in it in the least bit. The man grabbed the melon hastily and while he left the department he complained about her to himself.
Prue looked after him shaking her head, but when she looked around the corner of the stall again, Vivian was already gone. Prue went to the door slowly. Did her little dispute with the buyer take so long, she wondered. The door was still moving a little, so it looked very much as if, Vivian went through it just minutes ago. Prue looked around. There were only a few buyers in this department and they were busy with examining the goods. Prue didn't think twice and opened the door to slip through it quickly.
Suddenly she was on the backyard of the grocery, which was surrounded by a high fence. Boxes and packaging were lying everywhere and trucks were unloaded and drove away again. Prue looked around, she couldn't imagine what Vivian wanted here. Finally she saw her standing on the edge and talking with an employee. The man pointed in one direction and wrote something on a piece of paper. When he was ready he handed it over to Vivian. She thanked him enthusiastically and gave him a banknote furtively. The man nodded and Vivian went to a shut door, leading to the back street of the supermarket.
Meanwhile the sun has set down and it was getting dark, because the dawn didn't last long here. But Prue didn't care. She followed Vivian with her eyes, hidden behind a truck. She heard a soft buzz and the door in front of Vivian was unlocked. Vivian opened it and Prue looked around searching. Suddenly she caught sight of a stone lying on the ground. She lifted it up with her magical power to place it on the below border of the door, so that it couldn't slam shut. It seemed as if nobody noticed it. Vivian disappeared and the other employees were too busy with their work. Prue didn't think twice and went to the door quickly, she kicked the stone away and stood on the other side of the fence. She looked around and caught sight of Vivian disappearing in a narrow street just in time. Prue followed her quickly and cursed softly because she was just wearing her slippers and they weren't suitable for long walks. She turned into the narrow street paved with uneven cobblestones. The ground was still hot from the sun and Prue noticed every single stone painfully.
Vivian turned round a corner and with time Prue lost her bearings. She looked around and noticed that she was in a shabby-looking dock district. She passed cheep partly run-down wooden houses with gardens full of weed. On the left side she saw a seedy garage with numerous car wrecks and on the other side were countless one-storey houses on the way. The banisters of the verandas were mostly broken and noise was coming out of some houses onto the street. The street lighting didn't work at some places and Prue already wanted to turn around, when Vivian stopped in front of a house. Prue hid behind a shrub and saw that Vivian looked at the note again. Then she looked up and went up the three broken stairs to the door single-minded. She knocked at the door and was let in shortly after.
Prue came out from behind the shrub and went to the door carefully. She looked at the plate beside the door. 'Mme. Zadie', nothing else was written there. Prue listened at the door, but she couldn't hear anything, just a dog was barking from a distance. Prue turned around and went downstairs again. She looked around and noticed that there wasn't a fence around the house and the garden. Therefore it didn't take much effort to creep to the other side of the house.
In no time she was standing on a lawn, which wasn't as full of weeds as the neighbour's lawns. Prue looked at the house. It wasn't very big and one-storey. There were only two rooms looking out onto the garden and in only one of them the lights were turned on. Although curtains obstructed Prue's view, she could make out two persons in the room. She went closer carefully.
"Why don't you turn to my sister for help, Miss Wingrove?" Prue heard a powerful voice of a woman. "I've already told you, that I can't help you along."
Soft words and sibilants, but Prue couldn't understand the answer, which was obviously coming from Vivian.
"It doesn't make any difference to me, that your father shouldn't find out anything about it." the woman explained. "I won't do anything like that."
Again a whisper of Vivian.
"No!" was the answer. "But there is another road to success. You are a very attractive lady, Miss Wingrove, so it won't be a problem for you."
"A potion at least." Prue heard Vivian screaming.
It was silent for a while and the shadows disappeared to a back part of the room. Prue listened into the night and wondered, if Vivian had already left the house and she didn't notice it. If Vivian was already gone, it would look bad for Prue. She had no idea, where she was and how she should find her car. She had lost her bearings in the maze of narrow streets. And even for her this wasn't a district, where she wanted to wander around at night. She sighed and just decided to go back to the street to see, if she could see Vivian somewhere, when the shadow of the woman appeared in front of the curtain again.
"I know, that you are there." Prue heard the deep powerful voice again and before she had a chance to disappear, the woman opened the curtains. An imposing dark-skinning woman was standing in front of the door made of glass and looked at Prue asking.
Prue didn't find a place to hide, therefore she decided that offensive was the best defence. She went to the woman, who was just opening the door, without hesitation.
"Come in please." The woman asked her and stepped aside.
Prue entered the room and looked around. She was in a crammed full room. There were masks and pictures at the walls and amulets, stones, snake figures, small bottles and boxes with powders on the numerous shelves as well as small pots with indefinable contents. A big altar was standing beside the door to the garden. There were countless figures and pictures of saints on it. A wide round table made of wood was standing in the middle of the room. Two plain chairs were on one side and a wooden chair with elaborated carvings opposite to them.
The woman went to the table and asked Prue to sit down. She sat down herself on the seat cushion of the wooden chair, while Prue sat down opposite to her. She took a close look of the woman. She was wearing a colourful outfit and an imposing turban on her head. She was rather corpulent and older, than Prue has thought at first sight. She was wearing different necklaces and amulets and there were many mostly golden bangles, which were clinking when she moved her arms.
"Well do you want to tell me now, what you were doing in my garden?" She asked and when she smiled, she showed Prue her pearly white teeth.
Prue ignored her question and asked. "How did you know, that I was there?"
"Oh, I felt it." the woman said in a low voice. "And I want to warn you about Vivian Wingrove. You'll have to watch out for her, she could be dangerous."
"What did she want from you?" Prue asked. She cared less about the warning, she knew how to handle Vivian.
"I don't talk about the request of my clients. But I can tell you that she didn't get what she wanted." The woman explained.
Prue looked at her attentively. "You are..."
"A Voodoo priestess." She completed the sentence. "And although I know, that many of the whites want to believe that it's just superstition, I'm convinced that you aren't one of them." She looked at Prue searching. "You know very well that magic exists, from your own personal experience, don't you?"
Prue looked at the woman sceptically, but then she nodded slowly.
"Yes, you have been a powerful witch, but then something happened." The woman closed her eyes and shuddered suddenly. She opened her eyes again and looked at Prue with fear in her eyes. "I feel death." She said shocked and shock her head. "You shouldn't play around with magic."
"I didn't play with it." Prue explained firmly. "I know that you may not use magic thoughtlessly."
"Yes." The woman sighed and now she was looking older. "But some people never learn it." She took Prue's hand and closed her eyes again. Prue resisted the impulse to pull away her hand, but waited composedly. After a while the woman opened her eyes again and it seemed as if she was calmer now. "You have just found a natural source of power." She told Prue in relief. "Everything is as it has to be."
"What are you trying to say?" Prue asked in surprise.
"A pure source of nature. I'll just give your own magical powers back to you. The powers which are meant for you." The woman explained and looked at Prue sneering. "As far as I see, a white powerful witch should know that."
Prue was bewildered. "And the elders and the....."
"There is nothing they can do against a natural source of power. Even they don't rule over everything." Zadie smiled. "They aren't omnipotent, although they would like to be."
Prue looked at her sceptically. First she had to get over the fact, that this woman knew something about the elders. "And the elders accept what you are doing here? That you...."
But before Prue could finish her sentence, the woman raised her hand to stop her. "I don't have anything to do with them. They don't respect me and a lot of my sisters. The dark in voodooism is a thorn in their side. Thereby I just use white voodoo. I bound myself to the rada-tradition. Nevertheless they abandon us." she explained firmly.
Prue looked around attentively. "But you are very powerful."
The woman gave a sneering laugh. "Oh yes and that's the reason why they are afraid of me and leave me alone."
Prue looked at her thoughtfully. "And therefore you can sell magic." She said, this fact made her sick and she wasn't afraid to show it.
The woman laughed again. "My dear child." she said. "A lot of my clients just want to get a good advice or some healing creams or other remedies. There's nothing to be said against it. Some men need potency medicine and a lot of people just want love oil or follow-me-drops. Nothing of it is harmful, but if the client believe in it, it can work wonders." She explained confidently.
"You don't sell real magic? Prue asked sceptically.
"I'm very careful. I just do it, if I know all details, so that I can estimate the risks and the use." The woman answered calmly. "Besides I have a kind of a magical pharmacy of course and I can find curative powders and potions for every occasion there." She continued with a grin. "But all of the remedies just help strictly to struggle against 'diseases of supernatural reason origin'. Although I have to admit that this is an elastic term."
"Do you also have a remedy to tell the truth?" Prue wanted to know curiously, although she didn't plan to buy anything of this woman.
The voodoo priestess looked at her in surprise. "Indeed, I have such a potion, but you have to use it economically and carefully." She stood up and went to one of her crammed full shelves to take a small bottle. "But I'm sure I don't have to worry about you." She explained sneering and sat down again. Then she dropped with a pipette three drops into a phial. "One drop dissolved in a glass of water or something else is enough and the person, who is drinking just a little bit of it will be forced to tell you just the truth for two hours."
Prue took the phial. She wasn't sure what she would do with it. "How much do I owe you?" She finally asked the woman.
"Do you want to offend me?" she asked angrily. "If I'm able to help, I'll always do it free of charge. And I'm convinced that you'll use this potion just for everybody's good."
Prue nodded. "Thanks you're right with it." She stood up and wanted to go to the door, when Mme. Zadie stopped her.
"Wait!" she urged Prue and walked to her. She took off one of her amulets and put it around Prue's neck. "It'll transform the bad energies into good energies." She explained with a smile.
"Thank you!" Prue said and took the pendant in her hand. It was a kind of a big tooth and Prue let it go disgusted. Then she looked at Mme. Zadie with an excusing smile. "Could you tell me the way to the supermarket?"
After an odyssey, where Prue lost her way twice, she finally found her car and went home without orange juice. When she entered the house it was completely silent. She saw light shining into the hall from the living room and tiptoed through the hall carefully, because she wasn't interested to meet Cole at the moment. She went upstairs slowly and went into Danny's room silently. He was sleeping peacefully in his bed with his stuffed animals in his arms. Prue went to the bed and kissed him on his forehead, then she left the room again and went into her bedroom. She was frustrated and threw herself on her bed. Lost in thoughts she looked at the ceiling. She didn't turn on the light, but the moon was shining through her window and threw shadows of the trees on her ceiling. Prue didn't know, what to do. All the things Mme. Zadie has told her, how should she cope with it? There was nobody, who could help her, nobody she could ask, no-one of her sisters, no Leo, yes not even the book of shadows. She was alone, and she missed them so badly. With whom should she talk about it? Did there really exist a source of power anywhere giving them back their magical powers? And what did it mean at all? Would it be dangerous for Danny? Why weren't the elders able to do anything against it? What should she do?
She kept on staring at the ceiling, when suddenly another light was shining into her room. She turned her head aside and saw Cole standing in the door of her room.
"How long have you been back again?" He asked and entered her room of his own accord.
"I arrived a minute ago. What concern is that of yours?" she asked to give him a short shrift.
"I was worried about you." Cole explained. "I didn't know, why you left the house so quickly and where you went."
Cole explained.
He was worried about her, it was getting from bad to worse. Prue took her bag angrily and threw him the phial. "I was looking for a truth potion for you. That it's what you wanted at all cost, isn't it?" She said in a bad mood. "Another question?"
Cole looked at the little bottle in his hand in surprise and sat down on Prue's bed. "What's going on?" He asked sceptically, he doubted very much, that Prue ran out of the house specially to provide a potion for him.
"I met a voodoo priest." She said without further explanations and banged her fist on her bed furiously. "Damn it, why did everything happen this way?" She asked and gave Cole a frustrated look. "Why did I have to die, what have I done wrong?"
"Nothing, you did everything right. You just wanted to safe your sisters and you did it." Cole explained firmly.
"But why couldn't I take care of them better? Why did I allow it? Why didn't I see it coming?" She reproached herself bitterly.
"You've done everything you could. It wasn't your fault." Cole looked at her forcefully. "Prue, the past will just hurt, if you don't give peace. When you're thinking about it all the time, what you've done and what you've missed to do. But that won't get you anywhere."
Prue shook her head and laughed sadly. "Oh I see. It's easy for you to forget it, finally you have left behind nothing meaning anything to you, or rather no-one you mean anything to."
Cole shrugged his shoulders. "No, hardly, I doubt it. But that doesn't change the situation. There's no use to spend all your life finding out what you've done wrong in the past."
"Well you could do with that." Prue replied spitefully.
"I know." Cole answered undeterred. He understood very well, that it was hard for her and he wondered why, but he wanted to help her somehow. "But I don't waste my time with all the faults, I've done, because I can't change them. And you should accept that, too." He looked her straight into the eyes. "We don't live in the past, we live here and now. And here and now there's only you and me."
Prue knew, that he was right and she knew what would happen now, but she couldn't do anything against it. She started to kiss him, while she took off her shirt. The only thing she wanted to feel at this moment were his hands and his lips and nothing else. It would expel all her pain and all her gloomy thoughts about the past. Without another word he embraced her and buried his hands in her hair. Their lips touched each other again and when Cole's mouth was lying on her's, Prue only felt the heat radiating from his lips into her body. His teeth touched her shoulder softly and his hands ran over her body and all her loses of the past, all her grief and her fear disappeared completely in this moment.
When Prue woke up from the twitter of the birds in the early morning, she noticed that Cole was still lying beside her. She sighed. After they made love passionately, she didn't waste a thought to tell him to go. She was too surprised about the intensity of their feelings. Nevertheless she has never planned to let him sleep in her bed.
"What?" he whispered in her ear.
"I think you should better go now." she explained firmly.
"Why?" he asked and stroked over her naked shoulder with his hand.
"Because I don't want to have you here." Prue told him and turned around to look at him. "You aren't the right man for me, Cole."
"I know!" he said composedly and went on caressing her arm. "But what on earth is it, the right man?" He didn't look at her but followed his hand with his eyes stroking over her arm. He has always been sure that Phoebe would be the right woman for him, but that didn't get him anywhere. It was a change for the worse.
"Please go!" Prue urged him again.
"Okay, if you say so." Cole said and stood up. He was looking for his clothes including the phial. Then he looked at her again. "If you take an advice of someone, who knows it from his own personal experience, the 'right' one will just bring you a broken heart. So perhaps you should try it with the 'wrong' one this time." He left her bedroom without waiting for an answer, because he noticed immediately, what he actually indicated with it.