Just want to say a big thank you to ashley62197 for reviewing the last chapter. I'm dedicating this one to you :) Hope everyone likes it.
"Miss Montgomery, it's nice of you to finally join us." Mr Fitz said as Aria entered the classroom twenty minutes late. Silently, she dropped the note her mom had written on his desk and made her way to her seat. He picked up his copy of Pride and Prejudice. "Now who can tell me which character's view the 'truth universally acknowledged' represents?" He asked.
"Mrs Bennet's." Aria answered while she fished out a pen from the bottom of her bag. She had read the book many times before and was already starting to wonder why she'd been in such a rush to get back to school. That is, until she looked up at the teacher and remembered the night they met. Trying to hide her blush, she focussed back on what Mr Fitz was saying.
"...not only of Mrs Bennet but also of the majority of society at the time." He explained.
Sighing when he noticed that less than half of his class were taking notes, he announced that they were to study the first chapter of the book for a pop quiz during their next lesson. This led to a collective groan from the class before he carried on with his lesson.
"Where were you at lunch?" Emily whispered to her while Mr Fitz was distracted.
"I had to see my mom about something." Aria said. "A family emergency." She expanded slightly, using the same excuse as she had in the note to Mr Fitz.
"Oh, God. I hope everything's ok." She replied, concerned.
"Yeah it's all sorted now, although I can't meet up with you and the girls after school today."
"But we were meant to be working on that history project together." Emily argued.
"I know, I'm sorry. It's just my aunt is in town and mom said I can't miss seeing her this time." She said, referring to the last time Phoebe came to visit when Aria blew off a family day to go shopping with Alison and the other girls. She figured that it would be as good of an excuse as any for Emily. It wasn't as if she could say 'I'm going home to meet my mom's side of the family and talk to them about magic.'
At that moment, Mr Fitz looked over at them, clearly indicating that he had heard them talking and warning them to stop. Aria pulled her phone out of her pocket and sent Emily a quick text telling her that she might meet up with them later if she could get away.
The remainder of the lesson dragged by and the whole class sighed with relief when the bell rang.
"Aria, can I see you for a moment?" Mr Fitz said as everyone was rushing to get out of the door. Aria nodded to her friends, silently telling them that she would meet them later, and walked over to the desk at the front of the classroom.
"Ezra, look I'm sorry I was late it's just my mom..."
"It's ok, I'm sure it's all explained in the note. I was actually going to ask if you wanted to be transferred out of my class."
"Why would you think that?"
"I think that what happened between us might be a distraction and I wouldn't want to do anything that could get in the way of you reaching your potential in English. After all, you need a good final grade if you want to major in it at college."
"I don't think it will be a problem." She replied. "I should get to class."
Ezra waved his hand to dismiss her and she walked to her next lesson. Her cell phone made a noise to tell her that she'd received a message.
Tell Ella about your dad's affair or I will, and I won't stop there. I'll tell mommy her daughter's sleeping with her teacher. –A
Aria gasped. Was this 'A' for real? She couldn't tell her mom, it would crush her. After everything she'd been through the past couple of days there was no way Aria was going to put her through any more pain. However, there was something inside of her that told her the threat might be serious. If 'A' was going to make sure Ella knew either way, wouldn't it be best coming from her? And that way, she wouldn't find out about her and Ezra as well. But how was she even going to begin to tell her? It would break her heart.
Deciding to think about it some more later, Aria continued to walk to class, hoping that it went by quickly so that she could meet up with her mom and Phoebe sooner.
The second the bell rang at the end of the day Aria was out of her seat and heading towards the door. She drove to The Brew in record time, managing to get there before Ella. Seeing that Phoebe was sat at a booth in the back corner, she made her way over to her.
"Aunt Phoebe?" Aria asked.
The woman looked up, her eyes meeting Aria's.
"Aria? I didn't know you were coming today." She said, flustered. How was she going to talk to Piper, Paige and Leo with Aria around?
"It was mom's idea." Aria replied. Seeing the look of confusion cross Phoebe's face, she decided to explain a bit more. "I found out about it this morning." She said, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one appeared to be listening. "Magic." Aria whispered.
"Sit down." Phoebe smiled. She was about to ask how she had found out when she was interrupted by the sound of a woman shouting angrily at someone.
"What the hell just happened? Are you kidding me? I can't be here! I can't..." The young woman yelled before the man she was directing her anger at interrupted.
"Be quiet." He hissed.
Aria and Phoebe looked over to see what all the commotion was about.
"That's Leo, isn't it?" Aria asked.
Phoebe nodded. "And that other girl must be Paige." She said to her niece, before raising her voice to call Leo over to them. "Leo!"
Leo's head spun around to whoever was calling his name and his eyes landed on two familiar women sat at a table at the back of the café.
Just then another woman called out Leo's name. He looked back towards the door to see his ex-wife standing in front of him, a few feet from Paige. The younger woman still looked terrified at what had just happened.
"Pi..." He started, before correcting himself. "Ella." By now he was well aware that they'd caused a bit of a scene and knew that people in a small town such as Rosewood would talk if he called her by her birth name. "Why don't we just go back to your place so we can talk this out?" He suggested. Ella, Phoebe and Aria obliged and walked outside the restaurant to Ella's car.
Back inside The Brew, Paige was still not showing any signs of leaving.
"I'm not going anywhere with you." She told him firmly. "I want you to take me back, however you did it. I have a date tonight and I don't want to get involved in your crazy business."
"I'm afraid you're already involved." Leo replied.
Ella burst back in through the door to find out why they were taking so long. Deciding that it would be best not to make any more of a scene than they had already, she held up her hands and froze the room.
To Paige's surprise, everyone but her and the woman named Ella stopped moving. Ella waved her hand slightly in Leo's direction, causing him to unfreeze.
"What's taking you guys so long?" She asked.
"How did you do that?" Paige replied, not answering her question.
"I'll explain later but right now we need to go." She said, wary of using any magic in front of mortals, especially with 'A' around.
"Ok, but what are you going to do about them?"
"She'll unfreeze them; you just need to get back into position so that no one notices." Leo explained.
Without another word, Paige assumed a similar position to the one she had been holding when the room was frozen and Ella waved her hand again to unfreeze the scene.
"Right now let's go. Aria and Phoebe are probably already back by now." Ella said, ushering them both into her car. "So, Paige, what has Leo told you about us?" She asked as she started the car.
"That apparently you're my sisters. Then he started talking crap about witches and magic and light-somethings."
"Whitelighters." Leo corrected.
"Right, yeah. Anyway then we did this whole weird teleporting thing and I'm starting to believe that maybe what he said isn't all crap. Add to that you freezing an entire café and I'm doing my best not to freak out."
"That's understandable. You should've seen what I was like when I first got my powers. I'm just sorry Leo had to tell you about all this so quickly."
"Yeah, you could've at least cushioned the blow a little. What's the big rush?" Paige asked him.
"We're worried there might be demons coming after you." Leo replied.
"Demons?"
"Yeah, we'll explain more about them later. Basically you have the potential to be a very powerful witch. Now, as far as we know, no one else knows that you're related to Piper and Phoebe but if the Underworld ever finds out they will come after you and we want to make sure you can defend yourself." He tried to explain.
"We're here." Ella announced. "Come inside and we'll try and get you and Aria a bit more up to speed."
Once inside, everyone headed up to the attic so as not to be disturbed when Byron and Mike got home. Ella, Phoebe and Leo spent the next hour or so explaining briefly their history and about how Paige could bring about the Charmed ones again. As much as Paige found it difficult to believe everything, let alone keep up with all that they were telling her, she was drawn to the idea of magic and witchcraft and agreed to try and receive her powers.
The three sisters headed over to the Book of Shadows and Phoebe opened it up to the first page.
"Just say this spell out loud with us, ok?" Ella instructed and all three sisters began to chant the spell.
"Hear now the words of the witches
The secrets we hid in the night
The oldest of Gods are invoked here
The great work of magic is sought
In this night and in this hour
We call upon the Ancient Power
Bring your powers to we sisters three!
We want the power
Give us the power."
Aria and Leo watched in awe as a white light shone down on them as they read the words from the book.
"Is this it?" Aria asked him. Leo nodded.
"Doesn't it feel good to have the power of three back?" Phoebe asked once they'd finished the spell.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Phoebe." Ella warned her. "Paige is still new at this and we don't know if the Source or anyone else knows about her yet."
"I know, I know. I just like knowing that we can finally defend ourselves against an upper-level demon attack."
"If only we knew how to vanquish the Source."
"Woah, wait a minute!" Paige interrupted. "I became a witch thirty seconds ago and you're already talking about me helping you to kill this Source of all evil guy."
"You're right, I'm sorry." Ella apologised. "It's just he's been lurking for a long time wanting us dead and wanting the power of three and now he can have both so we're getting worried."
"And I want to help, don't get me wrong, but I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I don't even know if I have a power like you guys do."
"Well according to the prophecy the third sister has the power to move things with her mind, like Prue could." Ella told her.
"Ok, so how does it work?" She asked.
"Concentrate on an object, like that candle right there." Phoebe suggested, pointing to one of the candles on the floor that Ella had used earlier. "And then you just wave your arm at it."
Paige tried waving her arm at the candle, feeling a wave of disappointment when nothing happened.
"Or you could squint your eyes." Ella suggested. "She used to squint her eyes."
Paige tried again but to no avail.
"Maybe I'm not one of you after all if I can't even make that candle..." She trailed off when she noticed white orbs surrounding it. Half a second later the candle was in her outstretched hand.
"So perhaps the Whitelighter in her makes it work differently?" Phoebe suggested.
"I can't believe I just did that." Paige exclaimed.
Suddenly a man appeared in the attic as if from nowhere. From his hands he shot an energy ball in Phoebe's direction, who ducked to avoid the attack.
"Leo! Get Aria out of here!" Ella yelled. Leo promptly orbed Aria downstairs to the relative safety of her bedroom.
Meanwhile, the three witches were still trying to dodge energy balls. Ella had tried to blow him up but was having little success.
"Power of three spell?" Phoebe suggested, grabbing Paige's hand. Ella nodded and took hold of her other hand. "Repeat after us." She instructed the newest witch.
"The power of three will set us free. The power of three will set us free..." Ella and Phoebe chanted. Paige joined in and the air around the demon started to swirl. By the time they'd repeated the chant a couple more times it was clear that it was working. By the fifth time the demon had completely disappeared.
"Not bad for your first vanquish." Phoebe smiled at Paige.
"Welcome to our world." Ella told her before she noticed the deep scratch on her youngest sister's arm. "Oh shit! Leo!" She yelled.
Within seconds Leo and Aria had orbed back up to the attic.
"Is everyone ok?" He asked.
"We'll all live. You need to heal Paige's arm." Ella said.
Leo wasted no time in making sure that the deep cut was healed. Both Paige and Aria watched in awe as it happened.
"Who was it?" Leo asked.
"I don't know. We're just lucky he was on his own." Phoebe replied.
"He was probably just a messenger demon." Ella guessed. "The Source must know we've brought the power of three back."
"Which means there will be more where that came from." Leo finished for her.
"You should unbind my powers mom." Aria interrupted.
"Sweetie, are you sure? They might not even know you're a witch."
"But what if they do? What if they attack me when I'm with my friends or at school? I might need to be able to defend myself."
"The girl's got a point, and I know Grams would agree." Phoebe added.
"Ok." Ella decided, glaring at Phoebe for bringing their Grams into it. "But I'm going back to teaching so I can watch out for you at school. I wouldn't want anything to happen to you or Mike because of me."
Aria nodded. There was no way that she felt ready for what was about to happen, given what she'd just witnessed, but she had meant what she said. She wanted to be able to protect herself and save innocents like her mom and aunts did. Hearing some of the tales of when Ella, Phoebe and Prue were starting out as witches made her know that she wanted to do good in the world like them.
In all the drama of the afternoon she'd all but forgotten about the threat that 'A' made earlier. She couldn't help wondering if there was a magical solution to it. But then, she figured, if there was her mom would've mentioned it already, wouldn't she? Aria decided to ask her once they were in private.