"Power of the witches rise
Course unseen across the skies
Come to us who call you near
Come to us and settle here."
White lights started to form in front of them and seconds later a figure appeared in a red coat.
"Alison?" Spencer asked.
"What am I doing here?" Alison started to panic.
"We summoned you." Phoebe replied.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Aria's aunt." She explained. "We cast a spell to call a lost witch. We didn't know if it would work but we needed to talk to you about the Source."
Alison visibly flinched at the name, as Ella and Phoebe had for years after he killed their sister.
"I can't tell you anything." Alison said defiantly. "If you know what's good for you you'll stay out of this."
"We think we're getting close to a spell to vanquish him." Paige added.
"What can you do that the rest of the magical community can't?" Alison asked, disbelief shining through the rudeness of her comment.
"We've got the power of three." Paige replied.
"The what?"
"How much do you know about magic?" Ella asked.
"Not much." Alison admitted. "I found out I was a witch last year when the Source started to come after me. That's when I faked my death."
"Does anyone else know?"
"Just my mom. She doesn't know I'm alive though."
"Where have you been staying?" Ella probed, concerned about the young girl who was clearly out of her depth, despite the tough front she had always displayed.
"I've been moving between motel rooms."
"Why don't you stay here tonight with the girls and tomorrow when we get back from school we can talk about this some more?" Ella suggested, realising it was getting quite late.
Alison looked relieved at the thought of staying in a proper house and not surviving off of food from gas stations and the like. She nodded in agreement and Ella and Aria set about finding blankets for their extra guests.
Throughout the whole conversation Hanna, Emily and Spencer had stayed silent, still trying to process the reality that two of their friends were witches and they were both seemingly targets for an all-powerful evil. It was enough of a shock to discover that Alison was alive barely twelve hours earlier but on top of that they'd been shown the existence of magic and how close to their lives it seemed to be woven.
All five girls eventually settled down to sleep, each running through the events of the evening in their minds trying to make sense of everything. None of them seemed to have the energy to stay awake and talk as they found themselves physically and emotionally drained.
The next morning Aria woke up feeling slightly disoriented. She wasn't quite sure how she'd ended up sleeping downstairs in the living room until she looked around and saw four sleeping forms of her friends. She smiled in relief when she noticed that Alison was still there, having half expected her to run off in the middle of the night.
Aria got up as quietly as possible, heading to the kitchen to make herself and her friends some coffee. The last thing she needed was to have to deal with Spencer before her morning caffeine fix. When she reached the kitchen she found that Paige was already awake and eating a bowl of cereal at the table.
"Hi Aria." She smiled. Aria smiled back politely and set about making the coffee.
After a couple of minutes of silence Aria spoke up.
"Do you really have a spell to vanquish the Source?" She asked her aunt, referring to what she'd said the night before.
"We think we're close. We're trying to draw on all the power from our family line."
"What does that mean?"
"Don't ask me. I know as much as you do about all this. It was your mom's idea." Paige admitted.
"This is all a bit crazy." Aria said as she took a seat next to Paige while waiting for the water to boil.
"A bit?" Paige asked. "A few weeks ago I was a social worker in San Francisco with no family and now I'm a witch with sisters spending my time writing spells and killing demons."
"And I've just found out my dead best friend is actually alive and she'd also a witch being chased by the demon that killed my aunt, who I now see on a semi-regular basis."
"You know if you need to talk about it I'm always here." Paige assured her. "It's a lot to take in and I know your mom's an old hand at this but we're in the same boat. And I get to be your cool Aunt Paige." She joked.
"Thanks." Aria smiled, happy with the reassurance that she wasn't alone. She had her friends to talk to about 'A' and Alison and now her family behind her both when dealing with being a witch and the threats being made to them all.
The two women heard a yawn coming from behind them and turned around to see Alison standing by the doorway to the kitchen.
"I'll leave you to it." Paige whispered to Aria before placing her bowl and spoon in the dishwasher and heading upstairs.
Alison moved over to Paige's recently vacated seat and sat down.
"How are you doing?" Aria asked, knowing her friend was going through a difficult time having to deal with all these new people knowing her secrets.
Alison bit back her impulse to come up with some snide comment and answered honestly. "It's a lot to take in. I don't like not knowing what will happen next."
"At least we're in it together now." Aria assured her. "Are you going to stay here today?"
"It's better than hiding out in a motel room."
"Maybe you could talk to my aunts and have a look through the Book of Shadows to see if there's anything that can help you?" She suggested and Alison nodded. From the next room they could hear their friends starting to stir and wake up. "Can you help bring the drinks in please?" Aria asked.
The entered the living room together and Spencer's apparent caffeine-radar immediately turned on.
"Coffee?" She asked and Aria handed her a mug.
"What's the time?" Hanna asked sleepily.
"About seven." Aria replied.
The topic of magic was not brought up for the whole time that the girls were getting ready for school. Aria figured that they were all still in the processing stage – they'd had a lot to deal with in the past twenty four hours.
Thanks to having two bathrooms the girls were able to get ready with half an hour to spare before they had to leave for school. Ella was already dressed, having woken up earlier than the girls, and Paige, Phoebe and Alison sat with them in the living room, still in their pyjamas.
"So are you going to tell us more about this whole witch thing?" Hanna asked.
"I don't even know where to start." Aria said, turning to her mom and aunts for help.
Ella decided to take the lead, knowing the girls better than Phoebe did. She knew that they didn't have much time so tried to make it as brief as possible.
She explained about how their magic had originated from Melinda Warren who prophesised that three sisters from her family line would have the most powerful good magic in the magical community. She then went on to tell them about who the Source really was and their plans for vanquishing him, not that they had any idea whether or not their spell would work.
"Yesterday you said that Prue was a ghost." Emily pointed out.
"One of the Source's assassins killed her almost twenty years ago." Ella said sadly. "He knew that without her the collective power of the Charmed ones would be drained and we couldn't hurt him. We didn't have enough magic with just the two of us. Then a couple of months ago Leo came to us and said he'd found out our mom had another child: Paige."
"Which meant you had the Charmed power back." Spencer concluded.
"Exactly." Ella smiled.
"Wait, so who's Leo?" Hanna asked.
"My ex-husband." Ella said. "He's like a guardian angel of sorts. We call them Whitelighters. Anyway, now that the Source knows we have the power of three back he's starting to target us. I don't know why he's after you though, Alison, but hopefully once we vanquish him it won't matter."
"Do you have a spell for that yet?" Alison asked.
"We're getting there. We know what we want to do with the spell we just need to get the wording right. Paige and Phoebe were going to try and finish it off today while we're out."
"Mom, can you give me a lift to school?" Mike called down from upstairs.
"Yes if you're ready to leave now." Ella replied as her eyes landed on the grandfather clock. She had brought it with her to Rosewood after leaving the manor. Byron had never really liked it but Aria loved it. "We'll be back by about four and we can talk some more about this." She said to the girls.
Once everyone had left, Phoebe and Paige made their way up to the attic, inviting Alison to come with them. The Halliwell sisters tried to work on the spell and left Alison to read through the Book of Shadows and learn more about the magical community, having not had much instruction in it since she faked her death.
"I think we've got it!" Phoebe said suddenly, grabbing Alison's attention. She hadn't been listening to them talk as she'd been too interested in what she was reading.
"You've finished the spell?" She asked.
"Maybe. Do you want to see it?" Alison nodded and read through the words they'd written, which wasn't easy considering every second words seemed to have been scribbled out and re-written multiple times.
"And this will kill him?" Alison asked again sceptically.
"I don't know." Phoebe replied honestly.
"So what happens if you find him and this doesn't work?"
"We'll just orb out and try again."
"Orb? I thought only Whitelighters could do that?"
"Paige is half Whitelighter." Phoebe clarified.
"Apparently our mom had an affair with her Whitelighter." Paige said.
Silence soon fell amongst the three women as they went about killing time until everyone else got home. Alison didn't leave the attic, although when she did try to go outside Phoebe told her to stay out of fear that she wouldn't come back and her niece would be devastated. Paige and Phoebe started making some potions to stun whoever was there when they attacked the Source. From experience Phoebe knew it was always a good idea to have some sort of backup plan.
Once everyone had arrived back at the Montgomery house they headed up to the attic, so as not to be disturbed by Mike and Byron.
Phoebe and Paige showed Ella the final version of the spell they'd written. They all agreed that it was their best shot to vanquish the Source.
"So how did you fake your death?" Hanna asked Alison.
"I used a cloning spell." She replied.
Phoebe reached for the book and flipped through the pages expertly. "Was it this spell?" She asked as she reached the spell the Prue used to multiply herself years ago.
Alison nodded. "I don't really know how it works though. There were three of me that night. One was at the kissing rock and the other one we killed to be my body. I was with you in the barn all night." She explained.
"The clones will disappear once they're no longer needed. I'm assuming the kissing rock clone disappeared after you were declared missing and the other one once it, or ummm... she was buried." Phoebe suggested.
"Didn't you feel the pain when the first clone died?" Ella asked, concerned. "Prue said she could feel herself being stabbed."
Alison didn't say anything, merely nodding her head in response.
Sensing that Alison wanted the subject changed, Spencer cut in. "At least that explains the body they found a few weeks ago."
"That reminds me, did you ever talk to that detective, mom?" Aria asked.
"Morris?" Ella questioned and Aria made a noise of agreement. "No. He still doesn't know I'm in town. With the path this has taken I doubt he'd be too happy to find out anyway. He liked to turn a blind eye to magic."
"That's crazy!" Hanna exclaimed. "What you guys can do is amazing. Why wouldn't he want to be a part of it?"
"Hanna being a witch is dangerous. We're always a target for demons and warlocks. If I had a choice I wouldn't chose this life." Ella told her. "You girls should be getting home. We want to go after the Source tonight and you all need to be far away from here when that happens."
"How are you going to do it?" Emily asked.
"We're hoping to persuade Leo to orb us to the Underworld. Once we find him we'll say the spell and hope it works."
"You know I doubt Leo would orb us down there." Paige pointed out.
"You always used to have ways of persuading him, Piper." Phoebe teased.
"Ew." Aria commented.
"If he doesn't agree we'll get Paige to try. But that way we won't have his healing powers so he'd probably make us take him anyway." Ella argued.
"Mom?" Aria asked.
"Yes sweetie?"
"If you go to the Underworld doesn't that mean you don't have the power of the Nexus?"
"What's a Nexus?" Hanna asked.
"It's a source of power that's underneath where this house is built. Phoebe said that's why they came here instead of staying at hers. They wanted to use that power to kill the Source." Aria explained.
"That was before we had the spell." Phoebe said. "Hopefully now we won't need to use it."
"But it would still give us an advantage." Ella argued. Phoebe looked reluctant at the idea. "Don't tell me you're still scared of the Woogyman?" She asked in a teasing tone.
"You saw what it made me do last time!" Phoebe protested.
"Woogyman?" Emily asked.
"When we were younger Phoebe saw our Grams trying to stop the Nexus from escaping. She told us that it was a Woogyman and in her story was the spell to stop it." Ella explained.
"You used to tell me and Mike that story on Halloween when we were kids." Aria mentioned. "I can still remember a bit of it. I am light, I am one too strong to fight..." She recited, trailing off as the memory ended.
Phoebe and Ella picked up from where she left off.
"Return to dark where shadows dwell
You cannot have this Halliwell
So go away and leave my sight
And take with you this endless night."
They finished the spell together and Ella turned to Aria. "It might be a good idea for you to remember that one, just in case." She warned her. As Phoebe had mentioned, she'd seen the damage taking in the Nexus could do to someone when they couldn't control it and didn't want that happening to Aria.
All of a sudden a demon shimmered into the attic. There was a loud scream, although no one was sure who it came from.
"Blow him up!" Paige screamed at Ella.
Ella raised her hands at the demon, who dodged her attack and caused her to blow up the chair in the corner. She tried again, this time hitting his arm which flew off in the explosion, landing near Hanna and making her scream.
The demon went to shimmer out, knowing that at that time the Charmed ones were too strong for him. Ella tried again, hitting him square in the chest just before he had a chance to fully shimmer away.
"Is everyone alright?" Ella called out. There was a chorus of 'yeah' and 'I think so' from around the attic.
"What the hell just happened?" Hanna shouted, cringing away from the demon's arm.
"That was a demon." Phoebe explained as everyone caught their breath.
"Luckily just a low level one, otherwise my power wouldn't have worked." Ella pointed out.
"Can someone please get rid of that arm?" Emily asked, unable to stop staring at it in disgust.
"Cleaning up demon guts again." Phoebe sighed. "I thought we were done with all this." She tried to joke. Ella cracked a smile but no one else appreciated their shared humour. Over the years both witches had found it easier to laugh about what happened after an attack than to dwell on it, especially with the amount of demos that had come after them.
"Who wants to do the honours?" Ella asked.
Paige started to recite the spell she'd long ago memorised. "Let the object of objection become but a dream as I cause the seen to be unseen."
The girls watched in amazement as the mess mad in the attic appeared to clean itself up.
"Can you use that on the dishes?" Hanna joked.
"We're not supposed to use magic for personal gain." Phoebe reminded her. "Technically we were just cleaning up after the demon to stop the exposure of magic." She said, twisting the truth to how she'd justify their use of the sell if the Elders ever had a problem with it.
"Is it always this dangerous?" Spencer asked.
"It wasn't as bad after Prue died but there's always danger, especially for us." Ella said sadly.
"Do you ever wish you could just live a normal life?"
Ella laughed. "All the time." She admitted. "Now you girls should go home and enjoy your normal lives. You should be safe but you have both mine and Aria's cell phone numbers so call us if you need to. We don't know how much the Source knows about Aria and Alison."
"What about me?" Alison asked, speaking up for the first time since the demon attack.
"You're more than welcome to stay here."
"I can't. I should go too."
"Ali, please stay." Aria pleaded. "We've just got you back."
Reluctantly Alison agreed and the two girls saw their friends off before heading to Aria's bedroom.
"How do you think they're doing?" Paige asked once the three sisters were alone.
"I don't know." Ella responded. "They've been through a lot but seeing a demon vanquished in front of you isn't something you forget easily. I just hope they can handle all of this."
"There's always memory dust." Paige pointed out.
"Leo would kill us for asking him to use it." Phoebe said. "And he's a freaking angel."
"You've got a point."
The three women relaxed for a moment, trying to make sense of the emotional rollercoaster of the last few days. Ella knew she still had a lot to talk to Aria about regarding Ezra and lying to her about Alison but she figured it could wait. She also had to figure out what she was going to do about Byron. She knew he still wanted to be with her and he was sorry but he didn't know that she knew about his affair, making things even more complicated. Sighing, she got up and excused herself to start making dinner, hoping that cooking would relax herself from the stressful time she was having.