I apologize for the shorter chapter than usual. If I didn't end it here, the chapter would have been far too unwieldy.
(Year: 2007)
"Excuse me!"
The unfamiliar voice made Carmen pause at the door of the café. She glanced over her shoulder at the man who had called for her attention. He looked a couple years her senior, tall, with gold-blond hair that fell into blue-green eyes. He pulled back his lips to flash her an extra wide smile.
"Sorry," she said, "My shift just ended. You'll have to ask for help at the register." She turned back to the door, but the man reached for her forearm.
"No, wait," he pleaded, "It's, you—" She waited. Swallowing his words, the man cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm Adam."
"Okay," she said, raising an impatient eyebrow.
"It's, well, you dropped this." He held up his palm, on top of which sat a small, white box. In it, Carmen knew, was a pair of cheap, metal earrings. She had used half of last week's paycheck to buy them for her mother's birthday. The box must have slipped out of her purse as she prepared to leave for the afternoon.
She held out her hand to accept the box. "Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome…" He seemed to be waiting for something.
After a second, it clicked. "Carmen," she offered as she slipped the box back into her purse.
Someone nudged past her to get to the exit. She stepped away to let the person pass, then turned to face Adam fully. He had a pleasant smile.
"It's nice to meet you, Carmen," said Adam. She liked the way he pronounced her name. "You wouldn't want to go on a date sometime, would you?"
Carmen took her time considering the offer. Mother always said guys were bad news. But Mother said a lot of things. Besides, Carmen was eighteen, plenty old for a date with a nice guy. No one had ever shown her much attention before, and Adam's smile seemed like it shone just for her. And how would she ever get married if she never even went on a date?
Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she presented a smile in return. "Yeah, that would be nice."
[Saturday, December 21, 2019]
On his first day of winter vacation, Chris was woken by a sharp rapping on his door. He flipped over and glanced at his clock, groaning. Eight thirty-five. Stuffing his pillow into his face, he shouted, "I don't start vacation days until eleven, earliest!"
"Good!" he heard Piper call back through the door, "Because this isn't vacation. Tonight's the winter solstice, buster, so get up."
Chris growled into his pillow before sitting up. Why did the solstice always have to fall out during vacation? He would much rather miss a day of school than have to wake up early on his first day off to run errands. His bare feet landed on the floor as he stood. Stumbling to his dresser, he rummaged through a drawer to find a long-sleeved shirt and clean pair of pants. Once dressed, he joined the rest of the family in the dining room.
While Leo stood at the table packing supplies into a cooler, Piper darted in and out of the kitchen, bringing ingredients to add to Leo's pile. "Oh, good, you're down," she said when she saw Chris. Prue looked up from her bowl of cereal. "We're out of candles. I need you to pick some up."
"How are we out of candles?" he demanded, plopping down in the seat beside his sister. He reached over her to grab the box of cereal, tipped his head back, and poured some directly into his mouth.
"Gross," Prue said with a wrinkle of her nose.
Piper swatted his arm with a frown. "We never stocked up after that last ghost summons we did," she explained as he set the box back down. "Just grab some from Nathan's Shoppe on Maple. You know the one?"
"Yeah, yeah," Chris grumbled. "Why can't Wyatt go?" His brow furrowed as he glanced around the room. "Where even is Wyatt?"
Leo paused, his hand on a package of plastic-wrapped fir leaves. "We sent him out for new crystals," he said. When he tried to fit the package into the ice chest, he found it too full for further additions. He frowned into the cooler, even tried to shuffle around some packages on top, then finally sighed and began to empty out the entire chest to start over.
Sinking low in his chair, Chris crossed his arms. "New crystals? What's wrong with the old crystals?" he protested.
Prue snorted. "You can't use old crystals for the solstice ceremony, duh."
"Wiccan consumerism at its finest," Chris muttered.
"Oh, hush, you," Piper said, gently flicking the back of his head. As she spoke, she ushered her daughter into the kitchen with her empty cereal bowl. "We didn't have any garnet, and your aunt wanted some for the ritual. Ava's going to be meeting us there. Is your friend Rina joining her?"
Ava Nicholae was an old friend of the family, a Romani woman the sisters had helped almost two decades ago. Her daughter, Rina, went to school with Chris. They even shared English and biology class, though they spent very little time together. On occasion, if his mother wanted him to pass along a message to her mother or if he had some obscure herbal question, they would chat briefly in the hallway. But mostly he considered their relationship that of "family friends," interacting primarily at functions where their whole families were getting together. It wasn't that he had a problem with Rina; he just didn't have much in common with her, aside from magic, and even that presented so differently between witches and Roma that it barely seemed like common ground.
"No idea," he told his mother with a shrug, "I have almost nothing to do with her."
Piper paused with her palms flat against the opposite side of the table to look at her son. "Why's that?" she asked. "She's a nice girl. And she's someone you can talk to about magic."
Chris just shrugged. How could he explain to her that having "someone" was never the issue? He didn't want to make friends just to talk about magic; he wanted not to have to hide himself from the friends he already had.
But Piper could never understand. Her whole world was her family, her sisters. Beyond that, she had a whole community of witches, nymphs, ogres, fairies… creatures who respected, even revered, her, either professionally—as a Charmed One—or because she had personally saved their lives at some point. Chris's whole life existed in the mortal world, a mortal school, magicless friends. People who saw him as a flaky kid who regularly backed out of commitments for frequent and mysterious "emergencies" that he could never explain. He envied his cousins, who attended Magic School. He could never comprehend why they so regularly voiced a desire to trade places with him.
"She's nice, sure," Chris mumbled, feeling uncomfortable. "We just… don't hang out."
"Well, you should consider it," Piper said before pushing herself off from the table and reaching into her purse sitting open beside the cooler. "But in the meantime, candles. Make sure to get the ones Phoebe and Paige like, too." She set a wad of cash down in front of Chris. He pocketed it.
"Can I eat first?" he asked cheekily, but Piper merely raised an eyebrow, unimpressed by the transparent stalling tactic.
"Take something on the way," she replied. "I want to get on the road as soon as possible. It's a two-hour drive without traffic."
Grumbling to himself, Chris headed to the kitchen to grab something. The counters were covered with a wide array of ingredients, mostly a variety of leaves and green herbs. Someone had also brought down the box of crystals from the attic. Amethysts and agates were sitting out. Chris rummaged through the pantry and found a granola bar, which he unwrapped as he began to orb.
He reappeared in an empty storage closet inside the Wiccan supply shop. The owner, Nathan, an elderly mortal himself but a long-time practitioner of the Wiccan religion, was familiar with several witches in the area. He had cleared out this closet for customers to travel between dimensions or summon a dead loved-one. It made for a great orbing station as well.
Edging around a precarious tower of sealed cardboard boxes, Chris slipped out of the room and headed to the front. He finished his granola bar on the way and stuffed the wrapper into his empty pocket. Nathan noticed him from the counter and smiled, revealing a missing tooth. "Ah, Mr. Halliwell," he croaked, "What can I do for your lovely mother this morning?" Chris selected a boxful of white, purple, green, and gold candles and brought them to get rung up. "Getting ready for Yule?" the man asked as he pulled the box toward him and began to calculate the price on a pad of paper beside his arm.
"Yep," Chris replied. "Last-minute stuff. Crystals, candles, whatever." Nathan turned his pad around to show Chris the price, and Chris fished a couple of twenties out of his pocket. Unlocking a narrow metal box that looked like a fisherman's tackle box, he slotted the money inside and reached in for bills and coins to give Chris his change. He handed that back, then began to wrap each candle individually in bubble wrap. Afterwards, he packed the whole box into a large paper bag.
As he pushed the bag across the counter, he offered a cheery, "Joyful Yule and a blessed new season of growth."
"Uh, you, too." Collecting the package, Chris headed back to the storage closet.
By the time he returned home, Leo was packing up the car. Wyatt had returned with his crystals and was helping carry out the cooler of snacks and drinks Piper had prepared. Chris set the candles down on the dining room table but picked them up again immediately when Piper, seeming to sense his arrival, blew back in from the kitchen, tutting loudly. "No, no, straight out to the car," she insisted, shepherding him to the front door.
Rolling his eyes, he did as instructed. At the back of the car, he handed the box off to his father, who pondered the full trunk for a moment before carefully balancing the candles on top of a cardboard box of ceremonial supplies. They wobbled but didn't fall. Grinning with satisfaction, Leo swung the door down to latch shut. From somewhere inside the trunk came a crash. Both father and son winced.
Leo turned to Chris with a shrug. "We'll check after we get there," he decided. They both returned into the manor.
Back in the dining room, Prue was shrieking and dancing in place. Piper was clutching the phone to her chest, grinning to herself. Wyatt, too, was smiling. "What did we miss?" Leo asked, setting a hand on Wyatt's shoulder.
"Phoebe just called," Piper answered. Chris was about to ask why she couldn't just wait the few hours until they saw each other in person, but his mother followed up with, "Turns out it's twins!" which drowned out his amusement in favor of confusion.
"Uh… what's twins?"
Wyatt cocked his head at his brother. "Don't you remember? She made a whole announcement during Thanksgiving."
Chris blinked dumbly. "Thanksgiving?" he repeated. It took him several seconds of drawing a blank to recall that he had not been present for the holiday, that his body had been temporarily overwritten by his older self.
It seemed Wyatt remembered this at the same instant. "Oh. Right. You weren't here for that," he said with a snap of his fingers. "She's pregnant. With twins."
Prue froze in the middle of her jig to cast Wyatt a suspicious frown. "What do you mean he wasn't here?" she asked.
Wyatt fumbled for an explanation while their parents' concerned gazes met over her head. "Uh, I meant… it was right after his kidnapping. So he was still out of it. His memory's probably all messed up from then."
When Prue threw a glance over her shoulder at their mother, who seemed not to know what to say, Chris decided to help his brother out. "Yeah, that's probably it," he quickly agreed. "I remember now. Twins, that's cool." The smooth transition gave Prue a chance to lose interest, and they all returned to the last of the packages.
Within half an hour, the five piled into the minivan and got on the road. Traffic wasn't great, but they managed to make it to the open field before noon. Already a large crowd had gathered. Piper and Prue went in search of a large enough open space for their family while the boys stayed behind to help Leo unpack. They had to catch a couple of dislodged boxes, including the candles, as soon as the trunk opened, but nothing hit the ground. Each holding a box or cooler, they headed off in Piper's direction.
She met them on the way, waving them over from across the field. "Phoebe's already here," she said when they reached her. "She found us a good spot." She led them back to where Phoebe's family had settled.
Coop had laid out a giant, leaf-printed blanket on the damp grass. He, Lea, and Katie sat together, Lea cross-legged and looking bored. Katie lay on her back with her hands cupped behind her head as she watched the clouds drift across the sky. After setting his supplies down and offering both Phoebe and Coop his congratulations, Chris crawled across the blanket and rolled onto his back beside Katie.
"So," he said, tilting sideways to look at her, "What do you see?"
She smiled without looking at him. "A tree," she replied dreamily, pointing up to a long, thin cloud with a bulbous top.
Chris twisted his head. "Huh. I kind of see it." She giggled, then shivered. She wore a thick wool sweater, Chris noticed, but Katie often got cold regardless. With the temperature in the mid-sixties and the sky overcast, she had still more trouble regulating her internal temperature.
Always attuned to his daughter's needs, Coop reached into a wicker basket beside him and drew out a thick shawl. He draped it over Katie, who snuggled into it with a smile. "Thanks, Daddy." Out of the corner of his eye, Chris observed that even when her fingers closed over the fabric, they still hovered slightly above it. Remembering his other self's faux pas, he winced. Katie seemed to have forgotten the occurrence, or at least forgiven him for spreading his arms for that hug, but he still felt the embarrassment.
"Hey, Chris," Phoebe called. Chris waved lazily to her. "You want a sandwich?" She held a saran-wrapped sandwich in each hand. "Tuna or egg salad."
"Egg salad."
She tossed one to him, and it landed with a plop on his stomach. Lea took the second option while others grabbed their own from another wicker basket. By the time lunch had been passed out, Paige, Henry, and Bobby had arrived and were settling down to join them.
Once lunch was cleared away, Piper started to unpack her supplies. Unwrapping the fir leaves, she walked around their blanket to drop pieces in a circle around them. She repeated the same steps with holly and thistle together. Then, she passed out the crystals, amethyst for serenity, agate for balance. Phoebe accepted the lone garnet with a smile and thanks. Piper opened the box of candles and set it in the middle of the blanket for people to select their own.
Chris chose the standard white and, sitting up on his knees, placed it in front of himself. Most of the kids chose white, too, though Paige handed Bobby a gold one. "For abundance, creativity, and happiness," she told him.
He seemed not to care too much about the explanation, though he did appreciate the color choice. "Gold is the prettiest," he asserted.
Henry, who after all these years still looked a bit uncomfortable in a blatantly magical environment, awkwardly selected a candle of his own. Leo reached across the blanket, too. "For family," he said, opting for a green candle.
Paige snorted, then leaned over to whisper to Chris, "Green's also for fertility." Chris made a face. He was certain his father did not have that intention in mind, not at his age, but he had no interest in considering the idea regardless.
By the end, everyone had a candle. The fiery Paige always favored red for courage, passion, and creativity. Phoebe, their resident empath, went for the purple that symbolized psychic protection. This year Piper, like her husband, chose green. Piper lit her candle with a lighter from their supply box, then passed it around. One by one, they each lit a flame. When the lighter reached Chris, he paused for a moment, thoughtful. White candles were the standard, but they also held strong ties to protection, innocence, and clarity. His mind wandered to his young charge.
Protect Jake's innocence, he thought as he lit his own candle. Give me clarity on how to help him thrive. The flame flickered, then held firm. He passed the lighter over the Coop, who lit first Katie's candle, then his own, before handing it on.
Katie squeezed her eyes shut, lips moving silently as she mouthed a secret prayer. Hers was the first crystal to begin to glow, radiating a steady, deep purple from its spot in front of her. Most others held theirs nestled in the palms of their hands. Prue had her eyes closed, her lips pressed so tightly together they turned almost white, when her agate shimmered with a deep blue hue. As the resident mortals, Henry's and Leo's crystals didn't light up at all, but all around them colored crystals winked to life. Chris felt his explode with light in his hand, a gentle warmth emanating past his curled fingers.
One by one, as they each finished their silent prayers or wishes or hopes, they set down their crystals and sat back on the blanket. Chatter began to pick up again. Chris watched the candles burn down slowly as the day progressed. All around them other families had gathered, many lighting candles of their own. Not everyone here was magical. The area was populated with several mortals, practitioners of Wicca or Santeria or Paganism who came to celebrate the winter solstice, too. But all knew of and welcomed members of the magical community who joined them. In the copse of trees in the distance, Chris even saw a brief twinkle. A wood nymph, hands wrapped around a trunk as she watched the proceedings, there to help usher in the shortest day of the year, the start of the stretching of days that would eventually give way to Spring.
Phoebe found the Nicholae clan in one of her walkabouts around the field and invited Ava to join them. Her daughter had indeed come today. She followed and sat beside Chris as her mother caught up with the sisters. Rina's ankle-length, flowing skirt flared out all around her as she sat down. Her long, brown hair was braided down to the middle of her back. She wore her usual array of gold rings across many of her fingers.
"How'd you do on exams?" Chris asked. He didn't have much else to talk to her about outside of school.
Rina shaded her eyes to look at him. The sun had begun its descent and glowed bright orange in the sky. "Great, you?"
"Passed," Chris said with a shrug. Rina flashed him a smile. "You, uh, got vacation plans?"
She shook her head, braid swishing across her shoulders. "I'm she bari. I don't get vacation."
Chris flicked a stray blade of grass off the blanket as he asked, "What's she bari?"
"It means I'm the oldest, so I have"—she made a face—"responsibilities." She reached for her own blade of grass and began to shred it carefully between her fingers. "It's not actually so bad," she admitted. "I mostly just help out with my siblings, that sort of thing."
"Glad I'm not she bari," Chris remarked.
Rina laughed, her voice light and tinkling. "That'd be pretty hard since you're not a girl."
They chatted for a bit longer, nothing important, until eventually Ava got up to return to her clan. Rina dusted off the bottom of her skirt as she stood, then moved to follow her mother. Her braid flipped over her shoulder when she spun around to glance back. "Enjoy your vacation, Chris."
She waved, and he returned the gesture. "Enjoy your responsibilities," he offered in response. With a grin, she trotted back to her family. From beside Coop on the blanket, Lea made loud smooching noises. Rolling his eyes, Chris grabbed a fistful of loose grass and tried to toss it at her, but the blades merely flew a few inches forward before floating back down to the blanket. At least she'd had the decency to wait until Rina left.
The afternoon drifted into night, and slowly people began to disappear. When the last of their candles winked out with a curl of smoke, the Halliwells stood to pack up themselves. There were goodbye hugs and promises to see each other soon. If Chris didn't already know better, he would have thought from this display that the family saw each other only once a year. But to the sisters, every visit seemed to end in extended farewells. The cousins waited impatiently while the husbands packed up. Coop shooed them all off the blanket so he could roll it up and stuff it into a duffel bag.
Finally, the cars were packed, and the families were ready to leave. The three hours they spent on the road felt longer than the trip down, but eventually they pulled into the driveway in front of the manor. Everyone piled out, helped bring in boxes, and then called an end to the shortest day of the year.
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