Shape of Things to come

Shape of Things to Come

Part 2:Times they are changing

Chapter 13

Let me speak, sir,
For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter
Let none think flattery, for they'll find 'em truth.
..........(Henry VII Scene 5 William Shakespeare )

Mark accompanied by a rather hyped Caleb orbed into the dining room in the Manor on the night of the ‘incident’ at the university. Caleb, at his most polite, was clearly unhappy finding his charges in the company of the Charmed Ones. Mark casually told the witches he was just there to check on their well-being. Caleb told his charges he was there to inform them of the Elders’ opinion about the ‘incident’. The Charmed Ones rolled their eyes, the three Simpson witches touched hands anxiously.

All the family who lived at the two houses were finishing a latish meal. However, as soon as Cole and Leo saw the orbs, they stood up quickly, disturbing all four dogs, which had been lying under the table, hastily clearing dishes, and hustling the kids into after supper activities. Caleb totally ignored Cole and nodded at Leo, even more politely distant than he was to the Charmed witches. Caleb had certain ideas about whitelighters who had deserted what he termed their duty, but had no understanding of higher callings or Leo’s role as a guide to a Guardian. All Caleb noticed about Leo was his work around the house as an unpaid handyman. The whitelighter showed his distain which took considerable angelic restraint on Leo’s part not to return, especially because he had a hard day with the Guardian Durand and was using dinner time to get his family’s sympathy, and Caleb’s presence ended it.

“Brothels again?” Phoebe had asked him amused. All four children perked up. Leo’s brothel stories worried Piper when the children were present, but Phoebe insisted that the children hearing them was not as bad as them feeling excluded from family business.

“I wish” Leo answered “No. Right and wrong of demons overstepping into good spaces, Temples in Tibet, learning spaces. Durand fried a few he thought were not just testing boundaries but trying to eliminate them.”

All four children showed their disappointment. The often-repeated wisdom of right and wrong was a boring subject in the Halliwell household.

Caleb was also not happy to see the children present. His reaction reminded Leo of a dog hater forced to agree that puppies were cute. Mark simply wished all the children good evening and did not take offence when Melinda instead of responding, gave him a snort.

Cole and Leo went to the kitchen, taking Patsy and Melinda with them, while the two younger ones headed for the TV. However, despite her father ordering her back, Melinda immediately returned to the dining room with two dogs following, worried why her mother and aunts were upset. Piper seeing her lingering at the door, ordered her out, but Mark very casually and unconcerned said “Come on in Melinda” and got a death glare from Piper.

The visit with the two whitelighters did not reassure the witches that magic had the situation after the ‘incident’ under control. Mostly because Caleb was barely interested in hearing the witches’ version of what happened considering that his presence at the end provided sufficient information. He told them, addressing the three Simpson girls with a patronising ‘I’m in control demeanour’, and the Charmed Ones with an excessive politeness, that the Elders were certain the ‘incident’ was evidence of Tempus starting all-out war as the new Source was now strong enough to confront Good. He also reminded the Charmed Ones of the Evil days at the end of the last Source’s reign, and the terrors that brought to magic. Then, Caleb ordered the Simpson witches, and implored the Charmed Ones to work with the Elders to protect good magic from exposure.

Paige finally interrupted him, to his annoyance to ask Mark if he could follow up on the evil potion that was thrown at the witches. Before Mark could answer, Caleb interrupted. “Did it have any affect?” he asked in an exaggerated polite tone.

He gave an exaggerated bow to the Charmed Ones, followed by a severe nod to his charges and ordered Mark away. Mark nodded and followed, clearly judging it not worth trying to reason with three upset Simpson witches and three extremely peeved Charmed Ones.

“That Caleb is a fucking shit” Melinda who had been hovering behind the whitelighters burst out, glaring at her mother, and defying her to argue.

Piper immediately went to turn on ‘mother’ mode and reprimand her for the language, but Auntie Phoebe beat Piper to it.

Over the next few days life sort of returned to normal for the Halliwell household. Charlie went back to her classes the next day after the ‘incident’. After receiving many warnings from her lawyer big sister and Paige, she did everything she could to act as if nothing unusual happened, only accidentally she did a few unusual things, including arriving on time for a 9.00 am tutorial which both her tutor and classmates commented on. She tried to pay attention at the tutorial, but she was certainly not her usual perky self. This fortunately was barely noticed, because her tutor and classmates were very distracted by the events of yesterday. The Humanities School was a distance from the HR department and unconnected to the ‘incident’. However, it was frontpage news, and all the group, including her tutor, could talk about was the events of yesterday and how unsafe they felt, although very confused about what occurred.

Eventually, their tutor told them that the staff had received an official notice to avoid discussing the ‘incident’ with students, though he did whisper that there were rumours already of missing staff which made Charlie gulp. He could also tell them that his girlfriend worked in the science block which was the closest to the HR building, and she said everyone there was evacuated the day before, and there were rumours of further attacks. She called him just before the tutorial ended to say staff were allowed into the science building but HR was still swarming with police and there were still FBI cars and emergency services and rumours of more than the two bodies that was announced on the news.

Afterwards Charlie had coffee with three of her best friends. They talked mostly of the ‘incident’, reporting where they had been when they heard the sirens coming.

Charlie had to fall back on what Cole and her sister’s instructions. “I wasn’t here” she muttered awkwardly. “Only saw the news.”

Except with friends, it was difficult not to elaborate on her absence so she told them her alibi. Her family, it was always hard to explain her relationship with the Halliwell’s, had taken her shopping for a graduation dress because she was upset about being boyfriendless at the moment.

“But you only broke up with the hero a month ago,” insisted a friend. Charlie had been going out with a fellow student who ruined his chances when he had stayed safely inside his car after an accident happened in front of them one night. Charlie had rushed to help.

“Graduation is coming up” Charlie muttered uncomfortably. “Don’t want to be dateless.”

“You sure weren’t worried when we went to the bar the other night” another friend commented. “You were flirting with everything in pants.”

Charlie swallowed. It was harder to lie to friends than she had imagined. “Graduation is coming up” she fudged. “Kinda faking it the other night” she mumbled.

“Did you find a dress?” asked one friend fortunately distracting her from lies, by asking a question she could answer.

“Saw a few” Charlie replied truthfully and then described some real dresses she had seen, because Paige and Phoebe had used the wait at the mall looking at suitable graduation dresses.

The rest of the day did not improve for Charlie. Although, there was no accusations of her involvement, she spent an awkward day hearing the ‘incident’ discussed in canteens, at other classes and even with people she passed in the hallways. For the first time in her life, she understood that being magical created a sometimes-impenetrable barrier between witches and ordinary mortals.

Charlie heard more speculation about the, ‘incident’, worryingly, most often people described how unsafe they felt, and how frightening it was not knowing who to trust when violent people were wandering amongst them. She concluded that if evil’s aim was to cause chaos and disarray in an organisation, even in the sections isolated from the centre of the drama, they had succeeded and more.

In the afternoon Charlie decided that hiding was worse than not knowing where evil was. Therefore, on the way to the library she took a longish walk along building corridors, rather than use the outside hilly paths. This route passed through several university buildings that Charlie usually did not visit. Staff and students used it to avoid the outdoors on wet days or the hilliest paths on the very steep site. Although the feeling was not as overwhelmingly nauseating as she had had in HR, in some buildings, Charlie recognised evil surrounding her, most noticeable in those inhabited by decision and policy makers. She was certain that as she passed through an area near student counselling, a man turned to her with a look of pure evil and his eyes for an instant flashed orange. She spent the rest of the day, staring at books in the library, sick with apprehension.

Fern, full of concern for her sister, but a little relieved it had not been her in the ‘incident’, went to work the morning after it, then in the afternoon visited her doctoral supervisor Mary, who had an office in the university’s archaeology department. It was an unhappy meeting. Fern adored Mary, a highly respected academic in the field of museum studies, and felt herself lucky when Mary offered to supervise her doctorate.

As Fern had told her family a week ago, Mary was an outspoken advocate of some contentious issues, and had considerable influence in the academic community due to her status. Lately however Mary was under attack for her views, not by peers who respected her opinions and her logic, but Powers that Be of the university and several other influential committees who listened to very vocal but unqualified critics on the issues of antiquities. Often these critics’ views were completely contradictory, but this did not quiet the bean counters or people who thought the money allocated to museums could be better used.

Unfortunately, when Fern saw Mary, her supervisor was distraught. Despite her success in academia and her reputation, Mary was a sensitive kind person, who apart from enjoying what Fern jokingly called good academic fisticuffs, was a woman who tried to be pleasant and shied away from confrontation. Mary was in tears after another ‘discussion’ with university administrators, this time the academic board complained about articles Mary had written advocating respecting female tribal customs and women’s business when managing museum collections, despite their publication in highly accredited journals. Administrators decided these views were both sexist and racist and reflected badly on the university.

Mary was totally perplexed at why administrators would threaten her for calling for debate on the questions, something she considered an important academic role. Therefore, instead of spending her scheduled time discussing the nuances of theoretical practice as planned, Fern spent a very hard ninety minutes assuring Mary that those administrators were idiots. Fern determinedly insisted that Mary was to highly credentialled to be vulnerable to fools who had no idea of dealing with antiquities and ancient societies. Mary finally dried her tears and Fern took her off to buy her some coffee and cake, then returned to her workplace where her colleagues were dutifully angry at the threats to Mary, whilst warily pointing out that if it could happen to someone of Mary’s status, they were all vulnerable. Fern was not the most productive employee of the museum the rest of the day, and she finally went home, ostensibly to work on her thesis, but in fact to sit in the Manor kitchen, drinking tea and telling Piper the intricacies of international ethics in the museum sector which Piper listened too with half an ear, making appropriate noises as she cooked a casserole.

Piper had also had a long day, trying to help her sisters by searching for information on grunts and their demon sects, and their connection to magic and education. She had heard her sisters’ version of the ‘incident’ because despite Cole’s warnings not to talk about it with other family members, immediately after the whitelighters left Paige, Phoebe and Piper went to the Manor attic for a long discussion about it. When Cole warned them of legal dangers, they told him bluntly that by now he should know the difference between witches’ business, sister business and the law.

She had not found any answers in her long day’s search, but Piper had formulated several questions, mostly around ‘Who are they?’ and ‘What would they gain?’ The next day she called Mark and ordered him to search for magic information, to be her grunt, by checking other witches’ Books of Shadows. On his own initiative he paid due reverence to a being known as the Elders’ archivist so he could consult alta historia magicae which was apparently the Elder’s sacred text. He reported to Piper, his voice becoming softer and slower, a sure sign he was annoyed by her orders as he explained texts recorded in the years after the previous source’s ascension, particularly relating to demon reincarnation mandates. Finally dissatisfied with what Mark told her, Piper dragged Leo away from his never-ending renovations of ‘next door’ to take advantage of his self-imposed quest for truth, commenced after Leo’s dismissal by the Elders as a whitelighter to witches. Leo was amused at her asking him, but his amusement disappeared when Piper explained she needed information about heresy and witch burnings. “And I’m not looking at history” she told Leo severely “I’m searching how magic works.”

“Yes dear” Leo answered dutifully. He spent some time searching his favourite sources, finally returning to the attic to inform Piper that what Mark had seen was not the original alta historia magicae but a later translation which of course gave a slightly different perspective of heresy.

Piper glared at him tapping her foot. “I do NOT want a history lesson,” she muttered.

“Yes dear” answered Leo not chastened then he explained. “The traditional view of ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ is equivalent to ‘true’ and ‘false’. Heresy was a common charge used against political enemies in medieval times. And very horrible things were done to heretics.”

“Who gains from heresy accusations?” Piper interrupted before Leo could descend into a history lesson.

“So, people use threats of heresy charges to control other people?” Piper asked.

“Not quite as simple as that” Leo explained “Followers must totally believe whatever orthodox or canon view gives the most power, must be so threatened by non-orthodox views that they will condone…harsh actions on anyone who suggests the orthodox view is not the only one. As a path to power, followers must be invested in the orthodox doctrine, feel so safe with it they are frightened to even consider other ideas.”

“In the short term,” Leo answered. “A couple of medieval popes were very clever at keeping kings under control using threats of heresy. There was one, Innocent IX who was genius at using even a hint of heresy charges to control huge sectors of Europe. He was even clever enough to create the heresy in the first place.”

“I don’t need a history lesson” Piper interrupted unconsciously crossing her arms. “Why do people fall for it?”

Leo shrugged “Because there may be some truth in their beliefs, because they would feel foolish to be proved wrong, because their beliefs make them feel safe, because their whole life would be compromised if they allowed anyone to suggest their beliefs were not the truth. Take your pick.”

“Has in the past” Leo replied. “People got so frightened of science destroying faith-based communities they resorted to heresy charges to stop it but science was accepted… eventually. And most of the faith-based societies are still around.”

“You don‘t suppose Phoebe’s bitching about universities trying to close discussions on controversial subjects, is really Evil using heresy accusations to gain power?” Piper asked. “It’d be really annoying if Phoebe was right again.”

“Somewhere in all the outrage” Leo nodded then took a deep breath “She probably has some truth.” He swallowed hard. “Piper, there’s nothing wrong with believing, with faith. If something is true to you, it’s true. And there’s nothing wrong with sharing beliefs with others. Just … there is something wrong with vilifying people whose truth is different to yours and denying them the right to have that truth.”

“I know that Leo,” Piper answered a touch smarmily. “It just pisses me off when Phoebe turns out to be right.”

“And” insisted Piper “It also pisses me off when some damn demon manipulates what may be perfectly valid beliefs to destroy non-believers’ lives and … well just make mayhem.”

The morning after the ‘incident’, Paige also went to work. Both colleagues and clients wanted to talk about the ‘incident’ at the university and the horror of it seemed to have struck a chord in San Francisco. Indeed, almost every client mentioned it. Worryingly for Paige, at a meeting with regional employment directors the ‘incident’ was discussed very much from the viewpoint of ‘see what education is coming to’. A very smug group leader of an educational group that trained people for lower-wage jobs was adamant encouraging free-thinking in higher education institutions was the cause. The manager insisted that concentration on training a workforce where jobs were done quietly and efficiently, and unquestioningly, was the answer to all social problems. Another person who Paige did not know very well suggested it was not just in America that universities were getting out of hand, with free thinkers taking over everywhere and offered as proof a similar incident in India.

Paige by chance had the crystal she had used yesterday in her pocket. She had noticed it on her dresser and intended to return it to the Manor because Piper kept a careful watch on where they were. However, she forgot because she was running late for work. Throughout the meeting, Paige fiddled with it, mostly to avoid snapping at the smug director. In horror she noticed it flashing a very moderate brown and orange, not at the person talking but at the two loudest voices supporting them. As Paige knew a very moderate flashing in the crystals usually meant a lost soul, so there was no point arguing with them.

She was even more shocked when Paige returned to the employment centre and discovered the crystal showing a very soft brown and orange light directed at the newest member of staff, an ex-army psychologist who had been with them for about three months. Paige was seriously annoyed with herself for not realising he was a lost soul. However, once she recognised what he was, it was obvious in all his actions. Then she concluded regretfully, if a lost soul could get past her how much easier was it for mortals to be fooled by them. Tempus, she decided in disgust was a very clever source.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful, but for Paige the very presence of the lost soul destroyed her sense of safety at the employment centre and knowing that Evil had also penetrated the regional council added to that sense of insecurity. She was too powerful for the lost creature to harm her but she knew those creatures were not in place by accident, and that sooner or later, something dangerous would happen. She remembered some years back, when Phoebe had still been working at the newspaper, the Charmed Ones had been able to identify a lost soul and they only just saved the innocents. That battle, Paige always thought, had contributed to Phoebe moving on. She resolved to discover why Evil was targeting the employment centre, for its educational role or whether it was about her magic connections.

At least, the presence of evil justified calling Mark, meeting him she in a café some distance from San Francisco, to avoid recognition by people who knew Mark in his mortal life when he worked at the employment centre. Mark unfortunately arrived with Caleb who told Paige he was present because the Elders had asked him, as a senior whitelighter, to coordinate the new evil threat.

Disappointed at the chaperone, Paige told the two whitelighters about the evil grunts all around her not mentioning how she recognised they were lost souls. Mark already knew about the crystals and Caleb was more interested in the presence of evil and he never questioned how Paige knew they were lost souls. Mark took the news calmly, concerned Paige was not feeling overwhelmed and unsafe, but Caleb was more agitated about the presence of evil than her safety. It did not take an empath Paige thought to realise that beneath Caleb’s calm demeanour was a barely controlled excitement, and fear. Caleb speaking ever so slowly, to Paige’s annoyance, proposed to act on her warnings, or at least to report them to the Elders.

His calmness still masking the ever-increasing excitement, Caleb orbed off to his reporting task, so Paige and Mark had a cosy dinner at a favourite restaurant in New Orleans. Over dinner when she commented on Caleb’s presence and excitement, Mark told her Caleb was positively tranquil compared to the rest of the Elders.

“Because while there’s been nothing on the scale of the demon massacre in HR, there have been several incidents world-wide over the last week, I’m told” Mark answered. “At places that could be described as educational, and also more reports of demon grunts… at educational institutions.”

“They do know that the grunts have been in place for quite some time. It’s not like Tempus just put them there to start a war?” Paige asked.

After a few minutes peaceful silence, just enjoying being with each other Paige sighed. “Well, I didn’t recognise the evil grunts too you know.”

“Maybe then the Elders get a pass” Mark smiled taking her hand. “Seems like they have been expecting some big evil magic plot. A couple of Elders I saw were rubbing their hands in delight, metaphorically you understand, at having an enemy show itself. Big evil action. Big magic plot. Big magic war. Me being a lowly still newbie, they need a senior whitelighter to coordinate.”

Mark nodded. “To an extent, but I think it is also…they feel justified when they can point to a villain.”

The day after the ‘incident’ was for Phoebe very quiet doing ordinary living things like supervising school runs in the morning, then having a less than satisfactory visit with her publisher who wanted more ‘zing’ in her latest offering.

With strong warnings from her sisters to be careful, a very shrouded ‘I’m sure you will be sensible’ from Cole, and ‘for god’s sake don’t do anything stupid’ from Leo, Phoebe went to work on Wednesday. She was due to give a lecture on the very difficult topic of Psychology of Gender, a lecture that always had its issues had become more controversial each year.

As she walked into the psychology building and went to the shared office where contract lecturers worked, Phoebe was supremely self-conscious. All three other casual lecturers were very nice to her but she realised also very uncomfortable. They wished her good morning and two quickly put their heads down to work and one departed, muttering something about getting the technology to work for a tutorial. As there was still no evidence to connect her to the ‘incident’, Phoebe assumed the embarrassment was over the complaints about her lecture last Friday, which now seemed an eternity ago.

She prepared for her lecture carefully, pretending she was too busy to talk to people, and then left to go to the lecture theatre. She passed the deputy head of the school who wished her good morning and smiled sympathetically, and nodded to a couple more colleagues.

The lecture was not a successful one. Technically everything Phoebe said was accurate, and proved by citable sources, but she had no real engagement with the students, even though the hall was almost full which was unusual in these days of recorded lectures and working from home study. Her work was correct, factual, and dull as ditch water.

Some students tried to engage her in controversial views and she shut them down. She was angry with herself for not taking the risk of discussion, and then angry at the world when she saw the head of the school slip into the back of the lecture theatre for half an hour. When the school-head was there, Phoebe become aware several students were quite aggressively interrupting her with threatening questions, calculated to bully her into controversial responses.

Because Phoebe was a well-known author and her lectures provided graduate students insight into the field, and were not the subject of examination, she often had attendees from other schools and indeed non-student attendees. In her heightened awareness, as the questions became more threatening Phoebe realised that the audience was mostly visitors rather than the graduate students she knew well.

She realised that most controversial questions were incredibly well-thought out, worded to seem nonthreatening but could very easily lead to responses that would have been a disaster for her. It then occurred to her that those students asking the most threatening questions looked weasily-faced. She wished she had asked one of the Simpson witches to sit in on the lecture and test for the presence of evil, and resolved next time to bring a crystal to check the nature of her audience.

Phoebe did not stay at the university after the lecture. She went home feeling tired and disgruntled. She helped Piper around the house then made snacks for the children when they arrived home from school. Afterwards she insisted that the boys went to play catch in the yard, to the delight of the dogs, instead of sitting around with computers. She also ordered Melinda and Mandy join in, which the young witches did reluctantly but could then be heard making the most noise. Phoebe smiled.

As Melinda got older her relationship with the boys changed. When she grew out of her little mothering stage, and then the best-friends stage, she had less interaction with them, especially as they went to different schools and different classes. Melinda mostly complained about being forced to play with ‘kids’ these days. Mandy as the youngest was always their little sister but not always included in their activities. Phoebe did not have brothers and she felt it was important the girls took advantage of it.

After the game Phoebe made sure they all did homework, in the case of Patsy and Melinda just reminding them to do it, in the case of Wyatt pushing him, encouraging him, provoking him. Highly intelligent and easily bored, he could do set tasks in about a quarter of the time other children took, but getting him motivated was quite a feat. Fortunately, one of Phoebe’s best tricks still worked. Ever so slowly, she started to do his homework as he reluctantly sat beside her, and the slowness annoyed Wyatt into doing it at his own speed. Phoebe knew that the homework would probably get some terse comments from teachers regarding sloppiness but at least at would be done. Pasty lost in a complicated maths problem did look up long enough to give his mother a droll smile that reminded Phoebe of his father, indicating he knew she was manipulating Wyatt. Phoebe mentally prepared for a time soon when Patsy would pull an ‘I’ll tell Wyatt what you’re doing if you don’t do whatever I want’.

Phoebe decided whatever else was going wrong in her world she could take credit as a parent, then she reminded herself that she had thought that about being a lecturer a week ago. Then she conceded no one else would think she was a good parent. Mostly they would be shocked at her tricks with Wyatt, her lack of worry about inconsequential dramas, or because she embarrassed the kids when she was not like other parents.