Shape of Things to come

Shape of Things to Come

Part 3:Seeds of Time

Chapter 33

‘All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts'
...William Shakespeare. As You Like It

Despite the lockdown on people with orbs, Piper and Leo still needed to continue day-to-day living because magic or no magic, the family had to pay its bills and eat. A couple of days later, both, with very little enthusiasm, dressed for P3 while Phoebe and Charlie started dinner. They arrived at P3 early. The piano bar was satisfactorily full and the new player seemed to be very well received by the patrons.

However ,when Piper mentioned this to the manager Reggie, he shrugged and insisted brusquely, “Wrong clientele.” When Piper winced at his reply, Reggie pushed his case. He quite bluntly stated that the piano bar had served its purpose and they needed to run the club as P3 night club or decide that it ran as a bar.

After all the dramas of the last few days, Piper became very angry, when it occurred to her that she was very annoyed about was someone wanting what was probably quite valid change in a nearly twenty-year-old institution. She realised suddenly that she was more concerned about her own emotional connections to the old order, than keeping her business productive, just like some whitelighters and Elders. Piper remembered that she had made her business work by using change to its advantage and that if it stopped changing, there was no business. To Reggie’s surprise, as he was preparing more arguments, Piper nodded and said she would start putting a contract together.

Reggie took a deep breath “I really need to start making plans” he stated carefully.

“Had some offers” Reggie continued. “ Not pressuring you but you always want to know about too good to be true. Sort of offers that could get me everything I want, could make it so worth your while you would give over the lease.”

“Those offers have always been…shaky in the past” Reggie pushed. He hesitated then said “With… magic…stuff.”

“Think everyone in the place has seen it” Reggie told her. “Except I have a pretty good idea what it’s about and they don’t.”

“You know I’ve got to tell you that film isn’t anything to do with my family” Piper spoke carefully, not wanting to deliberately lie to a man who had been a loyal and discreet family employee and family friend for nearly fifteen years.

“Because I know you would tell me that I’m not asking” Reggie informed her uncomfortably. He stood there awkwardly.

Piper nodded “This plan you have for P3, with this friend?” she asked “Are you sure he’s not ...shaky?”

Reggie grinned “Over the years working here, with you, I’ve learned about shaky” he answered. “He’s just about the right level of shaky.”

Piper took a deep breath “You don’t mind if I get Cole to check out if he agrees with you?” she asked.

“No” Reggie agreed. He too took a deep breath “ You understand we don’t want the piano bar.”

Piper nodded, conceding. “I do want it” she said firmly. “So, it won’t be closed down.”

“Can we make it clear the piano bar is not part of P3” Reggie asked also conceding.

“So” Reggie swallowed hard. “On the subject of shaky. Had a few people looking for jobs who looked shaky too.”

Piper sat down at the chair behind the manager’s desk. She did not know whether to be happy, sad, relieved or even angry. P3 had been her dream and her evidence of self-worth. She had used it to support her family, her magic and maybe thumb her nose at the world by showing it that one orphaned little girl from a broken family, could make it.

She stared ahead for a little while, then her brain started to think of costs, how much the lease was worth and how much it was worth if she factored in Reggie not going broke, and money going out of the firm that managed the whole site to provide a living wage for Leo and her.

She sighed thinking hard. Piper had always been a risk taker, not reckless or rash like her sister Phoebe but planned and considered. Something she was not quite too old to throw away yet.

As she had the thought, the office door opened and Leo entered. “I know” he said. “I just saw Reggie.” Leo sighed “ He doesn’t want the piano bar.”

“We’ll manage” Leo decided, sitting down opposite her desk “It’s not like we take home millions from this place in wages.”

“Make the Elders happy if we don’t have an income” Piper sighed. For some moments they both silently shared the moment of change when Piper suddenly stood up and grabbed Leo’s arm, dragging him out the back area of P3 where a door and stairs led down to what was essentially the basement storage. Piper switched on the lights and Leo turned his nose up “Are their rats down there?” he asked.

“Who’s scared of rats?” Piper grinned as Leo noting the stiletto heels Piper was wearing suggested they go exploring another day.

“Its dark enough and intimate enough” Piper declared standing at the top of the stairs while the shadowy light made the space look very creepy.. “Another lease would pay the wages.”

The next weekend was a less than happy one at the Halliwell Manor and ‘next door’ mostly because of the nervous tensions of waiting for the FBI to arrive, or the press to appear at the front door, as well as the inevitable family fallout from tensions about demons tracking them. Even Phoebe became anxious with all the strain, telling Piper. “It isn’t the action that kills you, it’s the waiting.”

Phoebe swallowed. “Don’t think so” she answered carefully as Piper looked dubious.

Charlie went off to her casual job on Saturday morning where she had a long hard shift. Fern, as much to escape her family as any other reason, went to the museum where she worked. She spent the morning doing research for her thesis, as well as for an exhibition, but found the tensions of the week and Mary’s death very much preoccupied her and interfered with the concentration she needed. Eventually she called a colleague/friend who had also known Mary well and they spent the afternoon with two other friends toasting Mary and making themselves very angry about the circumstances of her passing. This in no way helped Fern come to terms with Mary’s death because she could not talk to them about witchy things. Fern found herself wishing her family did have a whitelighter like Mark, someone she could ask for guidance and clarity, something Caleb could never do. Regrettably though Mark like all the other whitelighters was locked away ‘up there’ and the Powers that Be showed no sign of opening their borders, regardless of the needs of their charges.

After a long hard Friday night at P3 where there was also some tension because Reggie, so close to it being ‘his’ club felt he did not need their supervision, Leo and Piper fell into bed in the early hours of Saturday exhausted. Normally the boys would have gone riding their bikes on a Saturday, taking photographs, but Piper had been adamant she did not want Wyatt out of the house unprotected despite Patsy pointing out he could take care of Wyatt, to which both Patsy’s mother and father said a firm no. Both boys snarled at each other and sulked so Leo finally took them to the local tennis courts to play a few games with their school friends. It was not a solution that satisfied Piper with both her orbing son and husband out in the world where magic could find them but she remembered her conversation with Paige and reluctantly agreed.

Both Leslie and Cole spent the Saturday at work as did Erin, trying to catch up on the cases left by DJ. Cole was getting grimmer and grimmer the more he sorted through them. For a second Leslie had, to her horror, seen what could only be a fully demonic expression on his face. Even Erin who was quite stoic about the ups and downs of the practice looked concerned. Cole finally swallowed down his annoyance and eased back into his normal relatively good humour, when after Erin shook her head at some of the cases, she wondered how on earth DJ had got caught up in these.

Cole nodded, but keeping any tensions under control told them. “I can guess what it was” he grimaced “If either of you get approached by anyone, usually tall blonde woman about getting anything that approximates what you most desire or even just want, I strongly advise walk on, and then tell me.”

Leslie admitted she was approached by a blonde woman in the park and Cole merely asked “Did you walk on?”

To add to the family woes, on Saturday, Phoebe took Mandy riding, returning home after she dropped her at the stable. She barely parked the car when a call came from the riding school telling her that one of the larger horses had tromped on Mandy’s foot and slammed her into a wall and they had taken her to emergency. Injuries from riding were not completely unexpected and Mandy was not at death’s door, so Phoebe stopped Paige from rushing to her niece to heal her, strongly suspecting a trap to coax Paige into using orbing magic in an unprotected place.

Phoebe drove to a very busy hospital emergency where to her relief she discovered that Mandy only had a twisted ankle and badly bruised foot and ribs. Staff in Emergency added to Phoebe’s tensions by muttering about the dangers of Mandy’s passion and intimating darkly that most of the injuries they dealt with in young girls were from horse riding accidents. One nurse, in front of Mandy, even suggested it was irresponsible of parents to allow their daughters to ride. Mandy in considerable pain burst into tears and muttered a few words that Aunt Piper would forbid when Phoebe went to hug her, because her ribs hurt. Phoebe remembered that Mandy’s grandmother was a demon.

Aunt Paige fixed the injuries when Mandy got home but to her disgust Mandy could not go near her beloved horses the next day because the people at the riding school had seen her badly hurt and Phoebe did not want to explain how she had been cured. It would be a week before they could tell the owner Mandy’s injuries were not as bad as she thought, so no horses for Mandy until then.

Melinda met her friends at the zoo, which Piper agreed to with great reluctance only when Melinda made many promises not to use any magic and to call Phoebe to pick her up. Unfortunately, Phoebe was off with Mandy at the hospital and missed Melinda’s call so she orbed home. She was tracked by sniffers but made it to the safety of the Manor’s nexus which resulted in Piper grounding her.

Paige found Melinda hiding in the ‘next door’ yard and went over to her. Melinda looked up at Aunt Paige with tears in her eyes “It’s not fair” she shouted angrily then wiped her face with the back of her hand.

Melinda planted herself on the edge of a garden seat and Paige sat beside her. “Mom’s a bitch” she declared passionately. “She’s just fucking unreasonable” and Melissa watched Paige to see her reaction to the language.

“Well, that’s my sister we’re talking about so we’ll leave the language out” Paige ordered Melinda firmly “When your mother is worried she doesn’t believe in being reasonable because listening to what could be reasonable gets a lot of witches killed in this family.”

“How do I get to learn to be a witch if mom tries to stop me ...using magic?” Melinda demanded.

“That’s the million-dollar question” Paige answered calmly. She considered her response while Melinda eyed her suspiciously. Finally, Paige suggested “I think you should learn because my introduction to magic was… scary as hell. And then I got too confident and then I made some things worse and then I stupidly didn’t recognise what I should have” she sighed. “Not a journey I would want for you.”

Melinda turned her nose up. “Well you’re not me,” she snapped. “And neither is mom. I think she’s just jealous I’m more powerful than she is.”

“More scared than jealous” Paige told Melinda firmly. “Pattie your grandmother over-estimated her power and Piper, all of us grew up without her. And your Aunt Prue, she … she was dangerous.”

Paige smiled at the logic. “Grams tried blocking the powers, Power of Three. Thought your mom and aunts weren’t ready for it. Which I think caused some of Prue’s problems and your mom’s worry. Don’t want that for you.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe you could come to the young witches’ group and talk to some other witches who are going through what you are.”

“I bet they don’t have bitches of a mother like mine or powers like mine,” Melinda sulked. “Or care about animals.”

“Doesn’t say their concerns aren’t just as valid.” Paige told her quietly “If you want to be a good witch you need to learn to listen to other views which your Aunt Prue never really did.”

“Mom never listens and Aunt Phoebe just rushes in” Melinda still sulked. “Anyway, you just want to get me away from my friends and the animals and helping animals like mom, like dad.”

“They just worry where the passion will take you” Paige explained gently. She put her hand on Melinda’s. “I think you’re lucky to have a passion. Maybe you could ‘corrupt’ a couple of young witches to share your passion” she suggested.

Paige smiled “How about we take Mandy for some late-night shopping, when Piper and Leo go to P3.”

“Piper’s often mad,” Paige smiled. “But I think we can both agree that the grounding was more about Piper’s fears than you doing anything wrong, so how about we keep her fears to a minimum by letting her think you’re at home, and both go out and enjoy ourselves.”