Chapter 4: Costumes Come Alive

A/n: I finally remembered this story! And just in time for it to be a year from the last one. So it’s Halloween again, and Halloweens are fun with the Halliwells. I really intended to do more holidays. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Anyways, enjoy this chapter, and don’t worry if the ages of the kids don’t make sense…I forgot them: P

It was Halloween, the busiest day of year. At least, it was very busy for the Halliwell family. They were a magical family. Like many other magical families, they liked to go all out. The house had been decorated for weeks. It had always been known as the scariest house on the block (not only on Halloween) and the Halliwells liked to live up to that reputation on Halloween. They had turned their Victorian San Fransisco Manor house into a haunted house. And they did it all without the aid of magic.

Everyone got dressed up, from Patty, who was the youngest, to Leo, who was technically the oldest. It wasn’t just any costumes they threw together. They all put a lot of effort into making their costumes look nice every year. Piper decided to embrace the stereotypes associated with being a witch. This year she would be the wicked witch of the west, green skin and all. Phoebe, who managed to look provocative no matter what she was wearing, had decided on a vampire costume. She had taken a few tips from the vampires they had fought. Paige was a black cat, complete with very realistic whiskers.

The four kids who lived in Halliwell manor loved Halloween just as much as t heir parents did. They started thinking about their costumes early in the summer. This year, they had all managed to be pretty creative. They youngest, Patty who was four, were a very cute puppy, to go with her mothers’ cat costume. Her father had been very unoriginal and decided to wear his whitelighter robes. Prue was nearly 6, and she was a fairy. She got the ideas from the real fairies she had seen.

Brothers Chris and Wyatt had very ideas of what cool costumes were. Chris was 8, and his costumes consisted of a sheet with two holes, making him a ghost. Ten year old Wyatt had chosen to be a pirate, complete with eye patch, hat and sword. He was very proud of his costume. During the day on Halloween Wyatt had walked around the school saying “Argh matey!” to everyone. Most people thought it was cool, but Chris thought it was annoying. The brothers fought constantly, but they were really the best of friends.

There was one thing Chris and Wyatt agreed on. They really wanted their daddy to be there for Halloween. He was rarely there anymore. He missed a lot of things because he was and elder. When he was home, their mom and dad yelled at each other a lot. The worst part was the promises. Wyatt had stopped believing them long before Chris had. Leo always promised that he would be there for things like school concerts and birthdays. He never came. He had also promised to come for Halloween. Chris believed that he would, but Wyatt knew better.

There was one time of the day on Halloween that was always very hectic in the household. It was the time after school and before dinner. There was always so much to do. Things were always hectic in a house with 9 people, but this was a little much. The adults were busy with preparations for the night of trick or treating to come. The Charmed Ones didn’t feel that bad about leaving their kids basically unsupervised. Wyatt was ten years old, and they were in the house. They figured that their kids didn’t really get into much trouble. They were wrong.

While their cousins were playing Barbie’s in the room they shared, Wyatt and Chris were in the attic. Technically, they weren’t aloud to be in the attic unless an adult was around. This was really bothering Chris. He didn’t like breaking rules. “Are you sure mom won’t mind that we’re in her?” Chris asked nervously.

Wyatt shrugged. He was flipping through the book of shadows. He felt much too grown up to be going trick or treating with his cousins. He wanted something cool to happen this Halloween. They had magic. Something cool should happen. He didn’t care whether or not Chris wanted to help. “You can leave if you want”, Wyatt said. He was still looking for something fun in the book.

Chris didn’t leave, but he did look towards the door nervously. He would always stick by his brother, no matter what he did. Chris didn’t think that Halloween was boring this way, but he was excited to do magic. Chris, his brother, and his cousins went to a class at magic school twice a week. That was Chris’ favourite part of the day. Mostly he went to non magic school, and it wasn’t as fun. He hated how they thought witches were ugly girls with green skin. Chris wasn’t ugly, his skin wasn’t green, and he definitely wasn’t a girl.

Chris tried to look at the book over his brother’s shoulder, but he had difficulty seeing because of the small eye holes in his costume. They kept moving, and he could only see directly in front of him. Wyatt was a pirate, and he had put his sword down when he started looking in the book. Wyatt had stopped telekinetically flipping the pages. That meant he had found a spell.

“So, what’re we going to do?” Chris asked, trying to sound cool. In truth, he was terrified.

“You’ll see lil bro”, Wyatt said. He was starting to get excited. “This is going to be the coolest Halloween ever!” Chris nodded eagerly in agreement, even though he wasn’t so sure.

At that moment, the attic door creaked open. Wyatt and Chris jumped into the air, thinking it was their mom, coming to yell at him. When two little girls walked into the room, they audibly sighed in relief. “What are you doing?” asked little Patty. Her hands were on her hips, and she had the same look on her face that her mother got when people misbehaved. She was tapping her foot impatiently, her puppy tail wagging as she did so.

“We’re doing a spell to make Halloween cooler!” Wyatt said brightly. He knew exactly what to say to make his cousin not tell on him. Patty loved magic, and she loved being included in spells. Prue, however, still wasn’t convinced. Like Chris, she felt uncomfortable about breaking the rules.

“You’re not going to tell on us are you?” Wyatt said sweetly. He knew exactly the right thing to say. Prue hated when her cousins left her out. She sighed, and joined her cousins in crowding around the Book of Shadows. Her fairy costume glittered as she moved. Wyatt seemed very satisfied that his cousins would help him. This would be an interesting Halloween after all.

“Wyatt, I don’t know what the spell says!” Patty whined. She didn’t know how to read, and Prue couldn’t read very well. The spell said that the spell would work on most people if there was more power behind the spell. Prue and Patty wanted to be included.

“Okay, make sure your costumes are on properly, then repeat after me”, Wyatt said. Chris again adjusted his bed sheet so he could see properly. Patty picked up her tail, which had fallen off. Prue straightened her glittery wings, and Wyatt picked up his sword. Only Wyatt understood why they should be fixing their costumes. Chris and Prue were very worried that one of their parents would come up and find them. Wyatt and Patty were just very excited to be doing the spell.

“Repeat after me”, Wyatt said again. His brother and his cousins nodded. They all held hands, so they would be using their powers equally for this spell. They were doing just as their mothers had taught them. None of them had ever done a spell on their own, and they wanted this one would be right. So may things could go wrong with a spell. For a moment, even Wyatt was nervous.

“The disguises they wear,

Of the creatures they fear,

Shall not be mere disguises,

When they put them on this year.

They will become what are scary,

No one will be wary.

You’d better run,

Halloween will be fun. “

With Wyatt’s guidance, all four children finished the spell at the same time. Now that they had said it, they knew exactly what it was about. If they had done their spell right, until midnight, everyone would turn into their costumes. Even Chris had to admit that it was really cool. It would be fun to be a real ghost and scare people. Chris never managed to scare anyone. For a moment, they thought that nothing had happened, and the spell hadn’t worked. Then after a moment, everyone was bathed in a golden light.

It covered everyone in the attic. Then it moved through the house. The golden light poured out the window, and hit everyone in the neighborhood. There was no noise as the gold dust was upon them. Then gradually, everyone began to change. Wyatt’s fake beard became real, as did the hook on his hand. His eye patch wouldn’t come off. Chris’ body fell to the ground, and s transparent version of himself rose from his body. Prue shrank, and became a real live fairy. Patty grew fur all over her body until she was an actual puppy.

Not only were the Halliwell children in the attic becoming their costumes. The same thing was happening to children and adults alike all around the neighborhood. The transformations all took no more than a moment. Then all hell broke loose. All over San Francisco, there were real live zombies, and real live werewolves. Creatures roamed free on the streets, doing what they would have done if they were real.

Chris was the only one who seemed to have retained his mental powers. He was merely an actual ghost. He was panicking. He didn’t know what to do. “Wyatt…what did we do?” He asked in a panic. He was almost crying. Wyatt….or more accurately, the person who was formerly his brother turned to look at him. It wasn’t Wyatt that Chris saw, but an actual pirate.

“Argh”, the pirate said, “who be Wyatt? I be Long John Silver! Why I be talking to yee? Time fer some pilagin’” They pirate said. He brandished his sword at his brother, who backed away in fear. He tried to throw the sword away with his mind, but it didn’t work. He guessed his powers didn’t work as a ghost. Wyatt took a swipe at him with the sword, but it went right through him. He guessed he really was a ghost. That must mean his body on the floor was actually dead.

The glittering fairy that was now Prue flitted around the attic. Patty, who made a very cute puppy, was chasing her tail. Chris was panicking. He didn’t know what to do. More than anything, he wanted his mommy. He wasn’t good at doing things all by himself. When he remembered what his mommy was dressed up as, he changed his mind. She was dressed up as a witch, which wasn’t really a costume, only his mom was dressed as the scary green skinned kind of a witch.

He looked out the small attic window to the street bellow. Wyatt had already run out into the street to join the chaos bellow. Chris wasn’t letting the dog that was Patty or the fairy that was Prue out of his sight. He was bigger than them, so it was his job to keep an eye on him. He had to think of something to do, it was his only hope. He floated straight through the attic door, and down the stairs, the dog and the fairy following close behind him.

He saw a black cat run by his feet, and Patty growled at it a little. That must be Aunt Paige. He tried to hold Patty back, but then he remembered that he was a ghost. Okay, so Aunt Paige’s costume hadn’t made her so scary. His mother and Aunt Phoebe’s costumes, however, were very scary. He saw his aunt Phoebe at the door. If he weren’t a ghost, he would have probably screamed. Aunt Phoebe was a real live vampire. She was just like the ones Chris had seen when he was younger.

“Need some blood!” She cackled. Chris didn’t like this, not at all. He half wanted to go back to the attic. In a puff of black smoke, his aunt Phoebe turned into a bat and flew out the window. This was a little much for young Chris. He ran upstairs to the attic, where he was relatively safe. He still hadn’t seen his mother, but he really didn’t want to. She reminded him of the wicked witch of the west in the wizard of oz. That always scared him.

When he got to the attic, he looked out the window again. He saw lots of people, especially grown ups that were running. They were also screaming. There were horrifying monsters running all around. The worst was that he knew that they were children just like him. He was glad he hadn’t started trick or treating yet. He didn’t want to be out there. He was about to get the book of shadows so he could find some way to fix this when he finally saw his mother at last. She was just as scary as he thought.

She was sitting on broomstick, which was hovering right outside the window. Her face was really green, and her teen were really pointed. She cackled, since she saw him there in the window. “I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog too!” she shrieked before flying higher, right passed the moon. Chris didn’t really understand what she meant, since he didn’t have a dog. It was still very scary.

He had to find something, anything to fix it. He found the book of Shadows right where Wyatt left it, only there was one problem. He couldn’t touch it. Being a ghost, he couldn’t touch solid objects. Only ghosts who have been ghosts for a long time could touch solid objects. His mommy also told him that ghosts could move things if they were very angry. Maybe, if he got angry, he’d be able to move the pages.

Chris tried to concentrate on things that made him angry. Maybe then he’d be able to turn the pages. He concentrated on his brother, who always made him mad, or on his dad. That made it work. His dad was supposed to be there, and his dad would be capable of helping him. Chris began to get very angry. The pages began to move of their own accord. They flew in the wind he had created, not looking like they would ever stop. Meanwhile, the dog that was Patty chased her tail by his feet.

He stopped thinking about his dad, and immediately, the pages stopped turning. It landed on the same spell they had used earlier, the one that had started this whole mess. Only, there was something on the page adjacent that Chris had previously not noticed. It was kind of small, like the fine print that nobody ever saw. He floated closer so he could see what it said. As he suspected, it was related to the spell that had caused all this. He read it twice, just to make sure he was reading it correctly.

It was sort of a loophole in the spell they had read. The spell would work only before midnight on Halloween. So, all he had to do if he wanted the spell to stop was make it after midnight. He knew that spell! It was the one they had learned at magic school the previous week. He could fix this all by himself. Chris had a fantasy of being the one who made things better, the one who saved the day, instead of Wyatt.

“Winds of time gather round,

Lift me up to speed my way.

Send me on my journey forward.

Let tomorrow be today.”

There was a swirl of colours…many colours all around. It was working. The clocks moved forward all at once. When Chris could see properly again, it was 12:01. He had done it. Patty was no longer a dog, only in a costume. Prue wasn’t a fairy, and Wyatt wasn’t a pirate. They were standing there in their costume, looking stunned. Then they all started talking at once. “Whoa, I didn’t know what I was doing.” I couldn’t remember what I did.” “That was so weird.”

Wyatt looked at Chris, who was no longer a ghost, but a kid in a bed sheet. Wyatt shouldn’t have done that spell. It had ruined everything. Most of all, he had ruined Halloween for his little brother. He couldn’t control what he was doing, but he remembered all of it. He had been really mean to Chris. He didn’t mean it, but he still felt really bad about it.

“I’m sorry Chris”, Wyatt said hanging his head. He felt really bad about everything that had happened. He couldn’t look his brother in the eyes. “I’m sorry I ruined your Halloween.”

Chris’ face split into a wide grin. He wrapped his brother in a large hug, and the older boy returned it in shock. Chris wasn’t happy about what his brother had done. It was stupid, and he was sure to get in trouble. He was very happy that it had been him who had saved the day. Usually Wyatt was the one with all the power, now it was him. He was very proud of himself, and rightfully so.

“Are you kidding?” Chris asked, still smiling. “This was the best Halloween ever!”