Chapter Three

After putting Prue down to bed for the second time, and demon-proofing the nursery by hiding four enchanted crystals around its perimeter, Penny eagerly made her way up to the attic. She wanted answers.

(X)

The attic was the home to all of the Halliwell's magical tools, ingredients, supplies and most importantly the ancestral Book of Shadows. The Book sat closed on the wooden lectern catching the thick rays of sun which shone in through back window, illuminating the deep red, embossed triquetra on the front cover of the worn and weathered Book. As Penny ran her fingers over the cover, she remembered just how faithful the Book had been in the past, not just to her and Patty, but for the generations of Warren witches that had came before her, and she hoped the Book would be continue to help and guide future generations. Wishing that today would be no exception, she slowly opened the Book.

Penny began flipping through the pages, not manually of course, that wasn't her style. Instead she used her telekinesis to find what she desired – an I.D. of the invisible intruder who attacked her earlier.

Penny's technique of magically searching through the Book was an aspect of her power which she had perfected over the years. It involved channelling what she could see in her mind's eye (or what she hoped to see), and combining that with her telekinesis in order to find a specific entry faster than searching by hand. Patty had always argued that her mother was becoming far too reliant on her powers, and tried to tell her that using magic for every little thing in life was not only lazy, but could also be classed as personal gain. Penny however, liked to see the opposite view where by she was simply being a more resourceful and pro-active witch. And if the Elders ever did have an issue with her using her powers to search through the Book, then she planned to casually remind them that less time looking for a demon or warlock meant a quicker vanquish and in turn could even save the life of an innocent as well. That was her argument at least and she was sticking to it.

Eventually the pages began to slow down, before stopping altogether drawing Penny's attention to a blank page. That's no use. She began flipping the pages again using her power and visualising in her mind, the demon she saw or with the aid of an emergency potion, got a fairly good idea of earlier in the nursery. After a few short seconds the same thing happened. The Book stopped on an empty page. What is going on?

Snapping the Book shut, Penny took a seat on the old couch, which had been stored in the attic for as long as she could remember. Taking a deep, and much needed breath, Penny took a moment to relax and she found her mind drifting, whether she desired it to or not, to the impending date she had next weekend with Ron, an old friend of Patty's boss.

Early last week Penny had ended up agreeing, after what seemed like an eternity of beginning from Patty to go on a blind date with Ron, who had just moved to the city and was looking to meet new people. He had known Patty's boss at the diner since college and when his name and single status came up in passing conversation, Patty thought a date would be an excellent way to get her mother's mind off demons and potions for a while and onto something more normal, sociable and potentially more relaxing. Penny however, was having second thoughts after reluctantly agreeing in the first place. Meeting men was not something high on her agenda at the moment, in fact the less men she met the better. They are all a waste of time if you ask me, she though to herself candidly.

She had practically given up on men after her last marriage dissolved, she had always felt like she was to independent and free spirited to be married to a mortal man again, and with her beliefs about male witches and the rules regarding witch/whitelighter romances she wasn't really left with a lot of other options. But that's how she liked these days, she could live life by her own rules and not have to make compromises with her other half. Of course she became lonely every now and then, and she did tend to put all of her emotional energy into hunting down demons instead of confronting her emotions the old fashioned way, but that was just Penny's nature. Her love life hadn't always been so non-existent, and her attitudes to love hadn't always been so cold. She in fact had been married four time already, fallen in love with a Necromancer and been engaged to a man who left her when she confessed her secret to him. That last one was the final straw, and she decided to place a magical curse upon the wedding ring Allen, her first husband had given to her, which reminded her if she was ever crazy enough to consider getting married again, of the horrors of married life. Thankfully though, she hadn't had to use that little reminder as of yet. All of those bumps along the road to true love had left Penny hardened and closed off from the prospect of ever loving a man again. Perhaps the date will go well, perhaps Ron will be different? she considered for a brief second, before being interrupted by the sound of Prue's crying crackling through the baby monitor, which sat propped up on top of a pile of old books. Shaking the thoughts of Ron out of her mind she stood to her feet.

"I'm coming darling!" she called instinctively and made her way out of the attic, hoping that it was just regular baby cries and not demonic inflicted cries and that she could soon get back to trying to I.D. her attacker instead of fending off another one. It didn't matter in the greater scale of things if she found a description or not because she had managed to vanquish him, but she wanted to know just who attacked her and why. And if possible, stop it from happening again before any harm came to either herself or baby Prue.

(X)

"I love it!"

Patty spun around with open arms in the spacious apartment living room. Although there was no furniture in place as of yet, she could already imagine herself alongside Victor and Prue living like a normal family here. Compared to the traditional interior of the manor which Penny insisted on keeping as it was, Patty could see herself adding her own modern touch to the place, it was the 1970's after all, not the 1800's. The apartment itself had two large bedrooms and one smaller bedroom, a beautifully fitted state of the art kitchen and a large, open living room with a beautiful view of the city from the back window. And most unbelievably, it was actually in their price range.

"Me too," Victor said smiling to the smartly dressed female agent that had been showing them around the apartment, she stood eagerly next to him cradling in her arms a clipboard and pen.

"Well it is our last apartment, so I'm sure I don't need to tell you to act now if you want this place," she said in a tone which sounded both urgent and optimistic. The woman, who was dressed in a black and grey pinstriped suit, had her long blonde hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail continued, "if you just write your names and number down on here we can make an arrangement for putting down a deposit," fishing for a sale, as she extended the clipboard and pen in Victor's direction.

"Just wait a minute!" Patty jumped in as she saw Victor reaching for the pen. "We have to talk about this first," she said politely smiling as she turned Victor away. "What about mom? This place is a lot further away than what we were looking at before. We said we wouldn't go too far away," she whispered.

"Yes, I know that," Victor started, keeping his voice low, "but this place is perfect, you even said it yourself, you love this apartment. So what if we are a little more away from your mother, it's not going to change anything. At least not much," he said, recalling Patty and Penny's fear that if they moved too far away from each other demons may try and take advantage of that distance. But Victor didn't even include demons in the equation, for him it was about finding the perfect place to raise a family with the woman he loved, and in his eyes, the further away from Penny's interference the better, but that was getting onto a whole different topic. Of course he understood Patty's bond with her mother was strong, the two of them had a lot more in common than most mothers and daughters, but it wasn't exactly like he was moving Patty to Italy or Australia, it was just thirty minutes away by car, and he was confident that if any demonic emergencies did materialize, Penny and Patty were both resourceful enough to think of more "alternative" travel methods.

"It is perfect. And there is that spare room just in case we have another," Patty smiled, patting her stomach. The idea of having more children was always something she and Victor had hoped to take more seriously now Prue was over a year old, but with demons bursting in every five minutes at the manor, and with Victor's work often taking him away for days on end, they hadn't had the time to properly consider getting pregnant again. Prospects however, had began to look up more recently as Victor was working a lot more in the city, and having their own place meant that demons wouldn't be dropping by to attack Penny on a seemingly daily basis, which unlike this morning, was largely down to her own meddling in the demonic underworld.

"So…" Victor trailed off, waiting for Patty to finish his thought.

"So let's sign, like she said it's the last one and this place is a catch considering out budget."

"Really? You don't mind being this far away?" Victor asked, double checking.

"No. And after all, I do have a car and…other ways," she smiled, twitching her nose. "My mother won't mind, and besides I'm in my thirties, it's time I moved out of the house I grew up in!"

"Well?" the lady coughed, clearing her throat to get their attention. Holding out the pen and clipboard again, she smiled "have you made a decision?"

"Let's do it," Patty smiled turning around and taking the pen. "Where do we sign?"