The charmed ones.

The charmed ones: prologue.

Hello.
My name is Isabella Swan.
I am Witch.
I also happened to be one of the three most powerful charmed ones.
I have three powers.
I can freeze time.
I see numbers above your head and when calculated correctly, tell the exact age of your death.
I can also make anything appear out of thin air.
My name is Isabella Swan.
Welcome to my life.

Chapter one.

I hesitated, lingering in the doorway of the house. This was the Swan manor; I and my sisters have lived here ever since we had been born.

"Bella!" cried my younger sister, Alice. She had premonitions, though not always correct. "Bella, were you ever considered actually going in?" she said with a tinkling laugh. Alice came skipping up to me, giving me a huge hug. "Alice, what the hell!?" I spluttered, for a tiny person she had enormous strength there was a time when I thought, that could have been one of her powers. "C'mon Bella, I want to try out a new spell!" she yelled it loudly enough for it to echo from the inside of the house.

"Keep your voice down!" I hissed, and then sighed, "You enjoy being a Witch too much." She always completely ignored the 'no personal gain' rule. "Silly Bella!" She giggled. "The whole street is almost empty and speaking of empty; why is the house empty, hasn't the furniture arrived yet?" She pondered that for a moment, before I broke the silence. "Yes Alice, the invisible furniture is here; why don't you go and sit down on the couch?" She rolled her eyes at my dry sarcasm then slipped into a premonition, I held tightly onto her arm so I could see it too.

The delivery men were unloading our valuable possessions onto the street. The box with the book of shadows was dangerously on the edge of the truck, it fell, splattering our spell books into a very muddy puddle; the marble pages were ruined, a pattern of water speckled the cover. The book of Shadows that our mother, Esme, had given us, was completely destroyed. No spell had survived.

I snapped out if it quickly and freezing the whole street in a time picture, realizing that the box was in the same position that was in her premonition. We walked over to pull the box back to a safe place at the back of the truck, then returning to our original positions. I unfroze them. I heard Alice sigh and say "What I wouldn't give for an active power like that..." I retorted by saying,

"Hey! You can levitate can't you? Having an active power is not all it's cut out to be; you risk other people seeing you!"

She snorted. "Oh, and levitating means no-one can see you?"

I sighed out of irritation; she didn't know what it was like to know the age of your own sister's death. "You know I didn't mean it like that Bella." she spoke softly. I had known that our own mother was going to die before she did, so I briskly changed the subject, "When's Rosalie getting here?"

"She should be orbing in 3...2...1." She counted down and naturally Rosalie came orbing in. "All right Rose?" I asked. She nodded. Rosalie's power was to orb, telekinesis and astral projection; another reason for Alice to be jealous. "Has the stuff arrived yet?" she questioned. I was about to make another wise crack about invisible furniture when I heard the removal men come in through the front door. I don't mean to brag but our family had been pretty well off before they died.

Esme had been an interior decorator and Carlisle had been a doctor. It was a white manor house with several balconies and I knew when we bought it back, we would have so much fun annoying the neighbours! I know, call me childish but hey, we were only nineteen, we had the right to live!

The men were bringing in furniture left, right and centre, so Alice had gotten busy directing them. That was why she landed herself a clothing line, ironically enough; she called it 'Premonition'. Rose was pretty well off herself these days; she owned a club called P3 and business was going pretty well. I was an author, not a very good one, but good enough to pay the bills. I loved to draw in my spare time but pursuing my dreams of being an artist was just a bit too much to deal with right now. I sighed, walking into the kitchen, it was beautiful; grey marble counters and cupboards with wooden shelves. The only thing was, in reminded me if Esme, I could almost see her cooking lunch for us when we were three. My eyes welled up with moisture, but I wiped them away; now was not a good time to cry. I heard Rosalie come in; she gave me a hug from behind.

"Bella, you know it wasn't your fault." she whispered. I hung onto her tightly. Rose had been my only life line, when Esme died. "C'mon, Alice is waiting to show you your room." she answered my silent question. We climbed the marble stairs to reveal a large landing and two other staircases going in different directions. Rosalie tugged me into a room and we saw Alice with an expression that she always wore when she was instructing people in 'premonition'

"Right men." She started, Rose and I held in giggles; she looked like a mini Hitler! "We are paying you to work for us for a week, I am correct?" she said very seriously. The men all nodded, actually looking slightly scared of the little pixie. "You are going to work hard. If I decide you have not worked hard enough you will not be paid. Do you understand me?" They looked absolutely terrified, but they all nodded anyway. She gave them a dazzling smile and squealed "let's get this show on the road!" We couldn't hold it in anymore, we laughed until tears streamed down our faces. Until we looked up to see a very angry little fairy glaring at us, but that just made us laugh more. "We're...ha ha...Sorry...Alice!" Rose managed to strangle out. To our surprise she engulfed us in a huge hug.

"As much as I hate you for laughing at me, I still love you." she mumbled into my hair.

"The removal men are staring at us." I mumbled back.

"Eh, who cares?" Chuckled Rose. I loved her and Alice for their care free attitudes, but without each other, we were lost. Without me everyone would be living in an alley way if I hadn't convinced them to put savings away and not just spend cash, my time freezing and making-things-appear-out-of-thin-air thing was pretty useful for kicking out the demons. Without Alice we wouldn't know which demons were coming and what they wanted. She had been known to use them for the lottery, which is how we got a head start in life.

Rosalie was the oldest and she had some very special gifts and probably the most talented. I had the most useful gifts, but mine came at a price; seeing the age of someone's death wasn't something I had gotten use to. It made me a whizz at maths though. That's why, unfortunately, I was in charge of the family money issues. We broke away from each other, we all knew that we needed each other and not just for magic purposes.

"Come on Bella, You need to see your room!" Alice squealed, while I mouthed a 'help' at Rose, who merely shrugged looked amused. I gave her the evil eye and got dragged by an overly exited Alice up a flight of stairs and across another landing. She stopped in front of a white door which said "Isabella's Craft". Alice spoke, "Bella, these four rooms are yours."

"Alice!?" I shrieked, "Why, what do I need four rooms for?" She just smirked.

"You'll see!" she sang. Damn that pixie...

"Why does it say 'Isabella's Craft?" I asked.

She shrugged, "It sounds more adult-like." I sighed and opened the door. The walls were a nice cream colour and the carpet was a very light blue colour. There was a queen sized bed with matching cream duvet and pillow set, my beloved child-hood bookcase was in the corner, filled with my favourite books. The wall had the best picture of Rose, Alice and I. I still remember how the spotlight felt hot on my back and the way the silk dress felt on my skin.

My music collection filled one side of the room. I raised an eyebrow at Alice to ask why all my CD's were in here and none were in the car. She giggled "I don't want to listen to your classical rubbish anymore!"

"Hey. Classical is not rubbish!" I said indignantly. "I love it pix. But where are all my files and notes and where is my laptop? Oh God they fell off the truck didn't they? What am I going to–"

"Bella!" She said, snapping me out of my rant. "Come and look in the other rooms." I followed, but still sure something had happened to them. We went through a door and through it was a study with a desk with all my notes, notebooks, files and laptop all on it. "OHMYGOD PIX!!! I LOVE YOU!!!" I gave her a huge hug and she laughed.

The other rooms were a bathroom and a kind of living room with my sketchpads and paints in with a balcony. Alice left me to it to unpack the rest of my things so I was perfectly content. I caught sight of myself in the floor length mirror, I sighed, wishing I could be beautiful like Rosalie or pretty like Alice. I had long ebony coloured hair and plain brown eyes; I was pretty average. The rest of the day was spent unpacking and working on my second novel.

It was the sequel to my first 'Twilight' It was about a human who fell in love with a vampire. I know; I'm a girl for romance novels. "Bella, come and sit out on the balcony with us!" I heard Rosalie call. I came to find Alice had dragged table and chairs out for us all to sit on. I sat down and we all talked about general nonsense until I saw something on the house below.

"Hey Rose, look at him." I pointed to a muscular man in the house next to us. "Is he your time?" I asked while Alice and I giggled. Rose grinned and said,

"Watch this." She made an astral projection of herself and practically ran down the stairs and out the front door. We could hear the conversation from here. Alice and I burst into laughter. "Hey, I'm Rosalie. I'm new to the neighbourhood; do you think you could tell me where the nearest post office is?" That did it, we went into giggle overdrive. Come on; the post office? The guy looked stunned.

"Um...Sure, it's down the road and turn right, then follow that road and turn into the lane to your left and you're there!" The guy looked so proud of himself and he had just told her where a post office is! I began to wonder what would happen if you told him that he had won a noble prize. Rosalie however was undeterred,

"That's great, so what's your name then?"

"I'm Emmett." Poor guy didn't know what he was in for.

"Nice to meet you." She shook his hand, although he hadn't offered it. "I hope we'll be seeing a lot more of each other." She gave him a dazzling smile and turned back into the house. She returned to her body and we just lost it in laughter. "The post office Rose?" I asked. She simply smiled coyly

"I think it went excellently, but I'll have to bid you fine ladies goodnight." she took a bow before leaving to her room. Alice sighed, "When do you think we're going to be assigned a new whitelighter?"

"Probably in a few weeks, we'll just have to be careful about demons." I replied. "How long do you think it will take them to find us?" I added.

"Not long, another few days I'm guessing."

I grinned, "Since when do you guess?" she smiled.

"I suppose we should turn in for the night."

I nodded in reply. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

What did you think of it? Reviews would help but please be nice. If you have any questions (ever) you can PM me.

Until next time

Val x