Totally Charmed

by Crusie, Jennifer, Wilson, Leah

  Back to the story. Aside from everyone on the planet being in a diabetic coma from an overdose of sugar, the world under the rule of the Avatars would be perfect.

  Now, the Elders didn’t like the Avatars, didn’t trust them. (I wonder why.)

  Neither did Paige’s latest boyfriend, Brody. He was so sure the Avatars were evil that he killed one of them. He used the tried and true method for killing supernatural beings in the Charmiverse—that is, he threw a harmless-looking bottle on the floor. It broke, and its ghostly tendrils (a.k.a. the “potion”) snaked up into the air, into the Avatar’s nostrils and the Avatar then died. It’s just the natural order of things.

  Unlike Brody, Leo believed the Avatars were truly good and before you could say, “Does this sound familiar?” Leo had become an Avatar himself. When the Elders found out, they zapped him with the lightning bolts from their fingertips. (Yes, of course they can shoot flames from their fingers—they’re pacifists too!)

  But lo and behold, Leo didn’t die! And he returned to the witches, triumphant and sure of his power. He even looked sexier than he had in a long time, what with his shirt torn and his face and arms all sooty from the attack.

  Where was I?

  Oh, right. Leo returned from his confrontation with the Elders, wounded and dirty but unbeaten. He must have been certain that he was the most powerful person on the set. Maybe at last he could have his cake and eat it too. He could restore and even maintain a relationship with one of the most powerful women in the Charmiverse, and keep his own, even greater power intact.

  Do you think so?

  Have you been paying attention?

  The Avatars wanted ultimate power over all. They thought they could rule the world by doing away with all evil and brainwashing everyone to their way of thinking—their form of government, so to speak. (Why is this reminding me of the latest White House press release?) Once that was in place, the witches were expected to give up their powers on the grounds that, without evil to fight, they no longer needed them.

  But if that happened, there would be no one left with the power to challenge the Avatars’ authority. This would, one would think, be fine by Leo, him being an Avatar and all. At last his power would be secure.

  But the world would have been out of balance. Everyone knows you can’t have day without night, darkness without light or good without evil. Even the writers of TV shows! Something disastrous would result, and the only way to restore the balance was by removing the Avatars from power.

  The witches had no choice but to join forces with some of the dethroned, disenfranchised demons in order to overthrow the new order and restore the balance. Leo, having realized he had chosen the wrong side and placed himself at risk of being vanquished by the women he loved, fought the Avatars right beside them. And you know, you really have to give the guy credit this time. For once, he had ultimate power in his grasp, but he gave it up for the greater good, and more than that, for love. His decision to swan dive City of Angels–style off the Golden Gate Bridge and return to regular mortal-hood instead of leaving his family alone forever was an even more impressive demonstration.

  Maybe he’s starting to figure out that love is where the real power is. And maybe, among all the male characters in Charmed, he’ll be the one to finally accept that. If he does, he might just last after all.

  For now, he’s back to coming when he’s called, helping when he’s asked, having his opinions ignored and often looking damn good, but otherwise staying out of the way.

  And that, my sisters, is as it should be.

  But I fear it won’t last. Leo, I predict, is destined to keep on trying to out-power his powerful lover until he either dies in the effort or gets an offer from another network. Happiness in love never lasts for the Charmed Ones.

  They’ve got too much Girl Power to ever be tamed by any man. Be he cop, demon, Whitelighter, Elder or Avatar.

  Maybe we all do.

  Maggie Shayne is the New York Times best-selling, award-winning author of more than forty novels, ranging from stories about Witches, vampires, psychics and ghosts, to bone chilling, edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense and beyond. She has also written for CBS daytime dramas Guiding Light and As the World Turns. One of Maggie’s novels, Eternity, has been optioned for film. She is a working, modern day Witch who, in dull moments, wonders aloud, “Why don’t the Charmed Ones just put the potion into a spray bottle instead of wasting all those cute little glass vials?” Maggie’s new romantic suspense novel Darker Than Midnight goes on sale in November. Visit her on the Web at www.maggieshayne.com.

  HOME IMPROVEMENT IN MAGIC LAND

  * * *

  VERA NAZARIAN

  * * *

  It’s difficult to tell what criteria the Halliwells use to choose their men—at first glance they appear to be “tall and breathing”—but Vera Nazarian says they’re smarter than that: They’re all choosing men who are good with their hands.

  “I always thought you threw a bunch of [wild] parties . . . things breaking, people screaming.”

  —INNOCENT NEIGHBOR TO PIPER AND PHOEBE (“ORDINARY WITCHES”)

  “It’s gotta be better than cleaning up after demons all the time.”

  —PIPER, CONTEMPLATING AN AVATAR UTOPIA, TO PHOEBE, SWEEPING WOODEN BANISTER REMAINS WITH A BROOM (“ORDINARY WITCHES”)

  “I am tired. Of all. This.”

  —PAIGE, AS THE CHARMED ONES CLEAN UP YET

  ANOTHER END-OF-EPISODE DOMESTIC MESS (“ORDINARY WITCHES”)

  HOW DO MAGICAL SUPERHEROES handle life’s less-than-super problems? Even a witch gets a stopped-up sink or a broken toilet and requests a service call from a handyman.

  But what about when those everyday household problems happen with an annoying frequency and daily regularity, like hellish clockwork? Let’s explore some of the extra-wacky fun the mundane problems take on when there is magic happening all around.

  Case in point: It’s Monday in the Halliwell Manor. Random demon pops into the kitchen—mostly out of the thin air but sometimes crashing like a gorilla through the stained-wood front door—and unleashes fireball. Fireball misses a Charmed One who’s engaged in prepping potion ingredients or peeling potatoes. It continues moving like a meteor along a curveball trajectory out through the kitchen door and hits the living room wall. On a particularly lucky day, it first smashes into an antique lamp, a vase, a sofa or side table. Wall gets scorched in a crispy, apocalyptic black-hole pattern that does not quite match the rest of the Victorian decor. Demon gets vanquished by exasperated Charmed One. But apocalyptic barbeque burn-spot remains on wall while the pretty and priceless vase lies in shards, lacquered door in splinters . . . You get the picture.

  On Tuesday, repeat of the above, with minor demonic species variations and possibly residual goo. On Wednesday. . . .

  Makes a girl want to cry. Even when she’s a Halliwell. And if she’s an antiques specialist like Prue, it makes a girl want to—well, let’s just not go to that dark, ugly place of the artistic soul.

  What to do? Get out the broom and bucket yet again? Visit the hardware store? File an insurance claim? Call your friendly handyman Whitelighter?

  Obviously magic is not all “poof and everything’s okay now.” And shows like Charmed are not afraid to portray the practical, even pragmatic, aspects of life for its magical protagonists, juxtaposing the mundane with the decidedly not. Whether it’s refinancing a mortgage to get the P3 club going, home repair and improvement or even those very odd jobs to make ends meet, the Halliwell sisters have plenty to do in order to keep the Victorian manor they call home.

  The TV tradition of using magic to both create and solve, and have episodes hinge upon, down-to-earth problems in the home is a long one. In the 1964–1972 Screen Gems comedy Bewitched, the practical and charming suburban witch Samantha Stephens wiggled her nose (accompanied by that great little “clackety-clack” sound) to repair various living room damage brought about by the antics of her chaos-loving witch relatives, prim
arily her delightfully wicked mother Endora, the bumbling Aunt Clara, sheepish Uncle Arthur, wicked party-girl Cousin Serena and anyone else who might drop in through the brick chimney (recurring structural damage) or land on a coffee table (can you say “carpentry job”?).

  In the 1965–1970 Sidney Sheldon sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, the blissfully un-emancipated, never-liberated and perfectly willing to do anything magical harem ditz Jeannie scrunched up her adorable face and blinked her eyes (accompanied by the equally familiar “boing” sound) in order to please her handsome master, the oft-confused and flailing astronaut Maj. Anthony Nelson. A blink and Jeannie the genie would take care of regular housecleaning in a matter of seconds, or completely rearrange the interior of the major’s bachelor pad or desk at the office—whether he wanted it or not, but always for his own good. Such constant magical domesticity more so than any other large-scale miracles drove the show. And while it annoyed Major Nelson and amused his buddy Major Healey, it seriously scrambled the brain cells of the military base medic Doctor Bellows, who just couldn’t take it anymore, poor fellow. Really now, was that pencil standing in the mug or lying on the table a second ago? Did it float in midair? Or was it his reputation and credibility, flying away on swift, loony, decommissioned wings?

  Jump forward several decades, as TV magic and its rules, not to mention SFX, got decidedly more sophisticated. We saw Joss Whedon’s 1997 Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with the Slayer herself battling a bevy of demons all over her mother’s house. The last straw for Buffy came in season six, when the rowdy M’Fashnick demon thoroughly busted up the Summers’ living room and kitchen. In vain Buffy scrambled to protect valuables before they got in the demon’s way, but he continued his trashing party down into the basement. Soon, the battle raged right next to the brand-new copper pipes. Buffy’s construction-savvy friend Xander had just arranged to have this pristine plumbing installed after a recent flooding. And now one of those shiny new pipes broke again, unleashing a torrent and Buffy’s fury, and inspiring her to pound and trounce the demon, finally drowning him in three feet of water, a flood of his own making (“Flooded,” 6-4). The deceased Joyce Summers’ life insurance money ran out at this point (though it had come in handy during previous times when the home was trashed) and only Giles’ timely financial help saved the day. However, Buffy still ended up having to get a fast-food job at the terrifying Doublemeat Palace to pay for it all and to stay ahead of the piling bills. Oh, if only bills were bloodsucking vampires instead of mere financial forces of darkness. . . .

  Which brings us to Aaron Spelling’s 1998 magical WB drama Charmed, where all of this magic domestic mayhem is taken a step further. Not only do the three Charmed Ones witness the repeated destruction of much of their heirloom house, but they are often destroyed themselves, only to be brought back as good as new by the life-affirming force of white magic and the help of a loving guardian angel Whitelighter, Elder, Avatar and, more than anything else, the ultimate Handyman, Leo Wyatt.

  Now, about that Leo Wyatt fellow. He’s a hunky WWII hero, the gentle and loving father of Piper’s children and a guy with a heart of 24-karat gold, if not better. So, okay, he’s also sort of . . . well, dead, and an angel. Even so, Leo’s almost too good to be true for an angelical entity (compared, for example, to the bumbling Clarence from Frank Capra’s 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life), and sometimes so good that you want to put a collar on him. You can just bet that there are times that thought passes through Piper’s mind, and she’s tempted to say something to the extent of “Down, boy. Good puppy. Here’s a pork-flavored eye of newt, now go sit in the corner. Behave, and I’ll let you lick something else later. . . . “

  Well, this Leo puppy can certainly fix things. And more than just fix—he can make them as new. While another plumber might put on a hasty patch-up seal under the sink, Leo can heal those copper pipes, soothe away the sprung leak, make it better than it was before. Some other less magic-macho carpenter would go to the hardware store and buy a replacement door, but not Leo. After he’s done with that damaged wood, you won’t even know where the break had been. Smooth and oh-so-sweet.

  And even better yet, Leo comes to help within seconds when called, orbing in to get the job done now, pronto, guaranteed. Not by appointment between eight and one, not in an hour or your money back, not just on weekdays, with the weekend and after-hours service bearing a high-cost emergency surcharge. Nope. Leo is instant handyman gratification, 24/7. And you don’t even need to crack a phonebook. For that matter, you don’t even need a phone.

  The Victorian mansion where Leo so often practices his handymanly charms, and where so much of the demon trashing and furniture breaking happens, is a very special place. For starters, it is the ancestral home of the Charmed Ones, having been in their family for generations and most recently belonging to Penelope “Grams” Halliwell who bequeathed it to Prue, Piper and Phoebe. And the Manor’s formerly rundown and now remodeled attic houses The Book of Shadows, which is in so many ways the seat of the white witch powers.

  Since it’s the psychic center, the home base and the safest place, then it might follow that the ability to keep it so—to make it stable, to keep it in tip-top shape, to restore damage at any moment and to guarantee that the home remains a white magic haven—would be the ultimate sexiest thing that magic can do.

  Yes, sexiest. We’ll get to that in a moment.

  Sure, the Charmed Ones’ destiny and mission is to save innocents and to vanquish Darklighters, demons, warlocks and all the other evil supernatural scum that fills the world like roaches. But when it comes down to it, without the Manor to call home, without a home for the family and the Power of Three and without stability in their lives and the pure trust that such a home represents, the sisters’ international and far-ranging mission of Good might very well be compromised.

  Everyone needs the comfort of home, and most people are more than willing to fight for the place they think of as home. The Charmed Ones have to do it so often that they take this fight a bit for granted.

  Really, there are a thousand and then some ways that the Manor can sustain damage, and does.

  Foremost of course are demon attacks and consequent vanquishings. They are as routine as making a pot of coffee, and they result in ugly burn marks on walls, broken furniture, piles of ashes and soot and damp goo spots on the carpet and floor, not to mention broken knick-knacks, vases and anything else in the way of the energy balls or other magic projectiles. Usually vanquishings are accompanied by fire and explosive action. And the cleanup’s a bitch.

  The sisters are real champs about it—well, for the most part. There are exceptions, such as Piper being under the influence of a witch doctor’s house cleaning spell (“House Call”) or Phoebe refusing to deal with the house altogether (“The Power Of Two”). But on the whole, the three of them take it all in stride. After one particular nasty vanquishing, Piper mentioned that she really should stop leaving nice things around the house. Hello, Piper? Took you all this time, girlfriend? Non-magical cleanup usually requires sweeping, washing, scrubbing, cleanser and paint. And of course using magic for minor domestic messes can fall under the no-no category of personal gain.

  A related problem is forced entry by demonic forces of darkness, which usually choose to ignore physical barriers. In other words, when they find no entrance they make one, and they don’t often bother to check first if a door is unlocked—no one ever said forces of darkness were all that smart. This often results in broken walls, windows and doors and is resolved by carpentry work and parts replacement to the merry accompaniment of the hardware store cash register’s “ka-ching” and the depletion of Halliwell finances.

  What about orbing? Chances are excellent that, upon materializing, someone could break furniture, or even end up inside objects or even walls. Granted, Leo was always pretty good about carefully selecting his landing location, but Paige has been known to sneeze herself semi-corporeal and precariously bump into things, even if that time it ha
ppened to be all Cole’s fault (“Centennial Charmed”).

  Spells gone awry? Goodness, yes. How many times have herbal ingredients ended up splattered all over the kitchen or the attic? And that’s not counting Piper’s failed cooking experiments. Even a master chef makes mistakes.

  In short, everyday life at the Manor is an exercise in maintenance and repair. And whether the Charmed Ones like it or not, even their more personal life choices are colored by it.

  Ever notice how the good men in their lives are good with their hands? Darkly conflicted half-demonic bad boy Cole Turner never showed any interest in picking up a power tool. And neither did the glamorous dotcom millionaire, Jason Dean. But the big-hearted Leo Wyatt is a plumber and handyman, while the handsome and ordinary guy-next-door Dan Gordon was a construction worker. No wonder it was tough for Piper to choose between Dan and Leo. Decisions, decisions. But still, decisions within the same home remodeling niche.

  And maybe that’s why Phoebe still hasn’t found the right man. He’s probably out there remodeling someone’s bathroom, not being a corporate lawyer shark or a newspaper magnate. Not even an attractive police inspector. Think about that, Phoebe. And that goes for you too, Paige. Next time you get the dating itch, forget the mysterious federal agent and call a general contactor for an appraisal. Doesn’t matter what kind, just do it. Better yet, simply break something and then wait for your repair-god soul mate to knock on the front door. . . .

  We were talking about sexy, weren’t we?

  Think about it: what’s the most empowering, vibrant, virile metaphor of magic? Magic is the ability to fix things. Redress mistakes. And the sexiest practitioner of this kind of magic is not a warlock or a demon but the ultimate handyman.

  Yes, we’re back to Leo.

  The best metaphors go both ways. Not only is Leo a handyman in every sense of the word, but he is also the only reliable and stable force in the Charmed Ones’ home life. Indeed, on more than one occasion Leo’s been the one to bring a dead Charmed One back to life—using his healing ability in combination with the raw strength of his sincere intent to turn back time and reverse events. Talk about an ultimate repair job. Incidentally, that’s what healing is—a repair job. Even now that he’s given up his Whitelighter powers, he’s still the man with all the answers, the one who knows how to fix things even if he lacks the ability to do so directly.