As Puck Would Have It

by Paul Ruditis

  “Piper!” Phoebe yelled from the first floor. The yell was followed by the sound of the front door slamming. It looked like Piper wasn’t the only one having a rough morning. Something must have happened for Phoebe to come barging into the house like that. Especially considering the fact that she knew there could be a sleeping baby inside.

  “Up here!” Piper yelled back. She could tell by the giggling sounds over the baby monitor that Wyatt wasn’t asleep. She wasn’t surprised—it was still too early for his nap. She envied her son at the moment. It seemed like he was the only one having any fun.

  “What happened to the first floor?” Phoebe asked. “It didn’t look that bad when I left this morning. Did I miss another demon?”

  “Nope,” Piper answered. “Just the cleaning service I hired.”

  “You do know they were supposed to make the place look better, not worse?” Phoebe said. “Although they did get that disgusting green sludge off the floor.”

  “I think someone was trying to mess with me,” Piper said, turning another page. “Pun fully intended.”

  Piper relayed her story of the cleaning service with the odd payment policy. Saying it out loud didn’t make it sound any less insane. Luckily, judging from Phoebe’s reaction, it appeared that Piper had done exactly what any normal person would have done in the situation.

  “Well, this isn’t good,” Phoebe said. “What did this Mr. Goode look like?”

  “Tall…dark…handsome,” Piper said. “You know, the typical demon we get around here.”

  “Not a blonde?” Phoebe asked.

  “Nope,” Piper said. “His hair was darker than mine…or even yours, this week. Why do you ask?”

  “You’re not the only one who had a strange visitor this morning,” Phoebe said. She then relayed a similar story, about an IT guy who had behaved rather strangely at work. Though the descriptions of the two men were different, there were definite similarities between the stories. The most notable was that each man seemed to think he was entirely in the right about what he had done.

  “Do you think these guys are part of a team of demons?” Phoebe asked.

  “Maybe,” Piper said. “But I can’t figure out their motivation.”

  “Well, in the long list of demons we’ve encountered, these don’t seem too threatening,” Phoebe said.

  “No, but they’re certainly annoying,” Piper said as she continued to flip through the Book. She figured there was even less of a chance she would find information on a gang of Computer Support/Cleaning Demons, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Phoebe said as she pulled a business card out of her purse. “When I touched the guy’s card, I heard something like a trumpet.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “No,” Phoebe replied. “Only sound. No video.”

  “Maybe the demons play in a jazz band,” Piper suggested sarcastically as she turned another page in the Book.

  “I still can’t figure out why I only heard a noise but didn’t see anything,” Phoebe said.

  “Just add it to the list of questions,” Piper said.

  Phoebe picked up the Yellow Pages that Piper had brought up to the attic with her. It was opened to the full-page ad that had caught Piper’s attention only hours earlier.

  Piper had known that she should have been more suspicious of a cleaning service that could show up at a moment’s notice, but at the time it had just seemed like a stroke of luck. Yeah, Piper thought, looking back. Bad luck.

  “Is this the guy?” Phoebe asked. “Goode’s Cleaning Service?”

  “That’s him,” Piper said. “What was your guy’s name?”

  “Robert Fellows,” Phoebe said, reading the name off the business card. “Hey, wait. I think I found something.” She put the card down under the ad and held it up for her sister to see.

  Piper looked down at the now familiar ad. Phoebe had folded the business card in half and placed it over the name of the cleaning service. Now the two names stood beside each other, making one name.

  “Goodfellows?” Piper read. “The mob’s after us?”

  “Is there such a thing as a demon mob?” Phoebe wondered aloud.

  “If there is, it would be only natural that they found us,” Piper said.

  Although they were joking around, the two sisters looked at each other with dread.

  As they tried to figure out if the names were linked, the third Charmed One orbed into the attic, clearly in a huff.

  “I need that,” Paige said as she pushed her way past her sisters to where the Book of Shadows sat on a table.

  “Don’t worry,” Phoebe said as she grabbed Paige by the arm. “We’re already on it.”

  “Already on what?” Paige asked.

  “Let me guess,” Piper said. “You ran into a seemingly well-intentioned stranger who pulled a prank on you. Something destructive, but not quite harmful?”

  Paige looked at Piper, surprised but still steamed. “So, I’m not the only one this happened to?”

  “Nope, I’m afraid not. Where’s your gear, by the way?” Phoebe asked, growing more suspicious by the moment.

  “Down the river,” Paige replied.

  “Well, since we’ve already dealt with a blonde and a brunette, I’m guessing you got the redhead,” Piper said.

  “Auburn hair, actually,” Paige corrected. “And twinkling green eyes.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Piper said. “The eyes. My guy’s were blue.”

  “Gray,” Phoebe said.

  “So we’re dealing with three guys with twinkling eyes?” Paige asked as she watched Piper continue flipping through the Book of Shadows. “Sounds like a bad fifties group. Somehow I doubt they’d be in there under that name.”

  “Did your guy give you a card, by any chance?” Phoebe asked.

  “No,” Paige said. “Just a flower. But he told me his name was Robin, if that helps.”

  “Robin?” Phoebe asked as she took the Book of Shadows from Piper. “As in Robin Goodfellow.”

  Paige’s eyes went wide. “You don’t mean—”

  “I knew that quote was familiar,” Phoebe interrupted. “The IT guy changed my column to read ‘Gentles, do not reprehend. If you pardon, I will mend.’ It was from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We’re not being stalked by a demon mob. If I’m not mistaken, we’re all being bothered by the same guy. And even though we’ve never met him, I think we all know his name.”

  Even though Phoebe hadn’t known what page to go to, she immediately landed on the entry she had been looking for.

  Piper saw the page over her sister’s shoulder and in an instant understood the identity of the demon. “Puck.”

  Chapter 5

  “So we’re dealing with a character from Shakespeare?” Paige asked. “Damn that bard. What’s next, Hamlet’s ghost?”

  “So instead of three demons, we’ve got one that’s a master of disguise and can move about town in the blink of an eye,” Piper said, summing up their suspicions. “This just keeps getting better.”

  “Well, this is fairly useless,” Phoebe said as she read over the passage on Puck, a.k.a. Robin Goodfellow, in the Book of Shadows. Never before had she seen a more confusing jumble of words and meaningless phrases.

  “No information?” Piper asked.

  “Just the opposite,” Phoebe replied. “Too much information. And all of it is contradictory. Things are crossed out with arrows pointing here and there. It’s a mess. As far as I can tell, the Warren witches have run into him from time to time, but no two experiences have been the same.”

  Phoebe skimmed over the page again. The Book of Shadows had been passed down through the maternal line of her ancestry for generations. Each woman would add what she had learned about magic and the demons she had encountered along the way.

  The interesting thing about the Book was that it kept growing. And not just from the entries of the witches currently entrusted with the Book. Just because a particular witch had died
didn’t mean that she was through passing along her wisdom. There were many occasions in which the Charmed Ones opened up the Book and found information that had previously not been there.

  The page on Puck—or Robin Goodfellow—looked like the Warrens had been adding to it constantly over the past few centuries. In fact, the entry went on for nearly three pages, even though there was probably only a page and a half of actual information between the scratched-out text and partial notes.

  Piper and Paige listened as Phoebe tried to make out what she could from the hodgepodge of writings.

  “According to the Book, Puck is either a fairy, a hobgoblin, an imp, a pixie”—Phoebe paused and looked at her sisters with dread—“or the devil himself.”

  “Well, that’s new,” Piper said.

  “Somehow I doubt the devil would waste his time playing practical jokes,” Paige said. “I imagine he or she would be saving something bigger for us.”

  “Goody,” Phoebe said. “Something to look forward to.”

  “And all the fairies we’ve met have been much smaller than the guy who came to the house today,” Piper added. “And had wings. Although the temperament was kind of the same.”

  “I don’t think he’s any of those things,” Phoebe said. “It looks like Robin, or Puck, is one of a kind.”

  “What’s with the multiple names?” Paige asked. “Is he Puck or Robin?”

  “Actually, he’s both,” Phoebe said. “It looks like—historically—Puck and Robin Goodfellow were two different beings, but eventually they either merged into one, or people realized they were one, or something happened where one of them disappeared and the other took his place. It’s not very clear.”

  “It never is,” Piper muttered.

  “Either way, he’s been around forever and he goes by a ton of different names. If this book were better cross-referenced we’d be flipping through it for hours checking out all the entries.”

  “Where’s a good footnote when you need one?” Paige quipped.

  “How bad is it?” Piper asked.

  “I can’t tell for sure,” Phoebe said. “Some say Puck’s just a mischief-maker—which we’ve seen firsthand—while others…well, let’s just say that some stories are closer to that part about him being the devil.”

  “Let me guess, he has a long list of different powers, too,” Paige said. “Each more deadly than the next?”

  “Sort of,” Phoebe replied. “It looks like there’s a consensus on him being a shape-shifter—which, again, we’ve seen for ourselves. Although some think he might be a changeling. But that could just have something to do with the fact that people often get the two confused.”

  “We know he has at least two different disguises,” Piper said. “Though I doubt any of us saw his true face.”

  Phoebe continued to work her way through the mess of information. “It’s unclear how powerful he really is and what he can really do.”

  “Well, this thing is fairly useless,” Paige said, dismissing the Book with a wave of her hand as if it had intentionally left out information.

  “Any idea what he wants with us?” Piper asked. “I doubt he just felt like dropping by and then continuing on his merry way.”

  “I hope he comes back,” Paige said. “He owes me a cell phone, some camping equipment, and a new outfit. Not to mention a backpack. And this stuff isn’t exactly cheap.”

  “Add that to the bill for the destruction of the first floor,” Piper said.

  “And I suspect he’s going to bill Elise for the service call,” Phoebe said.

  “So what do we do now?” Piper asked.” Just wait for him to come back?”

  “I say we go looking for him,” Paige said. “Maybe scry for him with the business card. There has to be some way to—” Paige stopped mid-sentence, clutching her stomach. Her face had gone white, with tinges of blue.

  “Paige? What’s wrong?” Phoebe asked.

  “I don’t know,” Paige replied, looking curiously ill. “I feel—”

  Paige doubled over in pain. Before her sisters could rush to her side, she burst into hundreds of blue and white orbs. It looked like she was orbing somewhere, but the orbs never left the room. They just hovered in midair like fireflies swarming together.

  “Paige!” Phoebe cried as she hurried to the orbs.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Piper warned as Phoebe moved toward her orbing sister. “There’s no telling what the orbs might do to you.”

  “What’s going on?” Phoebe asked as she examined the floating orbs. “Have you ever seen this before? You know, before the pranks began?”

  “No,” Piper said. “But I think I know who’s behind it.”

  “No kidding,” Phoebe agreed. It was fairly obvious someone was toying with them. This time, the game was especially cruel.

  “Ho, ho, ho.”

  Phoebe and Piper heard the laughter before they saw the source of it.

  “Enough with the exposition,” Puck said as he shimmered into the room. “Can we get to the action already?”

  “Puck!” Phoebe said.

  “Speak of the devil,” Puck said, with a bow, “and the devil appears.”

  This version of Puck was slightly different from the three that had visited the Charmed Ones earlier in the day. He was tall and lean, like the others, but there was something about the way he carried himself. He seemed to be in constant motion, even though he was standing still.

  Puck’s long, flowing hair was pure white, which made his purple eyes even more pronounced. His ears did not end in points like the traditional image Phoebe had in her head; instead, they were slightly more rounded than the average human ear—like circles, not ovals. It was just enough to make them look different without calling too much attention to them. In his left ear he wore a row of earrings running from top to bottom. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, though from what was written in the Book of Shadows, he was at least several centuries beyond that age.

  His clothing was another story entirely. The subdued overalls, business-casual apparel, and hiking outfit had been replaced by a flashy blue suit with a sequined collar. He even had a red handkerchief peeking out of the breast pocket, which matched the silk shirt he was wearing underneath. He had chosen to complete the look with a black tie that looked like someone had stretched out a Slinky.

  “Put Paige back together,” Piper insisted.

  Puck simply laughed at her. “Did you ever notice when a phrase like ‘put Paige back together’ became normal, everyday language for you gals?”

  “What do you want from us?” Phoebe asked.

  “What makes you think you have anything I would want?” Puck asked.

  “Then why are you doing this?” Piper asked.

  “Boredom. Slow-news day,” Puck replied. “Wouldn’t you say so, Phoebe? You are the resident expert nowadays, are you not?”

  With a wave of his hand, he sent Paige’s orbs floating around the room.

  “Stop that,” Phoebe said.

  “No,” Puck replied.

  “Look,” Piper said with barely contained anger, “Puck, or Robin, or whatever you call yourself—”

  “I call myself many things,” Puck said. “Though not as many things as others may call me.”

  “Well, whoever you are—” Phoebe began.

  “I think that should be whomever,” Puck said as he made Paige’s orbs do a loop in the air. “Or, is it whoever? I never do get that right. Back when I started school, we didn’t have English classes. We didn’t have English, for that matter. Or maybe we did. You know, my history is so confusing, even I sometimes forget where I came from.”

  “Puck!” Piper and Phoebe said simultaneously, trying to shut him up.

  “That’s my name,” he said. “Wait, we’ve established that already. And really I understand why you’d be jealous of my many names. I mean, your family doesn’t show much creativity when it comes to choosing monikers, do you? Piper, Phoebe, Paige, Prue, Patty, Penelope. Please, that’
s positively pedestrian in a pedantic pedigree, if you ask me. And don’t even get me started at the lack of originality in little Wyatt Matthews’s name.”

  “We just want to know how to make you stop bothering us,” Piper said. She was tired of him rambling on and on without making any sense.

  “Touché.” Puck grinned. “I like you.”

  “Thanks,” Piper said, dryly. “That means a lot.”

  “Wait a minute,” Puck said, his face lighting up. “My name begins with a ‘P,’ too! Hey, will you gals adopt me? I’ve always wanted a mom…or three.”

  “Can we vanquish this guy already?” Phoebe asked, checking the Book for a spell.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Puck said, waving an extraordinarily long finger at Phoebe. It was growing longer by the second.

  Using that same finger, he directed Paige’s orbs to spin in an arc that went up to the ceiling and down to the floor. “You don’t just go around vanquishing everyone who comes across your path, do you?” he asked. “I mean, what have I done that was so wrong? Other than add some excitement to an otherwise boring day?”

  “Well, for one thing, you’re currently juggling our sister,” Piper said through gritted teeth.

  “Okay, good point,” Puck said. The orbs stopped spinning, but they still didn’t turn back into Paige. “Is that better?”

  “Can we just cut to the chase?” Phoebe asked. “Threaten us. Try to do us harm. Anything, so we can get on with the vanquishing.”

  “My, but she’s a violent one,” Puck said. He emphasized the comment by scattering Paige’s orbs throughout the room and watching as they bounced their way back together.

  “Boingee, boingee, boingee,” he repeated as the orbs returned to one another.

  “She’s not the only violent one in the room,” Piper said. “We’ve gotten pretty good at taking care of demons that get in our way.”

  “Demon!” Puck said, revealing what could have passed for genuine anger. “Where in there does it say I’m a demon?”

  Puck pushed past Phoebe and went for the Book of Shadows. Phoebe noticed that the book didn’t slam shut when he approached it, but he hadn’t actually tried to touch it either.