Dean's eyes were still glued to the pointer, but Phoebe and Piper looked back at their older sister.
"Me? I didn't do anything…" Piper protested.
But Phoebe sputtered a little. "The pointer on the spirit board!" she exclaimed. "It moved on its own."
Piper and Prue looked at them dubiously, but this time, Dean looked up, and saw the looks on their faces as clearly as Phoebe.
"Guys-this is serious!" he said harshly.
"It spelled A-T," Phoebe insisted.
"Well did you push it?" asked Piper.
Phoebe looked exasperated at the question. "No!"
"You always used to push the pointer," Prue responded.
"Listen to her! She's telling the truth!" Dean blurted. "It just moved! Our fingers were barely touching the thing."
"Look." Phoebe said in her own defense, putting her hands back on the pointer, then looked at Dean hopefully, but the boy just kept staring. The pointer didn't move. Prue sighed.
"Really you two, aren't you a little too old for these jokes?"
Dean rounded on her furiously. Even he could admit that when they were kids, he and Phoebe had been pretty bad about playing tricks on the rest of the household, but Prue knew damn well that Dean did not make jokes about the supernatural (to the point where he'd yell at Phoebe if she tried). Moreover he knew that this wasn't a laughing matter, something he did not want his cousins involved in. But, Prue and Piper were already walking away.
Suddenly, there was a scraping sound behind them, and Dean looked back to see that the pointer had jolted back and was now returning to its position at the letter T.
Phoebe yelped. "It did it again!"
Prue and Piper turned around, but it was Sam's voice that really startled everyone. "What did what now?"
Dean's eyes widened, and he looked back at his brother. "Sammy, go back upstairs."
Sam made a face at Dean. "What? Why?"
Prue sighed as she crossed back, pushing past Sam. "It's still on the letter T," she said, smirking condescendingly.
"I said go back up-"
"No. What's going on?!"
"I swear it moved," Phoebe breathed as Prue walked away, telling Sam to ignore them.
Piper looked back at her sister. "Seriously guys, stop," she said, just before Phoebe bounded back and the pointer skittered to the letter I. Sam looked away from Dean just in time to catch it too, and for his eyes to bulge at the sight.
"Dean!" he blurted, pointing.
Piper's jaw had dropped at the sight.
"You saw that right?" Phoebe said pleadingly to her sister as Dean turned back around moving in front of Piper and Sam like a human shield.
"I…I think so…" Piper muttered, moving closer to Dean's side too, a little shocked.
"We told you…" Dean growled before the pointer started moving again.
"Prue…Prue can you come in here a sec!" Piper blurted, getting shoved back a few feet as Sam struggled past the wall that was Dean, looking on in awe as the pointer got to the letter C.
"What is it now?" Prue sighed, walking back, her face straining with patience.
"I think it's trying to tell us something," Phoebe muttered, scrambling for an envelope that was somewhere on the table and a pen, and quietly writing the letters it had given them.
A-T-T-I-C
"Attic," she read, turning the envelope around just in time for a bolt of lightning behind her, illuminating the room for a second before the house suddenly went dark.
Sam's eyes went wide, and his hands shot out to find his brother in the dark. Prue looked around in confusion, and Piper was the first to speak.
"I'm getting out of here."
She started to skitter out of the room without another thought, and Prue and Dean immediately yelled after her. "Oh come on," Prue sighed.
"Piper!" Dean blurted. "Come back here."
"Nope. I have seen enough horror movies to know that saying will get us killed!" Piper shouted back at them.
"No, leaving the group is what will get you killed," Dean responded harshly, chasing after her and grabbing her wrist. "Piper, we've got to stay together. Trust me on this."
"Don't you think you're over reacting to this?" Prue asked in annoyance as she followed the two. Sam had grabbed her elbow and was following her closely, a little startled by the events starting to transpire. "We are perfectly safe here."
"No, we aren't," muttered Sam, knowing just like Dean did that this was not a joking matter.
"Don't say that!" Piper blurted at Prue. "The person that says that is always the first to die."
"No the first person to leave the group is always the first to die," Dean repeated, turning Piper so she looked at him. "Come on, Piper."
"I'm not staying here!" Piper blurted.
Prue sighed. "It is pouring rain outside, there's a psycho on the loose and where do you think you'll go- Jeremy's? He's not even home!"
"So I'll…I'll wait in the cab until he gets home from work!" Piper blurted, shaking out of Dean's grip to grab a jacket.
"Oh, that'll be cheap."
"Prue," Piper growled, turning to look at her sister as intensely as she could, "I saw that pointer move!"
"No," Prue sighed. "What you saw was Phoebe and Dean's fingers pushing the pointer."
"Excuse me?" Dean blurted indignantly, his lips curling back in a snarl.
"Come on, Dean!" Prue blurted, wheeling to look at him now. "You were always playing pranks, and this has really gone far enough. You're freaking out Sam and Piper!" She looked back at her sister, and pulled Sam in front of her so she could look at them both. "There is nothing in that attic, you hear me? Phoebe and Dean are playing a joke on us."
"No they aren't!" Sam blurted. "Prue, we haven't been able to get that door open ever! Not when Grams was alive, not when she died. Dean's tried to pick that lock eighteen times since he got here! Hell, I tried to pick that lock! You called a handyman and he couldn't get it open!"