The Penn Friends Series Books 5-8: Penn Friends Boxset

by T H Paul

  I too am hooked on heroin. I don’t inject as you mentioned you do but understand the dependency thing. I can’t imagine the type of stress you must be under, in the industry you work. That wasn’t what did it for me; I was tricked into it, really, similar to what you said WRTHLSS01. You aren’t worthless, sister. We are all unique, every single one of us.

  Do any of you ever think that this is your destiny, however? That it is all you will ever be? I do, now. It wasn’t always this way, though I can’t see an obvious way out of it anytime soon. I also think I have the devil living in me. Seriously. Now you’ll all be freaked out by me, I know.

  I’m scared.

  Penny pressed enter and shut the laptop down. She’d said it. It didn’t matter what they would answer to that, if indeed, anyone would comment. She felt better for releasing, felt right about getting it out of her system. Besides, Clive was due around any minute as he had another job for her. Penny needed to get ready.

  The evening turned out to be a total nightmare for Penny, nothing like she had imagined. She hadn’t needed to work that night, after all, as would soon be evident.

  Clive had collected her at six and taken her a short ride from home. He said he would wait around the corner. The client only had an hour.

  Penny knocked on the door. Moments later, a middle-aged man with a smile on his face opened the door and froze on the spot.

  “Professor Manning? Penny said, dumbfounded to see her Biology teacher standing in the doorway, despite the fact it was his home. Manning swore.

  “Come in, for god’s sake!” he barked, his face red.

  “You’re the client?” Penny said, realisation flooding her as much as the shock of having to go through with anything had started to hit her.

  “You work for Banks?” came the equally shocked reply.

  “Aren’t you married?” Penny was confident Manning was, and a quick glance around the room confirmed her suspicion.

  Manning swore again.

  “You’re a student! What in god’s name are you doing working as…as…” but he couldn’t finish his own sentence.

  “As a hooker, is that what you are asking? That’s rich coming from you, a married professor who teaches young adults during the day! Does your wife know?”

  “Does she know? What do you bloody think? Of course, she doesn’t. This is my first time.” but he held no conviction there.

  “Like hell it is. And nothing is going to happen, sir,” Penny said. The whole situation was becoming surreal.

  “Of course it bloody isn’t, do you think I’m stupid!”

  “You won’t say anything?” Penny was much calmer now, which seemed to suck the rage from Manning, as he too came to his senses.

  “Of course I won’t! And I expect the same from you, too!”

  They apparently had an understanding.

  “And you won’t ever use the services of Clive Banks, or anyone else like him, ever again?”

  “I promise.”

  “Good.”

  “What about you? Penny, you have everything before you. Why throw it away for a man like that?”

  Penny could feel the warmth in his tone, and that Manning had a good point, yet Clive had been someone Manning had deemed legit enough from which to have hired a girl for an hour.

  “I need the money,” is all she said.

  “Things can’t possibly be that difficult for you? I take it your parents don’t know?” It would be a scandal if they did.

  “I’m on my own.” That was news to him, though he didn’t know much about the personal circumstances of his students. He recalled never having met Penny’s parents.

  “Here, take this,” Manning said, taking out his wallet and passing Penny a wedge of cash which he had evidently intended to pay to a prostitute.

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “Believe me. It’s the least I need to do. I’m sorry. For both of us. I can assure you this won’t ever happen again. I’ve learned my lesson. There is one hundred there. Please use it to get him out of your life.”

  It would take far more than that, Penny realised immediately.

  “You’d better go,” Manning added, opening the door ajar for Penny. She pocketed the money, and Manning opened the door fully for her, glancing outside to check no one was around, before stepping to one side so that Penny could leave.

  A minute later, Penny was getting back into the car.

  “Blimey, that was fast,” Clive joked. Penny sat silent as Clive drove her home.

  10

  I still laugh about that moment with Professor Manning. I don’t think he once looked me in the face at class after that, though every test I ever did came back with top grades. I stopped trying after that. Biology was going to be an easy pass.

  However, what I was to find at home waiting for me that night was to change everything forever. I’d finally heard back from User123456. They had accepted me into their secret world.

  Penny sat at her laptop. The message was still open in front of her, a link to the first thread just waiting for her to click through. They had told her that clicking through would take her to a conversation where she could finally be open with everyone, and others would be open with her. From there, someone would invite her into the most secretive forum of them all. That discussion was the reason for all the checks, the need for people like Rogue2017 and User123456 who were continually monitoring, continually trying to look for people.

  Penny didn’t need the drugs at that moment. She felt high just waiting, contemplating if she should click through, and yet she’d been waiting for that very thing. Why was it now a choice? Why was she hesitant in any way? Was it because deep down she knew they couldn’t help? That whatever they thought about her, they didn’t have the truth about her, that this was all some giant waste of time.

  She clicked through. It took her to an active thread, where both her two connections were regular commenters, plus a whole group of others too.

  WAI2001: I’m here, as instructed.

  Rogue2017: Great to see you WAI2001––welcome to the club!

  User123456: Yes, WAI2001 is in the house! IAME1, this is the one I was telling you about.

  IAME1: The one who says she saw darkness?

  User123456: Yes, the very one.

  IAME1: WAI2001, you’ll have to understand our hesitation, but Enchanti do not usually come on here and report what you say you saw.

  WAI2001: Enchanti?

  BIGSIS19: We have another newbie. #Awkward

  IAME1: Thank you BIGSIS19 for your timely input as always.

  Rogue2017: Yes, this one is fresh IAME1. She doesn’t know anything about who she is yet.

  WAI2001: Who I am? What do any of you mean? What is an Enchanti?

  IAME1: You can make things happen, correct, just with the power of your imagination?

  WAI2001: Yes.

  IAME1: You can only do this on other people?

  WAI2001: Yes.

  IAME1: You can’t do anything on yourself?

  WAI2001: No, I’ve tried that, it doesn't ever work.

  BIGSIS19: Haven’t we all!

  IAME1: Then you are an Enchanti WAI2001.

  WAI2001: How do you know any of this? How do you know who I am?

  IAME1: We don’t know who you are. But we’ve been looking for you.

  WAI2001: Looking for me?

  Penny couldn’t help feeling a little concerned about that. How did they know anything about her?

  User123456: Tell us about the first time WAI2001.

  WAI2001: My first time?

  Penny was beginning to have a mild panic.

  BIGSIS19: They mean the first time you did something, WAI2001, fear not. #Awkward

  User123456: She can tell us about that, too, if she wants––assuming there has been a first time. #Virgin?

  IAME1: That’s enough, Justin!

  User123456: Sorry, sir.

  WAI2001: I was out in the park with my friend Abbey. A dog was chasing us
, and I’d run to climb a tree, but she’d gone the other way. The dog had followed her. I froze inside. My stomach was, well, doing the thing it does. I knew if Abbey could run only faster, she’d be able to get away.

  IAME1: And she got away, I assume.

  WAI2001: Yes, ran so fast the dog gave up.

  BIGSIS19: Go you!

  User123456: What a way to make your entrance!

  Rogue2017: Awesome!

  Penny couldn’t take in how calm they all seemed, how naturally they took it in. She still had no idea what they meant by an Enchanti.

  WAI2001: What’s this Enchanti thing? Is it what’s inside me? Is it the darkness?

  User123456: IAME1, over to you!

  IAME1: Cowards! WAI2001, very few people have ever seen what you have seen, and I mean the darkness, the actual essence of what lives inside of you. We don’t know where it came from initially, but it is, in fact, a parasite, living inside your body as a host. You were born with it. It would have been passed on from your parent, father to son or mother to daughter. It attaches to every part of its host––stomach, where it first dwells, mind, hormones. Something happens in the human body during adolescence, which is why you experienced what you did at the age of thirteen. Your body spread what had only been in your stomach and connected it to your entire body. When the connection was complete, you manifested for the first time. I take it you have everything under control now?

  There was silence for a few seconds, no cursor response, no obvious answer coming from Penny.

  User123456: Hey, WAI2001, I know that’s a lot to take in, but we are here for you. You aren’t alone.

  WAI2001: I have a parasite living inside of me?

  IAME1: Yes, you do.

  WAI2001: I don’t understand. Nothing makes sense.

  IAME1: It’s okay. It’s always overwhelming when you receive news like this. It’s a lot to take in.

  WAI2001: A lot to take in? You’ve just said I’ve got something living inside of me that has been sitting there my entire life! Where did it come from? I’ve never been anywhere exotic. Was it something I ate? Can I get rid of it?

  IAME1: It was nothing you ate, and you didn’t catch it. It was passed on to you. It’s not of human origin.

  WAI2001: What?!

  User123456: Here we go!

  BIGSIS19: #MegaAwkward

  IAME1: It crashed to earth, as airborne particles. We don’t know when, really, or how. We certainly don’t understand why.

  WAI2001: I’ve got alien matter inside of me? Is that what you’re saying?

  IAME1: Of sorts, yes, but don’t think of it as little green men.

  WAI2001: What is it then? Is it the black stuff, that darkness I saw?

  Rogue2017: WAI2001, you aren’t alone in this. We are with you. We are the same as you, also.

  That last comment made Penny sit up in her seat. Were they all just like her?

  WAI2001: You’re all Enchanti as well?

  BIGSIS19: Finally we have lift off!

  User123456: I think she’s got it at last!!

  IAME1: Of course we all are. That’s why we had to be so careful about who we let in.

  WAI2001: Who you let in. Why?

  IAME1: There are some that don’t agree with what we do, don’t like the fact we exist.

  BEU4RL: What have I missed folks?

  User123456: Watch out, the fanatic's in the house!

  IAME1: Good evening, BEU4RL.

  Rogue2017: Now we have to be careful. WAI2001, BEU4RL is old school and a real hardliner. Thinks every Enchanti should be left alone, champions us all for more significant research, higher education.

  IAME1: And rightly so.

  User123456: If you say so.

  BEU4RL: Do we have someone new in our midst IAME1?

  IAME1: Yes, scroll back, and you’ll soon catch up. I’m just answering our newest Enchanti’s questions about us all. I could do with your input, I fear.

  BEU4RL: Will do, give me a second to catch up.

  Rogue2017: I’d run, WAI2001, while you have the chance! Lol.

  WAI2001: I’ll take my chances, thanks.

  Rogue2017: Your funeral.

  IAME1: I’m sending you links to all Enchanti forums, WAI2001, as well as valuable information on what you need to know. I’m sure that’ll answer a lot of your questions. Save repeating ourselves on here.

  True to form, a message appeared in Penny’s inbox at that moment. She would click on it later, as the conversation was still ongoing.

  Rogue2017: That’s the reading for your next week sorted then, WAI2001!

  BIGSIS19: At least that––try a month for me!

  User123456: You always were a bit slow, BIGSIS19! ROTFL!

  BIGSIS19: Piss off!

  BEU4RL: AWI2001, what was the name of the girl you helped escape from the dog?

  Rogue2017: Annnnd he’s back.

  WAI2001: Abbey. I’ve already said that.

  BEU4RL: The full name.

  WAI2001: Abbey Lawrence. Why?

  User123456: The athlete? Can’t be.

  BIGSIS19: Abbey Lawrence was in the year below me at school!

  BEU4RL: Penny, is that you?

  BIGSIS19: Penny? Oh, bloody hell!

  Penny sat frozen on the sofa at that tirade of instant messages, the words appearing before her eyes before she could fully take in the previous comment. How did they know her name? Who were these people?

  WAI2001: Who are you?

  BEU4RL: I think you know who I am, Penelope Amoli Black.

  WAI2001: Dad?

  11

  Nobody knew my middle name, besides my parents. I’d never told anyone that they had given me the name Amoli, which means Precious Being. It felt even more stupid than Penny Black already did. I never really felt precious, not to my parents anyway––certainly not my father.

  I did not move from that sofa for two days straight. I had to know everything, had to read it all. They had sent me all this information, everything about myself, something I would never otherwise get to understand and yet there it all was, in black and white on the screen in front of me. Craziest of all, I knew I wasn’t alone. There were others.

  To trump it all, as if all those revelations hadn’t been enough, my father had been on the inside of this group the whole time. A fanatic, they called him. Some fanatic, if he couldn’t even stick around for his only daughter.

  It was tearing me apart. For years I had made myself hate him. My mind, however, raced back to Blackpool, and the messing around I’d done with that fortune teller. She’d told me that he was looking for me. Now I knew what she meant. He’d found me.

  Penny hadn’t thought about drugs for a whole day as she devoured everything she could. She’d ignored the calls that had come in from Clive. He could wait.

  She’d read through information about what Enchanti were known to be able to do and what was beyond them. She’d never considered that there were things she was unable to do, but even as that thought formed, she recalled a few times her powers had seemingly failed her.

  An Enchanti couldn’t use their powers on another Enchanti. That perfectly explained to Penny why, the other day, when she’d wanted Rogue2017 and User123456 to only speak the truth, nothing had happened when she’d then asked them.

  Penny read all about what they knew of the origins of their species, and how the gift was passed on down the generations from mother to daughter, or father to son, but never to a child of the opposite sex. In those cases, it sat dormant for a generation. The child was a carrier, and if they produced the same sex offspring, the gift would be passed on. Penny understood why she’d never been able to use her powers on her mother.

  Disturbing still was the information on why they believed the child turned on the parent once the gift had reached maturity––which happened during adolescence. Penny recalled the voice in her own head the night she last saw her mother, and the anger Penny had towards her mother. It had been that same darkness making her do something s
he could never undo. That much was made clear in the information.

  Some parents had survived––the percentage only about thirty to forty per cent. Most Enchanti never had children for that very reason. Some, however, and in part to keep their species going, believed a family was the only way to go.

  Penny was fast emerging into a world of much debate. Some were working towards greater integration into real life, and a more open, vocal discussion on the roles of Enchanti in the modern world. The vast majority wanted things to remain as they always were. Enchanti were by nature secretive. The laws forbid Enchanti parents telling their children that they were now Enchanti––there had been no explanation as to why that was the case, but it had formed one of the ten unbreakable laws to which all Enchanti had to exist. It was number two, right after an Enchanti must not give away their existence to anyone who was not an Enchanti. It appeared secrecy reigned. Penny realised she must have broken nearly all of the laws over the last few years.

  Penny spent the following day working through a whole thread based on Enchanti in the workplace. She was fascinated by what she was unearthing. She had no idea about how integrated they were into society. Since the dawn of time, it seemed, Enchanti had been walking the earth along with regular folk. When banks emerged, there had to be a way found to protect a vault full of gold that might otherwise get accessed via the gift of invisibility. Penny could only recall her exploits with Jack. It seemed she wasn’t the first to have gone that way. Nowadays, therefore, every major bank in the world employed Enchanti to oversee security continually. They would come into banks and, usually unknown to most, give those on duty the ability to see anyone who was invisible––and a million other options.

  Just as cybercriminals were coming up with new ways to carry out crime online, so Enchanti were working hand-in-hand with institutions to make sure they were as secure as possible. That way, the two worlds could exist side-by-side, in a happy habitat where both were given the space to live.

  Penny thought about Jack and his antics in the leisure centre. Maybe she should offer some advice and reforms to the current code of practice? There were visible gaps in coverage of protection methods given the fact he'd been undetected. Maybe she shouldn’t bother to mention it, however––she’d given someone a gift of invisibility, and a permanent one at that. Evidently, she had already broken most of the Ten Commandments, as she’d already labelled them.