by T H Paul
Penny took the following morning to walk the streets. Suddenly the shops, businesses and banks that occupied her part of town took on new meaning, a different level of interest. Were there Enchanti working in some of these buildings? Would she be able to spot them, would they know who she was? Had something been passed around a network of insiders, now that Penny’s true identity was known? Penny had a thousand questions running through her mind as she crossed the newsagents where Jack had first stolen a magazine for her, taking one himself too. Penny would not walk as far as the leisure centre, which sat at the other end of the high street and whose female customers, at least, now used the facility unobserved by her perverted former boyfriend. Penny corrected herself. She had only allowed him to get close to her so that she could give him payback. True, she’d enjoyed aspects of that relationship, but recognised now it wasn’t him that she had liked, but the fact she’d been able to reveal something of her true nature. That had felt good, always felt powerful. She’d thought it was what had connected them, why she should remain with him, but it was just the fact he knew about her and didn’t judge. There had been others since. Joy, notably, though she was now gone. Finally, there were these faceless users on the forums. Not only had they not judged Penny, they had openly accepted her. More than that, she was one of them.
She wasn’t faceless to at least two of them, however. One of these users had identified himself as her estranged father. She didn’t know who the other user was, yet. It had been years since she’d last seen her father. His reemergence had scared her. What would he now want? Would he want back in, as if reentering life, as if nothing had ever happened? Would he want back in on the home he once owned––still held, for all she knew––but a house he’d abandoned along with his family? Penny was confused.
Penny met Millie in a coffee shop three doors down from the bank. Penny had pondered entering the bank before meeting her friend but had resisted. Maybe another time.
“Hello Penny,” Millie said, smiling as Penny walked in through the doors. Millie was sitting at a table by the window. She must have been able to see Penny approaching.
“What you drinking?” Penny said, taking her jacket off and dropping it over the back of the chair facing Millie. It’d been a while since the two friends had spent time together outside of school, Penny realised as she stood there. Their lives had gone in different directions recently, as Penny now understood more than ever. Penny needed something to drink––her hands were beginning to shake a little. She needed a fix, but the most potent coffee that was on offer would have to do.
Five minutes later they were talking freely, Millie speaking mostly as Penny worked on her drink. Millie had said nothing about the trembling hands of her friend. If it had been a cold day, she might have put it down to something like a chill. It wasn’t, however. But Millie could see it in Penny’s eyes, the same look she’d seen in her older, albeit half-brother, in the weeks before an overdose took him from her life.
Penny had noticed the way her friend was looking at her. Make Millie able to share her thoughts with me Penny had thought after a few minutes of taking one too many odd looks. Over the next ten minutes, it was clear Millie knew about Penny’s drug habits. Penny undid the gift she had just given to Millie and looked to wrap things up. She suddenly didn’t feel much like hanging out with her former dance class friend after all.
“What’s your problem?” Millie snapped, as Penny made another reference about it all being a waste of her time.
“My problem?”
“Yes, you’ve been off with me for the last twenty minutes. What have I done?”
“Nothing, it’s me. I need to go.”
“Go? Where? Home?” Penny could see the contempt in her friend’s eyes.
“What?” Penny didn’t know what to say.
“You need help, Penn. Let me help you.”
“Help?” Penny laughed, half mocking, to push her friend away, though there was also desperation there too. Please help me; I’m not strong enough.
“I know you’re using drugs, Penn,” Millie said, whispering, so it kept between the two of them. Penny didn’t even bother to act surprised.
“It’s not what you think,” which wasn’t correct, though Penny meant she had not willingly got into it.
“Penny, I think you know that I know. My brother was a user.”
“You don’t have a brother.”
“He was a half-brother, lived with his mother after my dad left.”
“Was?” Penny couldn’t help but pick up on the sense that he was no longer alive.
“Overdosed himself, the stupid bugger. That’s why I know what you are going through.”
Penny didn’t say anything. She was caught out, knew she was.
“My father has been in touch.” Millie went silent, a little open-mouthed.
“When?”
“This last week. I think he wants to see me.”
Millie swore. She knew all about Penny’s troubled past, and she’d been around when he’d left Penny as a teenager.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” And she didn’t. “Look, I do need to go,” Penny repeated, now standing up and putting on her jacket.
“I’m here for you, Penn,” Millie said, now standing up herself, also putting on a coat. “Don’t do this alone.”
“I won’t,” Penny said, though she wasn’t thinking about her friend’s help at that moment, but those other faceless users on the forum. Plus a fix. She needed a fix. It had been too long.
User123456: What is it?
Penny had sent a message as soon as she’d arrived home before she’d succumbed to the bag of white powder that had been calling her name all the way home. An hour later, she was back at the laptop. A reply was waiting.
WAI2001: I needed to talk to someone.
User123456: Fire away, girl.
WAI2001: You are in the UK, right? Local to London, I gather.
User123456: Yes
WAI2001: Have you ever met BEU4RL in person?
User123456: Have I ever met your father? Yes, once.
WAI2001: When? I mean, was it recent, or some time ago?
User123456: A couple of years back, I think. He was speaking at a London gathering.
WAI2001: There are gatherings?
User123456: Occasionally. It’s dangerous to meet up too often. Some don’t think we should at all. Your father is one of them. Says we should put aside our gifts, live as simple a life as possible. Thinks we can master the darkness inside us all.
WAI2001: Master it? How?
User123456: Exactly. Who knows! Most don’t accept his hard-line approach. Others openly ridicule him, though he’s gathered a few hardliners, people that are rallying to his call.
WAI2001: Is BIGSIS19 one of them? She seemed to be around his threads a bit.
User123456: I wouldn’t know.
WAI2001: You ever met her?
User123456: A few times. Nice looking girl. We went for a few drinks, but only casual. She can’t be much older than you, WAI2001, and let’s face it. I’m not that young anymore.
WAI2001: Did you catch her name?
User123456: Lucy. Do you know her?
From all that Lucy had written in the previous thread, she could only be Jack’s older sister, in the year above Penny at school. Penny knew Lucy a little too well. Suddenly, a whole host of memories flooded through Penny’s mind. Encounters she’d had with Lucy, times where odd things had happened that Penny had not been able to explain. Had Lucy known all along that Penny was an Enchanti? That seemed unclear, as Lucy had seemed somewhat surprised when Penny’s father had outed her on the thread.
WAI2001: Yes, I know her.
User123456: Crazy, right, when you realise you’ve never really known someone you thought you had known.
WAI2001: Tell me, User123456, and be honest with me. Have we ever met?
User123456: I don’t think so, no. You’ve never been at any functions.
That was something, anyway. At least Penny could relax about to whom she might otherwise be speaking.
WAI2001: Can I ask your advice on something?
User123456: Sure. Fire away.
WAI2001: My father wants to meet with me. I don’t know what to think about that. Does it change everything now I understand things differently?
User123456: That’s not for me to say.
WAI2001: I hate him. Or I hated him.
User123456: What’s changed?
WAI2001: Everything, it seems. I know who I am now.
User123456: Well there you go.
WAI2001: Does that just mean, however, I should forgive him, that I should let him back into my life? That seems to be letting him off too quickly. He abandoned me.
User123456: Look, it’s not my place to go there, and I won’t. You’ll have to come to your own decision on that one. Your father has always been a man who has taken his calling, as he sees it, seriously. He’s been hardline for as long as I’ve been around here.
WAI2001: Hard line in what way?
User123456: Thinks Enchanti should live without dependency, for one. Doesn’t think we should use our gifts at all, in fact. It’s easy for him to say. He’s only a stage two host, anyway. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have the gift active inside.
WAI2001: What? I’m confused. Please explain all that.
User123456: You, me, people like us, we often use our gift on people around us to make our own lives better. I’m not talking about what you did for your friend Abbey when you wanted her to escape that dog. That was a genuine help. It’s a rare virtue, I assure you. Most often we are not like that. We know we can’t use the gift directly on ourselves, so we use people––common people––to give us protection. You must have done it, too?
A whole bunch of names sprang to mind, where Penny had done just that. Millie still possessed the gift of healing Penny if Penny was ever unwell or injured. Penny had deliberately never removed that gift for that specific reason.
WAI2001: Go on.
Enough said.
User123456: Doing nothing, not using our talent regularly as your father advocates, goes against the gift, however. If it’s not active daily, it wants to control us more and more. Your father thinks we can beat it by not giving in. He believes it’s possible to fight it, to free ourselves from it.
WAI2001: Is it?
User123456: You tried going a day without doing something?
It seemed a silly question. Penny had been going weeks without using it on people.
WAI2001: Yes, I have actually.
User123456: Really? Well, good on you. You have more resolve than I do. You must tell me your secret as to how you avoid all the adverse events from happening around you.
WAI2001: Adverse events?
User123456: You have read the sections on the side-effects of not using the gift, I take it?
WAI2001: No.
If it had been there, she must have missed it. Penny thought she had read everything.
User123456: The gift demands attention. If an Enchanti doesn’t use it regularly, it’s the parasite itself that causes trouble to come our way. You must have had some rough days, no? And I don’t mean when your father left home. I mean, if you’ve not been using your gift, even in a small way every day, you must have seen some crap coming your way unless you know something I don’t?
Penny had seen plenty that troubled her, though she had always thought she’d been the reason for that. Her mind raced with recollections. A rape, a pervert, a sexual predator. Being taken advantage of, being forced to sleep with men and being hooked on drugs. Was it just her gift that was doing this to her? Was her gift opposing her, working against its host? That was no gift. It was a curse.
WAI2001: It explains a lot, User123456. What did you mean when you said the stage two host bit when referring to my father?
User123456: Your mother was the Enchanti, which passed on to you. Your father, however, was the son of an Enchanti, but from his mother. He is just a carrier. He doesn’t experience what we experience. He doesn’t know what it’s like for us, not really.
WAI2001: My grandmother was an Enchanti?
User123456: Yes.
He couldn’t help but realise he was giving Penny an awful lot of information about her little piece of the world all in one go.
WAI2001: I never met her. She died before I was born.
Then it dawned on Penny. Most Enchanti children turned on the parent who had given them their gift, as Penny herself had done with her mother. Penny had not been strong enough to fight the temptation, had given in and done something she only half desired. It had overpowered her. Had she just been the unwitting host herself?
User123456: That’s why I never had kids.
WAI2001: But my father couldn’t have…you said he was only a carrier.
User123456: No, he couldn’t have. It could have been from natural causes, or you have an aunt somewhere that you never knew existed?
WAI2001: Very funny.
Though come to think of it, anything was possible when it came to her family.
User123456: I don’t know, kiddo.
WAI2001: So should I meet up with him? What happened with your father?
User123456: It’s not the done thing to talk about the parents of an Enchanti.
Penny had read that, and it was number ten on the list of rules. She must have officially broken them all, at least once, by now.
WAI2001: Sorry!
User123456: Many, especially fanatics, would call it a crime with what happens to our parents, even if it is only within our own kind. We don’t go around killing innocent people.
Penny couldn’t help recall the ones who had died because of her––not via her direct will, but as a side-effect of her using her gift. Was it the parasite that had killed, therefore? Was it the curse, the darkness living inside her that had caused all the harm to happen in her life?
WAI2001: Fanatics? You called my father a fanatic.
User123456: He’s probably right up there. I’m not sure entirely where he stands. Many fear your father, however. There are rumours.
WAI2001: Rumours?
It seemed odd to leave the comment unfinished. He must have known Penny wouldn’t be able to resist knowing everything.
User123456: Look, I shouldn’t be speculating. You need to make a judgement for yourself. Anything I say might only influence you one way or the other.
WAI2001: Is he dangerous?
User123456: I can’t answer that. Look, I have to go. Stay safe.
What did he mean that he couldn’t answer that? Penny knew he just had. As Penny came out of the private message she’d been in, there was another message sitting unread in her inbox. It had arrived five minutes earlier. It was from her father. He wanted to meet.
Author Notes
T H Paul is my pen name. I am in fact a seasoned novelist under my real name of Tim Heath. The titles (which are also links) for the novels I have written follow in the next section and are available on all good online retailers. Plenty to keep you entertained between Penny Black books!
I trust you’ve spotted that each book has a question that is asked at the beginning (before chapter one) and I hope gets answered by the end. I wanted to mention it here as it doesn’t show up in the contents list and many of you might just start at chapter one and read right through.
There will be eight episodes in season one. I hope you’ve enjoyed this seventh instalment, and are ready for the final one!
There will be a second series, plus at least one new spin-off where I focus on one of the characters who will feature in this season and take things….well, no spoilers here. But it’ll be awesome. Trust me.
So stay in touch. Message me on Facebook (fb.me/PennyBlackBooks), or Follow my author page on Amazon. Better still, do both. That way you will not miss a future release.
Thanks again for following this series. The aim is that each book will be lik
e watching a show on Netflix, small bite-sized episodes that you can complete in a day, maybe one commute, in fact.
I’ll see you on Facebook soon, I trust!
The Penny Black
Book 8––Penn Friends series
Have you thought about death?
1
‘We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.’ My father read those words to me just two weeks before he walked out for good. Did J.K. Rowling write in her fifth Harry Potter book only thinking about her characters and the world she had made or was it also for people like me? Enchanti.
I would read the final two books in that epic series by myself. My father was gone.
Just as that series concluded with the spilling of blood, my childhood and entry into adulthood were rushing headlong to the same outcome. Someone had to die.
With everything I’d learned that previous year, as I finished my A-levels and contemplated university, and with everything that had come to light about who I was, and what was living inside of me, I wondered afresh. Could I carry on much longer knowing all this? My life had become a vicious circle––I didn’t recognise who I was anymore as much as I was learning about myself.
Something had to give, and it would, in equally spectacular fashion. I was going to have to die.
The end of college came swiftly that spring, as lessons ended, and revision started. Soon the first exams were about to take place. Penny’s eighth and final exam was scheduled for the first week of June. Then she was done. Free and able to do whatever she chose to do, as were all her fellow students. Results would not be sent out for nearly a couple of months, and those waiting to know about entry into their university of choice had an anxious eight weeks biting their nails.