by T H Paul
Then it was a group of three teenage shoplifters––two boys and a girl, the ringleader of the three––who Penny spotted in a local Matalan. Let anyone shoplifting in this shop declare the fact at the top of their voice Penny said. The three suddenly burst out shouting they were stealing. Heads turned, as the three continued to announce they were shoplifting. Funniest of all, they were joined by a man in the woman’s department, as well as by three members of staff! Penny soon undid it, not before each person had been clearly identified. She was sure the three who worked there would be heading home for the last time shortly.
Right around town, wherever Penny went, she lashed out at anyone deemed to be an inch over the line. She punished motorists, window cleaners, police officers, even an ice cream seller. For three hours Penny continued to cause havoc wherever she went. It wasn’t long before she’d caused too much fuss.
Justin found her outside the leisure centre.
“Penny, you have to stop,” he’d said, the moment she’d spotted him approaching and now that he was near enough for her to hear him.
“Stop what?”
“You are causing too much distraction. Your actions, they’re too much.”
So they’d been able to spot her? How? It made no sense. How did they know what she had been doing, and how did they know it was her?”
“But how?” Justin cut Penny off before she could continue.
“Follow me, and let me explain,” he started. “There are people, normal people, those gifted among us, who are able to tell when Enchanti activity is taking place.”
“How?”
“It’s not too hard really. These are people we trust. They are able to recognise the effects of an Enchanti on another person. The kind of behaviour that has occurred today was always going to touch someone’s radar. It’s why we have these particularly gifted people in place. Otherwise, anyone’s actions might reach the awareness of those who are not sympathetic to our race.”
“You mean regular people?”
“Penny, there is a big difference between using your gift to help somebody––to help yourself––and using it to highlight somebody.” Penny had always leant towards the latter. “That boy in the park––I presume that was you, anyway. He got bitten ten times and is in hospital, stable but in a difficult position.”
“He brought it on himself!”
“That’s not entirely true, now, is it. You made him a focus, somehow.”
“He needed to be taught a lesson.”
“By getting savaged half to death and being rushed to the hospital, you mean?”
“No, of course not.”
“What did you think was going to happen, Penny? I mean, seriously. What possible outcome could there otherwise have been?”
“He was a vicious bully.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Well, why can’t we make the guilty pay? I only punished those doing wrong.”
“Wrong by whose standards? Where do you draw the line?”
“Wrong is wrong, Justin, come off it.”
“Is killing your mother wrong?”
“That’s different. And you know it.”
“Is it?” He went silent, Penny not knowing what to say in reply. Of course, killing her mother was wrong. But she’d had no choice in the matter. That brat in the park had a choice. He chose to kick his puppy. Same with the shoplifters.
“Anyway, you have to stop. If too much happens, people start to ask questions. It doesn’t do us any good to draw attention our way.”
“Okay, I get it. I’ve stopped.” And she had. She’d been standing outside of the leisure centre for the last half an hour, not doing anything other than thinking. She’d not been inside the place since grabbing Jack from the female changing rooms. She’d never been able to bring herself to go in, the building tainted, her own actions regarding Jack all too clear. He had also deserved what she’d done to him. She didn’t regret drowning him. He did a lot of harm to others. He’d got what was coming.
“What set you off?”
“Set me off?”
“Last time I checked, you didn’t usually have dogs fighting one another to get at an eleven-year-old. Something must have happened.”
“I saw my father again,” she said.
“Blimey, that must have gone well if this is the effect he has had on you.”
“It’s not just that.” She didn’t know how much she should say. Was Justin one of Thomas’ secret fanatic friends? Was he actually on the inside and sent to spy on his leader’s daughter?
“If you ever need someone to talk to, you know you can always call.” She knew that. She had a number for him now, preferring that method of communication than via the forums. “By the way, Rogue sends his regards, says he misses seeing you around the threads and that you should jump online and say hi to him occasionally.” Penny smiled.
“Okay, I might just do that.”
6
I had a choice to make. Did I side with Justin and the way the Enchanti lived life, or did my father have the right kind of idea, that to be free, we had to be rid of what lived inside us?
Yet, how could I accept an aspect of what my father talked about without embracing it all? He had murdered Clive, I knew he had. He was a dangerous man. And he wanted to come after anyone I had around me who might otherwise be able to protect me. That was only Millie, at present, though the idea had been planted. Maybe I needed others? Perhaps I should add further layers of safety?
Or was that asking for trouble?
It had been nine days since Clive had been found murdered. The reports suggested that while the investigation was continuing, no suspects were yet on the radar. Penny switched off the television. She could very accurately point them in the right direction, though knew she couldn’t be the one to do that. Would there have been anything to link Thomas to the crime anyway? Had he actually done it in person? Penny let those questions drop. The images they gave her were not worth thinking about.
She was entirely free from the after-effects of the heroin. For that much, she was very thankful. It had taken the brutal murder of her pimp and drug handler to finally break those particular shackles off of her eighteen-year-old self.
A funeral and remembrance service had been held for Clive. It was attended by a large crowd, Penny included. Penny wondered how many, like her, were there with very mixed feelings toward the deceased. She had to have shown her face, however. To have not done so would only have raised suspicion––not that she had anything to be guilty about––but indeed, it would have looked odd.
Not that she did know him, not really. She had undoubtedly known about him, had known about his world. Penny could only imagine there was now a fight by others since his death, to move in on the territory that Clive had controlled so firmly. Penny felt well shot of the man, in all honesty. She was pleased he was gone, if maybe not in the manner of his passing, and especially in what she knew about the reasons for that.
But he had been wrong for her, not good. Any offer of help he might have given her was tainted. He’d used her––both personally, on several occasions for his own physical gratifications, as well as to sell her out to the highest bidder. He could rot in hell where he belonged. By the end of the wake, the crowd moving onto the pub where Penny worked and where Clive spent so much of his free time, Penny was quietly celebrating the fact inside that the earth was rid of such a monster.
Penny met her father for the third time that evening. She’d seen him watching the tail-end of the funeral from his car parked among the many journalists who’d reported the event.
This time they were alone. Penny was walking with him in the park, just around the corner from where it had all started for her. Penny had shown him the tree she’d climbed before first helping Abbey run.
“Abbey broke down in the Olympic final, didn’t she?” Thomas said, remembering something he’d wanted to ask Penny about ever since discovering his daughter on the forum.
�
��And?” Everything about Penny’s defensive tone told Thomas all he needed to know.
“Wow. Very few Enchanti ever learn that they can undo what they’ve given to someone. Those who do are usually much older; older than me as well, as far as I’ve discovered.” Thomas once more marvelled at the power and potential, not to mention the danger, therefore, held within his daughter.
“How did you know what I had done?” She’d not explicitly said anything about undoing Abbey’s gift.
“I’m a good reader of people. We also had someone at the stadium. They detected something had happened. You weren’t present in person, I take it?”
“No,” Penny said, amazed at the thought that someone had known what she had done.
“Amazing,” he said as if he was admiring some strong creative talent or a genius mind.
“She still went on to medal in the two-hundred-metre relay, though. How did that happen? I’d taken away the gift.”
“That, Penny, was just pure biology. Abbey had been gifted since the age of thirteen until the age of seventeen. Four years of hosting a power that had enabled her to run faster than anyone in her peer group. I have to admit, I often wondered about her, given the fact she used to be a neighbour. Of course, it was possible she’d held that talent, but it did give me some nights pondering if you’d been involved. So, over time, while she carried the gift, that gift carried and developed her muscles. Abbey became the runner your gift had created. At the end of that, even with the gift removed, she was left with a body sculpted by years of training. A runner's body. Of course, she won’t ever reach the heights that she was otherwise destined, but she’ll continue to be a very decent runner, if not an Olympic champion anymore.”
“Actions have consequences,” Penny said, a mantra that she’d read many times on the secret threads where most Enchanti existed.
“Exactly. Every time you change someone, you risk altering that person forever. Of course, unlike you, most Enchanti never learn that they can undo a gift, so they never see the difference. If, when older, they understand they can, the gifted person has been doing whatever it is they’d been doing for so long that, even with the gift no longer active, there is hardly a difference. So the Enchanti never connects the two things. But we change people, there is no other way of putting it.”
“And you would rather we didn’t.” It wasn’t a question as Penny knew that was precisely what her father was campaigning.
“What about those teenagers who aren’t now running because Abbey was the champion in their age group?”
“Sorry?” Penny hadn’t seen the connection.
“What about the other fifteen-year-olds, all with natural talent, who lost to champion Abbey? They drop out, Abbey goes on, but only because you made it happen. Abbey becomes the star, these others, all with raw talent who could have become champions themselves, are instead forgotten. Rejected and pushed aside by the star of that generation. A talent that had been manufactured. How different was Abbey, really, from drug's cheats?”
Penny looked up at her father at the mention of drugs but realised what he was talking about.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you. If someone pumps their own body full of steroids and becomes a champion, they usually get caught. These people aren’t allowed to win medals, to take podiums, robbing hardworking and drug-free athletes from claiming a fair prize. Yet, how is Abbey any different? Yes, she wasn’t taking any drugs and didn’t knowingly allow what happened to her. She was just the lucky benefactor of your gift.”
“I wasn’t trying to make her a champion. I was just trying to save her life. How was I to know that was all to happen?”
Thomas knew that, of course. Knew his daughter didn’t even understand what she had inside of her at the time. Abbey had been Penny’s first manifestation.
“You did a good thing. I’m just asking where we draw the line? What, if anything, is the difference between someone using steroids to win, and someone using the collective to become a champion, knowingly or inadvertently?” He made a good point.
“I guess there is very little difference,” Penny conceded.
They walked on a little further in silence, both lost in thought.
“I now know I wasn’t the only other Enchanti in my school. There was a girl in the year above mine.” Penny stopped there, not knowing how to further reference Lucy, who’d been on the thread with her father, who must have known him and vice versa. Penny didn’t know how to reference herself with Lucy regarding Jack. Did her father already know about Jack? Did he know what she’d done to Jack?
“I know,” he said as if confirming he knew all about Lucy. “It is quite rare, but not entirely unique to have more than one Enchanti in a school setting at the same time.
“Did you know?”
“Know? What, back then? No, of course not. She came onto the thread about three years ago, I think. She was about sixteen when she found us. She was worried about her younger brother.”
“Worried about Jack?” So Penny did know the younger brother, Thomas had never been sure of that fact.
“Yes. Lucy was worried about who Jack was associating with. I guess your last comment fills in the blanks for me.”
“Did Lucy know who I was?”
“No, she knew activity was happening around the school. Lucy had foolishly gifted someone with that ability. That person had detected some of your antics. A girl growing breasts overnight, then Lucy’s own brother. Abbey, of course, was already becoming the school champion. A young boy found the sudden courage to face a bully, a young girl first questioned her sexuality, a whole year collectively heard the thoughts of another student, albeit momentarily, as well as a load of other oddities.”
Penny could recall most of the incidents in which her father was explaining. She’d been responsible for them all.
“Things weren’t linked to only the school, either. I think it was at a cinema when she first became suspicious of you.”
“A cinema?” So Penny’s father had since been speaking with Lucy about her.
“Yes, once I made the connection to who Lucy was, I went back over everything she’d first discussed with me. Things fitted into place. She never said your name of course––the first I learned of you was in that final thread where I stumbled in on your conversation with the others. But she had said you, as it turned out, were often present when things began to happen. She’d once had to make a boy float to the ceiling to protect a situation you’d left. You’d made someone invisible, and her brother had smashed his head into the back of him, or something.”
Penny could remember the incident well. She now recalled Lucy sitting behind her, next to Jack. Lucy must have been able to sort things out the moment she realised. Had Lucy known from that moment onwards that Penny was an Enchanti too? Why hadn’t she reached out to her at the time? If she were sure of the fact, she wouldn’t have been breaking any rules.
“I’d not wanted to be spotted as being on a date. So I made this boy invisible. We were at the end of a row so no one would have suspected anything. Jack, however, was sitting right behind him, one seat on from me in the row behind. I guess Lucy was directly behind me. Jack was always trying to cause trouble. He leaned into what he thought was an empty chair only to smash his face into the back of the boy’s head. Claimed I punched him. We both got pulled out.”
“What happened to the other boy? The one Jack head-butted.”
“It all happened so fast. This boy was invisible, and I made him silent, but by the time I got back in, he wasn’t in the chair.”
“Agh, yes, this is the point Lucy would have twigged something was up. She made him float to the ceiling.”
“Yes, I guess she did. When I saw this boy after, he had come running out of the hall, claiming he’d been on the ceiling the whole time. I managed to convince him he’d been unconscious. It accounted for the lump on his head.”
“Do you know what happened to the boy since?”
“Jack, you mean?” There was a mild panic there. She wasn’t prepared to talk about what had happened to Jack anytime soon.
“No, the boy you were on the date with. The floating lad.”
“No, I don’t,” she said. The boy in question had not stayed on into college at her school. They’d not been in touch for a while, that cinema encounter the closest they’d ever got. The whole experience had apparently ended things before they could have got started.
“He’s just finished at a technical college focused on film and media. He’s taking a cinematography degree at university, with an emphasis on space travel and science fiction.”
“Wow.”
“He recounts an experience he once had imagining himself floating on the ceiling as his inspiration for why he got into it all.”
Penny went silent. She couldn’t help understand the connection. Her gift had caused consequences, yet, in this case, these seemed to have certainly worked in the gifted person’s favour.
“This Jack you mentioned, Penny,” Thomas said, again Penny reacting to the boy’s name being said in a way that spoke volumes, “he’s the one that went missing, right?”
“Sorry?” But she was convincing nobody that she hadn’t already fully understood.
“He was on the news, I recall, the other year. Never turned up after the summer. It’s the same lad, correct?”
“Yes, it is. Has Lucy ever spoken about it to you?”
“About her brother’s absence? No, she hasn’t. Why?”
“No reason, it's nothing, it’s just with you saying you’d spoken to her, I just wondered if she ever said anything. If you knew something the rest of us didn’t, that’s all.” Thomas was confident there was a lot Penny knew that he currently didn’t.
“You should speak with Lucy, now that you are on the inside.”