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

by T H Paul

  It would only be that evening when Penny would get the chance to read through what had been written. Thomas had been notified of the requests by Penny for access to the restricted material. He had hesitated for a time but realised his daughter was the perfect example of the kind of Enchanti he was looking for. She was powerful, and she’d seen the darkness itself. If anyone was going to be able to show their kind what was possible, it might be her. He had been prepared to lose her once. If her death meant greater knowledge for all––and maybe the chance to finally be free––it was a sacrifice he would allow his daughter to make. He wasn’t going to stand in the path of real progress in this particular area of research and personal passion.

  9

  I’d read everything up on those threads until the early hours. I felt tired, but sleep wasn’t possible. Too much was running through my mind as I tried to fathom what was being discussed. It appears that there is so much we don’t know about our kind.

  I left a few questions––it didn’t bother me that my father would see these. He knew I was on the thread, as he’d granted me access. It might even give us something in common.

  Most fascinating of them all was a theory about death. The thread was talking about trying to catch the darkness––the same thing I’d seen after that truck accident. That sounded far-fetched. Their theory was that trapped and contained, and that outside of a body, it could be controlled. It could be threatened. We could be free. It sounded ludicrous, and even those supporting the idea had no idea if it would be possible. There was also a lot of debate in how to get the parasite to actually show itself. No Enchanti had ever been able to survive and give up what was inside of them. It was, therefore, a highly questionable study.

  I had another theory, however. Could I temporarily hot wire the parasite, for example, by stage-managing my own death? Could I kill myself to free myself, and have my gift carrier––that visit to the A&E having put everything in place already––bring me back to life? Would I then, in the moments just after, have the ability to control my parasite, to access it, to overpower it? Could I regain control of my own body?

  It was a wild plan for sure. I’d researched everything there was on Enchanti being able to come back to life. There was no information on that topic, however. Dead was dead. But was it? There would be only one way to find out.

  Penny was on her way to have lunch with Lucy. The two girls had been chatting a little online since their first meeting, and something resembling a friendship was forming, though there were too many shadows to call it that just yet. Too much still needed to be aired. Penny hoped lunch at an Italian restaurant she had been recommended but never managed to get to, would give them both that chance.

  Outside, Penny had once again been followed, the man on his telephone when it was clear who Penny was meeting with.

  “Thomas, it’s me. Penny is with Lucy again.”

  “Okay, set up the relay. Let me know what the girls discuss,” is all Thomas replied. The call ended. A relay would involve an Enchanti giving someone on a neighbouring table to the two girls both the gift of being able to hear every word spoken and the gift of telepathy to send it to the man standing outside. It was better than had the table been bugged.

  Inside, both girls were sitting down. To anyone around, they were two young friends hanging out. Penny felt far from sure about their actual status. The next hour could go so many ways. After a few minutes, they had ordered and were through the opening niceties. Formalities now done, Penny jumped right in.

  “Lucy, I know this can’t be easy, but I’ve often wondered, why you and your father have never had a funeral for Jack?”

  Lucy stiffened noticeably at the mention of her brother’s name, though her face let out a half smile as if to say finally we are talking about Jack.

  “It’s because he’s only missing,” she said, a little woodenly, before adding. “Do you really want to do this here, now?”

  “Do what?”

  “This conversation. Talk about my little brother Jack and what might or might not have happened to him.”

  “What might have happened to him? Lucy, he’s gone. I think it’s time you accept that, bury him and move on.”

  “Move on? Besides, there is not a body to bury. He’s missing.”

  “He’s not missing, Lucy.”

  “How’s he not missing? You know where he is then?” Penny looked up at Lucy at that moment, though she wasn’t being accused of anything, it was clear. It was just a statement. “He seems to be missing to me,” Lucy added as if to clarify the point.

  “What if you never find him?”

  “Then we never find him.”

  Penny couldn’t help but feel moved by Lucy. She wanted to reach out, to make it better for her, to remove the question from her, remove the doubt. But how do you tell someone their brother isn’t coming home?

  “And you’d just wait for him to return?”

  “No,” Lucy said. Still no tears.

  “He’s not coming home, Lucy.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?” It seemed a sudden shift from the he’s not dead, he’s only missing stance from seconds before.

  “Look, leave it, Penny. Really, it doesn’t matter.” Penny was glancing up at Lucy, her eyes burning into the blond-haired girl sitting opposite her, but Lucy couldn’t hold eye contact. She was staring at her lap.

  “Do you know something about what happened to Jack, Lucy?”

  “Of course I don’t,” she said, though there wasn’t clarity there.

  “He’s dead, Lucy,” Penny said, reaching over and putting her hands over Lucy’s, trying to offer some comfort even though inside she was reeling from what she’d just said.

  “He’s not dead,” Lucy stormed, pulling her hand free from underneath the girl now offering her fake sympathy, the girl who had tried to kill her brother.

  “He is, Lucy. He is.”

  “He’s not dead!” Lucy was looking Penny square in the face, her eyes alive, her passion visible. Penny knew Lucy was telling the truth.

  “He’s not?” Doubt for the first time filled Penny’s mind. Panic too.

  “I know what you tried to do, but I stopped it. I saved Jack.”

  “You stopped it? Hold on. What do you mean?”

  “In Margate. Him flying. I saw it all. I was there!” It was Penny who broke eye contact. She was there? What did that mean?

  “And?” Fear was running through Penny like she had never felt before, akin to the time she’d seen the darkness in the flesh, and yet this was different. This was of human origin, yet equally, earth shattering.

  “I protected him.”

  “You did what!” Penny was screaming now. Heads were beginning to turn.

  “What did you expect me to do?” The question caught Penny off guard. She calmed a little before speaking.

  “I didn’t expect you to do anything! That’s the thing. Where is he?” Suddenly Penny needed to know that for sure. She couldn’t live with the thought that he was about to surprise her somehow, and yet it had been over a year since he’d gone, and nobody had seen him.

  “He’s gone.”

  “Gone? What do you mean? Gone where?”

  “You have to understand, I only did it because he was my brother. I owed him that much. He was messed up. Reflecting, I think you probably had something to do with that.” Penny didn’t say anything. Lucy continued. “I know he was into all sorts of crazy stuff by the end. You’d let me know about the material he had stashed in his bedroom. Dad freaked. I knew something had broken in Jack. I didn’t realise how bad it had become.

  When you arrived at our house that day, suddenly back with Jack, suddenly heading off to Margate, I suspected something was up. I also guessed you were in the collective by then. You had to be. Anyway, I followed. I was on the train, a few carriages down.”

  “I didn’t see you,” Penny said, though she realised it didn’t matter.

  “I was careful. I didn’t want J
ack to know. I had to be sure about you. I followed at a distance, watched you walk from the station. Watched Jack vanish in broad daylight. You really shouldn’t ever have allowed my brother to control his own gift.”

  “I know,” and Penny did. She’s been too naive to allow Jack that freedom.

  “I saw what he tried to do with you on your picnic.” So Lucy had been watching, and there was compassion on her face now. “I knew you’d had enough, knew you were planning on something. I just didn’t know what. It was only when he started flying that I got suspicious. I also didn’t know we could take back a gift we’d given. You taught me that much about myself that day. Mind you, I still can’t do it.”

  “You can’t?” Penny said, but it was an unanswered distraction.

  “I didn’t let Jack drown.”

  “You didn’t?” Penny had felt guilty ever since that she’d intentionally killed Jack, though he was not a person deserving of mercy by that point. He was a monster. Yet, the thought that Jack hadn’t ceased to be that day scared her more than anything.

  “I kept him above the water, kept him safe until I could reach him. You’d gone by then. I could break cover.”

  “And you saw him again?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said, the last glimmer of hope that Lucy hadn’t been able to save Jack leaving Penny at that moment.

  “When?”

  “Sometime after. I said Jack had to leave. He was happy to. He knew what he had become. Your attempt on his life had been a wake-up call.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. But I’d just seen you do two things that my gift had never been able to do, nor had I thought possible. You’d made someone fly, and you’d reversed a gift. So it gave me an idea. Could I make someone go back in time.”

  “Go back in time?”

  “Yes, the only safe place for Jack was to be away from this all. He was open to the idea. He knew his crimes would catch up with him if he remained. There was nothing good for him here. In the past, however, he was a free man. He told me about the rape.”

  “When?”

  “That day, after I’d saved him. I wanted to know why you’d tried to kill him. He opened up to me. Told me a lot. I’m sure there was more he left out.” Penny was certain that would have been the case as well. “He pleaded to be given a second chance. I told him this had to be it. He had to go, move abroad and live his life in peace, and that I could never see him again.”

  “And have you ever seen him again?”

  “I’m not sure.” That answer filled Penny with confusion, but more pressing still was where she’d sent him.

  “So what did you do to him?”

  “I demanded him to tell me what you’d given to him, got him to prove it after. He showed me invisibility. He could no longer fly, of course.” That ability had gone moments before his supposed death. “I counteracted that gift. He couldn’t be allowed to control it anymore, though he pleaded with me. Insisted I allow him the use of it once more, as a backup, in case he was ever in a life-or-death situation. I agreed, on one condition.”

  “Which was?”

  “I’ll get to that in a moment. Before that, we discussed how far back Jack should go. Remember, until that day, I’d never considered this as something within our power, within my power. I still can’t be certain it worked, of course, but he did vanish.”

  “Might he not have just vanished from what I’d given him? He had the power to control that?” It was highly possible. Lucy hadn’t known for sure how to override a gift, though it had worked before, she had been able to otherwise control the effects on the gifted, especially on her brother. She’d had protections put on him before when she suspected others were trying to influence him, even if she hadn’t been entirely successful. Penny had undoubtedly affected him.

  “It’s possible, though I think I would have heard something since. I think Jack would have shown up.”

  “So he could actually be around here still?” Penny couldn’t escape the feeling he could be watching her at home, could be still in those changing rooms, anywhere.

  “No, I don’t believe so. And besides, there are people in the world who can see invisible people, remember. Someone would have spotted him by now. He had his picture posted everywhere when it first happened. If he was walking around, someone would have seen him. No, Penny, I’m certain it worked. Either that, or it killed him trying. I’m not aware of anyone ever trying it before. There is nothing on the forum about it.” Penny knew that was true. There were theories on nearly everything, but Penny was aware nobody had contemplated time travel. Penny was mildly impressed by Lucy for having been such an advanced thinker.

  “So what did you do to him?

  “He needed distance. I couldn’t take him back during my lifetime, for example, though he didn’t want to go back too far. He wanted to get to America, and the only way I could think was via a plane. I didn’t want to attempt time and space travel. Sending him back in time would be enough. So he would later have to make his own way across to the States. I had, therefore, to only send him within modern history, when flights were readily available. I sent him back thirty years.”

  “Thirty years? And it worked?”

  “Like I said, he vanished. I did use one condition, though. I told him that while he could make himself invisible once again, that had to be only in an emergency, and if he used it, it would send him back another thirty years. That way whatever he was escaping would be impossible to revisit. I also didn’t want him going invisible again.”

  Penny swore under her breath. It all sounding so ridiculous, and yet, knowing what she now knew, Penny was aware much was possible.

  So Jack hadn’t died. He’d lived out his years somewhere in America. Did that mean, now, there was a guy in his late forties living in the USA who had once been the Jack Ferguson who Penny watched rape Abbey Lawrence?

  Penny arrived home later that night, her head spinning. She went back to the forums. There was indeed nothing on time travel, no theories even thrown out there about the possibility of it. Had Lucy really been the first Enchanti to ever try it? Were there others?

  And could Penny now live in a world she knew Jack still existed? Even if he was a much older, much calmer man, living a secret life, probably under an assumed name. Had Jack really been paid back for all the harm he had done? Had Jack been deserving of a second chance, and yet that was what Lucy had given him.

  A depression fell upon Penny that night that would not lift until it was too late. Suddenly, she felt all purpose, all longing drain from her. Jack had been let off, and there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t go on like this. She needed to be free.

  10

  That next month was going to change so much. If I’d known my father was onto me, that he had people following me, I might have been better prepared. I wasn’t.

  I also didn’t know a habit my father had carried on despite leaving home. For the year before he went, the year before I changed everything with what I had become, it had been his nightly routine to read with me before bed. It’s probably one of my fondest memories. Mum was already too drunk then to be of any help, their marriage all but over.

  But dad would read to me, and as any twelve-year-old will tell you at that time, the book series of choice was, of course, Harry Potter. We’d read up to book five together. I finished the series by myself.

  Yet, wherever Thomas had fled, he’d carried on. I would learn too late about that, as you’ll see.

  My big secret now rested on the secrecy of my own little Horcrux, just as the Voldemort character that Rowling had so beautifully crafted. Mine didn’t exist in an object but in the human body. That visit to A&E had given me that much. Just as the villain of Harry Potter got to live on while his Horcrux existed, so I had a chance to beat death too.

  Except, my father knew. And I’d already learned about his view on dependency.

  Penny had put everything else on hold for the time being. The CV sat unsent
on her laptop, the universities remained unresearched. Life had to wait. Nothing now mattered compared to putting everything into place.

  None of it would be required if Penny went through with what she had in mind.

  The world was still, and forever would be it seemed, tainted by the knowledge Penny now had about Jack, that he wasn’t dead, after all. That he had survived, been given a little more time. He might even still be alive, walking the streets of some American city, or hiding in some backwater town in the middle of nowhere.

  Penny had looked up names on the internet, but there were too many to go through in the USA, and Penny was sure he would have used a different name. It mattered little, at the moment. Penny had more important things to think about.

  Justin had been in touch again, as had Lucy, but Penny left the messages without replying. She was a girl on a mission.

  What Penny hadn’t settled on, was how she should actually do the act. How should she kill herself? Penny had been openly wording it like that, each time getting a kick in her stomach, it seemed. The parasite knew what she was thinking. It feared death. But why?

  Penny went for a walk. She needed to speak with Joy, albeit the memory of Joy, one last time, not so much to say goodbye but to just mark the connection she had with the Nigerian. Wherever she now was, maybe Penny would soon be joining her? Penny also needed to think through how best to do it.