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

by T H Paul

  The door to the bathroom flew open. Penny glanced over, desperate not to see her father and yet not dead enough to avoid it, the words finishing in her head as the door opened, but nothing in that suspended second made any sense.

  The man, having heard the footsteps, had also turned. There was no anticipation in his body language, however, only preparation. And fear.

  Into the bathroom, burst not the father of Penny, but six people. Four men and two women, the guys shoving Penny’s unwanted spectator to one side, pinning him to the wall, while the two ladies rushed to Penny.

  13

  I’m alive!

  My father might have read the final Harry Potter books, but he’d never adequately taken it in. Sitting inside that A&E that day, and much like the character Voldemort himself, I’d not made just one Horcrux, I’d made seven. I was playing the odds.

  And it had worked. These people had not brought me back from the dead, as such. I was still alive, barely, when they burst into my bathroom. My gift had shielded my artery. I’d cut myself, but it had ultimately protected me. And now I had control over it. Everything was about to change!

  It had taken some effort to get Penny out of the bath. The water had been emptied, towels thrown over the drenched girl. The two women, one a top-notch surgeon, the other a member of the police who’d been accompanying a formerly drunk man to the A&E that day, had done a great job on Penny.

  In the melee of those frantic minutes where Penny’s life had been in the balance, the man who had been pinned down had somehow escaped. None of the other six would ever recall there being someone there. Penny, later reflecting on it all, would realise he must have made them see through him, forget he was there or a thousand other things an Enchanti might have bestowed onto a human to escape. Penny stopped asking after a while.

  Penny was patched up, the visitors starting to leave. In the seconds before they had all burst in, Penny had felt and experienced so much. She knew it was all going to be different now, though not in the way she had imagined.

  She had more precise knowledge of what it was inside her, however. They were one, every individual parasite making a giant collective. It was funny that this same word had become the word the Enchanti used to describe themselves when talking in public.

  Penny also realised the parasite was as much a part of them as their skin. There was no separating themselves without it killing each host. Most evident of all, Penny now knew she had an element of control. The voice had confirmed that much to her. Penny felt a strength emerge that she had wondered, in those final seconds in the bath, if she’d ever feel again.

  Penny removed the ability from all the six people to be able to heal her. She knew she didn’t need that anymore. When everything was cleaned away, Penny’s wrist professionally bandaged, stitches firmly in place and all hidden under a dressing and a long-sleeved top, Penny erased the memory from each of her heroes.

  They each said goodbye, as if they’d come over for a dinner party, or to hang out. Penny waved them off, shutting the door behind her. Locking it this time. She was free, not free in the way she might have thought that morning, but in control of her own destiny for the first time in her life.

  What was refreshing for her had been the ability to still use her gift on people. Her powers were still in force. Yet, she knew she was different. It had changed something.

  What had happened entirely, she wasn’t yet fully aware. She knew a deal had been struck, of sorts, between the voice inside and the dying Penny. It had kept her alive. It wanted her more than it wanted to be trapped, captured and no doubt tortured. They had a mutual understanding.

  Penny called Lucy. She knew she wanted to see someone, to talk it all through, and Lucy felt like a good start. Penny was thinking more fluidly than she had in a long time. It was as if the collective mind of the entire parasite species was also at her beck and call. She could already sense that everything was going to be different from then on.

  As Penny pulled out of her street, she saw a police car parked outside the entrance to the park, two officers blocking access to the greenery beyond. That made her think about the police.

  No powers can be used on people surrounding, or in the vicinity of, my father she said. He’d killed an innocent woman, if not in person, then by his direct command. Penny knew, given a chance, his followers would protect him. They would use all sorts of tricks to enable him to evade arrest, but Penny was already onto them. Over the next five minutes, she spoke sentence after sentence, putting into place all sorts of measures that would limit his escape. She then called the police herself, giving the name of the victim, and adding the name of her father. Penny left no name when asked for hers, and ended the call. With any luck, her father would be in custody before the day was out.

  Penny said goodbye to Lucy just after six. She’d caught her friend up on the day’s events, even going as far as to show the bandage for good measure. Lucy had been shocked but lapped up everything.

  Penny came away realising there was so much she now needed to think about. Lucy was enrolled into a university, having pushed back her place the previous year with everything surrounding her brother’s absence. It reiterated to Penny that she hadn’t made any firm plans for her future. The more Penny chatted with Lucy, the more Penny liked the idea of a university. Somehow she would find a way of getting there. Exam results were due out in a few days time. That would show Penny what options she had open to her.

  Penny wanted to make one more stop before she headed home. There was another person she wanted to see again that day, and she hoped she would catch him before he finished work.

  Pulling into the carpark of the superstore, Penny was happy to see it was still open for another three hours. She walked in through the doors, the same doors she’d used several hours earlier. The two moments, however, could not have felt further removed had Penny tried. She headed for the kitchen displays. She spotted Desmond almost immediately. It took him a while, the lad doing a double take as Penny came across to him, a smile from him quickly reflecting the smile on Penny’s glowing face.

  “Hello again,” he said, as Penny stopped in front of him.

  “What time do you finish work?”

  “I’m off in an hour. Why?

  “Fancy a drink?”

  Penny felt freer than she ever had during her entire adult life. Earlier that morning, a caterpillar had stumbled into that same shop, purchasing the item that was destined to kill. Now, the butterfly had returned. Her metamorphosis was complete. Gone were the older guys who were always after just one thing. Gone were the days when she would be taken advantage of––by chancers or the parasite still living inside of her. She had control back of her own destiny at last. It was her’s to write. It was time to make a new life, a proper life, with people her own age. Millie was also on Penny’s to-call list after she’d taken Desmond’s phone number. Penny already knew she would need it.

  At seven, Penny was outside the store, Desmond emerging moments later. He’d changed out of the orange uniform and looked really good in jeans and a black t-shirt. Penny’s heart leapt. This was the beginning of the rest of her life. She knew what she wanted now, and that was no longer living a life of secrecy, no longer life in the shadows. And that was no longer a life to be taken advantage of by others, or abused by any man ever again.

  Most of all she didn’t want to be alone. She determined to help her kind, to release all Enchanti, and make breakthroughs in the knowledge of what it was that lived within them all. She wanted to educate the next generation, that what was inside wasn’t a toy, but it wasn’t to be feared, either. No longer should they live in secrecy, in terror or isolation. No longer should the choice of a family be a potential death sentence to one parent, either knowingly or in ignorance. The lid needed to come off, and for that, she would have to be the ambassador. Someone had to show them all a different way. A better way.

  In her eighteen years, she had seen a lot of terrible things. She’d seen the worse
elements of a very broken world, but now it could be fixed. The wrongs couldn’t be undone, as such, but the cycle of mistakes could be ended. No one need get hurt anymore. She had a new purpose.

  And she wasn’t going to do that alone. She wanted a family. She wanted children. And she was sure she could model a different way. Either that or she would repeat the same mistake her mother had made.

  But she wasn’t going to live in fear anymore. She was going to live life, and see what happened. That new life started right then, as Desmond tentatively took Penny’s hand and they walked away, not into any sunset, nor into a blazing sun, but into a very uncertain, yet hope-filled future.

  Tomorrow, after all, was unwritten. Penny intended it to be a great one.

  There you have it. Penny Black died that day, and even though I had the same name as I walked away from that store, with a man who I was about to fall madly in love with, I knew everything would be different. As would my name, in time. But that’s another story. I had time to enjoy how this one would play out.

  The only slight blip, as I saw it at the time, was the confusion around something Lucy had once said. I finally managed to ask her about it earlier. I recalled how once when I had asked her about Jack, and whether she’d seen him since, she had replied that she wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure? It never sat right with me. What had she meant?

  I asked her. She said it had been something she’d seen on the television, which sounded bizarre. She said she had been wondering about Jack, wondering where he had gone, what he had done since. She had been trying to find him online for the last year, assuming he was still out there, albeit thirty years older. She hadn’t been able to find anything. She had never had any contact with him, either.

  Then there was an arrest. Lucy said she paid little attention to it, but soon this man’s mug shot was everywhere. It was big news. And at that moment, looking into the eyes, Lucy had wondered. Was that her brother Jack?

  Titles in Season One

  The Powers of Penny

  The Parents of Penny

  The Heart of Penny

  The Dark Side of Penny

  The Rage of Penny

  The Joy of Penny

  The Darkness in Penny

  The Penny Black

  Two Brilliant More Seasons To Come!

  The Boy Lost Series (8 episodes)

  Penn Friends Season Two (8 episodes)

  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.

  So, season one is over. Did you see the note about there being two further series to come? The Boy Lost series will focus on who else but Jack Ferguson. You’ll learn things you never knew, and see a whole new perspective on a lot that has happened! It promises to be dark, intriguing and full of twists! So look out for it. Plus, we have to revisit Penny as she moves on from that moment we left her in. She has a lot of new challenges to face. I know you are going to love reading about Penny in that new phase of life. Can she be the pioneer she knows she needs to be? And at what personal cost?

  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. If not already in place, there will soon be some super cool stuff on the message function on Facebook, including the chance to create your own interactive story where you get to choose what happens next! Go check it out!

  Thanks again for following this series. The aim is that each book will be like 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 Novels by Tim Heath

  In Order of First Publication

  Novels:

  Cherry Picking

  The Last Prophet

  The Tablet

  The Shadow Man

  The Prey (The Hunt #1)

  The Pride (The Hunt #2)

  The Poison (The Hunt #3)

  Short Story Collection:

  Those Geese, They Lied; He’s Dead