Chapter Eleven: The New Penz

 

Chapter Eleven: The New Penz

            Si was never one to criticize the conditions of another’s mode of transportation, especially someone as unfortunate as Amos Crook – who could hardly afford a proper house, but sitting in the rickety Studebaker pickup truck he loaned Skeeta to drive to Malfoy Manor had taken its toll on her backside.

            Skeeta occasionally noticed how she squirmed on her side of the conjoined car seat that squeaked constantly while the vehicle was in motion. “What’s the matter?” he asked Si.

            “Somethin’s been pokin’ my butt since we left – I think it’s one of the springs in the seat,” Si griped. “As much as I hate to say it, Mr. Crook’s car is slower than molasses.”

            “Candace,” Skeeta scolded her in that fatherly way she remembered when they were both in their original incarnations of “Steven Curtsinger” and “Candace ‘Zoe’ Curtsinger”; and doing it while addressing her by her Earth-born name added to the admonishment.

            “I’m sorry, Pop,” she calmed herself. “I’m just so mad right now for what the Malfoys have done to all those poor men they have working for them while feeding them to Cthulhu.”

            Skeeta nodded. “I understand, hon, but I still feel uneasy ‘bout lettin’ you go in there alone.”

            “I’ll be alright,” Si reassured him. “I’m well over 20,000 years old, Pop. I’ve handled worse than this. Ouch!” She jolted as that same protruding spring once again poked at her backside. She tried sitting sideways, leaning to her right and hugging against the passenger side door, which itself felt like it was on its last few hinges.

            “Regardless, I’m just a telepathic call away if it goes south…no pun intended.” Skeeta saw Malfoy Manor just ahead. It was the first instance he had seen it up close. Its Victorian style was too posh for most mansions in Louisiana, particularly in that time period. And yet it still managed to pull off the typical plantation aesthetic.

            Passing through the expensive parked vehicles of the Malfoys’ fancy guests made Si sick to her stomach. A valet – an elderly black man with thinning gray curly hair and a goatee to match – waited for them as they pulled up. He was dressed up in a velvet jacket, a pressed white shirt, a black bow tie, and matching black slacks. It all looked very uncomfortable for him to wear. “Sorry, ya’ll,” he told them. “Dis ‘ere party’s invite only.”

            “Meanin’ only the white folks are allowed?” Si presumed as she stepped out of Amos Crook’s rickety Studebaker, her short-skirted black dress stunning the old valet. He wasn’t quick to question how a young white girl in a fancy dress ended up riding along with a black man – though the thought did cross his mind.

            “I’s mistaken, young lady,” he told Si. “I only saw dat dere hairless brotha dere and thought…”

            Si gave the old valet a gentle pat on the shoulder and kindly said, “There’s no need to apologize, sir. May I ask what your name is?”

            The old valet was taken aback, not just from the fact that a young white girl addressed him as “sir” for the first time in his long life but also from her interest in his name. He stammered as he answered, “I-It be G-Grady, m-ma’am.”

            “Well, Grady, you take this,” Si handed him a huge diamond that she retrieved from her bigger-on-the-inside purse, “and you leave this manor right this instant and return home to care for your family.” Grady struggled to refuse her more-than-generous gesture, stammering just as he did a while ago. But Si insisted before he could get it out, “Do it for your own good, Mr. Grady. You live down by the boonies not far from here, don’t you?”

            Grady gave a slight nod. “Y-Yes, ma’am.”

            Si gestured to Skeeta and told Grady, “This gentleman will give you a lift. Just watch out for that spring poking out of the seat – it’s a real pain in the butt!”

            Grady looked back and forth between Si and the open passenger side of the rusted Studebaker, finding it hard to believe this opportunity was being offered to him. He swallowed hard and did something he knew was risky to do, but he did it anyway with the gratitude that swelled within him: he hugged Si.

            Si was momentarily surprised by the hug Grady gave her. It was enough to bring a smile to her face and a few tears from her eyes. The hug lasted for nearly a whole minute before Grady hopped right into the Studebaker and rode away from the manor with Skeeta. Si watched them leave with a breath of immense satisfaction. One down…dozens more to go, she thought to herself, wiping away the tears from her unwavering eyes as she marched into Malfoy Manor.

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            The sun was setting awfully fast – too fast for Penz’s standards. He needed what sunlight he still managed to have to see his way through the woods. He lost track of the other men. They might as well have been scattered throughout the woods, as far as Penz was concerned. It was probably better that they were. If word already got out on the mass escape of all of Malfoy’s slaves, it was just a matter of time when Lucius sent Bubba Joe and his posse out for them.

            Then again, they were taking much longer to pursue this time than when Henry Dobbins made his run. Penz had been running close to a full hour, and he didn’t hear a single bloodhound in the distance.

            To say it made him a little paranoid was an understatement.

            So many possible scenarios ran through his Time Lord brain, the biggest one being whether or not if it was a trap – a false sense of security to lead Penz and the freed men on before Bubba Joe, his posse, or even Malfoy himself sprang out from behind a tree and caught them.

            Whatever the case of the delay was, Penz didn’t let it keep him from finding suitable clothing. With nightfall edging closer every second, the cold air began to settle on his naked skin, and he grew tired of being shirtless. It was even more of a burden with the disciplinary marks on his back from his time in the cavern exposed.

            In his trek through the woods, he spotted a white tee and denim overalls pinned on a clothesline. “It’s about time,” he muttered as he plucked the clothes off the clothesline and put them on. Unfortunately, they were nowhere near his size – it was enough of a struggle just to put the white tee over his muscled frame and get one of the straps buttoned.

            “You ain’t takin’ muh clothes, boy!”

            Penz stiffened when he heard the threatening hick-accented voice of a furious white man yell out towards him. Undoubtedly, it was one of the property owners. He caught a fleeting glimpse of him before he started running again. Although the voice sounded big and burly, the man it belonged to was short and skinny (possibly the owner of the undersized tee and overalls).

            It wasn’t like Penz couldn’t have easily taken him out, being just one short and skinny white man living out in the middle of the woods in an old shack…

            …with his double-barred shotgun!

            Penz caught sight of it in his fleeting glimpse of the man, prompting him to run.

            BLAM!

            He felt a sharp sting in his back – the property owner got him. Thankfully, it didn’t deter his resolve to keep running, though with a wounded back and clothes that hardly suited his buff frame, he was in more discomfort than he was when shirtless.

            With no other choice, he initiated a telepathic link with his brother.

            Skeet! It’s Penz! I got all the boys out, but I’m hurt…hurt bad, man!

            Not very far from his location, Skeeta continued along on his drive back to the boonies. Grady sat next to him, marveling over the huge diamond that Si gifted to him. He asked Skeeta something that the Time Lord didn’t quite catch, presumably about who Si was and Skeeta’s relation to her. Grady’s voice was drowned out by the telepathic cries of Penz.

            Skeeta responded accordingly.

            What happened?

            Some redneck idiot shot me! That’s what happened!

            There’s no need for name-calling, Penz.

            There is when some redneck idiot shot me!

            Alright, alright. Where are you?

            The heck if I know. But I must be pretty close, if our link is this strong. Wait a sec…is that you in the ol’ busted Studebaker pickup?

            Yes. I’m right along the old road back to the boonies.

            I see ya! I’m headed your way. Stop when you see a young strapping black man in denim overalls one-size-too-small and with his back bleedin’!

            Even though Penz sounded like his usual witty self to Skeeta, something about his demeanor in the link spoke otherwise. Penz was scared. The wound he had must’ve been more severe than he played it out to be.

            To Grady’s confusion, Skeeta slowed the Studebaker down a little.

            “Why’s we slowin’, brotha?” Grady asked, and he received his answer as soon as Penz limped along the old dirt road. His old eyes widened when he recognized the young injured black man. “Hey-hey, I-I knows dat youngin’! He one of duh boys dat was down in duh cellah! He been shot!”

            Skeeta and Grady got out of the pickup and helped Penz onto the truck bed.

            “Please don’t tell me you got yourself shot over these clothes,” Skeeta derided his wounded brother.

            “Alright, I won’t tell ya,” Penz mocked. “But I will tell you this: I saw my niece and your daughter down there in the caves.”

            “Alicia,” Skeeta acknowledged. “Yeah, I know. One of her future regenerations was with me a while ago. Her name is Si.”

            “Oh, yeah?” Penz reacted in interest. “And where’s she?”

            “I just dropped her off in Malfoy Manor.”

            Penz chuckled. “No matter the regeneration, Neas will always be Neas. Alicia’s still back at the manor, too.”

            “What?!” Skeeta exclaimed. “Why is she still there?!”

            “To find Cthulhu.”

            “And you didn’t stop her?!”

            “She didn’t even know who I really—ACK!” Penz writhed in pain. “Aww, man! That dude got me good! I got no other choice, bruh! I’m gonna have to regenerate!”

            “Over a flesh wound?!” Skeeta could hardly believe how vainglorious his own brother was. “Penz, I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be treated with simple medicine!”

            “You don’t get it, bruh!” Penz argued. “My body was perfect! I couldn’t bear to have the blemishes – a constant reminder of what those rednecks did to me – on it for the rest of my current life! I have to regenerate!”

            “W-What he mean by re-regen…What he mean by dat he said?” Grady asked.

            Skeeta groaned in aggravation between Penz’s insistence on regenerating and Grady’s inevitable witness to it. “Mr. Grady, I am so sorry,” he told the Malfoys’ former valet. “But you’re going to see something that will confuse you…maybe even frighten you. I promise you, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

            “I ain’t scared, brotha,” Grady told him. “I’s seen ‘nuff tuh give any ol’ negro nightmares.”

            “Then brace yourself, old man,” Penz warned. “‘Cause I’m about to—!”

            Before he could finish his final declaration, Penz’s wounded body exploded with golden energy bright enough to irradiate the dark country road. It was too bright for Grady’s old eyes to even look at, turning away from the spectacle until the light dissipated. When he turned to face the truck bed again, the young muscular black man lying there had been replaced by a young beautiful white woman. She was blonde with fair skin and eyes as blue as the overalls that now fit her new frame, which was much slender and daintier than her predecessor’s.

            The new Penz sighed in great relief, able to sit up without any agony. “Ohh, man!” Her new voice sounded as delicate as her new body. “That feels sooooo much better!”

            “I can’t believe you wasted a regeneration like that,” Skeeta voiced in disapproval.

            Penz smirked at him. “It wasn’t wasted, bruh. My back doesn’t hurt anymore.”

            “Yeah, but you don’t look like you anymore either,” Skeeta told her.

            Penz frowned. “What’re you talkin’ about…?” Her fingers poked through the holes in the back of her overalls, left from the buckshot, and she felt how smooth her new skin was underneath. “What the…?! Did I turn into a baby?!”

            Skeeta rolled his eyes in disgust. “I really hope you enjoy being a woman now.”

            Penz detected more hints to what her brother was talking about: she inherited golden shoulder-length locks, some of which dangled within her frame of view; and her arms, which were as smooth as her new back, were vanilla-white instead of chocolate-brown.

            Jumping off the truck bed, she nearly collapsed. Her legs were further from the ground than they were a second ago. Apparently, she lost a foot of height in addition to everything else. Once she got her footing, she rushed over to the nearest mirror she could find: the driver’s side mirror of the rusted Studebaker.

            She initially believed that she saw her usual handsome black self in the reflection, but that was merely a relapse from what was her first-ever regeneration. Eventually, reality settled in and Penz saw the young blonde she had become in the side view mirror.

            Horrified, she cried, “This isn’t what I expected!”

            “What did you expect?” Skeeta asked her.

            “I just thought my whole body would heal like any normal regeneration,” Penz said. “I wanted my body to stop hurting – I didn’t want a new body, especially not a white girl body!”

            Grady let out a gasp that returned the Time Lords’ attention to the old man. They noticed him standing where he was, frozen in terror as he looked directly on Penz, trying to process what just happened. “Y-You…You was a negro youngin’…N-Now you is a white gurl! A devil witch!”

            Penz peacefully raised her hands as she addressed the old man. “Grady…It is Grady, right? I saw you once down in the catacombs beneath Malfoy Manor. They had you workin’ down there for so long – you weren’t able to keep up with the rest of us ‘young folk,’ as you called us. That’s why Lucius Malfoy wanted you out. He said you were ‘too old’ for the work…for Cthulhu’s feeding, more like it. But Narcissa didn’t want to let you go, so she made you work around the manor as a servant.”

            She surprised Grady with how accurate her recollection of these events was.

            “H-H-How you know all dat?” he asked her.

            “I’m not a devil witch, Grady,” Penz said, getting close enough to the old man to take his hands into hers. “If you choose to believe it, you can see me as an angel sent from God to help free you from the Malfoys.”

            Grady looked into her eyes, seeing how crystal blue they were up close. There was deep sincerity in them – a genuine kindness that he didn’t often see in the eyes of most white folks he had the misfortune of being near. And yet, there stood this woman (if he decided that’s what he wanted to call her), standing closer than any negro man was allowed to be near a white woman like her. She wasn’t striking him or crying for help.

            No, none of that. She was only holding his hands into hers.

            In doing so, he looked down at them and saw that he was still holding the diamond that other kind white girl gave him. It was more kindness in one evening than Grady had ever been shown his whole life.

            The old man broke down. “Dem Malfoys…dey ain’t right treatin’ me duh way dey done did,” he tearfully relented. “I ain’t no slave! I just want muh family tuh have sum’tin’ worth livin’ for!”

            “You will, Mr. Grady,” Penz promised him, allowing him to cry on her shoulder.

            Skeeta observed the entire scene with an approving smile.

            This new Penz was an improvement over her predecessor. Yes, the vanity, sassiness, and obliviousness was still there, but from the dramatic change emerged a woman with an even kinder soul, passed over from his brother’s first regeneration.