Penny Wise and the League of St. Claire

Chapter 4

Jordan reluctantly agreed to attend another League of St. Claire meeting at Penny’s house. He sat in a chair at the round table and glanced at each of them as if trying to discern an ill-conceived B-grade movie plot.

“So how did it feel, Jordan?” Milo asked, his lips twisted in a sly smile. “How did it feel to save lives?”

“I . . . I must admit that I was relieved, but I’m frightened by all of this.”

“You’ll get over it,” Milo said, his smile broadening.

“Now that you have proven that you are one of us,” Penny said. “You are commissioned to wear this shield. May it protect you from all evils of this world.” She handed him a necklace with a cross, but it wasn’t the usual cross.  A circle joined the intersection of the two parts of the intricate silver crucifix.

Jordan carefully studied it before commenting. “This is a Celtic cross. How is that connected to the League? “

“We realize that St. Claire was an Italian, Jordan,” Penny said. “But the croix nimbée represents Christ’s dominance over the pagan sun god.”

Jordan chuckled briefly. “This doesn’t seem very capable of warding off enemy arrows.”

Penny’s face twisted with annoyance. “Do not underestimate the power of the cross, Jordan. It is our only defense against the powers of evil.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jordan said with a sheepish smile.

Penny settled down. “We must continue Jordan’s training. Let’s proceed to the testing range.”

Everyone stood up and filed out of the meeting room.

“Where’s the testing range?” Jordan asked Milo as they followed the girls.

“We have misappropriated an abandoned strip mine for that purpose, Jordan,” he said, sounding pleased.

Jordan didn’t know what to expect. He walked with the group in silence down through St. Clair Park and the playground, through the Arch Avenue tunnel to Mt. Pleasant Road. Once past the outskirts of town, the scenery became more rural in nature with pastures, barns and farmhouses.

Strip mining was prevalent in this part of the country and after these strip mines were exhausted of good coal they were abandoned, leaving ugly scars in the landscape. In the future, these abominations would be plowed over and turned into commercial property.

But, this was in the forties when coal was king, and no one cared about ecology.

Walking down in the mines was frightening. The high, roughly dredged walls rose forty feet and there were many loose rocks and stone littering the bottom. It was as if they were walking in a World War I trench. Piles of the useless by-products of bituminous coal mining stood as a stark reminder of the environmental impact of this scourge. These evacuated strip mines ran like trenches, often at odd angles, suggesting a chaotic process.

Penny stopped and raised a hand. “This is where we will test Jordan.” She looked at Milo. “You will go first, Milo.”

Milo’s face acquired a confident grin before he leaped into the air and began spinning horizontally to the ground. His body spun so fast that it became blurred. He accelerated away at unbelievable speed and crashed into an intersecting wall fifty meters down range, blasting away large amounts of stone and dirt. He flew back and landed near Penny.

Jordan stood staring at him in awe. He was too shocked to say anything.

“It’s your turn, Harriett,” Penny said.

Harriett stepped forward and faced the wall that Milo had just blasted. She closed her eyes and suddenly a large stone jumped into the air and then levitated near her. With a blink of her eyes, she sent the stone hurdling into the wall at high speed, blasting more stone and dust away.

“Good job, Harriett,” Penny said, giving her a pleased smile. She turned to Carmen. “You’re next, Carmen.”

Carmen stared at the distant wall. Suddenly, her eyes glowed bright red and then intense red beams of energy resembling those from lasers fired out of her eyes and cut into the stone of the wall, causing parts of it to explode.

Penny was next and she held her right hand out, palm down. A bolt of brilliantly bright energy that resembled a lightening bolt emerged from her fingers and shot down range to blast even more material from the target wall. She turned to stare at Jordan as if goading him. “It’s your turn, Jordan.”

Jordan threw his arms up in frustration. “I can’t do that shit!’

“Yes you can, Jordan. You are able to create distortions in space-time. All you have to do is create a small distortion and send it down to the wall.”

Jordan looked at her and then the wall and swallowed hard. What she wanted him to do is crazy. I’m not a super hero, he thought. I hadn’t been bitten by a radioactive spider or born on the planet Krypton. What the hell did she expect?

He closed his eyes and imagined a distortion. His face acquired a sardonic grimace as he struggled to do something impossible. The distortion appeared as a rapidly spinning mass of energetic particles trapped in a magnetic bubble. The bubble glowed menacingly and flared up with radiation so intense it was blinding. He flung the energy bubble down to the wall at the speed of light and the result was spectacular. The wall disintegrated in a brilliant flash of light, and when the dust settled well enough to get a good look at the aftermath, both Carmen and Harriett gasped.

Penny smiled.

“That was awesome, dude,” Milo exclaimed, grinning.

They applauded.

“I told you that you could do it, Jordan,” Penny said.

“How is this possible?” Jordan asked, his eyes filled with confusion and excitement.

“I explained it to you,” Penny said with a serious expression etched into her cute face. “You have been chosen by God to destroy the Antichrist. The evil one has an army of demons that we will be required to fight. You are the last element in our Circle. You will take us to the future where we will confront this abomination and destroy it.”

Jordan didn’t know whether to laugh or puke. She sounded like some crazy apocalyptic soothsayer, not a pretty young girl that she appeared to be.

Hey wait a minute! What did she mean when she said that I would take them to the future?