Heartbeat

Chapter 4- Meg

Meg jerked awake. Her head had fallen off her hand. She fell asleep at her desk again. She looked around and saw Sal to her right, asleep in the corner, on the blanket covering the crates of the jurda sticks. Meg winced. Her head had begun hurting. She had drunk too much and was now feeling the effects. She took out a jays and lit it. She noticed that the only side effect of jays so far had been increasing your likelihood of having a worse hangover, as jays allowed you to stay up later and keep drinking. She inhaled and held her breath while feeling the jurda take a mild effect and wake her up. She hadn't been fabrikating earlier, and she found that had also helped reduce her hangovers. Meg blinked sleep out of her eye. She couldn't find out what time it was and pleaded with herself to go to bed.

Not wanting to wake Sal, she tiptoed from her office and walked out of the Warehouse. She stepped outside and walked past Rudy, who gave her a curt nod. She had no love for Rudy and could barely ever understand him. She wouldn't stop to pretend to talk. She stepped inside the Bank and saw Win still working. Having joined the Widows recently, Win did not know how to speak Hand.

The Bank was extremely crowded and busy. Meg returned, taking another drag of her jays and walked around the building towards The Study Hall. She saw a crowded group of people around her age, all smoking Jays. Meg couldn't hold back the tiniest of smiles. She was finally making a dent in her debt. Clem had promised to help her promote them and would ensure it wouldn't stop with university students. Clem could frustrate Meg, but she did make good on some promises. Meg considered speaking to Clem but decided to wait outside and watch the street first.

She leaned against the outside of The Study Hall. The patrons glancing at her to see if they knew her from classes. Meg did not react. She thought getting a formal education would be an interesting opportunity. Why bother thinking about that? Single-minded. Focus on your debt. You're running out of time. Meg thought, taking another pull on her jays. She blew out the smoke while staring at nothing. She looked at the pretty girls, all laughing and smoking their jays. She thought about za vee. She was sure there was a puzzle there she could solve.

Her father had been a local baker in Ketterdam and told her that baking was a different form of chemistry. She always thought of herself as his favourite. Her sisters were close to their mother, who looked at Meg, filled with guilt. She blamed herself for Meg being born with her infliction, born half-deaf. Initially, they thought she was dumb. She was never responding to people's questions and staring at them but struggling to form words and speak back. Her father had insisted that there had to be something else wrong. He did many of his own innovative tests and could identify Meg reacting to facial expressions. They finally could afford a proper medik, who discovered that one of her ears did not function and that the other was weaker than normal hearing. Meg took to baking with her father, imitating him and memorizing recipes through sight. He would never know she would have the skill of a Fabrikator and should have been able to make their bakery legendary. It would have been a simple life, but one she would have taken on. Single-minded. Focus on your debt. You're running out of time. She repeated several times to herself. 

A girl from inside joined the group and held one of the jays. Meg focused on her mouth to make out what she was saying. However, she supposed she must have had an accent because her mouth did not move similarly to those from Kerch. The only word she did make out was 'love' and 'jays.' Meg took her last inhale and blew out the smoke fast before her eyes. She took a step but paused. Looking at the smoke dissipate made her wonder. What if? Meg picked up her pace and almost jogged back to The Warehouse.

She had left the door open to her office and saw Sal still in the same place she left her. She took out a batch of the za vee. A large blue flower with a green rim around the centre. Inside the rim was a yellow pod that, when pierced, would leak out an opaque, syrupy substance that people mixed with water and make tea. She plucked the pod from the flower and dropped it into a mortar, frantically grinding it up. She put it in a small pot and lit a fire underneath. She scraped the syrupy and crumbly substances into the pot and waited. She could feel her chest rise and fall as the chemistry of it changed before her eyes. Meg sped the process with a few waves of her hand. It changed into a paste.

She threw a lid onto the pot, simultaneously trying to quell her anticipation with the act. She unrolled a jays and threw the contents into a bowl.

She lifted the lid off the pot and could immediately sense a distinct smell, a scent similar to ginger. She knew mixing substances could create a unique reaction and that the key to discovering more about this plant was seeing how it reacted with better-known ones. She lifted the pot and scraped the contents into the bowl on top of the jurda. The paste sizzled slightly. She cursed as it began to burn the jurda. Realizing her mistake, she began again. Waiting for the paste to cool made her impatient. She didn't know when, but Sal had woken and followed her while she paced.

She gazed down at the paste as it cooled in its bowl, debating submerging it in cold water to cool it faster, not trusting her fabrikating abilities. Finally, when it was only warm to the touch, she scraped the contents into the new bowl of Jurda. She packed them tightly, grabbed a tiny, translucent piece of paper, and began rolling the contents. She then grabbed an old card, rolled it into a tiny cylinder, and stuck it on the end of the rolled paper. She licked the end of it, which already had some adhesive and tightened it closed. It wasn't the tidiest jays she had ever rolled, but it would do. She put it between her lips, lit it and inhaled. Testing experiments on yourself was the first rule against alchemy, but she was too impatient to get someone desperate and would take a few Kruge.

The reaction was immediate. It felt like being struck by lightning first from the lungs up to her brain. She gasped out a breath. Thick heavy smoke filled the room. Meg stumbled and leaned on her desk to gain her balance. She looked over. Sal had been in the room, but following her from behind for so long, she had forgotten. Sal had breathed in the heavy, perfumed air. Her eyes became low and heavy, and she toppled to one side. Meg felt panic momentarily and moved to usher Sal out of the office but fell forward on her hands and knees. Meg watched the Jays roll out of her hands, still burning and wafting heavy clouds into the air—bright blue from the dyed jurda and za vee. Meg stamped out the Jays and reached for Sal, who met her eyes and began laughing. She rolled on her side and laughed continuously. Meg saw that Sal couldn't stop.

Meg felt no concern but only overwhelming calm. Her eyes rested their gaze on the ceiling, and Meg saw it moving. The grey ceiling had shifted and was swirling before her eyes. She also began laughing, a laugh she had never heard come out of herself before. It came from below her throat. She sat on the ground and realized she was feeling things she didn't recognize. 

Is this freedom?  Meg thought

She felt confident, sure of her place, and completely single-minded. She breathed a sigh of relief and was certain that smoke was still coming from her mouth. She thought she could hear something but couldn't tell if it was real. Her ability to hear seemed simultaneously better and worse.

Meg looked around while slouching until she was on her back. She attempted to focus and squinted her eyes. She saw outlines of people she was sure she knew. Memories that usually bring on fear, but she oddly felt in a state of calm.

She blinked a few more times and then felt the feeling fade. She looked back at Sal, whose laughter had turned to coughing and escalated to retching. Meg sprang up and leapt over to Sal. She leaned in to look at her, but Sal waved her away to say she was okay.

Meg grabbed a pot and turned on the faucet, and it filled with water. She shoved it under Sal's face when the pot filled by at least an inch. In response, Sal threw up into the pot. Trying to hide her face, Meg turned away in disgust. Sal's whole body contracted again, and she turned over.

"I'm sorry, Meg, I'm sorry," she panted, making a feeble attempt at simultaneously using Hand while speaking.

"Sal, no, are you ok?" Sal nodded in response as best she could while lying on the floor. Meg got up and emptied the contents of the pot into the nearest lavatory. She returned, and Sal seemed more herself. Meg felt like herself again, too. Her eyes had watered during the experience, but there seemed to be no other effects. She didn't feel the nausea that Sal had experienced.

She stared at the smashed jays on the floor, experiencing a sense of uncertainty. We've discovered something, but I don't know if I'd call it progress. Meg thought, chewing on the corner of her lip. She noted that her usual thrum of anxiety had yet to return.

Meg turned to look out her office door. Several people had entered and had begun their work for the day. The morning had come, and the Warehouse began to bustle with workers. Meg and Sal's eyes met, silently wondering what had happened and assessing their next steps.