"Inventing the Future"
Author's Note: Implied sexy times later in the chapter, but nothing explicit. Sorry, I know you're very disappointed. XD
"Chapter 30: A Golden Dilemma"
"Hmm...Just what is so remarkable about you, eh?"
Jaming sat on the edge of his work table as he studied the paintbrush. The bristles were stiff and coated with dried gold paint, which seemed to him to be of the egg tempera variety. It simply looked like ordinary paint, but as Meredith had often told him, looks were only looks. He reached up and manually adjusted his monocle to its highest magnification and peered through it, shutting his other eye for better focus.
Horse hair bristles, matted together in shimmering golden clumps. There was something odd about the paint, but Jaming found it hard to pinpoint. His hand was steadier than most, but that didn't mean he could hold perfectly still without the slightest twitch, and he needed the brush to be absolutely stationary. He set it down on the table and leaned in closer, careful not to block the light.
Light.
The light bulb above him was not moving at all, and yet the paint flickered slightly, throwing off tiny pinpoints of light as if the light source or the brush were still moving. Fascinating, to be sure, but it still didn't tell him much.
"Perhaps a closer inspection is in order..." Jaming sat up and slid off the edge of the table, quickly crossing his garage to retrieve a microscope from one of his many cabinets. He scraped the tiniest of paint samples onto a glass slide, noticing how easily the paint flecked off of the bristles. He removed his monocle and sat down to look through the eyepiece.
No matter how much he magnified the slide, it was the same. It reflected the light in the same way that a moving object would, despite being completely motionless, but beyond that there was nothing to be gleaned from the sample.
Jaming sat back and folded his arms, disappointed, and he lapsed into his old habit of talking to himself. "The paint is dry. If I had a fresh sample I might be able to get somewhere, but this? It's worthless."
He filed the slide away for further study, just in case, and carefully bagged and tagged the brush for the same purpose.
"I shall just have to go and get some, then." He put his microscope away, then leaned against the wall with a frown. "The trouble is...I have no idea where to look. Or when, for that matter, because one never knows!"
He lightly kicked the table leg in a fit of pique, then sat down again and put his head in his hands as he racked his brain for a solution. "Think, Jaming...What did you learn about magic when you were in Griffon's employ?"
Very little, it turned out. Magic was more Gaspard's sort of thing, and his was just the attack variety. Hardly useful in this case, and besides, Gaspard was dead.
"Why did I agree to this? I don't know anything about magic!" Jaming finally got up and went off to take a shower. He was supposed to meet Meredith for dinner that evening, and after spending the afternoon scrubbing seagull droppings from his platform, he wasn't about to just show up as he was!
They were both getting a little tired of fish, so Jaming had managed to get his hands on some pasta as a special treat, but as he sat with Meredith at her tree house table, he found that he couldn't properly enjoy it. When work was on his mind, he was never able to relax. The gold paint and his promise to Julia was a unique problem, and already he regretted his involvement!
Meredith noticed that he was mostly pushing his food around on his plate instead of eating it, and beyond his greeting he hadn't really said much at all. "Something on your mind?"
"There's always something on my mind," he replied, twirling some noodles around his fork before letting them fall off again. They made a soft 'splat' as they struck the Alfredo sauce. "It's getting my mind to shut down that's the problem..."
"Is it something I can help with?" she asked, wiping her mouth with her napkin.
"I...I don't know," he admitted, pushing his plate away and getting up. He walked over to the window and looked out. "Did you know that Julia wasn't born like the rest of us?"
"Huh?" That question definitely struck her as odd!
"When she showed up in Palm Brinks, how was she introduced?" Jaming had clasped his hands behind his back, and he still hadn't looked back at her.
"For the most part, she wasn't. Parn told a few people she was his new wife, but he never mentioned where she came from. Since the Blackstone One had just reopened, I think most of us just assumed she was from out of town, and that they'd had a quickie wedding for whatever reason. But what do you mean she wasn't born like the rest of us?"
Jaming sighed and sat back down at the table. "This is going to sound fantastic..."
"More fantastic than time travel and evil wizards?" She quirked a brow. "If I can believe that, I can probably believe this."
He nodded, smiling a little. "Julia was originally a painting. Parn acquired some magic paint, and he used it to bring her to life."
Meredith remained silent, and she didn't appear as surprised as Jaming thought she would be.
"Their relationship didn't last, as we know. And now..." Jaming drained his wine glass and folded his arms. "Julia wants me to help her get back into the painting. Somehow."
Now Meredith appeared shocked. "That's a pretty tall order."
He nodded slowly. "It is. And I'm not sure if I can. She left the brush Parn used, coated in dried paint. I studied it for a bit, and there is something unique about it, but I believe the sample is too degraded for a proper analysis. It's dry. And I've no idea where to find a fresh one. Until today, I never even knew of its existence."
Meredith got up and placed her empty plate in the sink, and she refilled their wine glasses when she came back to the table; Jaming's glass from the wine bottle, and hers from the water pitcher. "You really want to help her, don't you?"
Jaming sighed and rubbed his temples. "If you could have seen her face, Meredith...To be ripped from everything she knew, to be used as she was, and to be cast aside so cruelly! Who wouldn't want to go back home?"
"I sure would!" Meredith said fervently.
"As would I. The trouble is, I don't know how to do it. And if I somehow did figure it out, what then? She has memories of a world beyond the canvas, but what if it doesn't truly exist? If that happened to be the case, and I went through with it, wouldn't I be helping her to commit suicide?" He rubbed his face, the stress of his moral dilemma in addition to the paint puzzle clearly wearing on him. "I don't know what to do, Meredith..."
She reached over and lightly rubbed the back of his neck. The muscles were stiff with tension beneath her hand. "It would be nice if life came with an instruction manual, huh?"
"Wouldn't it, though?" He sighed, "No moral dilemmas, no uncertainty. No surprises, either."
"Mm, that last one...Sometimes we need surprises. To liven things up when they get boring, or to give us a boot in the butt when we start goofing off too much."
He snickered a bit and finally lowered his hands. "I'm afraid I've lost my appetite...I'm sorry."
Meredith snorted as she began to use both hands to gently knead the places where his neck and shoulders met. "Parn's the one who should be sorry, the jackass..."
Speaking of surprises, whatever she was doing to his neck came as a rather pleasant one. He felt his neck muscles slowly becoming more relaxed, almost to the point of being pliable, and he sighed deeply as he leaned back and into her touch. "You've never done that before..."
"What?"
"What you're doing to my neck."
There was a soft, mischievous giggle, and she said very close to his ear, "Was I doing something to your neck?"
"You know you were. Well, are." He noted with detached clinical interest that his arms had broken out in goosebumps, and this was his last logical thought.
"Do you want me to stop?"
"No..."
Later that night as they lay beneath Meredith's bedspread, Jaming's mind was ticking along once more. He knew it was, because Meredith claimed she could hear it. He reached up to affectionately clasp her hand, which rested on his bare blue chest. "I'm sorry...My mind keeps going back to the paint."
Meredith closed her eyes and chuckled softly. "I see even lovemaking doesn't distract you for long."
"More's the pity!" he chuckled back, nuzzling her hair. "A very nice distraction it is, though."
"Mm..." she murmured in agreement, then stifled a yawn. It was getting late! "Do you want to spend the night?"
"If you'll have me."
"I thought I just did." She smirked, then laughed as he playfully threw her hand off of his chest. She quickly put it back, then grew serious as something occurred to her. "You know...Morton's Sundries in Palm Brinks carries gold paint from time to time. I'm not sure if it's the magic kind or if it's plan old regular paint, but I do know that it didn't show up in the shop until Max left town and all of this started."
"Really? Hm...That is something to consider..." Jaming mused. He was reluctant to go to Palm Brinks at all, though, especially after learning what he now knew about Meredith's issues with her past and with her mother. He knew she wasn't ready to revisit those issues, still so fresh, and if he showed up without her it might cause even more mother/daughter friction. Sarah was sure to know he was there, because he didn't exactly blend in!
He could just go and ask Crest about the paint, except for the simple fact that Crest was dead! Even if the young girl who seemed to be his apprentice had the wisdom to tell him about the paint's properties and whether or not there was a way to reverse them, how could Jaming dare to approach her?
Still, it made more sense to go directly to a source of wisdom, as young as the girl was. He had to try, for Julia's sake and for the sake of his own conscience. Oh, but it would not be easy! "Balance Valley might have the answer..." he murmured finally.
"Balance Valley?"
"But it may be unattainable..." Now he stifled a yawn. It had to be after eleven!
"Why would it be...oh," Meredith frowned. Of course. Jaming had been there before, and had taken part in the attempted destruction of the Lighthouse containing the Moon Crystal, and had helped to cause the death of the one person who might know the answer to his question.
"Yes...I believe he had an apprentice," Jaming was sounding more despondent all the time. "A young girl, one no older than fifteen from what I could see. And she probably saw me. We weren't that far away. She has absolutely no reason to talk to me. And why should she?"
"Well," Meredith said slowly, nestling closer, "what if I talked to her instead? She hasn't seen me, and it's for a good friend of ours."
A good friend...
Yes, Julia certainly was. And he had promised to at least try.
Slipping an arm behind his head and under his pillow, Jaming nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe..."