The third ritual seems interesting to Jamie. It allows a pregnancy to end sooner? This is fascinating. She considers what might happen if she completes it without being pregnant and resolves to put it to the test.
She gathers the materials, paints a circle on the ground and memorizes a chant from the book before blindfolding herself, seated naked in the middle of the painted circle on her floor. The phrase is in the strange tongue of Lāta and with the aid of a pronunciation guide she intones:
"Iku āchō anī āpū eyro hēme hipa ņulchē."
This she repeats, again and again, heart thundering in her chest and as she does she feels a fever in herself a hunger, and she breaks the chant, staggering up to rush to the kitchen. Her belly is swelling already, but it is taut and her limbs are trembling. She needs food badly and she finds it. Her well-stocked fridge gives forth a gallon of milk, handfuls of salad greens, cold Chinese food, which she eats by hand. As her shivering belly swells and grows she feels the burning, it's consuming her. She drinks salad dressing from a bottle, eats a pound of cold butter and still her belly and breasts swell.
Her breasts ache, dribbling milk as she grabs an avocado and bites into it savagely, then eats handfuls of shredded cheese. Food is scattered around her in her haste to eat and forestall the consumption of her own body, as she eats a packet of cold ham, handfuls of ground beef, and as she empties out the fridge she realizes the growth has stopped. She stands, wobbly, uncertain, weak, and has to support herself on the nearby counter. She is massively pregnant, practically due.
Somehow she knows this spell has burnt through her stored calories, consumed fat and muscle to bring her to a week out from the due date of whatever child is within her, something generated from herself and magic alone. She staggers and winces, reaching out to her phone.
The ambulance takes her to the hospital, where she is declared slightly underfed, and very pregnant. They tell her she can stay until the baby comes. Her insurance covers it. So she settles in and waits. Then...