Magnetic Forces of Love and Conspiracy
Written by BansheeGirl
A/N: Chapter six, served just for you! Do enjoy, and don't forget to leave a tip – uh, I mean review – when you're done!
Disclaimer: See chapter 1 or 2!
Magnetic Forces of Love and Conspiracy
Chapter 6: A Woman Scorned
"Well that certainly was an interesting couple of hours," an elderly woman murmured to herself, quickly bustling about in a large kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, she pulled out a container of brownies that she'd only baked that afternoon. The time was currently nearing twelve o'clock, and the woman was thankful that she'd thought to bake the now much-needed treats earlier. Quickly the woman dished several of the brownies onto a large round plate. Swooping the plate up, she left the kitchen to enter an adjoining dining room, where a number of people sat around a rectangular table looking rather tired.
"Oh, thanks Mary. Just what we needed," said a blonde-haired lady as Mary placed the plate of brownies in the centre of the table. Several hands instantly shot out to claim a piece of the moist chocolate slice. Mary sat herself down in an empty chair at one end of the rectangular table. Sitting directly across from her at the other head of the table was Mary's husband, Ian.
Mary and Ian Brandybuck were the owners of the Fieldsville Lodging House – consequently the place where the small group of people were gathered this late evening. The other congregation members were the Lodging House's current permanent residents. The House also often served as temporary accommodation for visitors to Fieldsville, but those sitting around the dining room table this moment were the group of people who formed a sort of family as they indefinitely called the lodging house their home.
Mary looked around the table, stopping short at the sight of a man looking markedly more drained than the others around him. She pushed the now almost empty plate of brownies toward him. "Go on and have a brownie, James. You look like you need it," she said warmly.
The man's piercing green eyes looked up at the elderly woman, focusing as if he had just been pulled from a daze. He sighed tiredly. "No thanks Mary, I'm not feeling very hungry."
Mary tilted her head sceptically. "James, don't get yourself down about this. We have to stay positive, you know that."
"I know, I know…" He said, running a hand through his lavender locks. "I'm just… I feel like I'm letting everyone down. You saw them all at the meeting…" His voice drifted off as James closed his eyes and frowned.
The blonde-haired lady whom had spoken before looked at James sympathetically. "James, you can't blame yourself for this. You had a big enough burden tonight just telling everyone the news…" She winced at the memory of several villagers reacting rather irately to the news that Fieldsville would be demolished in six months' time. She knew James to be a normally calm and collected person, but the incidents at the town meeting earlier that evening had certainly placed a great degree of stress upon the head councilman of Fieldsville.
The lady – Cate was her name – absentmindedly turned the golden wedding ring of her late husband around on her finger. As a single mother with two children under the age of twelve, she was one who had lost a deal of sleep since James had privately told the Lodging House residents Paramount Corps. horrible plans upon returning from Saunders City a few days ago.
"I'll blame myself for letting this go ahead, Cate. If I don't find away to stop this… this…" James faltered, struggling to find a word that would rightly describe the situation.
"…Madness?" A man offered, who sat across from James. His boyish features somehow twisted into a morbid smirk. Despite being two years older than James, the pair had become extremely close friends since arriving to stay at the Lodging House around the same time a number of years earlier.
"Madness. Thanks, Sam," James sighed, somewhat of a smile appearing on his face at the ludicrousness of the word, and yet the perfect aptness of it. "If I don't find a way to stop this madness… I could never live with myself."
Silence fell upon the group, each person inwardly trying to fathom just how their whole worlds had been turned completely upside down.
"I just don't see how this… woman can simply come in and do whatever she wants, no questions asked!" A girl with long, jet-black hair suddenly cried. "How is it legally possible to throw four-hundred people out of their homes and their jobs!
"You are right, Olivia," Sam said, tweaking his auburn-coloured goatee. "There has to be some loophole somewhere in these proceedings. The problem is getting anyone to take note of the loophole, and then getting someone to do something about it."
Sam's words seemed to bring about another sensation of hopelessness in the group. James stared at a small piece of paper that he had been scrunching and un-scrunching in his fingers. He frowned at the odd sense of uncomfortableness that he felt when Olivia had directly blamed the predicament on 'this woman' – Jessie. He had not told his peers of his past association with the CEO of Paramount Corps. of Saunders, and for the moment chose to keep it that way.
"Maybe we should hold another town meeting," Cate finally said. "Ask for ideas, areas of expertise… There's sure to be people with friends and family members who might be able to help us out, right?"
James looked to Cate with an unenthusiastic expression. "You were there tonight, Cate… You saw how everyone reacted when I told them about the plans. The only idea the people of this town have is to storm into Saunders City and burn Paramount Corps. to the ground," he said matter-of-factly.
"Doesn't sound like such a bad idea to me," Ian mumbled, eliciting a few stunned laughs from the others. As the laughter subsided, however, a disillusioned emptiness once again took over the room.
Olivia sighed loudly. "It just makes me so mad…" She murmured, some of the fury from before having left her voice.
"It makes all of us mad," James said quietly, "But we've got to think of some logical way to combat this. We've somehow got to get over being so angry so that we can just think straight," he spoke, almost more to himself than the others. An embarrassing memory of his enraged visit to the Saunders City Council offices the previous week entered his mind, before he quickly discarded it.
The group sat in silence. Thoughts of anger, hopelessness, misery and desperation screamed through their heads.
"We could… use the media," Sam finally suggested. The immediate spark in his eyes suddenly made everyone around the table sit up in their chairs.
"The media? What do you mean?"
"Well," he began, his eyes darting about excitedly as if he were already forming an intricate scheme in his head, "We could contact some of the big Saunders City newspapers and magazines. I have some connections through work… If we pique their interest, they'll be able to publicise our situation. The newspapers love underdog stories!" Sam cried, beaming eagerly. Everyone was suddenly very thankful they had a university-trained journalist on the scene.
Sam's eyes widened as though he were still realising the true magnitude of his idea. "The whole of Saunders City will know just how rotten this Paramount Corps. company really is... even surrounding cities and towns will know – Saunders sends hundreds of different publications out across the country! No company wants bad publicity, so Paramount Corps. will have to cancel their construction here… otherwise they'll be ruined!"
The orange-haired man watched as expressions of hope began to appear on the faces of those around him. James laughed incredulously.
"That is the best thing I've heard all week, Sam. You really do surprise me sometimes, you know that?"
"Hey, watch it!" Sam defended, pushing himself up from his chair and disappearing for a moment to take the empty brownies-plate to the kitchen.
"You really think people will be interested in some tiny little village in the mountains?" Olivia loudly directed to an unseen Sam.
Sam returned to stand behind his chair at the dining table. "Sure, I don't see why not."
With that, the late-night conversation appeared to be drawing its close. "This is good," James said, standing up. "At least we have some sort of plan in motion…" He sighed as though at least some weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Now he merely looked more exhausted than ever.
"Plan or no plan everyone here needs to get to bed," Mary announced, typical of her motherly character. Before long she had ushered everyone out of their seats, and the group began to disappear upstairs for some much-needed sleep.
"What do you think you're doing, young James?" The elderly woman questioned accusingly as she saw him not move upstairs, but toward the living room at the front of the lodging house.
James looked to his old friend and smiled weakly. "I'm just going to stoke the fire, okay?"
Mary gave a sceptical look, but understood that the lavender-haired man needed to be alone for some time before hitting the hay. "Don't stay up too late, James. If anyone needs sleep here the most it's you."
He nodded, and Mary flicked off the lights in the kitchen and dining room before too disappearing upstairs. James entered the living room and sat beside the fire, watching red-hot ash explode in all directions as he loaded the open fireplace with a couple of fresh logs. He stared into the crackling flames, trying to empty his mind of all thought so that he'd be able to relax and perhaps have a good night's sleep for the first time since his meeting in Saunders City the week before.
James glanced to the right to see a figure suddenly appear at the arched entrance to the living room, and as it crept closer the glow of the fire revealed the dark hair, creamy white skin and intense violet-coloured eyes of Olivia. She silently sat down beside James and smiled at him. James turned his head to look back into the fire, feeling uncomfortable at having his solitude disturbed.
"Hey," she whispered, leaning in closer so that he looked at her. "What's the matter?"
James stared at Olivia, unusually feeling repulsed by her closeness. "Nothing," he said quietly, "I'm just thinking."
"Thinking about what?" The girl asked, tenderly placing a hand just above James' knee. "You're not worrying about the town, are you? We've got a plan for that, remember?"
James looked down at Olivia's hand. "Liv, don't…" He started, gripping her arm to remove her touch. "Just… don't."
A confused expression appeared on the girl's face. In reality Olivia was only a couple of months younger than James, yet as he examined her now in the firelight he could have sworn she looked nothing more than a child.
"James… I thought that we had sorted this out. Hadn't we? I… I thought we were going to give this another try," she said comfortingly, reaching up and brushing a lock of hair behind James' ear.
"Olivia, stop. This… I don't want this right now. I'm not sure if I want it at all." He glanced at the girl, holding her gaze so that she didn't make any unwanted movements again.
"What?" She said, her voice indicating that she was somewhat upset, "You said that-"
"-I know what I said. But… right now that's not how I feel," he spoke, pushing himself up from the floor. "I'm sorry, Liv."
Olivia looked at James as though he had just kicked dirt in her face, and he instantly hated himself for adding yet another dilemma to the melting pot of predicaments he was already in. Olivia stood up and gave one last hurt glance at James, before turning on her heel and leaving the room. He listened as her angry footsteps ascended the hardwood stairs.
James leant against the mantelpiece above the fireplace, his head spinning. Only two weeks ago James had been more than eager to revive a relationship that had been over for almost a year with Olivia. Yet something that had happened during those two weeks now prevented him from even thinking about any sort of romantic affair with the raven-haired girl.
James suddenly felt sick with an unwanted realisation. The demolition of Fieldsville was one thing that had been playing in James' mind ever since his meeting in Saunders City. Now he and the lodging house residents had devised a plan to stop the demolition of Fieldsville. That left only one other thing that had been playing on his mind ever since his meeting in Saunders City…
Jessie.
Wow, that was quite a long chapter for this story! Hope nobody minds the extended length, but I really didn't feel that I could break this particular sequence up into separate chapters.
Anyway, I'll keep this author's note short so you don't have to put up with any more of my rambling! Just a big thankyou to everyone who keeps reviewing this fic – you know who you are!
Please do review this chapter – reviews do mean ever-so-much to me! Not to mention prompt faster updates!
Well, till next time!
BansheeGirl.