Get Over It, April Evans #3
Adeline simply nodded, her expression grave but free from pity. “I’ve seen a few of their films. They were talented.”
Sasha’s smile was quick. Small, but definitely genuine. “Really? Do you have a favorite?”
Adeline thought for a second, sipped her tea, clearly in no hurry whatsoever. Sasha was happy to wait though, happy to hear something about her parents’ artistic legacy.
“What can I say,” Adeline said, “I’m a sucker for a good missing persons story.”
“Fae and Foe,” Sasha said, nodding vigorously, recalling the penultimate film her parents had ever made about Margaret Winder, an iconic fantasy author who had faked her own disappearance in the thirties to run off with the woman she loved.
It had been nominated for an Oscar that year—Best Documentary Feature Film—though it had lost out to a film about an underground music movement in Chicago.
“One of my favorites too,” Sasha finally said.
“I read all of Margaret Winder’s books to my daughters when they were little,” Adeline said. “She was a legend.”
“My parents did the same.”
Adeline tipped her chin in acknowledgment. “And you worked with them?”
“I did. I studied film at USC, then joined their company after I graduated.” Sasha had worked on all her parents’ films in her twenties, doing everything from taking lunch orders and making coffee runs, to revising scripts, blocking scenes, and thinking through things like lighting and music for the most emotional impact.
On the last couple of films, however—Fae and Foe included—Sasha had worked mostly on the human relations side of things.
She loved being behind a camera, loved setting up shots and thinking through the visuals, and she was good at it.
But she was great at talking to people. And more importantly, getting them to talk back.
There were eighteen-hour days followed by sleepless nights when she should’ve been resting but was thinking about how to get a recalcitrant subject to open up.
There was irritation and elation, shadowing someone for days for just ten minutes of life-changing recollection.
Bringing true stories to a screen, figuring out how to fit an entire life, entire legends and tragedies and triumphs, into two hours on a strip of film was hard work.
It was thankless and grueling, even painful at times, requiring tough decisions and sacrifices, constantly walking that delicate line between truth telling and intrusion, but Sasha’s parents had loved it.
Sasha had loved it.
“And since they died?” Adeline asked.
Sasha folded her hands in her lap. She knew this question was coming. “Aurora Films is mine.”
“But you haven’t made any films since.”
Sasha lifted her brows. It wasn’t a question.
“I do my homework, Sasha,” Adeline said.
Sasha sighed. “No. I haven’t. I’ve been finding my way for the last few years.”
“And your way is here? In Blair Mountain with a witch’s family?”
“Are you a witch’s family?”
Adeline just laughed.
Sasha laughed too, though her stomach was in knots.
Adeline Bishop was incredibly intriguing and simultaneously incredibly hard to read, but that just made Sasha want to dig deeper, try harder.
She knew what her father would say—Adeline was putting up a defense mechanism, a survival tactic born from decades of family myth and discrimination, an entire town that both feared the Bishops and used their infamy to put money in their own pockets.
Sasha could picture exactly how her mother would create a scene with the Bishop family, sketching it all out in words, beautiful and tragic and compelling.
What this scene was, exactly, Sasha couldn’t say.
She was the wrong Sinclair altogether to be finally drinking tea with a Bishop.
But here she was, chasing a dream she wasn’t sure she could make come true.
Even if Adeline agreed to the film, Sasha certainly wasn’t the award-winning Julian and Freya Sinclair.
Still, she had to try. The ongoing story of Alice Bishop and her descendants was the golden goose of the documentary film world, not only for Julian and Freya, but for most of their peers as well.
Sasha wasn’t sure she’d even be in Blair Mountain this time tomorrow, but she was here today. She had a chance, a moment. A purpose.
“Why meet with me now?” Sasha asked.
Adeline only lifted a single devastating brow.
“My parents reached out countless times,” Sasha went on. “They wrote, they knocked on your door, they emailed, they called. You always said no. I’m sure you’ve had other offers as well, other filmmakers clamoring for your story. So why me?”
Adeline leaned forward, her strange eyes like tiny circles of fire. “Because no one, not your parents, not anyone else, ever told me why.”
Sasha’s eyes flicked down to the letter still on the table—that humiliating, vulnerable, heart-on-her-sleeve letter. “And my why is enough?”
“For now,” Adeline said, picking up Sasha’s letter and folding it into her pocket again.
Sasha’s already erratic heart stopped beating altogether. “What does that mean?”
Adeline sighed. “I understand something about family expectations. The Bishops have a complicated relationship with that word—legacy. We hold it too close, or we don’t hold it close enough. We’re proud of it, we resent it, we fear it.”
Sasha forced herself to keep eye contact, her palms sweating. “And what’s your relationship to your legacy right now?”
Adeline’s smile was small as she sipped her tea, eyeing Sasha over the pink rim of her cup. “That’s the question, isn’t it? And that’s why I’m saying yes.”
It took a few seconds for the word—simple, three letters—to really sink into Sasha’s consciousness.
“Yes?” she asked.
“That’s what I said,” Adeline said.
“You’re saying yes.”
Adeline laughed. “Careful, I might change my mind.”
“No, no, god,” Sasha said. “Sorry. I just…” She exhaled. “I’m surprised. I didn’t think I had a chance in hell.”
Adeline shrugged. “You still might not. Whatever paperwork you’re going to make me sign, I have a few conditions. Actually, just one.”
Sasha said nothing. She waited while Adeline set her tea down and looked around the room—a room full of townsfolk where no one had said hello to her, no one had waved. A room full of glances and whispers.
“I get final approval,” Adeline said. “My entire family, in fact. We all have to agree on the final product.”
“Of course,” Sasha said automatically. She wasn’t sure if that was the right answer, to be honest. She’d never dealt with the contracts for Aurora Films, nor had she ever consulted with their lawyer about the wording.
One thing she knew for sure—she wanted to make a film that the Bishop family would love.
“You’re sure?” Adeline said. “Think about it for a second. You make an entire film about my family, pour your heart and soul and mind and money into it, something to make your own parents proud, and then I pull the plug.”
Sasha inhaled slowly and tried not to let the sudden swell of panic show on her face.
“Or more likely,” Adeline said, “my daughter pulls it.”
“Your daughter.”
“My eldest,” Adeline said, then smiled fondly, almost mischievously. “She’s going to hate this project. She’s going to hate you.”
Sasha sat back and set an ankle on her knee. Now this was familiar territory. This was where Sasha Sinclair shined. “Is that a challenge?”
Adeline laughed. “My dear, it’s a gauntlet.”
Sasha laughed too, feeling completely at ease. She linked her hands and placed them behind her head. “Gauntlet accepted.”