“And the seaside,” said Vic, as their excitement pricked at her own. “Sailing, naval battles, beach scenes, Viking boats coming ashore.”

“Pirates!” another one exclaimed. “Pirates paired with castles. Come on, why aren’t we all working on these movies right here, right now?”

The students began to all talk at once again, but in their words, Vic heard only the echo of Sophia talking to Emma about the filming rights to her next novel. Her words echoed through Vic’s memory. If you filmed in this area, you’d have so much to work with.

Emma’s book, Vic’s home, that’s how the whole thing had started. The fit had seemed natural from day one, and yet she’d never given any real thought to the project as anything more than a one-off experience. She had never met anyone like these students, the future filmmakers who faced a choice of chasing their dreams or staying in the place they loved and called home. She was self-aware enough to realise why their dilemma might hit her especially hard this morning, but awareness did little to undercut her connection with them. She felt the connection to so many of her people, a deep love for the land and a fading hope for the future of the region. She’d spent her whole life balanced between those two forces. It kept her up at night and bore down on her shoulders so heavily today, she nearly collapsed under the weight of it.

And yet here these young people stood, flush with ideas and excitement she’d never considered. They weren’t stumbling or gritting their teeth. Where she’d seen only problems, they saw possibilities.

They continued to list projects suited to the area and the roles they dreamed of playing in their productions. One wanted to use drone-mounted cameras, another expressed a passion for sound editing, another saw the possibility of connecting with a local university for interns and extras. Any other day it would’ve sent her straight back to the office to begin crunching numbers. Even now part of her fought to process the practicalities, but another, bigger, more wounded piece of herself warned against this particular rabbit hole for fear every twist and turn would only lead her back to Sophia.

She edged over to the wall and leaned against the cool wood panelling to steady herself at the thought. Filmmaking was Sophia’s realm. She didn’t want to move in the same circles as Sophia and still be separate from her. She didn’t want to chase someone else’s dream in a misguided attempt to stay close to her. How could she ever know if her intentions were pure if they only sprouted in conjunction with the loss of the woman who’d planted them?

A door opened to her right, and James barged in.