THE ALIEN LANDS
TASTE OF FREEDOM

One afternoon in late October, Professor Branch asked Cordelia to stay behind after Practical Acting. P.A.--- as everyone called it --- was the part of the day where students worked on actual acting. They were only allowed to work on actual productions of the school and mostly it was on productions that the fifth-year students had written and were directing. It was a small practical reward for all those oceans of theory they were navigating.

That class had not been a successful one for Cordelia. P.A. Was held in a room that resembled a small television production studio that you would find anywhere in Los Angles. The air was thickly charged with energy which helped the students focus on the assignments of the day.

Cordelia watched her lab partner Casey dust, his hands off as they were working on a scene from Romeo and Juliet. They were going back fourth working on Act One, Scene III. Cordelia was starting to hate Shakespeare with a passion. She couldn’t understand why it was so popular here on Earth. She knew that many on Earth considered him one of the greatest writers of all kinds, but she was growing frustrated with the themes of religion and sexuality that she picked up on reading his various works he had written over the years.

Cordelia was already in a foul mood when Professor Branch had asked her to stay behind after class. Branch chatted with stragglers in the hall while Cordelia sat on one of the desks, swinging her legs and thinking dark almost vindictive, revenge like thoughts. She was somewhat reassured that Christina had been asked to stay behind, too. Christina sat by the window, staring down at the dreamy Robert Hancock. Cordelia wondered why acting same, so easily to Christina? She wondered. Or was it as easy as it was and Cordelia was the one who was having a challenging time grasping the basics. She couldn’t believe that it was as hard for Christina, who seemed to be picking the lessons up with ease. The Native American student that Cordelia had seen all over campus was there too. His name was Stewart and she had talked to him on occasion, but never knew him so well. They let him keep his hair in the traditional Native American tradition.

Professor Branch came in, followed by Professor Natalie Cole and a man dressed in a two-piece suit and tie. This was Owen Townshed. Christina perked up because she had been following Owen’s work for many years.

“We asked you three to stay behind because we are considering advancing you to Second Year for the spring term,” Professor Cole said, “You would have to do some extra work on your own but I think you are up to it. Am I right?”

She looked around like a mother getting ready to scold their child over something they know they had no business doing. Cordelia and Stewart glanced around at another uneasily, then looked at Christina. From experience, Cordelia had learned not to be shocked when her intelligence was rated over people’s and this mark of favor certainly wiped out the nightmare of her struggle to understand how to read words in languages she was not familiar with. But everyone was quiet and serious about it. It sounded like it would be a lot of work for the privilege of skipping a year at Arcadia, which she wasn’t even sure she wanted to do anyway.

“Why?” Stewart spoke up. “Why move us up? Are you getting rid of students who can’t make the cut?”

He had a point as much as Cordelia hated to admit it. It was a fact of life that at Arcadia Academy that there were always thirty students per class, no more and no fewer.

“Different students learn at different speeds, Stewart,” was all she said, “We want to keep everyone where they are the most comfortable.”

“Now,” Professor Branch said as he clapped his hand, “You might all be wondering who this gentleman is who is standing right here next to us. This is Owen Townshed, a world-famous director who has made billions of dollars. He’s here to shoot his next movie and after reading about you has decided to cast you in his movie.

“Seriously?” Christina said nearly ready to jump out of her body.

“Seriously,” Owen replied, “Christina, I understand you are an amazing singer. I have just the role for you. Nicole, the antagonist of the film.” Owen reached into his bag and handed her the script. “Stewart, I understand you like to be a physical sort of guy, am I right?”

“Well,” Steward said, “Yes, I am very physical why?”

“The role of Sam, the hired killer is going to go with you.” Owen reached into that same bag and handed him a copy of the script.

“Finally, Cordelia Alldice. I have really been wanting to meet you.” Owen said, flashing a smile and showing his pretty white teeth as he handed her a copy of the script. “You will be playing a young police detective who has been assigned to capture our two criminals here.”

“I don’t feel worthy of this.” Cordelia said back as she looked at her fellow co-stars.

“You are more than ready. When I talked to Professor Branch here the other day he assured me that you have this capability of digging deep into your soul to bring any character that is written on screen to life. I want to see that for myself. Now, the school and I have been negotiating your pay.”

“Wait” Christina said, “we’re getting paid to do this?”

“Didn’t I mention that before?” Professor Branch said almost suppressing a laugh, “oh silly me, when you do any extra projects here at the school not only do you get an IMDB credit, but the school makes sure you are well compensated for your time, so yes, you are going to receive a check for your work.

At Arcadia, you only get experience through challenging work, and well, you three are ready for your first movie. You will spend the spring semester shooting Mr. Townshed’s movie. Do any of you have a problem with that?”

“No” and all three of them said that at the same time.

“Good, so it’s settled. I hereby advance you to second year students and you will need to coordinate with Mr. Townshed’s office on the filming schedule. Don’t let us down.”

Those words plunged Cordelia into a new and darker phase of her life at Arcadia University, just as she had gotten comfortable with the old one, a monkey wrench had been thrown into her plans. Until then she had worked hard, but she got this in her share of hazing like everyone else. She had wandered around campus and killed time with the other First Years in the First Years’ lounge, which reminded her of a Waffle house back in the states, but they did have a pretty fireplace that needed some serious updating and had a cozy room of severely injured couches and armchairs and embarrassingly lame video game systems that belonged in the nineteen eighties. The television looked like it was designed to be popular during the same time, but movie night which was every Friday night was where everyone gathered in the lounge and watch either a current movie or a classic movie depending on the mood that everyone was in.

That was before. Now there was no time when Cordelia wasn’t studying or working on the film with her co-stars. As often as Damien had warned her about what she was in for, and as hard as she worked up till now, she still somehow imagined that learning acting would turn out to be a delightful journey through a secret garden where she would pick the sweetest strawberries without getting caught. Instead, every afternoon after P.A. Cordelia went straight to the library to rush through her regular homework so she could take herself after dinner to the library, where her appointed tutor waited for her.

Her tutor was Professor Cole, the famous black actress who had performed scenes with her during her Audition. She looked nothing like an actress was supposed to: she had gray hair, wrinkles on her face and had the attitude to match. Professor Cole taught mostly upper-level courses, Fourth and Fifth years, and did not have much patience for amateurs. She drilled her relentlessly on the acting techniques, the breathing exercises and timing, but she’d like to see Drake’s Comedy Routines No. 7 and No. 12 again, please slowly, forward and backward, just to make sure. Her gestures and her way of making people laugh when called upon forced Cordelia to do things she never thought she would do. She knew one thing, she hated comedy and could not imagine a time when comedy would be of any use to her. In fact, Cordelia pushed herself hard because on some deep level, she liked Professor Cole.

She almost felt like she was betraying Lisa. But what did she owe her? It’s not like Lisa would have cared. And Professor Cole was here. She wanted someone part of her new world. Lisa had her chance.

Cordelia spent a lot more of her time with Christina and Stewart now. Arcadia Academy had an eleven-o’clock lights-out policy for First Years, but now with their extra workload the three of them had to find a way around it. Fortunately, there was a small study of one of the student wings, that according to Arcadia lore, was exempt from whatever technology that campus police would use to monitor the facility. It was Probably left like that for those students who had extra time to work on outside projects. It was a leftover space --- it smelled like arm pit, windowless, and designed like a circle – but it had a couch, a table, and some chairs, and the faculty never checked it after hours, so that’s where Cordelia, Christina, and Stewart went when the rest of the First Years went to bed.

They were now the odd couple plus one: Cristina sits hunched over the table; Cordelia sprawled over on the couch; Stewart pacing in circles, or sitting in a meditating position on the floor. They have the script in their hands rehearsing their scenes. They knew that they were getting a shot very few First Years ever get and they certainly were not going to let anyone down.

But Christina always knew how you screw up. Of the three, she was the strongest actress and if she was going to carry the film she was going to do her part to make sure Owen Townshed had a hit on her hands. When it came to the languages she knew her stuff and she could act out a scene in any language. While her classmates were still trying to deal with basic Latin, Japanese she was learning with ease. She was still painfully shy, but the nights she spent rehearsing scenes with Cordelia and Stewart in the after-hours room allowed her to lower her shields and open to them. They became close as they spent their nights together reviewing scenes and their weekends working on the movie, their first true movie together.

They probably would have been lost on Stewart anyway. Stewart was dull. Cordelia and Christina did not know if that was because he was Native American and that was typical of a Native American behavior or if that was just Stewart being Stewart. There was a large three-piece mirror hanging on the wall that the three students would often find themselves checking each other out in when they were in costume for the movie. There was even a television in the room that they would often watch the late-night shows, especially for some of the comedic scenes that Cordelia was not yet comfortable with.

Rather than take a break, Stewart would just wait silently for another late-night program to come on. Secretly though there was something about the mirror that made Cordelia nervous, as if something horrible was waiting for them on the other side or that big brother was watching their every move.

“I wonder where it is,” Christina said, “In real life.”

“I don’t know,” Cordelia said, “Maybe it’s in Mount Arm-Joy.”

“I’ve read those books that you talked about before.” Stewart said, “It would be nice to visit a magical land where we could leave all of this misery behind.”

“Mount Arm-Joy was the source of all of our happiness when I was traveling here to earth and when the author published those books here on Earth I was surprised at how they got popular here.”

“Please don’t tell me you are thinking about going to Mount Arm-Joy to get our homework done,” Christina said, “Because that would just be plain sad.”

“Come on folks, a little quiet here,” Stewart said.

For a Native American Stewart can be a pain in the ass.

Winter arrived, a deep, bitter-cold Chicago style winter. East Georgia rarely ever experienced cold where the temperatures reached zero or below, and the Maze was starting to be filled with snow. Snow was a rare sight in Eastern Georgia and when it happened, the local school districts start to panic. Some schools allow their students to dismiss early depending on how much snow would fall. Cordelia, Christina, and Stewart found themselves drawn apart from their classmates, who regarded them with envy and resentment that Cordelia did not have the time or the energy to deal with. For right now, they were their own little circle within the already closed hallways of Arcadia Academy.

Cordelia has already rediscovered her love of working hard. It wasn’t a thirst for knowledge that kept her going, or any desire to prove Professor Cole’s belief that she belonged in the second year, it was just the familiar, perverse satisfaction, pleasure that enabled her to master the different acting styles that the professors of the academy were trying to teach them.

A few of the older students took pity on the three marathon creamers. They adopted them as pets the way high school students would adopt someone powerful and famous. They egged them on and brought them sodas and snacks after hours. They knew that in the afternoons after class they were working on an Owen Townshed movie Even Damien condescended to visit, bringing with him some energy drinks and coffee selections from off campus designed to keep them awake, though it was hard to determine if it was working. They were purchased from a shady salesman who knew how to keep his customers coming back for more.

December slid on like silent runners, in a sleepless dream sequence. The work had lost all connection to whatever reality they had to deal with. Even Cordelia’s sessions with Professor Cole lost that spark. She caught herself staring at her hair when she knew she should be devoting herself to her studies. Her admiration for Professor Cole transformed from excitement to depressing, as if she has gone through some kind of terminal disease that was going to be taking her life.

Now she floated through Professor Branch’s lectures from the back row, feeling the isolation from her classmates, who were only on Practical Exercise number twenty-seven, when she had already scaled the heights of number fifty-three, and watched her acting improved from beneath her still-climbing feet. She began to hate the room where she, Christina and Stewart did their late-night cramming. She hated the bitter, burned smell of the coffee they were drinking. She did not like the irritable, unpleasant, unhappy person she was becoming: she looked oddly enough like the Cordelia she thought she left behind in Chicago.

Cordelia didn’t do all her studying in the little room she now called home. On weekends, she could work wherever she wanted, at least during the daytime. Mostly she stayed in her own room, but sometimes she climbed the long spiral staircase up to the Arcadia observatory, a respectable if outdated facility at the top of one of the towers. She liked it because it contained a state of the art telescope the size of a telephone pole, poking up at an angle which she used to look at the stars from her old solar system. She was surprised that the telescope could reach out that far. That was her people’s technology at work again, but at least she could see the stars she knew and was familiar with.

When she wasn’t acting out in her scenes with Stewart and Christina, Cordelia read in the observatory because it was high up and far away from everyone: Not only was it hard to get to, but the telescope allowed her to daydream about her old life, planets that she used to visit as a child. It brought her some margin of peace, but on one Saturday afternoon in late November, her secret got discovered. When Cordelia reached the top of the spiral staircase, the door to the observatory was already open. She poked her head up into the amber-lit room to see who was inside.

It was like she had poked her head into another world, an alien planet that looked like her own, but rearranged. The intruder was of all people Damien. He was kneeling like the winner of the power ball lottery with his arm extended, ready to receive his check. Cordelia always wondered who got the car up there in the first place without being seen, she didn’t care.

Damien wasn’t alone. There was someone sitting in the chair. The angle was bad, but she thought it was one of the Second Years, an unexceptional, smooth-cheeked kid with black and gold hair. Cordelia barely knew him. She thinks his name might have been Jack.

“No,” Jack said, and then again stern: “No! Hell fucking no.” He was smiling. Damien started to stand up, but the boy held him down playfully by his shoulders. He wasn’t large, but he had more authority over Damien.

“You know the rules,” Jack said, like he was speaking to one of his children.

“Please? Just this one time?” Cordelia never heard Damien speak in that pleading, almost submissive tone before. “Please?” It was not a tone she ever expected to hear in.

It was then she realized they were playing a game. She was watching something very private.

“All right.” Damien said petulantly. “My sister brought me this shirt and if you say anything negative about it, I will kick your ass,” he muttered.

Jack cut him off with a look. Then he spits, once, a white fleck on Damien’s very clean shirt. Cordelia saw the fear behind Damien’s eyes and wondered if he had gone too far. Was she witnessing a human sex act here? She knew that homosexuality was not accepted well on Earth as it was on the Colonial home world. But she became concerned when Damien fumbled jinglingly with Jack’s belt buckle, then his fly, then jerked down his pants, exposing his thick, pale thighs.

“Careful,” Jack warned. There wasn’t much affection for this playacting, if that’s what it was. “Look your stupid little hoe. You know the damn rules. Don’t make me explain it to you again.”

Cordelia couldn’t have said why she waited an extra minute before she ducked back down the ladder, back into her strait, predictable home universe, but she couldn’t stop watching. She was looking directly at the exposed wiring of Damien’s emotional machinery. How could she not have known about this? She wondered if this was a hazing ritual between the men of Earth? Maybe Damien was a sexual predator going through a boy or two a year, using them for sex and then throwing them away when he got bored with them? Did they really have to hide like this? Even at Arcadia? On some level, Cordelia was disappointed: if this is what Damien wanted, why hadn’t he come after Cordelia? Though as much as Cordelia had lusted after Damien, she didn’t know if she could have had a sexual relationship with him. Damien may not have forgiven her for refusing sex.

Cordelia decided she would do her reading elsewhere.

She finished Bob Slaughter’s Practical Exercises for Young Actors and Actress, at midnight before the exam, a Sunday. She carefully closed the book and sat for a minute starring on the cover. Her hands shaking. Her head felt numb and was hurting. Her body felt unnaturally heavy. She couldn’t stay where she was, but she was too wired to go to bed. She forced herself up from the worn-out couch and announced she was going for a walk.

To her surprise, Christina offered to come with her. Stewart just stared at the green landscape in the mirror waiting for his pale, boring face to reappear so he could keep practicing. He didn’t look up as they left.

Cordelia’s idea had been to walk out through the maze and across the grounds to its edge where he had first arrived and look back at the massive hulk of the house and think about why this was starting to be not so much fun that it should have been and try to calm down enough to sleep. She supposed she could do that equally well with Christina as she could have alone. She headed for the tall French doors that opened onto the back terrace.

“Not that way,” Christina said.

After hours, the French doors were set to trigger an alarm to whatever faculty member was on call, in her own little way Christina was trying to discourage students from breaking curfew. She led her around to a side door, she never seen before, unalarmed and concealed behind from prying eyes, that opened to a snow-covered wedge. They squeezed themselves through it in the freezing darkness.

Cordelia was easily nine inches taller than Christina, most of it in her legs, but she kept pace with her. They navigated the Maze together in the moonlight and set across the frozen River. The snow was half a foot deep, and they kicked it like little kids who had never played in the snow before.

“I come out here every night,” Christina said, breaking the silence.

In her sleep-deprived state Cordelia had almost forgotten that she was there.

“Every night? She said stupidly. “You do?”

“Just… you know.” She sighed. Her breath escaped out in the darkness and vanished as quickly as it appeared. “To get some alone time. Some me time. You know how noisy the girls tower gates. You can’t think. You can’t read.”

It was strange how normal it felt to be with someone who felt the same way Cordelia felt. “It’s cold out here. Any chance they know we broke curfew?”

“If anyone knows I bet you Director Ashman does, anyway.”

“So, if he knows, aren’t we in deep shit?”

“Why bother taking the side door?” The lawn was like a smooth, clean sheet laid out all around them. Except for some rabbits and some raccoons, no one had been out here since winter settled in. “I don’t think he really cares if we sneak out. But he appreciates it if you at least try, once in your life.”

They reached the edge of the great lawn and turned and looked back towards the house. One light was on, Director Ashman was up and from what Cordelia could see, there was another person in the Director’s room. Why was the Director up that late and who was in the room with him?

Cordelia flashed on a memory from the Mount Arm-Joy books: The part in the World beyond the Walls where Melissa and Ta’Narn go wandering through the deep, dark, and cold woods looking for a way out knowing that the Black Queen was chasing them, each of the trees told them the directions they needed to run in. As the main villain went, the Black Queen was determined to take the free will of everyone in Mount Arm-Joy and make them her slaves for the rest of the time. She was unusually glimpsed from a distance, running around with a weapon in one hand and a glowing orb of energy in another. She never let anyone see her face, not for any reason and that’s what made her so feared in the land of Mount Arm-Joy.

For some reason, Cordelia caught herself listening for a sound, but there was no sound except for the snapping of twigs that couldn’t take the weight of snow that had nestled against it.

“I know this spot,” Cordelia said. “In the summer, I didn’t even know what Arcadia was. I thought I was in Mount Arm-Joy.”

Christina laughed: a surprising, hilarious shout. Cordelia had not intended to be quite that funny.

“Sorry,” she said, “I read the first novel six months ago and I can see the appeal of why people like you enjoy stories like that.”

“Where did you come through?”

“Over there.” Christina pointed at another, identical set of trees. “But I didn’t come through like you did. You were beamed here. I woke up here on the ground, the rays of sunlight healing me.”

They must have some special, extra-technology form of transport they must have been tested for crazy ass Christiana, she thought. It was not hard to envy her. A phantom starship, or a chariot of armor, probably. Drawn by the gods themselves.

“I was in my room, I fell asleep and I woke up here?” Christina was talking in questions, like she was confused and forgetting some key details of her life, “My cousin came to this school. I wanted to come here too, but they never invited me. After a while, I was getting old, I ran away, far away that I would never be found, but they found me. I still can’t believe I’m here at this school.”

Cordelia hadn’t known. Cristina looked longer.

“Then, I took the bus from Atlanta to Savannah, then taxis from there, as far as I could. I’m sure you noticed there’s no driveway here? No roads either. There nearest one is the state Highway.” Cordelia noticed that this was the longest speech that Christina had made. “I had them let me off, on the shoulder, in the middle of nowhere. I had to walk the last ten miles. I got lost. Slept in the woods.”

“You slept in the woods?” Cordelia asked, horrified, “Like on the ground where the bugs and the creepy crawlers could get all over your body?”

“My dad took me camping when I was five. I should have brought me one. I just didn’t know what to expect when I decided to come here.”

“What about your cousin? He couldn’t let you in?”

“My cousin died of a broken heart last year.”

She offered this neutrally, purely informational, but it brought Cordelia up short. She never imagined that Christina had a family, let alone a dead one. Or that she led anything other than a clean lifestyle.

“Christina,” she said, “this doesn’t make any sense. You are the most gifted student in our class? How could they not let you in at the same time?”

Christina shrugged off the compliment with one shoulder, staring fiercely up towards the house.

“What about you Cordelia? You just walked in? What did they do?”

“Well, they couldn’t believe it. No one is supposed to find the house by themselves. They thought it was just an accident, but they chose this spot to put the school. Far away from prying eyes. Even using modern Earth technology, you can’t see this place.”

“If I go online and go to google earth and enter in this college, I’m not going to find any information on the internet about the place at all?”

“No, you are not going to find any information online about this place. They like to be all mysterious. Arcadia Academy is a legend among the famous actors and actresses around the world. I read that Whitney Houston came here and developed her singing talent here.”

“Shut the front door,” Cordelia said, “I read she’s really famous in our community.”

“Well, in my case, they thought I was homeless. I had all kinds of dirt and crap all over my body. I was crying all night. Professor Cole felt sorry for me. She gave me a nice hot breakfast and let me take the Audition by myself. Director Ashman didn’t want to let me, but she made him.”

“And you passed?”

She shrugged again.

“I still don’t understand,” Cordelia said, “Why didn’t you get invited like the rest of us?”

She still didn’t answer, just stared up angrily at the partly cloudy sky. That was the first clue that Cordelia should have picked up on. Why was she looking up at the moon? She realized that she had just casually put into words what was probably the overwhelming question of Christina’s entire existence of Arcadia Academy. It occurred to her, long after it should have, that she wasn’t the only person here who had problems and felt like an outsider. Christina wasn’t just the competition, someone whose only purpose in life was to succeed, but by doing so subtracting from her happiness. She was a person who had hopes, dreams, feelings, a history, and nightmares. Just as Cordelia had. She was just as lost and Cordelia really understood that for the first time in her life.

They were standing in the shadow of an enormous tree, a shaggy monster of a tree dripping with snow. It made Cordelia think, next month was going to be her first Christmas on Earth, and suddenly realized that they missed it. She realized that they were at Arcadia time. Real Christmas, in the rest of the world, had been two months ago and she didn’t even notice. Her parents had said something about it over the phone and had wanted to send her something nice, but she told her to save the money that the academy had provided her everything she needed. They had talked about going to the Colonial Convention in a few weeks. The Convention was a major holiday in the Colonial home world and she nearly forgot that it was that time of year as she was still growing accustomed to getting used to Earth holidays.

What did it matter? It was starting to snow again, big flakes falling over her head. What in the hell was out there that was worth all this work? What were they doing it for? To find the best actor the answer should be obvious. She just couldn’t quite name it.

Next to her, Christina shuddered from the cold. She hugged herself.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here now, however you got here,” Cordelia said awkwardly. “We all are.” She put her arm around her hunched shoulders. If she didn’t lean into her, or any way felt comforted, she didn’t feel uncomfortable either, before Ashman really. “Come on, let’s get back before Ashman really does get pissed. We got an exam tomorrow and we got that chase sequence to film for that movie. You don’t want to be too tired to enjoy it.”

They took the test the next morning, on the Monday of the third week of December. It was two hours of essays and two hours of practical exercises. There wasn’t much acting. Mostly Cordelia sat in a bare classroom while three examiners, two from Arcadia and one external (she had a Spanish accent) listen to her repeat some scenes from Shakespeare in Latin and Japanese.

The results were slipped under each of their doors early the following morning, on a piece of thick blue paper that looked like a professional invitation, folded over twice. Cordelia had passed, Christina had passed, and Stewart had failed.

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