Sierra Officially Entering into Maestrohood

It’s warmer than I expected it to be up here, I muse to myself as I finish the drive north and pull into the gravel parking lot. The nearest town is a good dozen miles away, which is likely how Therese managed to finagle the land and rights for the Magisterium back during her internship. Climbing out of my van, I look across the other few cars in the lot. Not that many, as most of the students aren’t back yet. Most of the cars that are here are older, clearly the people who chose to come here are not the most privileged. It is a very new villa, after all.

Great Maestro Niles Pollis comes out of the building to greet us. “You must be our new Maestro, Ms. Leyten. I’m Dr. Pollis, the Great Maestro of this Villa.”

“Good to meet you, Great Maestro. You said on the phone you would be providing housing for a time in the villa.”

He nods. “We don’t recommend staying on campus long term, of course, but we understand finding a place to stay in town is not the easiest. Were you busy this summer?”

I nod. “Kind of, actually. I do think after I get my things in order for the first week, I want to pick your brain a bit about good time management practices. I’m working towards following in your footsteps, in a sense, getting myself a degree outside the Magisterium as well.”

“Really?” he asks, “What sort of degree are we talking about?” He’s clearly moving through his memory of my CV, trying to figure out what I’m actually intending to do.

I make it easy for him, and hopefully relax him a bit. “Don’t worry, I’m just looking into and applying for PhD programs for Archeology.”

The Great Maestro nods. “Right,” he replies, “That was your focus. Do you have a position yet?”

“Not yet,” I admit, “I spent the summer getting my thesis reworked and submitted into a formal, peer-reviewed place so that I can use it in applications. With that done, I can utilize our official pseudomasters to get into a doctoral program.”

“Seems like you’ve planned this out,” Dr. Pollis admits, “I am more than happy to give you my advice, but if we’re both honest and you’ve planned this far, you’ll likely have most of that advice already worked out.”

“Maybe, but even if I understand some, I’d like to know, from your experience, what I’ve learned is useful and what’s not as useful,” I offer, but he’s right. I have done a whole lot of research already, and have a pretty good idea of what’s going to go into it. How many countless hours, and the on-off campus commuting time, is going to go into it. I even got a wireless hotspot in my car so that I can work from the field across the way when necessary. That said, I also am not wholly lying. His experience balancing Maestrohood with Med school would be helpful in determining which advice to follow when.

“Fair enough. This is our main office and auditorium. If you head inside and to the left, one of our Magisters is waiting to show you to your office and your temporary apartment,” the Great Maestro finishes his spiel, “Your schedule’s in your office, and as the new Maestro, you will be in charge of Prospective Orientation. Don’t mess it up, okay?”

I chuckle. “I’ll try,” I say as I head back into the building behind him.

Calling it the main office and auditorium is an exaggeration, I realize as I walk in. It’s just an auditorium. As I head to the left, I enter the so-called main offices, a series of seven different administrative offices, two of which are currently occupied. Sitting in a chair in the lobby of this area is a young woman with a tightly cropped red bob, maybe twenty five. She smiles at me, but I can tell she’s sizing me up. “You must be Maestro Leyten,” she says, “I’m Marcelline Leveque, Magister for the last two years. Welcome to our humble compound.” She stands up from her chair. “Which do you want me to lead you to first, your office or your apartment?”

I look at her and think. I need to get some work done, and she undoubtedly has so ending in the office would make the most sense. “I just need to know where the apartment is for later, then take me to my office, Miss Leveque.”

She nods. “Alright then, Maestro Leyten,” she says. Holding out a small manila envelope, she says, “So that’s your keyring. It has your fob, for the buildings, the key to your apartment and the key to your office,” she explains as I take the envelope. “Don’t lose them, you don’t get a spare without a healthy heaping of judgment from the good doctor.” She begins to lead me out of the side door.

Following her through the villa’s campus, I can understand why she called it a compound. It basically is. Largely separated from the world, check. Has a forest on the back end that feels like the bounds extend into, and fields around. And it seems to have everything it needs, from the classroom buildings, to the dorms, all only two to three stories tall. Magister Leveque leads me through the buildings to a set of five, tucked away on the treeline. “These are the apartments,” she says, “I don’t recommend staying long, unless you want to deal with the kids running into the woods at all hours of the night.”

“Really? Is there nothing better to do?” I ask.

She shrugs. “There is,” she admits, “If you have a car and time to go into town. But most of the apprentices here don’t, which basically leaves goofing off in the woods or in the dorms.”

I shake my head. “I suppose that makes some sense,” I reply, even though from her face it is completely unnecessary. “So, where’s mine?”

Magister Leveque nods and leads me to the second of the five buildings. The door has a sensor. Pulling the keyring out of the small manila envelope, I press it to the sensor. A light goes green, and there’s a click as the door unlocks. We enter into what is a sort of communal sitting room, a pair of couches, some chairs, and a television. There are also six doors. “Yours is apartment number 23,” the Magister says, gesturing towards a door labeled 3, “I believe it is a second story one, so that door just leads to a stairwell.”

Flipping the key ring to the keys, I try one on the door, then the other. Sure enough, the door leads to a sharp turn and a stairwell. Walking up the stairs, I’m faced with a perfectly functional attic space, or half of one at least, set up as an apartment, complete with bathroom, kitchen, dining area, and ratty old mattress on the floor. Shaking my head, I walk right back down the stairs and lock my apartment door. “Two questions, as we head out,” I say.

The Magister, who was leaning on the back of one of the couches as she waited for me, stands up and shrugs. “Shoot,” she replies, turning towards the door back outside.

“Can I pull my car up here, and have any idea who else is in this building?” I ask.

“It’s frowned upon, but not against any rules,” she answers presumably the first question, “So as long as it’s just for moving in, I doubt anyone will mind. As far as the other rooms, yes. But that’s not my place, and some of them might be moving out this week. Elaine was complaining about the noise last year a lot.”

I close the door behind us and wait. It takes a moment before I hear the whirring of the door relocking itself. With a nod, I follow Miss Leveque back into the compound, towards the buildings that don’t look like dorms. “These are the Apprentice dorms,” she says, gesturing towards the long, thin, two story dorm buildings. “You’ll likely find that, unless some miracle occurs in this year’s prospective class, we only really hold about half capacity at this point. But the doctor really pushed to keep the center of the compound balanced, so we have the extra dorm space.” Then, taking me to one of the square, brick, two story buildings, she says, “And this is the Magister and Maestro offices. We are forced to share ours, but you get an office all to yourself,” she informs me. Once again, there is a sensor by the door’s handle. I push my fob up against it, and the light turns green, then the door unlocks. I head inside, into what feels like an old school building, with narrow, plaster colored hallways and a cork board that is currently empty save a sheet of printer paper that has written on it in colored pencil the words ‘Welcome / Bienvenue’.

I shoot the Magister yet another look and ask, “Did you do that?” gesturing towards the page.

She shakes her head, and means it. She almost looks genuinely surprised by it being there. “No, Henri or Valentina must have done it,” she explains, “It wasn’t here this morning when I got the ‘lead the new Professor around’ gig.”

Not a great thing to hear. I shake my head, and she leads me down the hall and around the corner. Sure enough, there on our left is a wooden door with a glass window peeking into a mostly empty office. And beside the door is a small plaque that reads ‘Maestro Sierra Leyten. Archaeology and Interpretive Theory.’ I use the other key, the one that didn’t work on my apartments, and it opens this office. She follows me in through the door this time. The inside has a desk, a computer, some shelves, and a few books on Mystic Theory and History. Probably just the basic things that someone untrained in the nuances of Interpretive Theory would assume relevant to it. But a polite thing to have done, nonetheless. I sit down in my chair, and look up at my guide, who is waiting to be acknowledged, or released. I smile politely. “I have to get to work, thank you for showing me around,” I offer.

She nods. “Of course,” she replies, “And, if you need any more help, I’m right upstairs, Room 202. My office mate is still on vacation for another week, so don’t worry about bothering anyone.” She heads out of the office, checking back one last time.

I log into the computer using my Magisterial ID and password. All the systems are connected, so it lets me into my account. Almost a second after I log in and am online, a message pops up. Not an old one that is only notifying me now because I have been driving for the last seven hours, but one just sent to me. I open it up. ‘did you like the welcome note?’ is all it reads. A random phone number. Sent from outside the Magisterium’s servers, but directly to my account’s internal communications software, which as far as I’m aware, doesn’t have a phone number to which you could just send a text. I shake my head at my old drinking buddy being obnoxious. I send back a simple, ‘busy. Leave me alone until after orientation’. Curt, to the point. She’ll respect that. I hope. After I hit send, I open my email and start to look through it. Somewhere in this mess of emails is the information that the Great Maestro sent me about orientation, when it is, how long it is, the bullet points it’s required to hit, and where I have some freedom to improvise. Because if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right. And that means putting in the prep, taking my time on the writing, and making certain it’s perfect. As I scroll, another message pops up. This one is from our network’s communication software. ‘Free to talk?’ is all it says. From Magister Isaac Ingram. I stare at it a moment, hovering my mouse over the notification so that it stays on the screen without opening it. Without having to commit to making a decision. All while trying to decide what I wanted to do.