Aurelia Hart had learned how to disappear in plain sight.
This should have been absurd; her face had been plastered up on billboards across the world for the better part of the decade, usually blood-spattered, crowned, wielding a phaser rifle, or sporting prosthetic appendages- except for that one time she agreed to do an advert for perfume.
No, wait, she'd had a crown in that one too.
The thing with fame, was that it wasn't a continuous spotlight, especially if you didn't want it to be. It was like weather, especially weather in the UK; sometimes blazing hot, often drizzly, and always unpredictable. She'd realised that, if she moved with purpose, kept her head down, and wore a hat large enough to make style editors cry, most people simply saw what they expected to see- a woman in a hurry, a stranger. If they happened to be looking a little more closely, some people might have noticed a redhead with way too many freckles, perhaps someone who looked vaguely familiar? But by the time that thought had crossed their minds, she was out of sight.
The trick was never to hesitate, not even for a moment. Hesitation was an invitation.
It wasn't that she didn't like people or felt that she was too famous to talk to the masses, it was that they all had this idea in their heads of who she was, and it was rare that those expectations matched the real thing. She was shy, stumbled over her words without a script to memorise, socially awkward, some might say.
XXX
Her flat in Primrose Hill was too small for the number of things she owned, but she preferred the closeness of a flat over a house. The kitchen was the worst offender; particularly when it came to mugs. The thing was everybody gave you mugs. When you started a shoot, there was always a project-themed mug in the gift basket. When a studio or magazine or fashion label was trying to woo you, they always sent merchandise, and what was always in the box? A mug. She couldn't blame all of it on work though; she was also a shameless collector of books she never read. They were everywhere, even stacked on the windowsills in the toilet, making her feel slightly guilty every time she sat down.
Guilty pees; not ideal.
The window in her kitchen, where she currently stood barefooted on the patterned porcelain tiles, was frosted with early morning January cold. She was holding her phone out in front of her with a slightly wary expression, leaning away from it as if it might explode in her face. The cause of her discomfort was the calendar app open on the screen, displaying the month ahead, which had large, coloured blocks on almost every single day.
Press tour. The words hung over her, insidiously.
The cities listed were mostly local this time; London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, all the usual ones on the UK press circuit. The next month would be a whirlwind of interviews, radio spots, photoshoots, screening and panel events, with scarcely a moment to breathe in between. She already knew the drill; she would be made-up to hide the freckles, hair done, her voice warmed into charming, alluring soundbites that would entice the listener into paying for a subscription to listen to the full interview without adverts. She would be asked the same five questions over and over again with little variation, until she could answer them automatically:
Aurelia, how did it feel to play Tiffany?
Are you anything like her in real life?
What does the Discworld series mean to you?
What will you do now that the show is ending?
Will you and Matthew Hill ever get back together?
Aurelia would smile. Aurelia would laugh. Aurelia would say something sincere and slightly witty about growing up with the books (not untrue) and feeling honoured to be carrying the spirit of Terry Pratchett, the now-deceased author, with her.
The thing was it wasn't exactly a lie. She was honoured. She had tried. She loved her job, loved the strong, stubborn women she got to portray. She lived a life thousands of people dreamed of, and she had lived it with extraordinary success.
The truth was that, somewhere inside her, she was haunted. There was always a moment, usually coming to her at the end of the day once the chaos and the cameras were gone, where she felt like she was hovering just outside her own life. As if she wasn't exactly in her body but watching from the corner of her room like a ghost, whilst her physical form put on a display. It was like she was waiting for something, somewhere to make it all make sense.
She poured a coffee into a mug that read "You are the weakest link. Goodbye!" a memento from an embarrassing charity appearance a few years ago. She shuddered at the memory and took a sip. It tasted burnt, but she drank it anyway.
Her phone buzzed, breaking her out of her regularly scheduled morning reverie. It was a message from Esme, her long-suffering agent.
Taxi coming for you at 11
Then another message immediately after;
Got an offer for you but can wait until after tour. Want to make them sweat.
She stared at the screen until the words merged. There had once been a time when a message like that would have been exciting, thrilling, even. Instead, she set the phone down, and pressed her palms hard against the stone countertop, breathing hard through her nose.
Ground yourself, Aurelia.
XXX
On paper, everything in her life was exactly as it should be. She'd been acting since she was twelve, now just about to turn twenty-eight, and for at least the last eight years, she had been a successful one. Aged 20 and mid-way through drama school, she'd landed the role of Captain Astraea on a popular, long-running space odyssey. The character hadn't stayed for more than one season, but it had given her a reputation in fantasy and sci-fi genres, a strange niche that had become unexpectedly powerful in recent years, especially as the trends turned in favour of deeply story-based media. She'd played witches, warriors, astronauts, alien queens, women who saved worlds, burned them down, women who said no and meant it emphatically.
At some point, the internet had given her a nickname;
Queen of the Nerds.
Originally, it had been a joke. One of the fan clubs had made a meme, photoshopping her face onto an image of Galadriel from the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Cate had been so sweet about it), with the words "Our Queen" over the top. When it got mentioned in interviews, she'd pretended to hate it, which only made people love it more.
"Honestly, I couldn't even run a bath, let alone a nation," She'd laughed on whichever chat show had most recently brought it up, her cheeks rosy beneath the hot studio lights, "I'm not even in charge of my own inbox!"
Some actors became bitter about being typecast, but honestly, she loved it. The scope of imagination in fantasy was limitless; you could write anything, be anyone. Fantasy wasn't snobby, it wasn't contained. The stories were the best, and the communities that formed around those stories deep, if sometimes a little intense. People who felt lonely, like they didn't fit in with the rest of the world, fantasy and its communities gave them a sense of belonging.
For the last few years, Aurelia had been part of an ensemble cast adapting the most popular novels from Terry Pratchett's Discworld for television. It was a one book per season arrangement, the same actors reappearing as different characters. She'd played Ysabel, Adora Belle Dearheart and Susan Sto Helit, apparently favouring the more bitingly efficient characters. Now, in this final season, based on the final Discworld book The Shepherd's Crown, she had played a slightly aged-up Tiffany Aching, a risk, but one that definitely looked to have paid off. The critics had eaten it up. Reviewers had described her performance as "astonishingly human", and "First thought, second thought, third thought- all captivating!" Someone had even written a private message to her public Instagram account, saying that Tiffany had helped them survive their own grief. It made her cry.
Dad would have been so proud.
He'd been dead for sixteen years now.
Alexander Hart had been a famous set-designer, one of those names that everybody behind-the-scenes knew, a name that really meant something if you worked in the industry. He'd been a genius with his hands, building entire worlds with wood, paint and perspective, creating sets that people remembered, even years afterwards. He could make a staircase look like it climbed all the way into the sky, painted backdrops that you were sure you could walk through and explore.
He had died on a studio lot when a rig failed. One accident, the fall not even that high, and he was gone forever. The story had been in the papers for a day or two, a few spokespeople made statements of outrage, then the world just… moved on.
Less than three months later, Aurelia attended her first audition. Anything to not be Aurelia Hart, the girl with a dead father, for a short while.
Her mother, Elowyn, still lived in the family home in Devon, the stone cottage by the sea that still, somehow, smelled of Alexander's paint. Aurelia found it difficult to be there, even nearly two decades later. She'd left for London as soon as she'd turned eighteen.
XXX
She was supposed to be getting ready for the press tour. The taxi taking her to Manchester was arriving in just over an hour, and she hadn't even started packing. She'd previously had an assistant who took on a lot of the daily tasks for her, but Daisy had left to have a baby, and she hadn't had the motivation to start the search for another.
Matthew had sent her a long email last night, droning on and on about how they should do their best to be civil during this tour, and that he would be appreciative if they stayed away from each other during downtime. She honestly didn't know what he wanted from her; they'd already been broken up for ten months, longer than they'd even been together, and he was dating that American actress from the superhero movies. That whole thing had definitely been a lesson to carry forward- never date your co-star.
She'd broken up with him because of the inexplicable feelings she'd been having, the displacement, the sensation of being elsewhere. He'd done nothing wrong, except maybe be a touch on the sanctimonious side, but otherwise lovely. Press and public alike enjoyed them together and they looked beautiful on the red carpet, smiling as if it was all just perfect…
There was that feeling again. Of being outside herself. Being with Matthew had been like that- like being in a room full of gorgeously arranged furniture, but none of it matched and you couldn't sit down.
"I feel like I'm waiting for something all the time," She'd told him, when she broke up with him.
"I hope you find it," He'd said, not unkindly. She hadn't yet though, and for some reason, this morning she was feeling it much more acutely than usual.
It was probably just stress over this tour, knowing that the world would be loud again for a while. She needed to take her mind off it.
Reaching for her phone again, she scrolled aimlessly through social media, not really absorbing the memes, the videos of dogs, the strained selfie of one of her fellow drama school dropouts who hadn't shared the same success as her, screaming of drug abuse and desperation. And then, suddenly, she smiled.
A video auto-played on her screen; a man in a terrible powdered wig and a coat that looked like it had been part of a fancy dress costume, standing in front of a green screen of Versailles. He was talking with exaggerated confidence-
"Right, so I'm Louis the Fourteen, oui?" His Australian accent was as casual as if he were making plans with his friends to go drinking, "And I've decided that the best way to solve literally every problem my reign is facing, is to turn my dad's holiday home into a giant fuck-off palace and royally piss-off everyone in my country," He leaned forwards conspiratorially, "Some of you might say 'Louis, mate, that seems expensive, aren't you worried you'll bankrupt your country?' Well, you might be right, but these calves deserve the best!"
The video cut to him strutting dramatically in slow motion. The captions gave a brief overview of Louis's embarrassing reign and the ramifications for France.
In the next video, he was dressed as a Roman statesman, aggressively speaking out against Mark Antony-
"That's right, my fellow Romans, Mark Antony had me murdered and then displayed my head and hands on the Rostra in Rome! What a c-"
She scrolled. Here he was medieval monk, complaining about the invention of the printing press. In another video, he was Alexander the Great, talking passionately about his lover Hephaestion. Aurelia liked that one. He was wearing a toga, displaying a pleasing amount of bare chest. She clicked on his profile.
Theodore Marinos . She didn't recognise the name, but she'd been enjoying his videos for a while now, primarily educational but also hilarious. They weren't always fully comedic; if a subject was sensitive or required a level of respect, he just explained the details like an ordinary conversation, although the viewer was always left smiling a little at the end. It appeared as though he actually knew and enjoyed the history, rather than simply throwing a few facts together for a video. He'd clearly earned his following of seven hundred thousand. His bio was short, and to the point; "Making history less boring. Occasionally shirtless."
Aurelia found she was grinning widely, a welcome release in the moment. The tension between her shoulders loosened, and for a short while, the melancholy abated.
Not satisfied, just… soothed.