Page 1 of Evergreen Academy (Society of Magical Botanists #1)

THE SUMMER SOLSTICE

T he darkness of the forest engulfed me like a cloak as my friends and I crept through the underbrush just before midnight.

It was the height of summer, and it had taken forever for the sun to set.

But now that it had, darkness had settled completely.

We made our way through the thick forest from where the road had ended to the grounds that housed the elusive Evergreen Academy, a fount of speculative rumors within our small town.

“There’s the gate,” Mitchell said, a note of roguish exhilaration in his voice, and I squinted ahead to where a large metal gate with some kind of symbol loomed. My stomach kicked up a notch. We were really doing this.

“Let’s make this quick, okay?” Maci asked for the second time that night. “Get in, get the pictures, get out.”

“Maci’s right. No theatrics, you two,” I whispered to Mitchell and Jace, who feigned looks of innocence.

“You’re the boss, B,” Jace said smoothly. “We just need a picture of ourselves in front of the gate to prove to Javi that we did it.”

Javi—Jace’s cousin—was the reason the four of us were all here.

He’d made a bet with Jace that if he snuck up to the gate, he would give him twenty bucks.

Somehow, that had morphed into Jace roping us all into the scheme.

Still, I hadn’t been too reluctant. These were my high school friends, and now that we’d graduated, this felt like a final mildly reckless bonding experience before our lives headed in separate directions.

“Is this close enough?” I asked, examining the tall metal gate, a clear indicator to keep out if I’d ever seen one. Maci snapped my picture as I struck a pose. I stood slightly off-center, the swirling vine symbol and the letters EA clearly visible with the flash of her camera.

Task completed, I glanced through the gate with a surge of curiosity, but I glimpsed nothing but dark forest. While the other three took turns getting their pictures—Jace and Mitchell turning theirs into a photo shoot opportunity—my eyes roved over the dense, dark forest that surrounded us.

Attached to either side of the iron gate was a massive brick wall that surrounded the grounds. It was covered in trailing ivy and moss and went on as far as the limited distance my eyes could see in the dark. I tripped on a rock and took a step back, looking down at where I’d just stepped.

A ring of round stones formed a circle the size of my aunt’s small dining room table.

“Never step in a fairy ring, Briar!” Maci called with a laugh.

I startled, not realizing that the three had finished their photo shoot .

“That confirms it, then,” Jace said. “This place is some kind of mystical cult.”

“Seriously, though. What do you think this academy is about?” I asked.

“My money’s on the California equivalent of Area 51. People already claim to visit Mount Shasta because it’s a touch point for aliens. Maybe this is where the government experiments on them,” Mitchell said with a completely straight face.

I rolled my eyes.

“I still say it’s a cult.” Jace shrugged, squinting through the gate as I had a few moments earlier. “Think there’s anyone in there that needs rescuing?”

“My mom said it’s a private school for rich kids,” Maci said practically, letting some of the air out of our wild speculating. “Are we ready to go?”

I nodded, and Jace and Maci linked hands and began to walk down the road to the car, Mitchell right behind them. But I didn’t immediately follow. Instead, I turned back to the circle of rocks.

A fairy ring . I shook my head but smiled. So-called fairy rings were made of mushrooms, not rocks. And there was no magic to it, just a scientific phenomenon caused by some kind of fungus in the soil.

If anything, this circle of stones was more interesting. It was man-made. The question was, who had created it, and why? And why place it just outside the gate of this creepy abandoned academy?

I reached out a hand, inexplicably compelled to feel the soil inside the circle .

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep voice said from somewhere behind me.

I jumped so quickly that I stumbled, feeling my ankle give a slight twist. I steadied myself and whipped around, searching for the source of the words.

A young man about my age, somewhere between eighteen and twenty, was leaning against a tree.

He had olive skin and chestnut-brown hair and was dressed in all black, or maybe his jeans were dark enough to look black at night.

I tensed immediately and cast a look over my shoulders. My friends were already out of sight.

I turned back to the newcomer and straightened my shoulders. “And why shouldn’t I? It’s just a circle of rocks.”

“Are you sure about that? What did your friend call it? A fairy ring?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice.

So he’d overhead that. “It’s obviously not a fairy ring.”

“How do you know?”

I rolled my eyes, feeling less tense at the presence of a stranger than piqued by curiosity at the weird line of questioning. “Because fairies don’t exist, so this can’t be a magical ring.”

A slight smile pulled at the corner of his lips, as if I’d said something funny. “That’s partially true.”

This conversation had taken a strange turn. I took a step back, ready to join my friends. But something kept me from turning away completely. A bit of moonlight caught his arms, illuminating black tattoos. The bits I could see looked like leaves or vines.

The stranger noticed my gaze, and he crossed his arms. “What are you doing out here?”

“I came with some friends.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“It was a dare,” I said, straightening my shoulders slightly. In his presence, all of that felt a bit juvenile.

“Did you get what you came for?” There was a hint of amusement in his tone again, and I suddenly had the feeling he’d known why we were here all along. A small voice reminded me of what Maci had said. My mom said it’s a private school for rich kids.

I studied the stranger’s dark collared shirt, pants, and shoes. I didn’t know much about designer clothing, but they looked expensive. And tattoos weren’t cheap. I’d never seen anyone our age with that much ink. Could he be a student at Evergreen Academy?

The idea was intriguing. I’d lived in the small town of Weed, California, for eighteen years, and I’d never met anyone associated with the academy. I’d thought the place was probably abandoned, a relic of an earlier time.

“I’m not sure,” I said, struggling to remember what he had just asked. Get it together, Briar .

“I think your friends are waiting for you. Be careful walking back. Wouldn’t want you to trip.” By the way he said it, I knew he’d seen me lose my balance against the rock and almost fall into the ring. I narrowed my eyes.

“I know my way around. I grew up here.” I wasn’t sure why I’d said that, but I felt the need to defend myself for being in this forest. If he truly was here to attend this Evergreen Academy, then he was the newcomer, not me.

His eyebrows drew up incrementally. “Well then, happy midsummer, local.” He smirked, and I frowned. Happy midsummer? I wanted to study him more closely, but it was difficult to get a read on him in the dark.

We stood there like that for a moment—locked in some strange staring contest, his expression infuriatingly relaxed—until I heard Maci call, “Briar! Where’d you go?”

I glanced behind me and saw her emerging from the trees with Jace right behind. The headlights from Mitchell’s car shone in the distance. “Who are you talking to?”

When I looked back toward the fairy ring, the dark-haired man was gone. I shook my head, scanning the forest. There wasn’t a soul or a sound besides us. “No one.”

By the time we were driving down the long dirt road and into town, I’d begun to wonder if I’d seen him at all.