Page 10 of Evergreen Academy (Society of Magical Botanists #1)

Chapter Nine

“ M any students dual enroll here and at SCC. It helps to keep up our facade in the community. I looked at your schedule and saw that you’re done by noon each day.

We offer morning and afternoon classes here, so we can work out an afternoon-only schedule for you.

And you’re not currently taking any classes on Fridays at SCC, which is perfect, since that’s our affinity studies day. ”

Professor East chattered on as we left his office and made our way down one of the two grand staircases.

The windows all around let in rainbows of light that must have sustained the plant life that seemed to cover every free inch of the school’s interior.

A few students hurried past us, arms loaded with books and plant materials.

I tried to force my focus back to his words. My class schedule. I had purposely crafted it to end by lunchtime each day so that I could do my homework in the afternoons. That left my three-day weekend available for working at my aunt’s bakery .

“I work at a bakery Friday through Sunday. It’s how I pay my tuition. I could cut back to only working on the weekends, but that wouldn’t leave me much time for homework.”

Professor East nodded. “I guess I forgot to mention that being a research fellow with Evergreen Academy comes with a stipend.”

My eyes widened, and I gulped as everything finally started to sink in. Was I really going to become a student at the Evergreen Academy, a school for… magical botanists? I suddenly felt lightheaded again, and I took a sip from my water bottle, wishing I had another of Professor East’s wafers.

“And I get this stipend just for attending? Is it dependent on my grades?”

“We don’t have traditional grades at Evergreen.

So no, this isn’t like a scholarship that’s dependent on your maintaining a certain grade point average.

Success here is measured in many ways. A lot of it has to do with your affinity powers and the areas of research you eventually take on.

The grade is not the goal. The outcome is. ”

I swallowed another big gulp of water, wondering if I was dreaming all of this. I was going to attend a magical school where I would be paid for attending, and where I didn’t have to worry about my grades. I was truly in an upside-down world.

“Hello, Ms. Ortega. Right on time.” Professor East’s voice interrupted my thoughts, and I turned, mouth falling open in surprise.

“Yasmin!” I gasped, shock coursing through my already adrenaline-fueled body.

Yasmin smiled broadly. “Briar! What are you doing here?” She glanced at Professor East. “That’s a dumb question. Obviously, you’re going to start attending the academy.”

Professor East gave a slight smile. “I see you two know each other already. Yasmin here has a very strong affinity for mosses and ferns.”

My eyes widened.

“I know, I know.” Yasmin put her hands up. “It doesn’t sound that cool, but trust me, it is. Mosses and ferns are some of the unspoken heroes of the forest.”

I smiled, my stomach relaxing for the first time since I’d arrived at Evergreen Academy.

“Mr. Rhodes didn’t have time to give you the full tour, so I’ve asked Ms. Ortega to take over,” Professor East said.

I blinked, realizing that Rhodes must be Callan’s last name.

The knot in my stomach that had been nagging me loosened at the thought of touring the school with Yasmin.

Since I knew her from my art class at SCC, her presence made things feel more normal.

As normal as was possible under the circumstances, anyway.

I eyed her ruby earrings with a new appreciation and glanced down at my emerald ring.

Professor East said goodbye and slipped into a glass elevator behind the stairs, presumably returning to his office.

Yasmin looped an arm through mine. “So, you’ve already seen the entrance atrium when you came in and Professor East’s office upstairs. We call this area down here the central vein because it connects everything else in the building. Like a leaf.”

She turned us toward an open archway made of the same white stone that comprised the rest of the building.

“This is research lab one. The first floor has most of the research labs, plus the teahouse. Most of the classrooms are on the second floor or outside. The dorms and the library are on the third floor. Don’t worry about remembering all this.

You’ll get the hang of it when you start classes. ”

Start classes . The idea was dizzying. My brain snagged on another thing she’d said. “Teahouse?”

“Our affectionate little term for the cafeteria.”

Yasmin tugged me from room to room on the first floor, and we poked our heads in to see a handful of students in each lab room.

The rooms were an odd mix of modern scientific equipment and materials that looked like they were from an earlier century.

Mortar and pestles were common, as were glass bottles, test tubes, and vials.

And everywhere I looked, bits of plant material were scattered on the tables.

“What kind of research do people do here?”

“Oh, all kinds of things. It can really be up to you, depending on what your interests and affinities are. Most of the research happens during the second-year or third-year internships. The first year, we just do our foundational classes and our affinity studies.”

We popped our heads into the last research room on the first floor, and I spotted Callan peering through a microscope while simultaneously scribbling something in a notebook. He lifted his gaze when we looked in, nodded at us, then got back to work.

“So, Callan is a second-year, then?” I asked Yasmin once we’d left the room.

“Oh no. He’s a first-year. But he’s very advanced. Are you ready to see the classes upstairs? Most people are still at lunch, so they should be fairly empty.”

We went up the curved stone staircase again, and Yasmin showed me each of the classrooms on the second level.

Some were similar to the lecture halls and lab rooms on the SCC campus, except each room was connected to the exterior of the building, so one wall was always made entirely of glass.

The clear windows were scattered with the plants that climbed inside and out.

“And now for the third floor,” Yasmin said. “I’ll show you my dorm room in a minute. But first, the library.”

My breath caught as we walked into the massive room.

The walls that weren’t glass were lined from floor to ceiling with books, and the entire roof overhead was glass, as if we were inside a human-sized terrarium.

Cozy alcoves of cushioned chairs and even some hammocks were scattered around the corners of the room.

Tables with books, pens, and what I dared to hope were art supplies were stationed at the tables.

Plants poured out of every nook and cranny, vines and flowers snaking across the fronts of the books and along their shelves.

But the showstopper was the towering tree in the center of the room, its gnarled trunk somehow both living and hollowed out, opening to a miniature reading room inside it.

The soft glow of tea lights flickered invitingly.

The remainder of the tree ran upward through the library, the top somehow flowing seamlessly out of the glass so that no gaps existed.

“Spectacular, right?”

“I never want to leave,” I admitted. I let my eyes roam over the oil paintings that covered the few open areas of the walls. There were paintings of leaves, flowers, roots, and portraits of a few people who looked like they were from a much earlier century .

“You can spend as much time as you’d like here when you’re not in classes,” Yasmin said. “Ready to see the dorms?”

“Does everyone live on campus?”

“Almost everyone. I do know of at least one student who lives off campus. Does this mean you’ll be moving in?”

I blinked, mind racing. Professor East hadn’t mentioned anything about moving on to campus. “I don’t think so. I live locally with my aunt a few streets from the SCC campus,” I offered.

“That’s cool. So you’ll be one of the rare ones who lives off campus.

I think most people like to live here so they can work on their research at any time, and we have social events that span evenings and weekends.

But sometimes I wonder if there isn’t a benefit to living off campus and interacting with the real world instead of just magical botanists all the time. ” She winked, and I smiled.

“There are two wings: men’s and women’s. Men are to the left of the staircase from the library, and women to the right. My room is right”—she turned the knob to a door we’d just approached and pushed it open—“here.”

My eyes widened, and a grin spread across my face. It was like I had stepped into a storybook home. “No way.”

“Yep, I feel like I live in a tree house sometimes.”

The window in this room was curved and rounded, popping her room slightly out into the forest. Outside, a massive tree was sprawled in front of us, its branches and bright green leaves extending toward the window.

A large round bed was nestled under the window, with shelves of books surrounding it. Potted plants in vibrant planters ran along the low windowsill above the bed, while hanging ones snaked down from the top of the window. I forced my eyes away from the glass to examine the rest of the room.

As would be expected in a college dorm, there was a wooden desk with floating wall shelves above it, and they were all covered with papers, plants, and a few teacups.

There was a small closet, the doors wide open and revealing clothes in browns, whites, blues, and greens.

Oversized fern plants adorned every corner of the room, both on the floor and hanging from the ceiling.

Yasmin waved her hand, and the ferns shimmied, as if waving hello to me, a dramatic reminder that Yasmin had a fern affinity. Aside from the one demonstration with the vine in Professor East’s office, I’d yet to see anyone using their affinity powers.

“Okay, I am officially jealous of this room.”

Yasmin laughed. “Well, you always have the option to move in if you want to. If not this year, then the next.”

I looked around the room and tried to imagine it.

It was too strange to even contemplate. And she’d mentioned next year.

I couldn’t begin to fathom what an entire year would be like at this school, let alone the idea of a second year.

But a warmth bloomed in my chest at the thought that I could belong here.

Standing in this room with Yasmin, in the heart of the forest, calmed me in a way I couldn’t explain. It was art come to life. And I wanted to explore every inch of it.

“This is a two-year school, then? Like SCC?”

“Technically, yes. Though most students go on to do an internship with a magical botanical field office during their third year, which is run through Evergreen Academy. ”

I wanted to ask her about the magical botanical field offices, but the existence of the academy was already a lot to process, and Yasmin was continuing her explanations.

“So, now you just have to do all your affinity tests this week, and then you’ll officially be ready to start classes.”

Reality snapped back into place. Right. It wasn’t all fun and games and leisurely time in the library. We still had to figure out where I fit in the field of magical affinities, which I didn’t at all understand.

The reminder that I’d never felt any kind of unexplainable pull toward plants snuck into my consciousness. Was there a chance that Professor East had been wrong in his assessment? If so, it would mean I didn’t belong here after all.

I didn’t look back as we left Yasmin’s room, and she softly closed the door behind us.

Shortly after our tour, I caught a ride back to the SCC campus with Professor East, my mind swirling the entire way. Despite the wildest theories people had proposed about Evergreen Academy, not one of them was as wild as the truth.

It was a school for magical botanists.

Magical freaking botanists.

My thoughts were broken when Professor East spoke as we pulled into the parking lot at SCC. “Well, I’m sure that was a lot of new information today. I can drive you back to campus after classes again tomorrow to start your affinity testing, or you can drive yourself. Do you have a car?”

I nodded. “I can drive myself.”

“Great.” He pointed toward the ring on my finger. I’d nearly forgotten it was there, and I ran my opposite pointer finger across the smooth emerald .

“Just make sure you have that on you. Hold it up near the gate, and it will open for you. And Ms. Whelan”—his voice lowered an octave—“in case this hasn’t explicitly been said, Evergreen Academy operates in strictest secrecy.

Only other magical botanists know of it.

I know this may be difficult, but you can’t tell your family or friends about it. ”

I met his eyes, heart racing. Perhaps deep down I’d known that I was being let in on a secret that others in my life couldn’t be, but could I really keep it a secret… forever? What about Aunt Vera? Maci?

“Can we count on your confidence?” His eyes were steady on mine, then they flitted briefly to my ring again, and I wondered what would happen if I said no.

But I swallowed and replied, “Yes, Professor East.”

The intensity in his eyes relaxed, and he smiled. “I thought so. See you tomorrow, Ms. Whelan.”