Page 2 of Evergreen Academy (Society of Magical Botanists #1)

Chapter One

“ T omorrow’s the big day. I can’t believe my niece is going to be a college student.

It’s making me feel old.” My aunt wiped her hands on her apron and tucked a dark curl behind her ear.

Her flower-embroidered apron hung from her neck and was tied securely around her waist, her ever-present uniform when she worked in the café.

“You? Old? Never,” I said with a grin, and my aunt—barely forty and the receiver of plenty of attention from our male customers—nodded approvingly.

“Have I told you lately you’re my favorite niece? I wish we could rewind the clock on summer, though. It always goes by too quickly.”

My brain conjured a memory from the summer, the one that had replayed in my mind in the weeks since, and before I could think twice, I asked my aunt about it. “Have you ever heard of anyone around here celebrating Midsummer? ”

“Midsummer? It’s a lovely tradition in many countries. But no, I don’t think many people celebrate it in the US.”

I’d done a little research on it immediately after the day in the woods outside Evergreen Academy and learned that it was another term for the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.

But the way the stranger had said “Happy Midsummer,” as if it had been as common as saying “Merry Christmas” in December, had thrown me. It was a strange salutation.

“When I was in culinary school, one of my classmates was Swedish,” Aunt Vera continued. “She told me that Midsummer is a holiday there, and people make flower crowns and wear them around. It sounded delightful. Why do you ask?”

I shifted my weight and poured my attention back into stirring the batter in the large commercial mixing bowl between my hands.

I didn’t want to tell Aunt Vera that I’d been sneaking around on Evergreen Academy grounds at midnight, having conversations with strangers.

Aunt Vera was lax compared to most of my friends’ parents, but that one wasn’t likely to go over too well.

“It’s just something I heard about this summer, and it’s not a common holiday here.”

“That gives me an idea. We should start selling midsummer-themed cookies. We could do the same when the seasons change to fall, winter, and spring as well.” I could see my aunt’s brain—creative, like my own—running through ideas for decorating the cookies, cakes, and cupcakes that she was famous for. New themes always excited her.

“I like that. Want me to mark it in the calendar for fall?” I was headed to the wall calendar when I heard the soft ting of the bell from the front room .

“I’ve got it,” I said. I went out to mix up a lavender latte for a customer, grateful for the distraction from my memories of the stranger in the forest. I noticed a middle school student, Emma, seated in the corner. She often sat there and sketched while her mom worked on a laptop at the window.

I walked over to her. “May I see?”

Emma nodded and moved so that I could look at her sketch. It was of a field of wildflowers.

“Wow. That’s beautiful, Emma. I like what you did with the contrast there.”

Emma beamed. “Thanks. I got a new pastel charcoal set for my birthday.”

“When was your birthday?”

“On Monday.”

“Just a second.” I walked to the pastry counter, took out a cupcake, then used one of our piping tools to draw a purple flower and a cursive Emma . I riffled through the drawer and found a candle then nestled it into the frosting.

Emma’s mom paused her work when I came over with the cupcake and a lighter.

“Briar! That’s so thoughtful!” she said, squeezing her daughter’s shoulder. “How did she know purple is your favorite color?”

“We can’t let our town’s best thirteen-year-old artist’s birthday go by without celebrating.” I lit the candle and set it in front of Emma. She grinned at me, closed her eyes, and blew it out.

My aunt was watching from the counter when I returned. “Where’d you get such a heart of gold, Briar Rose? Certainly not from me.” She winked .

I laughed but knew it wasn’t true. My aunt had some sass, but she was a big marshmallow at heart.

It came through in a million different ways, the most significant being when she’d invited me to live with her after my mom—her twin—had died unexpectedly and I’d begged not to have to leave my friends to move in with the dad I wasn’t close to in Seattle.

She was the reason I’d been able to finish middle and high school in Weed, the small town my mom had wanted me to grow up in.

“Maybe it came with my auburn hair,” I joked, fluffing the wavy tendrils that fell to my waist. The dark red-brown hue was apparently a signature of my dad’s side of the family, while most relatives on my mom’s side had raven hair.

As we cleaned and closed the bakery that evening, I tried to shake off a slight sense of melancholy.

Emma had just turned thirteen, the birthday age my mom had never lived to see for me.

I hoped that Emma and her mom would cherish every moment they had together.

The impending start of college was another moment my mom wouldn’t be there for.

I paused to take in the feeling of the café, which helped ground me and lift my spirits.

Vera’s Café always smelled of sugar. Walking into the place was like entering a cozy cottage, with plants trailing along the walls and soft music playing in the background.

Real candles were a fire hazard, but battery-powered ones littered shelves around the room, stuffed between books and other curiosities.

And on one wall, nestled inside a gilded frame, was a striking painting of a local pasture.

My mom had painted it not long before the accident, and customers commented on it regularly. Every time that happened, my heart expanded a little, grateful that people were still admiring her work .

The café had been my favorite place to do homework in high school, and I didn’t expect that to change once I started at the local community college.

My seat of choice was a counter stool that faced the street, where I could watch the traffic that came off the highway, with people stopping for a food and refueling break.

I only had two more years in this little town, and then I’d be off to a university. It felt like an eternity and nothing at all at the same time.

“Grab one of the sourdough loaves, will you? I’m making soup tonight,” Aunt Vera said, dissolving my thoughts of the future.

The musings had become more frequent recently as I wondered if my plans were going to work out the way I’d always dreamed they would.

The way I’d been striving for for six years.

I wrapped a loaf of sourdough in paper, removed my daisy-printed mini backpack from the hook in the back room, and joined my aunt as we locked up.

“That afternoon rush was intense,” I said as we turned and walked up the stairs to our apartment above my aunt’s business.

Summer was always the busiest time at Vera’s Café, since people passed through for road trips to the Oregon coast or even farther up to Washington or Canada.

Other travelers made their way south, destined for San Francisco or the Southern California beaches and amusement parks.

This week, it seemed that everyone was heading home, just in time for the start of the school year.

I’d been working full time in the summers for the past few years, but I always dropped down to weekends only once school started. I’d been tucking away my small hourly wage into my tuition and book fund, and with the semester starting tomorrow, I would need to begin spending it.

I rolled my shoulders as we entered the apartment and went to check my list of classes for the millionth time. This was what I needed to be focusing on—my future and continuing my mom’s legacy.

I did not need to be dwelling on the strange sensation I’d experienced during a random summer encounter in the woods. But the curious part of my brain that I struggled to turn off refused to forget it.