Prologue
THE SUMMER SOLSTICE
The 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 apicture 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 lettersEAclearly 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.”
