Page 5 of Evergreen

I blinked. That was... not as bad as I’d expected, which somehow made it worse. Expulsion meant going home, meant facing my parents and their endless quiet disappointment. I couldn’t do that. Widdershins was my only way to get away from them. I couldn’t give that up. But greenhouse work? That sounded boring as hell.

“If you choose the labor,” he continued, “you’ll report to the greenhouse keeper every morning at six AM. You’ll work until your classes begin, and you’ll continue working after classes end until ten in the evening. On weekends you’ll work all day with meal breaks. You’ll help clean up the debris, repair the structure, and replant whatever can be salvaged. And if you fuck up even once, if you miss a single shift or show up late or give anyone even a hint of trouble, you’re gone. Expelled. No second chances. Do you understand me?”

Six in the morning until ten at night. Every single day. Weekends included. For an entire semester.

“What about homework?” I asked.

“I guess you’ll just have to fucking figure it out, won’t you?” he growled. “That shouldn’t leave you any time for dicking around or getting drunk with your friends at the frat house anymore.”

“Yes, sir,” I heard myself say. If I didn’t want to go home to my detached parents, what other choice did I have?

“Good. You start tomorrow.” He turned away from me, pulling a file across his desk. It was a clear dismissal. “Get out of my office, Mr. Reed. And if I see your face in here again, it better be because you’re winning an academic award, not because you’ve committed another act of incredible stupidity.”

I nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at me anymore, and turned toward the door. My hand was on the knob when his voice stopped me.

“And Mr. Reed? Stay away from the weather magic for a while. That’s not a request.”

“Yes, sir,” I muttered again, even though he still wasn’t looking. I yanked the door open and stepped out into the hallway, letting it slam shut behind me harder than I probably should have.

The walk back to my dorm felt like it took hours. My brain was still processing what had just happened. Expulsion or labor. Those were my choices. And I’d picked labor like some kind of masochist. Six in the morning. Every. Single. Fucking. Day.

I wanted to punch something or someone.

Instead, I found myself wandering the campus in a daze, my feet carrying me through the snow past the main quad and toward the east side of campus where the greenhouse sat. Or what was left of it, anyway.

The building was still smoldering. The roof was completely gone, just blackened beams jutting up into the twilight like skeletal fingers. The frame of the structure was intact, but everything inside was charred. The glass walls that had somehow survived the initial blast were now covered in soot, making it impossible to see what lay beyond them.

I stood outside the fence that had been hastily erected around the perimeter, staring at the destruction. My destruction. The sick feeling in my gut twisted tighter.

“Quite a mess you’ve made.”

I jumped, spinning around to find an older woman standing behind me. She had kind eyes and silver hair, and she was regarding me with an expression that was somewhere between disappointment and resignation. I recognized her vaguely. She was one of the herbalism professors, I thought. That wasn’t really my area of expertise.

“I know,” I said flatly. “Believe me, I know.”

“Do you?” she asked, stepping up beside me to gaze at the ruins. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like a kid who got drunk and didn’t think about the consequences.”

I wanted to argue, but she wasn’t wrong. So I just stood there, my jaw clenched, and said nothing.

“The Dean already sent me a message that you’ll be working for the department starting tomorrow,” she continued. “One of my more talented students, the one whose senior project you incinerated, will be your boss for the rest of the semester. I don’t know how, but somehow you’ll need to figure out how to help him salvage his entire thesis.”

My stomach dropped. “Wait, what? You mean⁠—”

“Yes,” the professor said, turning to look at me with those disappointed eyes. “The student whose rare plants you just turned into charcoal. The one who spent months cultivating specimens for his senior thesis. That student will be supervising your labor.”

Great. Fucking fantastic.

“Who is it?” I asked, though part of me didn’t want to know. Part of me wanted to just walk away and pretend this conversation wasn’t happening.

“You’ll meet him tomorrow at six AM,” the professor said. She started to walk away, then paused. “I’d suggest you apologize, Mr. Reed. Genuinely apologize. And then I’d suggest you actually put in the work to make this right. Because if you don’t, you won’t just be expelled from the Academy. You’ll be outcast from the entire paranormal community. Word travels fast, and nobody respects someone who destroys irreplaceable research and then doesn’t bother to fix it. That doesn’t bode well for your future should you choose that path.”

She paused for a long moment, letting her words sink in.

“And you better hope that my student is far more forgiving than I am.” She shot me a glare. “Personally, I would’ve given you no choice but expulsion.”

With one last huff, she left me standing there in the snow, staring at the smoking ruins of the greenhouse. My hands were shaking again, but not from anger this time. It was something else. Fear, maybe. Or the crushing weight of knowing I’d really and truly fucked up this time. And in a way that couldn’t be easily undone.

I turned away from the fence and started walking back toward the dorms, my mind already racing through the implications. An entire semester of work. Early mornings. Late nights. And worst of all, having to face the person whose project I’d destroyed day after day after day.