“And she’s a lawyer too? How does she find the time to do both?”

“She puts in a lot of hours. Too many, sometimes. She’s one of those people who’s constantly grinding, you know? She never stops.”

“That can be a good thing,” I said.

“Sometimes.” The sadness in his tone had returned. “There’s such a thing as too much work though.”

As much as I was enjoying my first trip into town, my mind drifted back to the iron gate in the forest and what might be behind it. Circe had implied it was a garden but I wanted to see it for myself.

“I gotta get back to my parents,” I said. “But listen, it was really nice meeting you.”

“You too,” he said, smiling. “Can I, uh—can I call you?” As he leaned on the counter, his elbow slipped off and his wrist hit the countertop with a loud crack.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.

“Maybe we can get coffee or something?” He rubbed his arm.

He definitely wasn’t flirting, but I was still trying to figure out his angle. Maybe he was just a guy with friend potential, even though dudes like that were few and far between. The thought sent a wave of panic through me. I didn’t know if me and my parents were staying and if we were, would a friendship with him be any different from Gabby or Marlon when he inevitably found out what I could do?

But he was easy to talk to even if he was awkward as hell, and my parents already liked him way too much. If I was being honest, I needed a friend. Maybe more than I needed anything else.

“Coffee sounds good,” I said. “Let’s do that.”

We exchanged numbers and I left. As I headed back toward Ginger’s, my parents came strolling around the corner.

Mo gazed over my shoulder. “Where’s Karter?”

“He went back to work,” I said. “And thank y’all so much for embarrassing me like that.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” Mom said. “It’s good to see you doing things with kids your age. He seemed nice.”

“He is nice,” I said.

Mom and Mo raised their eyebrows in unison and exchanged mischievous glances.

I shook my head. “It’s not like that. Y’all are the worst.”

“Are we though?” Mo asked. “I kinda think we’re the best.”

“The absolute best, if you really think about it,” said Mom. She and Mo exchanged nods.

“I’m ready to head back if you are,” I said.

Mom pulled me close and kissed me on the side of my face. “My big-head baby.”

We drove to the house, and Mom decided she needed to take an oatmeal bath to deal with her rash. Mo fell into a food coma on the couch, and I spent the late afternoon debating whether I should go back to the garden or not.

I put on and took off my sneakers three times. My procrastination skills were legendary when it came to schoolwork and sometimes my chores, but this was on a whole other level. The incident with the man in the glade was fresh in my mind, but beyond that there was fear. Fear that I might find something I couldn’t walk away from. When I finally worked up the nerve to go back, it was already dark, and that seemed like a perfectly good excuse to put it off for one more night.

CHAPTER 10

The next morning, I was up before Mom and Mo. I sat on the edge of my bed and weighed my options—stay in and help my parents clean, or maybe face somebody’s knife-wielding pawpaw in the woods on my way to a secret enclosure where I was told answers would be waiting for me.

What happened had shaken me. He’d called me Selene, said he needed something, and then got laid out by a tangle of poisoned vines. I had to get out there but I wasn’t going back under-prepared. I’d had Mace before, but this time I slipped Mom’s Taser into my pocket, grabbed my bag, made sure my phone was fully charged, and left out the door.

The sloping length of grass was green where I’d walked through it the day before. I took a parallel route to try and even out the color but it only made it look worse. As I approached the tangle of vines at the edge of the forest, they drew back before I had a chance to reach out. Did they sense my presence and respond, or was I willing them to reveal the path to the glade and the strange enclosure? I didn’t know but both possibilities intrigued me enough to continue on. I glanced back at the house before ducking into the trees and following the trail.

When I got to the clearing, I scanned the entire area. As far as I could see, no one was lurking in the shadows. I was alone aside from the trees and flowers, but I didn’t really feel alone. I was meant to be there. I didn’t know how or why, but it had to be true.

In front of the gate I stood on shaky legs as the carpet of black bat flowers curved toward me like they were waiting anxiously for me to open it. A thousand thoughts tumbled through my head. I didn’t know what was behind the gate or why Circe felt it was so important that I find out, but I couldn’t walk away from this.

I held the key that had been taped to the map in my trembling hand. As I put it in the lock, the bougainvillea curled down and encircled my wrist, twisting around it gently before snapping itself off, leaving me with a beautiful bracelet of purple blooms. Few things shocked me when it came to what foliage might do around me, but this left me in awe.

The lock clicked open and the vining plants gripped the gate’s iron bars, pulling them apart. I took a few tentative steps inside.

The gate suddenly clanged shut and I almost jumped out of my skin. The trees righted themselves, covering the entrance so that I couldn’t see through the gate’s bars. No one would be able to follow me, but what exactly had I walked into?

Dead leaves crunched under my feet as I followed the path through a stone corridor that terminated in a sharp left turn, like an entrance to a maze. I rounded the corner and found myself looking at a large rectangular courtyard. A tree stood in the center, its gnarled trunk—as wide as a car—led up to a canopy that fanned out like a giant umbrella. Pressed into the inner walls of the stone enclosure were metal pegs that held rakes, small shovels, and coiled hoses. Several watering cans of various sizes littered the ground. A rusted spigot stuck out of the wall.

Raised beds filled the courtyard in a checkerboard pattern, each divided into quarters by wooden planks. Every bed was full of plants, but they were all dead, their leaves yellowed, their stalks broken. A short wooden pillar with a plaque affixed to the top stood in front of each bed. I walked to the closest one and scraped off a thick layer of green moss to read the words under it.