AI The last bus to central London had left hours ago, and Rory's phone had died ten minutes after she'd stepped into Richmond Park. Just her luck. Still, she pressed on, guided by nothing but moonlight and determination. The pendant nestled against her collarbone, its weight a small comfort.
She'd never been one for late-night excursions to parks, but the note slipped under her door that morning had been specific: "Midnight. The old oak stones in Richmond Park. Bring the Heartstone. I have answers about your mother." It was signed with a single letter: J. Her mother's initial. Jennifer.
Five years since her mother's disappearance, and this was the first real lead. Of course she'd come.
Rory checked her watch . 11:47. The moon hung full and bright, casting long shadows across the expansive park. The night air carried an unseasonal chill for June, and she pulled her jacket tighter. Something about the moonlight made the landscape seem almost too sharp, too defined, like a photograph with the contrast turned up.
"Standing stones," she muttered to herself, scanning the tree line ahead. "Oak standing stones. How hard can it be to find massive chunks of—"
She stopped short as the tree line broke, revealing a clearing encircled by what looked like ancient, gnarled oak trunks twisted into standing-stone formations. They weren't on any park map she'd studied. Yet there they stood, seven of them, arranged in a loose circle around a small meadow carpeted with wildflowers that shouldn't be blooming this time of year.
Rory approached slowly , that familiar itch of curiosity mixing with caution. Her father had always said her curiosity would be the death of her. But then, her father said a lot of things.
As she passed between two of the oak formations, a subtle shift rippled through the air. The distant sounds of London—far-off sirens, the hum of traffic—vanished. In their place came the sound of rushing water from somewhere she couldn't see and a whispering rustle that seemed to circle the clearing.
The pendant grew warm against her skin.
"Hello?" Rory called out, her voice sounding oddly flat, as though the air itself swallowed the sound. "I got your note. I'm here."
No response came but the continued whisper of...something. Not wind through leaves. Something else. Something with pattern and purpose.
Rory reached the center of the clearing and checked her watch again. 11:52. She had time. She'd wait. The person would come.
But as she stood there, something began to feel off. The wildflowers, vibrant despite the darkness, seemed to shift position when she wasn't looking directly at them. The whispers grew more distinct, still unintelligible but clearly not natural sounds. And the pendant—the Heartstone—pulsed with increasing warmth against her skin.
Rory circled slowly , scanning the boundaries of the clearing. "This isn't funny," she called out, injecting more confidence into her voice than she felt. "If you know something about my mother, just come out and tell me."
Movement caught her eye—a shadow slipping between two of the oak stones. Too fluid for a person. Too large for a fox or a deer.
"Who's there?" Rory stepped back, instinctively moving toward the center of the clearing again.
The Heartstone grew hot enough that she had to pull it away from her skin, holding it out by its silver chain. In the moonlight, the deep crimson gem pulsed with its own inner light, like a tiny, beating heart.
A soft chuckle sounded from behind her. Rory spun around. Nothing.
Another laugh, this time to her left. She pivoted again.
"Stop it," she said firmly, falling back on the voice she'd used in mock trial competitions. Authoritative. Controlled. "Show yourself."
The whispers intensified, and now she could almost make out words. Her name, perhaps. Other words she didn't recognize. The language sounded ancient, musical, and wrong in a way she couldn't articulate.
Rory glanced at her watch . 11:58. But that couldn't be right. She'd arrived at 11:47, and it felt like she'd been standing here for at least twenty minutes. She tapped the watch face. It had to be wrong.
The wildflowers began to sway, though there was no wind. Toward her. All of them, bending gently in her direction, as though curious.
"This was a mistake," Rory muttered, turning to leave the way she'd come. But the oak stones looked different now—closer together, taller, more menacing in their twisted forms. She couldn't identify which pair she'd walked through.
The pendant jerked in her hand, pulling toward a specific gap between two stones. Rory hesitated, then decided to trust it. She'd received the Heartstone three days after her mother vanished, delivered in a small wooden box with no note, no explanation. Just like today's message, it had been slipped under her door while she was out.
She moved toward the gap the pendant seemed to be indicating, but as she approached, the ground trembled beneath her feet. The wildflowers shot up suddenly , growing taller, their stems thickening, blooms expanding to the size of dinner plates. They blocked her path in a riot of impossible colors.
"No," Rory said firmly, as though addressing a misbehaving pet. "I'm leaving now."
She changed direction, heading for a different gap, but the same thing happened—wildflowers erupting from the ground, growing with audible creaks and pops to form a barrier.
The whispers had become a chorus now, rising and falling with unsettling harmony. And with terrible certainty, Rory knew she was not alone in this clearing. Something watch ed her. Many things, perhaps, studying her from just beyond the ring of oak stones.
The Heartstone burned against her palm now, its crimson glow casting her hand in bloody light. She checked her watch again. 12:01. Midnight had come and gone.
"I don't know what this is," she said to the empty air, to the watch ing presence she could feel but not see, "but I'm done playing games. Either show yourself or I'm finding my way out of here."
A soft laugh answered her—the same one as before, but closer now. A woman's laugh, warm and familiar in a way that sent ice through Rory's veins.
"Mom?" she whispered.
The whispers stopped abruptly. The wildflowers froze their swaying. Even the pulsing of the Heartstone paused. For one long, breathless moment, everything was still.
Then a figure stepped through the gap directly in front of Rory—the same one she'd initially entered through, she realized with a start. The figure was slender, feminine, backlit by moonlight so that Rory couldn't make out the face.
"Aurora," the figure said, in a voice that was her mother's but somehow not—deeper, more resonant, with an echo that no human voice should have. "You came."
"Mom?" Rory stepped forward, relief warring with confusion. "What is this place? Where have you been? Why—"
"So many questions," the figure said with that same familiar laugh. "You always were curious. Too curious for your own good."
The figure stepped fully into the clearing, and moonlight illuminated her face. It was Jennifer Carter—her delicate features, her kind eyes, her gentle smile. But there was something wrong with the proportions. Her eyes were slightly too large. Her smile extended a fraction too far. And her skin had a faint, luminescent quality, as though lit from within.
Rory's relief curdled into dread. "You're not my mother."
"I am and I am not," the figure said, tilting her head at an angle that looked painful. "I am what she became. What she chose to become. What you will become as well, now that you've brought the Heartstone back to the Grove."
The wildflowers began to creep forward, their stems elongating across the ground like seeking tendrils. Rory stepped back.
"I don't understand. What happened to my mom? What is this place?"
"The Fae Grove has always been here, child. Hidden between worlds." The not-quite-Jennifer gestured expansively. "Your mother discovered it by accident. You came by invitation." Her smile widened further, revealing teeth that seemed to o numerous, too sharp. "It's time you joined us. The court has been watch ing you for years."
The Heartstone jerked violently in Rory's hand, pulling toward the figure. She clutched it tighter.
"No," Rory said firmly. "Whatever this is, whatever happened to my mother—I'm not staying. And I'm not giving you this." She closed her fist around the pendant.
The figure's expression hardened, the pretense of humanity dropping away further. "The Heartstone belongs to the Grove. As do you, daughter of Jennifer. The invitation was a courtesy. The choice is not yours to make."
The wildflowers surged forward suddenly , wrapping around Rory's ankles. She tried to step back, but they held fast, their touch cold as ice through her jeans. The whispering voices returned, louder now, more insistent.
"Let me go," Rory demanded, yanking at her legs. The small crescent scar on her left wrist caught the moonlight as she struggled.
The not-Jennifer noticed it and hissed, actually hissed, drawing back. "Iron," she spat. "You've been marked by iron."
Rory glanced at her scar—the result of falling against an iron fence when she was seven. Her mother had been distraught, far more than the minor injury had warranted.
Understanding clicked into place. Fairy tales. Iron and fae. The pendant's warmth.
With sudden clarity, Rory pressed the silver chain of the Heartstone against the wildflowers holding her legs. They recoiled with a sound like steam escaping a kettle. She broke free, stumbling backward.
"Clever girl," the creature wearing her mother's face said, more curious than angry. "But silver won't help you leave the Grove. Once entered willingly, the way back must be earned."
Rory's mind raced. The Heartstone. It had guided her to an entrance. Perhaps...
She held the pendant out before her and turned in a slow circle. When she faced northeast, the crimson gem's pulsing intensified, its inner glow brightening.
"There's always a way out," Rory said, backing toward the gap the pendant indicated. "And I'm going to find my real mother. The human one."
The not-Jennifer's face twisted with something like regret. "Your mother made her choice, Aurora. Five years in the Fae realm—there is precious little humanity left in her now. There will be less in you, should you return."
Rory reached the gap between the oak stones, the Heartstone pulling urgently now. "Watch me," she said.
As she stepped through, the not-Jennifer called out one last time, in a voice that was almost entirely her mother's: "I'll be waiting, my darling. We have all the time in the world."
The world lurched around Rory, reality bending like light through water. She stumbled forward, momentum carrying her through—
—and fell onto damp grass in Richmond Park. Regular, mundane Richmond Park, with the distant sounds of London returning. Dawn light crept over the horizon. Her phone, when she checked it, showed 6:17 AM and a full battery.
The Heartstone pendant hung quietly against her chest, cool once more, its inner glow dormant. But as Rory climbed shakily to her feet, she could have sworn it pulsed once—like a promise, or a warning.