Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQE6P7F6CWD14Z4B9EHDNS

Rory ducked beneath the oak's lowest branch, her breath misting in the November air. The boundary stones rose before her like crooked teeth, older than memory, their bark crusted with lichen that gleamed silver in the moonlight. She'd memorized the way here during daylight reconnaissance, but at night, Richmond Park became a different animal. The usual dog walkers and joggers were long gone, replaced by the susurrus of wind through bare branches and the distant sound of traffic bleeding through from the A307. The Heartstone pendant hung warm against her collarbone. That was new—it had been cool when she'd left the flat an hour ago, hanging beneath her jumper like it always did. Now it pulsed with a steady, faint heat that she could feel even through the layers of fabric. She'd come to the grove because of the dreams. Three nights running, she'd woken with the taste of copper on her tongue and the image of that clearing seared into her mind. Not just any clearing—*that* clearing, the one with the perpetually blooming wildflowers that shouldn't exist in November, the one that existed in a fold between worlds. Isolde's grove, Eva had called it once, before she'd made Rory promise never to go back alone. But Eva wasn't answering her phone anymore. And the dreams were getting worse. The pendant pulsed again, warmer now. Rory's jaw tightened. A Hel portal. That's what the heat meant. Somewhere nearby, the boundary between worlds was thinning. She stepped through the standing stones. The temperature dropped immediately, ten degrees in the space between one breath and the next. Her lungs seized. She could see her breath now—not the fine misting of a cold night, but thick plumes of vapor as if she'd stepped into a freezer. The shift was so abrupt that her body protested, a primal resistance that made her teeth ache. The grove spread before her, looking exactly as she remembered it. Wildflowers in impossible profusion—lupines and foxgloves and roses that should have withered weeks ago. The grass was green and thick, springy beneath her trainers. Above, the sky was a different quality of dark than the sky outside; the stars were dimmer, somehow farther away, as if she were viewing them through layers of glass. The pendant's pulse had become a steady throb now, insistent as a heartbeat. Rory moved into the clearing, her senses stretched taut. The air tasted wrong—sweet and mineral, like licking a battery. Her ears popped as if she were ascending in an aeroplane. She'd been in the grove before, briefly, but never at night. Never alone. The place felt different in the dark, watchful in a way that made her aware of how utterly isolated she was. No ambient sound of traffic now. No distant hum of human civilization. Just the wind—which didn't quite sound like wind, she realized. It had a hollow quality, like breath through teeth. She moved deeper into the clearing, toward the heart of it where the flowers grew thickest. The pendant burned now, almost uncomfortably hot. Whatever portal it sensed, she was getting closer. That's when she heard it. A sound like footsteps on the far side of the clearing. Not tentative, uncertain footsteps—confident ones. Someone walking at a normal pace through the grass and flowers, as if they belonged here. Rory's hand went to her jacket pocket, where she'd stuffed the small canister of pepper spray Eva had insisted she carry. Her eyes strained in the darkness, trying to pierce the shadows at the grove's edge. The flowers seemed to glow faintly here, their colors deepened by the strange light. Reds looked black. The whites looked gray. The footsteps stopped. "Who's there?" Rory called out. Her voice sounded smaller than she'd intended, swallowed by the non-air of the place. She cleared her throat, tried again. "I know you're there. I heard you." Nothing. The wind that wasn't quite wind rustled through the flowers. A scent drifted across the clearing—sweet rot, like fruit left too long in the sun. The smell made her stomach turn. The pendant pulsed, and for just a moment she could have sworn it blazed with crimson light bright enough to see by. She spun around, but the clearing was empty. Just wildflowers and dark and the breathing of that strange wind. There. Movement at the edge of her vision. Just a shadow, just a shape passing between two denser clusters of flowering vines. Too tall to be a deer. Too purposeful to be anything wild. "Eva?" Rory's voice cracked slightly. "Is that you?" The shape stopped moving. In the silence that followed, Rory became aware of how her own breathing sounded—loud, rapid, the sound of prey animal prey. Her hands were trembling. She curled them into fists. Then came a sound that froze her completely. It was laughter—except it wasn't. It had the shape and rhythm of laughter, but the texture was wrong. It sounded like wind over broken glass, like air escaping from a tomb, like something remembering the shape of joy without ever having felt it. Every muscle in Rory's body went rigid. The shape moved again, crossing the clearing in the periphery of her vision. When she turned her head to look directly at it, there was nothing there. But the moment her eyes moved away, she could sense it again—a dark shape, man-shaped but subtly wrong about the proportions. The arms seemed too long. The head sat at an angle that shouldn't have been comfortable. The pendant was incandescent now, a point of burning heat at her throat that made her want to rip it off. She forced her hands to stay still. "What are you?" she whispered. The laughing-that-wasn't-laughter came again, closer this time. It seemed to come from behind her. She spun, but the clearing was empty. Or full. She couldn't quite tell anymore. There seemed to be movement everywhere now—shadows flowing between the flowers, shapes that resolved into nothing the moment she focused on them. The wind picked up, carrying that rotten-fruit stench, and the flowers began to sway in patterns that didn't match the direction of the wind. Rory's breath came in short, sharp gasps. Her vision was beginning to tunnel. The pendant burned against her skin, and she realized with horrible clarity that she'd made a mistake. Coming here. Coming alone. Coming at night. A sound. Not wind now. Whispering. Multiple voices, speaking in a language that predated human language, a tongue made of empty spaces and held breath and the sound of something ancient stirring in the dark. The words meant nothing and everything. They conveyed urgency. Hunger. An awful, specific interest in her. The shape materialized in front of her. It was there one moment, not there the next. Fully corporeal, close enough to touch. She could see the outline of it—the too-long arms, the head that tilted at that impossible angle. She couldn't see features, exactly, but she could feel the weight of its attention, a pressure against her mind like deep water pressing on a submerged thing. Rory's hand found the pepper spray. She yanked it free and fired. The canister hissed. The spray hung in the air for a split-second and then dissipated as if the air itself had refused to carry it. The shape didn't move. Didn't react. But the whispering intensified, becoming a chorus, becoming a sound that was almost like applause. Rory ran. She crashed through the wildflowers, not caring which direction, only knowing she had to get to the boundary stones, had to get out, had to get back to a world where things obeyed the laws of physics and didn't laugh like breaking glass. The flowers seemed to grab at her ankles—she fell, hands slamming into the grass, and she felt it then, a touch on the back of her neck. Not quite contact. Close enough. The pendant blazed with impossible heat. She scrambled to her feet and ran. The oak boundary stones loomed before her, ancient and solid and real. She threw herself between them and fell to her knees on the cold November grass of Richmond Park, gasping, shaking, feeling the night air of the actual world rush into her lungs like salvation. Behind her, beyond the stones, the whispering had stopped. But she could still feel it. Waiting. Patient. Interested. The pendant was cooling against her chest, but it no longer felt like protection. It felt like a beacon. And somewhere in the darkness behind her, she was sure she could hear that terrible laughing resume.