Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQZ4K36X7KZ0DZZD73SWZ9

Rory stepped between the ancient oaks at the boundary of the Grove just as the last of the daylight bled from the sky. The standing stones—gnarled and impossibly old—seemed to lean inward as she passed, their bark twisted into shapes that almost resembled faces in the gathering dark. She pulled her jacket tighter and checked her phone. No signal. Of course not. Time moved strangely here, and apparently so did cellular reception. She hadn't wanted to come. But Eva's text had been insistent: *Need you to check the Grove. Isolde left something there for you. Tonight. Has to be tonight.* The pendant against her chest pulsed with warmth, a steady rhythm that felt almost like a heartbeat. The deep crimson stone caught what little light remained, its faint inner glow barely visible through the fabric of her shirt. It had been doing that more often lately, this strange behavior that made her skin prickle with unease. The clearing opened before her, smaller than she remembered from her last visit three weeks ago. Wildflowers carpeted the ground in impossible profusion—bluebells and primrose and foxglove all blooming together, their colors muted to grays and blacks in the moonless night. The air smelled wrong. Not the usual sweetness of the Grove, that honey-thick scent of fae magic. This was something else. Something older and damper, like wet stone and forgotten places. Rory moved deeper into the clearing, her footsteps silent on the soft earth. Isolde had said she'd leave whatever it was near the hawthorn tree at the center, the one with the white blossoms that never fell. Rory could see it ahead, a darker shadow against the surrounding darkness. That's when she heard it. A sound like breathing, but not quite. Too wet. Too deliberate. Coming from somewhere behind her and to the left. She froze, every muscle tensed. Listened. Nothing. Just the whisper of wind through leaves, except there was no wind. The air hung still and heavy, pressing against her skin like a physical weight. "Isolde?" Her voice sounded too loud, too human in this place. No response. She continued forward, more slowly now, her eyes scanning the shadows that pooled between the trees. The pendant grew warmer. Not the gentle warmth she'd grown accustomed to, but something more insistent, almost uncomfortable against her skin. She pulled it out, and the crimson stone pulsed brighter. Once. Twice. The light reflected off something on the ground near the hawthorn. A package wrapped in oilcloth and bound with cord. Rory knelt beside it, her fingers working at the knots. The breathing sound came again, closer this time. Definitely behind her. She turned her head sharply, but saw nothing except the standing stones at the Grove's edge, their twisted shapes somehow more pronounced now, more deliberate in their wrongness. The pendant pulsed again, harder. Her hands shook as she finally got the cord free and peeled back the oilcloth. Inside was a small leather journal, its cover embossed with symbols she didn't recognize, and a folded piece of paper with her name written in Isolde's elegant script. She grabbed both, stuffing them into her jacket pocket. Time to leave. Time to— Movement at the corner of her vision. Something tall and thin slipping between two oaks on her right, too quick to track, too fluid to be human. The flowers at the edge of the clearing where it had passed bent inward, curling in on themselves as though recoiling from something poisonous. Rory stood, her heart hammering against her ribs. The pendant was hot now, almost burning. She wrapped her fingers around it and felt it pulse in time with that wet, deliberate breathing that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. "I'm leaving," she said to the darkness, to whatever was in it. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "I got what I came for." She started walking toward the standing stones, toward the boundary and the real world beyond. The breathing followed her. Not footsteps—she would have heard footsteps—but a sense of movement, of presence keeping pace just outside her peripheral vision. Every time she turned her head to look directly at it, there was nothing. Just shadows and twisted oak and flowers that shouldn't bloom in October. The pendant's warmth shifted from uncomfortable to painful. She could feel her skin starting to burn beneath it, but she didn't let go. Something told her—some instinct that lived deeper than thought—that the pendant was all that kept whatever was in the Grove from coming closer. A sound to her left. A crack, like breaking branches, except it came from up high, from the canopy. She didn't look up. Didn't want to see what might be moving through the trees above her. She just walked faster, her eyes fixed on the standing stones that marked the boundary. They seemed farther away than they should be. The Grove was playing tricks, stretching space the way it stretched time. The breathing grew louder, no longer making any pretense of distance. It was right behind her now, so close she could feel cold air on the back of her neck with each exhale. Cold, when the pendant against her chest burned hot enough to blister. "Not yours," she said, not knowing where the words came from. "I'm not yours." The presence behind her stopped. She felt it, that sudden absence of movement, like a predator going still before the strike. The pendant gave one final, brilliant pulse of heat and light that illuminated the entire clearing for a fraction of a second. In that moment of crimson illumination, Rory saw it. Saw what had been following her. A shape that was all wrong angles and too many joints, something that had once been oak and earth and fae magic but had become something else. Something hungry. Its not-face turned toward her, and she saw in its expression—if expression was even the word—a recognition that made her blood ice over. It knew her. Had been waiting for her. Then the light faded, and she was running, crashing through the boundary between the standing stones hard enough to stumble and fall to her knees on the other side. Real grass. Real earth. Real air that didn't press and smother and watch. She looked back at the Grove. The oaks stood silent and still, nothing moving between them. The pendant against her chest cooled to its normal warmth, its pulse returning to that almost-heartbeat rhythm. But deep in the shadows between the ancient trees, something watched her leave. And in the pocket of her jacket, the journal Isolde had left seemed to grow heavier with each passing second. Rory stood on trembling legs and started the long walk back to Richmond proper, one hand wrapped tight around the pendant, the other checking every few steps to make sure the journal was still there. Behind her, the Grove settled back into its unsettling stillness, keeping its secrets and its hunger for another night.