AI The air in Richmond Park after sunset was a different kind of cold. It wasn't the crisp, clean chill of a winter's night; it was damp, clinging, and carried the scent of wet earth and rotting leaves. Rory pulled her coat tighter, the fabric whispering against the silver chain around her neck. The Heartstone pendant lay against her sternum, a tiny, dormant coal. She hadn't felt its warmth since she’d crossed the park's boundary, which was either a good sign or a very , very bad one.
She’d come to the Fae Grove because of a note, slipped under the door of her flat above Silas’ bar. The handwriting was elegant, archaic, and it bore a single sentence: *The veil thins at the waning moon. Come to the stones. He cannot follow you there.* It wasn’t signed, but the ‘he’ was underlined twice. Evan. It had to be. The thought of him, his possessive anger, was a colder chill than any the night could muster. The Grove, with its twisted time and ancient magic, seemed a logical refuge, a place to think, to breathe air he couldn’t poison. A place, the note implied, where she might be safe.
Finding the standing stones was never a matter of navigation. It was a matter of acquiescence. You didn’t walk to the Grove; you let it find you. Rory moved off the main path, her boots sinking into the soft mulch beneath the ancient oaks. The world of streetlamps and distant traffic faded, swallowed by a silence so profound it felt like pressure in her ears . The wrongness started there, in that silence . Richmond Park was never silent. There were always foxes, the rustle of deer in the bracken, the wind in the high branches. Here, there was nothing.
Then, a sound. Not an animal sound. A soft, rhythmic *shushing*, like silk being drawn across stone. It came from her left. She stopped, her bright blue eyes straining against the gloom . The black strands of her hair brushed her cheek. Nothing moved. The trees were sentinel -still.
She walked on, her left hand instinctively going to the crescent scar on her wrist, a nervous habit from childhood. The note had said the stones would guide her. After ten more minutes of pushing through grasping undergrowth, she saw them. The oak standing stones weren't carved; they seemed to have grown that way, massive trunks bent into perfect , arches, forming a rough circle in a clearing. Wildflowers, impossible splashes of colour in the moonlight—vivid purples and yellows—bloomed defiantly around their bases. The Grove. A pocket between worlds.
She stepped across the threshold between two stones. The air changed instantly. It was warmer, heavy with the perfume of those eternal blooms, but the warmth was cloying , like the breath of something sleeping. The silence inside the circle was even deeper. No insects hummed. No leaves fell.
Rory moved to the center of the clearing, her reason for coming now feeling flimsy and naive. Wait for what? For a sign? For Evan to somehow be barred by magic? She touched the Heartstone again. Cold silver, inert gem.
That’s when she saw the first movement.
At the far edge of the clearing, just beyond the ring of stones, a shadow detached itself from a tree. It was tall, impossibly thin, and for a moment, it was just a darker patch of night. Then it was gone . Rory’s breath hitched. *A deer *, she told herself. *Just a tall stag moving through the trees *. But deer didn’t move like that. They didn’t slide. They didn’t vanish without a sound.
She decided to sit, to ground herself. She found a relatively dry patch of moss-backed rock and lowered herself onto it, forcing her lawyer’s mind to engage. *Assess the facts. You are in a known anomalous location. Perceived threats are currently unconfirmed. Your exit is…* She looked back the way she came. The arch of the stones seemed narrower now, the path beyond swallowed by a mist that hadn't been there moments before .
The *shushing * sound returned, closer this time. It seemed to circle the clearing, just outside the stone ring. Left to right. Then right to left. A slow, patient patrol. Rory’s fingers dug into the moss. She remained perfectly still, a tactic learned from childhood games of hide-and-seek, perfected under Evan’s volatile gaze. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Become part of the scenery.
From the corner of her eye, she caught another flicker . This one was within the circle. A patch of those vibrant yellow flowers, just at the periphery of her vision, seemed to wilt. Not slowly, as if from frost, but instantly . One second they were bright and full, the next they were blackened , crumpled husks. The blight spread in a small, deliberate circle before stopping.
A low vibration began to thrum through the ground, a sub-audible hum that she felt in her teeth. The Heartstone pendant pulsed against her skin—not with warmth, but with a sharp, warning jolt of cold so intense it was almost a burn. She clapped a hand over it, stifling a gasp.
*You are not alone.*
The thought was not her own. It inserted itself into her mind, clear and cold as ice water. It was a statement, not a threat, which made it infinitely worse.
The thing at the edge of the trees materialized again. It didn’t step into the moonlight; it simply became more *present * where it stood. Rory could make out the suggestion of long, spindly limbs, a head that seemed too small, a posture that was all wrong for a human or any animal she knew. It was watching her. She could feel the weight of its attention, a physical pressure on her skin.
*He cannot follow,* the voice in her mind whispered, and this time it held a tracery of amusement. *But we were already here.*
The note. It wasn’t a promise of safety. It was bait.
Rory’s cool-headedness, her prized out-of-the-box thinking, screamed at her to move, but her body was locked in a primal freeze. The time-dilation of the Grove, once a potential shield, now felt like a trap . An hour here could be a minute outside… or a year. How long had she been sitting? How long did she have?
The shadow-figure took a step forward. It didn’t walk. One moment it was ten yards beyond the stones, the next it was at the very threshold, its elongated form framed by the oak arch. It didn’t cross. It waited.
The *shushing * sound was directly behind her now, just outside the stone ring at her back. She couldn’t turn. She couldn’t look. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drum against the creeping silence .
A new smell cut through the floral perfume: the scent of ozone, of static, and beneath it, something organic and spoiled, like damp mushrooms and forgotten soil. The flowers near her began to blacken in a wider ring, the decay spreading silently outward from where she sat.
The thing at the archway tilted its head. In the faint moonlight, she saw a sliver of reflected light where an eye should be. Not a glint . A flat, dark sheen, like wet stone.
*Stay,* the voice suggested. It was gentle, reasonable. *The world outside is harsh. Full of angry men. Here, time is soft. Here, you could forget.*
The promise was a seductive poison. Forget Evan’s rage, her father’s expectations, the gnawing uncertainty of her life. Forget it all in this quiet, eternal garden. All she had to do was stay.
The Heartstone gave another vicious throb of cold, so sharp it broke through her paralysis. It was a shock, a slap. This wasn’t refuge. This was consumption. The thing wasn’t offering solace ; it was offering a digestible eternity.
With a gasp that tore at her throat, Rory forced herself to stand. Her legs were numb, tingling with pins and needles. She faced the archway, the entity now fully blocking it, though it made no move to enter.
“I’m leaving,” she said. Her voice was a ragged thread in the thick air.
The entity didn’t move. The *shushing * at her back ceased. The entire Grove seemed to hold its breath.
*You came,* the voice murmured, a hint of petulance in its tone. *You were called . You do not answer the call and simply leave.*
“Watch me,” Rory whispered, and she took a step forward.
She expected a barrier, a wall of force. Instead, the entity simply… unfolded. It didn’t attack. It shifted, its impossible limbs rearranging, and suddenly the path through the arch was clear. It was a trick. It had to be. But the mist beyond the stones was parting , showing a glimpse of the normal, dark woodland of the park.
The pendant was a lump of ice against her chest. Every instinct told her this was the trap, that stepping towards that exit was the wrong move. But the alternative was to stay in the clearing as the circle of decay reached her feet.
She walked, each step an act of will. As she passed through the oak arch, she felt a subtle resistance, not physical but psychic, a dragging sorrow that tried to cling to her bones. The scent of rot and ozone was strongest as she brushed past the space where the entity stood. She didn’t look at it. She kept her bright blue eyes fixed on the path ahead.
She crossed the boundary.
The moment her second foot touched the earth outside the stone circle, the sounds of the night rushed back in—the distant cry of a bird, the wind. The clinging warmth vanished, replaced by the honest, damp cold of an English night. She stumbled forward, not daring to look back, and broke into a run.
Only when the lights of a distant road glimmered through the trees did she slow, her lungs burning. She glanced down at the Heartstone. It was warm again, a faint, steady pulse of crimson light glowing in its depths , a tiny heartbeat against the dark.
She looked back the way she came. The woods were just woods. There was no mist, no strange silence . But in her mind, the voice’s final words echoed , not as a threat, but as a simple, terrifying correction :
*We are always here.*