AI Aurora stood at the threshold of the Fae Grove, wind nosing along the ancient oak standing stones. Richmond Park behind her had gone flat and soundless, ironed out by the night. Only the outline of distant trees and the faint coil of mist said the world still turned beyond the boundary.
She drew a steadying breath. Heartstone Pendant pressed cool and heavy against the hollow of her throat. Its glow napped against her skin, visible only as a dark, lazy blush in the corner of her gaze. She checked her phone twice anyway, as if the glowing screen might transform uncertainty into clarity.
No signal. Not even a failed app update. Just the usual for this place.
She moved forward, boots pressed deep into moss. The standing stones loomed, trailing fingers of shadow behind them. Moonlight slipped through the treetops, carving slick silver lines across the grass, and every bloom looked waxy, too perfect , buds still wet at midnight in defiance of the season.
Aurora cleared her throat, the small sound swallowed instantly, so the hush flowed inward, tight as a blindfold.
Why come here, alone, at this hour?
Eva’s voice echoed from some distant day—you need to see for yourself, Rory, not what people say. Too stubborn to rely on scraps from others. But the Grove despised straight lines and clear reasons. Tonight, it pressed in around her. Time buckled, fickle and sly.
She stepped past the last stone. All at once, the Grove thickened around her, air sharpening, frogsong swelling, then cutting off. A single lark trilled once and fell quiet. Aurora reached for the pendant. Warmth soaked her fingertips, slow and reassuring, like a secret handshake. No stories of the Grove mentioned heat.
She walked toward the centre. Flowers—bluebells, primrose, foxglove—grew in thick riotous mats, turning soft underfoot and muffling each stride. Moonlight leaned over her shoulder, pale and feral. She peered between tangled trunks, each one crooked as a finger, and forced herself onward.
A stick snapped behind her. She whirled, mouth tight, but there was nothing. The standing stones lay still as gravestones, their runes—if that’s what they’d been, or just splits in old bark—cloaked in shadow. Breathing out, Aurora turned back, focused on remembering each twisted trunk and arch of grass. The cold grew teeth, nipping at fingers, nipping through the denim at her knees.
She drifted deeper. The urge to look back tugged at her, familiar as an old song, but she pressed on, clenching her jaw.
A bird took flight—no, not a bird, nothing winged lived here after midnight. Something pale flickered behind leaves, vanished when she paused. A rabbit, maybe. She almost laughed aloud.
From above, the breeze shifted, bringing the tang of sap and distant rot. Nothing moved, yet every few steps, a new shape caught her eye—a hollow in a trunk, a hunched figure that blinked into a stump as she neared.
You’re not alone. The thought lingered and refused to leave.
Aurora made for the heart of the clearing. She checked her pocket for the slip of paper with hastily scribbled instructions—a joke between her and Eva, insurance against the weird bends of fairy places. The paper felt soggy, letters bleeding at the edge, unreadable now. Did water get in somehow?
Something skittered high in the branches, leaves shivering though the air was breathless. Aurora looked up, braced, the pendant hot on her collarbone.
Nothing watched her. Still, she pressed on.
“Right.” Her voice shook, unwanted ripple over the velvet hush. “One lap around the stones, then back through the centre. That’s what they say.”
A grey mist had begun to pool in hollows, twining around flower stems, fretting along fallen branches. No wind. The mist moved on its own. Aurora crouched, fingers brushing moss, pulse thumping hard in her wrist. Her scar glimmered silver in the moonlight as she pressed the tips to the ground, feeling for tremor or breath or anything that might say she wasn’t alone.
The earth answered with nothing.
She straightened fast, cold sweat smearing along the edge of her hairline. Something moved in the periphery—a shadow darting behind a standing stone, low and not-quite-human, limbs too long, the wrong slope to its back. Aurora’s pulse juddered.
She swallowed. “It’s a trick of the moon, that’s all.”
The Grove doubled down in response, shuddering with silence .
The standing stones drifted closer—not huge, but tonight every edge chewed up sky and sucked in darkness, ancient bark swallowing light and memory. She wove between them. Her knees ached, and every snap of twig underfoot sent panic lancing up her spine.
A laughter bled through, gentle as the wind, but it held no warmth . It skirted her ears and then, gone. Aurora stopped. Her breath misted white in the air.
“That’s enough. Said I’d walk one lap, not stand here like a mug.” She dared herself to move forward, bones humming with memory of threat. The next stone loomed , low and wide, covered in wildflowers that didn’t fit the season—bluebells in December? She crouched, peering at the blooms. They wept dew despite the cold, and each petal seemed to shift when not watched directly.
The pendant thrummed against her. She pressed her palm to it. It smouldered, hot enough to sting. This close to a Hel portal? No one mentioned a portal in the Grove. Was she even still in Richmond?
She scanned for any break in the trees, but the Grove’s heart twisted behind her, the way back already unclear. Trees hunched together, bark slick with unseasonable sap. Something sharp whispered behind her ear: a sigh, or the wind spelling her name. She didn’t turn. She wouldn’t look behind.
“Not here for you. Only the pendant.” She gripped it.
Branch creaked overhead—slow, deliberate, as though bearing weight . Shadows lengthened over moss. Mist nipped at her ankles, swirling in loops that drew close, closer, then pulled back as if repelled by the heat of the Heartstone.
Aurora’s throat ached. Her legs itched to run, but the Grove blinked with too many wrong shadows. She picked a direction, careful not to look directly at any one thing for too long. The mist and moonlight fed tricks to her vision: faces in the bark, gnarled roots snaking into something like fingers, never quite distinct enough to name. Each time she blinked, shapes slid closer.
She focused on her breathing. Slow, through her nose, jaw set. The world shrank to her feet, her path, and the low angry burn of the pendant. Night birds called. No—no, that wasn’t birdsong. The calls stuttered, repeated too perfectly , as if the Grove echoed her own memory of birds, but failed to get it quite right.
“Doesn’t matter. Keep going. Left past the fallen log—then south, or whatever counts as south in here—”
Behind her, the laughter returned. It unrolled in wavering waves: not loud, not shy, not cruel, just there. Aurora clenched her fists , feeling blood pulse in her fingertips. Her shoes left no prints in the soft moss. Was she walking in circles?
She jutted her jaw forward, voice sharpened to a knife’s edge.
“If you’re there, say something. Show yourself.”
The Grove only grinned back at her, an owl’s gold eye winking in the dark, then gone.
She stumbled atop a knotted root, catching herself against the rough bark of a standing stone. The pendant pulsed , red catching in her palm. The world teetered; for a moment, she saw lights flicker between trees, a riot of too-bright hues, impossible reds and greens and blues stringing through the wood, slick and shifting like oil on water.
The colours vanished. The moonlight thickened, syrupy and pale.
Aurora pressed the pendant to her chest. It seared against her skin. Still, she clung to it. It was the only thing anchoring her here, the only piece of certainty in this tilting world.
The sounds at the edge of her hearing crept closer, warping, soft as silk dragged across teeth.
Aurora forced her legs to move, listened to the branches above. The wind kicked up, throwing the mist into curls that brushed at her calves, then snatched away again with little sucking sounds.
Past the final stone, she broke into the clearing, heart crashing against her ribs. The Grove pulled back. The laughter died. Stillness rippled outward.
She stumbled forward, swallowing bile, dragging herself toward open moonlight. Was the exit where she remembered? Or had the Grove turned her around again, paths folding in on themselves with each uneasy footstep?
Aurora squeezed the pendant so hard its chain cut into her palm. She looked to the boundary for any sign—any hint—that the world outside still waited. For a beat, for a breath, she glimpsed city lights flickering beyond the stones.
She moved, boots slick with dew, every muscle screaming stay, run, freeze, all twisted together.
The Grove bent round her, unblinking. Time slid off its walls. Something behind her laughed again, softer now, but Aurora didn’t turn. She ran for the edge, pendant dripping heat through her grip, vision tunnelling to the slim, pale gap between the standing stones.
She did not look back.