AI The air inside The Fae Grove tasted of copper and wet earth, thick enough to coat the back of Aurora's throat. She stepped past the ancient oak standing stones that marked the boundary, her boots sinking into soil that felt too soft, like flesh waiting to be bruised. Richmond Park outside these borders slept under a blanket of London fog, but here, the wildflowers bloomed in aggressive bursts of colour that hurt her eyes. Petals the size of dinner plates unfurled in shades of violet and sickly yellow, releasing a scent so sweet it bordered on rotting fruit.
Aurora clutched the silver chain of the Heartstone pendant against her collarbone. The deep crimson gem pulsed against her skin, a frantic, rhythmic heat that had nothing to do with her own body temperature. It glowed with a faint inner light, casting long, dancing shadows across the clearing. She came here because the stone dragged her, a physical tug at her sternum that grew unbearable the moment she left her flat above Silas' bar. Now that she stood within the pocket realm, the pulling stopped, replaced by a silence so absolute it rang in her ears.
No crickets chirped. No wind rustled the leaves of the surrounding trees. The usual night sounds of Earth vanished the instant she crossed the threshold of the oaks.
She checked her watch . The hands spun counter-clockwise, a blur of metal. Time behaved badly here. An hour inside could mean minutes or days outside. The thought tightened her chest. She needed to find what the stone wanted and leave before the temporal distortion locked her in forever.
A twig snapped.
The sound came from behind a cluster of ferns that stood taller than a man. Aurora froze, her breath hitching in her throat. She turned slowly, her bright blue eyes scanning the dense undergrowth. Nothing moved. The oversized flowers remained still, their stems rigid as iron rods.
"Hello?" Her voice sounded flat, stripped of echo , as if the air itself swallowed the vibration.
Silence answered. Not the peaceful quiet of an empty room, but the heavy, expectant hush of a predator holding its breath .
She took a step forward, the mud squelching beneath her sole. The sound was obscenely loud in the stillness. As she moved, a flicker of motion caught the edge of her vision to the left. She whipped her head around. A shadow detached itself from the trunk of an oak tree, elongating and stretching towards her before snapping back into place when she looked directly at it.
Her hand went to her left wrist, fingers tracing the small crescent-shaped scar there. A childhood accident, harmless and mundane. Here, the scar throbbed in sync with the Heartstone.
The wrongness settled over her like a wet sheet. It started in her gut, a cold knot of certainty that she was not the only conscious thing in the clearing. The air pressure dropped, popping her ears. The wildflowers seemed to lean inward, their heavy heads turning to track her progress.
She forced her legs to move. "Just get the read and go," she muttered.
Another sound drifted through the grove. A whisper . It wasn't words, but the friction of dry leaves rubbing together, mimicking the cadence of speech. It came from everywhere at once, surrounding her. The hair on her arms stood up, prickling against the fabric of her jacket.
Aurora stopped walking. The Heartstone burned hotter, searing her skin through her shirt. The crimson glow intensified, painting the nearby flora in hues of blood. In the sudden flare of light, she saw them.
Shapes stood between the trees. Tall, impossibly thin figures composed of tangled branches and shadows. They did not breathe. They did not shift their weight . They simply existed, facing her. When she blinked, they vanished. When she opened her eyes, they stood closer.
She spun in a circle, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The figures环 encircled her now, a perimeter of darkness tightening with every second. The sweet smell of the flowers turned rancid, the odour of open graves filling her nose.
"Show yourselves," she demanded, her voice trembling despite her effort to keep it steady.
The whispering grew louder, coalescing into a hiss that sounded like steam escaping a vent . The ground beneath her feet vibrated , a low hum that traveled up her legs and rattled her teeth. The wildflowers began to wilt before her eyes, their vibrant colours draining to grey, their petals curling into blackened claws.
Something brushed against her shoulder.
She jerked away, stumbling backward into the mud. Nothing stood there, yet the sensation of cold, dry fingers lingered on her jacket. She looked down at her sleeve. A patch of frost spread across the fabric, creeping toward her hand.
The shadows between the trees deepened, pooling on the ground like spilled ink. These pools began to move, flowing uphill against gravity, converging on her position. The Heartstone pulsed so violently it felt like a second heart beating inside her chest, erratic and desperate.
Aurora backed away from the encroaching darkness, her boots slipping on the slick mud. She reached for the pendant, intending to rip it from her neck, but the chain felt fused to her skin. The metal bit into her fingers, hot as a branding iron.
The whispering stopped.
The silence returned, heavier than before. It pressed against her eardrums, threatening to burst them. In the centre of the clearing, the air shimmered , distorting the view of the standing stones. The distortion grew, twisting the reality of the grove until the trees looked like skeletal hands reaching for the sky.
A single flower, grey and withered, drifted down from above. It landed on her boot. As she watched, the petals dissolved into ash, leaving behind a tiny, blackened seed that pulsed with a faint, red light identical to the Heartstone.
She looked up. The canopy of leaves had vanished. Above her stretched not the night sky of Richmond Park, but a churning vortex of grey clouds and jagged lightning that made no sound. The lightning flashed, illuminating the figures again. They were no longer at the edge of the grove. They stood ten feet away. Five feet.
Their faces were blank smooth wood, featureless save for a single vertical slit where a mouth should be. The slits opened in unison. No sound came out, but the pressure in the clearing spiked, forcing Aurora to her knees. Her lungs burned as the air grew thin, devoid of oxygen.
She gasped, clawing at her throat. The Heartstone glowed blindingly bright, turning the world into a wash of crimson and black. The figures took a step forward. Their movement was jerky, unnatural, like stop-motion animation stripped of its frames. One moment they stood still; the next, they loomed over her.
Aurora scrambled backward, her hands tearing at the mud, searching for purchase. Her fingers brushed against the cold bark of an oak root. She pulled herself up, legs shaking, and turned to run toward the boundary stones.
The path she had taken minutes ago was gone . Where the gap between the oaks had been, a solid wall of thorns now blocked her exit. The thorns were thick as her arm, black and glistening with sap that looked suspiciously like blood.
She spun around. The figures had closed the distance. They stood in a tight circle now, boxing her in. The vertical slits on their faces widened, stretching the wood until it cracked. From the darkness within the slits, a pale, grey mist poured out, rolling across the ground like fog.
The mist touched her boots. The leather hissed, smoking as if dipped in acid. Aurora jumped back, kicking her feet to dislodge the fog. The smell of burning plastic filled her nose.
The Heartstone screamed. Not a sound, but a psychic shriek that drove a spike of pain through her skull. She dropped to her knees again, clutching her head. Blood trickled from her nose, dripping onto the grey, dead flowers.
Through the blur of pain, she saw the figures raise their arms. Their limbs elongated, stretching impossible lengths, the branches that formed their bodies interlocking to form a cage above her. The canopy of limbs blocked out the churning sky, plunging the grove into total darkness save for the crimson glow of the pendant.
In the dark, the whispering started again. This time, it formed words.
"Stay."
The voice came from the ground, from the trees, from the stone around her neck. It vibrated in her bones. Aurora squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the sensation, the smell, the crushing weight of the presence surrounding her. She focused on the scar on her wrist, on the memory of Cardiff, on the feel of rain on her face in the real world.
Something cold and hard wrapped around her ankle.
She screamed, kicking out wildly. Her boot connected with solid wood, but the grip tightened. The thing holding her dragged her backward, sliding her across the mud toward the centre of the circle. Her fingers scrabbled in the dirt, nails breaking as she tried to anchor herself.
The mud gave way. A hole opened beneath her, dark and bottomless. The cold grip on her ankle pulled harder, inexorable. The crimson light of the Heartstone flared one last time, illuminating the face of the figure closest to her. The vertical slit in its wooden face pulsed with the same red light as the stone.
Aurora's hand slipped from the root she clung to. She slid inches closer to the void. The air rushing up from the hole smelled of ancient dust and forgotten things. The figures leaned in, their branch-limbs creaking as they bent toward her. The whispering became a roar, a cacophony of voices demanding she remain in the space between seconds.
She stared into the red slit of the creature's face, her breath coming in ragged gasps, the cold hand on her ankle tightening until she felt the bone grind.