AI The black iron gate groaned on rusted hinges. Rory shoved it open just wide enough to slip through, the sound too loud in the damp, still air of the park. She’d been here once before, in daylight. Eva had brought her, laughing, weaving between the ancient oaks, promising magic. It had just looked like a nice clearing then. Now, under a moonless sky, Richmond Park was a sea of ink, and the Fae Grove was a darker stain within it.
She’d come back for Eva’s bracelet. A stupid, sentimental thing, a thin silver chain with a charm shaped like a music note. Eva had lost it last time they were here, laughing too hard to notice it slip from her wrist. Rory had seen it glint in the ferns but hadn’t bothered to pick it up. Now Eva was gone —not dead, just gone, vanished from her flat without a trace three days ago—and the bracelet felt like the last thread . Rory needed a thread.
The standing stones were easy to find, even in the dark. They weren’t just stones; they were the petrified remains of enormous oaks, their bark-like textures frozen in grey stone, arranged in a rough circle. Passing between them was like pushing through a curtain of cold, thick water. The air inside the grove was different. Richer. Sweet with the scent of night-blooming flowers that had no business flowering in autumn. The wildflowers Eva had admired were still there, pale blobs of white and blue glowing with their own faint light against the dark grass.
She flicked on her phone’s torch. The beam carved a shaky tunnel through the gloom , illuminating dewdrops on spiderwebs strung between ferns. The light felt invasive, a trespass. She switched it off, letting her eyes adjust. The grove’s own phosphorescence emerged—the soft glow of the flowers, a faint green shimmer from the lichen on the stones, the distant, cold gleam of stars seen through a gap in the canopy that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
She walked to the center of the clearing, her trainers silent on the thick moss. This was where they’d sat. She crouched, sweeping her hands through the cool, damp grass. Her fingers brushed something metallic. The bracelet. She closed her fist around it, the tiny music note digging into her palm. A wave of relief , sharp and surprising, hit her. Then the pendant against her chest pulsed .
It wasn’t a heartbeat. It was a sudden, localized flare of warmth , like a coal breathed to life beneath her sweater. She clutched at it through her clothes. The deep crimson gemstone, usually cool against her skin, was radiating a gentle heat. It cast a faint, bloody light onto her fingers. The instructions from the anonymous note left in her delivery bag had been simple: *Wear it. It will warn you.* She hadn’t asked what it would warn her about.
A twig snapped.
Her head jerked up. The sound came from the tree line, just beyond the northernmost standing stone. Not an animal sound. Too deliberate, too weighty. She held her breath, listening. The grove was never silent; there was always the whisper of leaves, the hum of insects. Now, there was nothing. An absolute, waiting quiet.
She stood up slowly, pocketing the bracelet. The pendant’s warmth faded back to a dull, persistent thrum. A warning, then a retreat. She took a step back toward the way she’d come.
From her left, a soft, wet sound. Like a foot being pulled from deep mud. She froze, her eyes straining. Nothing but shifting shadows.
“Hello?” Her voice was thin, swallowed by the dense air.
No answer. The silence pressed in again, heavier.
Then the whispers started.
Not from one direction. They seemed to come from the ground, from the air, from inside her own head. They were sibilant, wordless, the sound of dry leaves skittering over stone. They coiled around the edges of the clearing. Rory spun, trying to pinpoint the source, but it moved with her, always just behind her line of sight.
A shape flitted between two stones. Tall, impossibly slender, a cutout of deeper darkness. It was there and then it was gone , so fast she doubted her eyes. The whispers sharpened, gained a teasing, melodic quality. They were laughing .
“Who’s there?” she demanded, forcing steel into her tone. “Show yourself.”
The laughter died. In its place, a single, clear note rang out, high and pure and utterly alien. It was the sound Eva’s charm might make if it could sing. It hung in the air , vibrating, and every flower in the grove turned toward it, their glowing faces like a crowd of pale, attentive spectators.
The pendant burned. A searing , urgent heat that made her gasp. She fumbled with her collar, pulling the stone out. It wasn’t just glowing now; it was lit from within, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic crimson light that painted the moss and her own hands in shades of old blood.
Something moved in the periphery of her vision, not flitting this time but gliding . She turned her head slowly , not wanting to startle whatever it was.
Between the stones, a figure stood.
It was tall and willowy, draped in shadows that clung to it like a robe. Its face was a pale oval, featureless save for two points of cold, blue light where eyes should be. It didn’t move. It just watched. The whispering began again, louder now, forming half-words she almost understood. *Stay… play… stray…*
Rory took a step backward. The figure did not move.
Another step. Her heel sank into something soft and wet. She looked down. The moss where she’d been standing was dry. Where she stood now, it was soaking , a dark patch spreading around her foot like a stain. She yanked her foot free with a wet squelch.
When she looked up, the figure was closer. Not by walking. It was just nearer, as if the space between them had collapsed. It was now halfway across the clearing, its lightless eyes fixed on the Heartstone pulsing in her fist.
The whispering became a chorus, a hundred voices murmuring in a language of rustling branches and trickling water. She caught a single word, clear as a bell amidst the chaos: *Mine.*
The pendant wasn’t just a warning anymore. It was a beacon .
She turned and ran.
The standing stones seemed to shift as she sprinted toward them. The gap she’d entered through was no longer where it should be. The circle had tightened. The petrified trees loomed taller, their stony branches weaving together into a cage. She could see the ordinary darkness of Richmond Park beyond, but the way was barred .
The wet, pulling sound came again, right behind her. She didn’t look back. She veered left, ducking under a low, twisted arch formed by two stones. The air here was frigid, and her breath plumed white. The whispering was inside the arch with her, bouncing off the stone, disorienting.
She burst out the other side into the center of the grove again. She was running in circles.
The figure stood in the exact spot where she’d found the bracelet. It was reaching down, its long, slender fingers—too many joints, too long—brushing the grass where she had crouched. It picked up something she’d missed: a hairpin, hers, fallen from her hair. It held the pin up to the starlight, turning it over.
Then its head swiveled toward her. The blue points of light flared.
Rory’s heart hammered against her ribs. She was trapped , panting, the warm pulse of the pendant the only constant in a world that had turned liquid and strange. The thing began to move toward her, not gliding now, but with a terrible, deliberate grace, each step silent . The whispering rose to a crescendo, a maddening, beautiful song that promised sleep, promised an end to running.
She fumbled for her phone, her fingers numb. She swiped the screen, the light blinding. She pointed it at the advancing figure.
The beam hit it full in the face.
There was no face. Just a smooth, bone-white surface, like polished bark, and those two burning cobalt holes. It didn’t flinch. It didn’t stop. But in the harsh white light, Rory saw the truth. The figure wasn’t wearing shadows; its edges bled into the darkness, fraying like smoke. It was less a body and more a concentration of the grove’s wrongness, a shape cut from the fabric of this place.
And it was between her and every exit.
The singing coiled around her, sweet and heavy. Her limbs felt leaden. The urge to sit down in the soft moss, to listen, to let the song wash over her, was almost overpowering. The warmth of the pendant against her sternum was the only anchor.
Then the song changed. A discordant note sliced through the melody. The figure halted, its head tilting like a bird’s.
From outside the stone circle, from the real world, came a sound. The distant, angry buzz of a motorbike engine. A shouted laugh. Human sounds. Ordinary life.
The connection shattered . The figure’s form wavered , the shadows that composed it thinning like mist in a sudden wind. The blue lights in its sockets flickered , dimmed.
Rory didn’t wait. She turned and ran not for the stones, but for the space between them where the motorbike noise was loudest. She threw herself forward, not caring if it was stone or air.
She stumbled, fell, and sprawled onto hard, cold earth. The scent of flowers and rich soil was gone , replaced by the smell of damp leaves and car exhaust. The whispers cut off as if a door had been slammed . She was on her hands and knees on a gravel path in Richmond Park, the iron gate ten feet behind her. The city glow painted the low clouds orange.
She scrambled to her feet, her body trembling. She looked back at the grove. The standing stones were just vague, dark shapes in the night. No light came from within. No sound. It was just a copse of trees.
She clutched the silver bracelet in one pocket. With her other hand, she pressed the Heartstone pendant against her skin. It was cool again, inert. A lifeless piece of crimson crystal on a silver chain.
The motorbike sound faded into the distance. The normal night settled around her, cold and mundane and safe.
She started walking, forcing one foot in front of the other, not yet running, not daring to look back again. The crescent scar on her wrist ached with a old, familiar pain.