AI Aurora shoved her shoulder into the last gap between the ancient oak standing stones and slipped through before her nerve could falter.
The Heartstone Pendant bounced against her sternum on its silver chain and warmed like a live coal. She caught it in her fist, more to stop the noise than from comfort, and let her eyes adjust to the thin, wrong light that lived in the clearing ahead. Richmond Park disappeared behind her as if someone had folded it away. The path she had followed ended in nothing but knee-high wildflowers that did not belong to any season.
“So this is real,” she muttered, and heard her own voice land oddly, as if the grove held it in its mouth before deciding to swallow.
She kept moving. Standing still felt like inviting hands . The ground gave under her boots, not mud, not moss, something spongy and clean, like the surface had been scrubbed and forgotten to dry. Wildflowers brushed her jeans. Their scent came sweet, then sharp, then not floral at all. Cold iron. Old pennies. She pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth and tasted copper without biting her cheek.
The pendant throbbed once. Warmth. A faint inner glow, deep crimson, pulsed through the skin of her fingers.
Hel portal, the unknown benefactor had said in the note, written in a tight, old-fashioned hand that had not bothered with a signature. You will know it by heat.
Aurora knew heat. She delivered sizzling trays and steaming soup for Yu-Fei Cheung often enough to measure danger by temperature. This heat carried no steam, no comfort. It felt like a pulse that belonged to something else.
She angled towards the centre of the clearing, keeping the stones at her back as long as she could. She had learned, the hard way, that exits mattered. Evan had taught her that, if nothing else.
The wildflowers parted, then closed behind her with a soft, brisk sound, like skirts swishing. Aurora stopped and listened.
A twig snapped somewhere to her right. Not under her foot. Not under anything she could see.
She held her breath. Silence filled in so fast it felt deliberate, as if the grove had pressed its palms over everything. Then came another sound, low and rhythmic .
Tick-tock.
Aurora glanced down at her wrist out of habit, the left one with the small crescent-shaped scar. No watch. No phone either. She had left it behind on purpose. Signal and secrets had never mixed well.
Tick-tock again, closer. Not like a clock in a room, more like something small clicking its tongue.
She shifted her weight, careful not to crush the flowers. Her boot sole sank a fraction, and the ground pushed back, almost playful.
“Show yourself,” she said, and the words came steadier than she felt.
The tick-tock stopped.
Something moved at the edge of her vision, a pale streak between stems. She turned, fast. Nothing. Only wildflowers, their petals open as if they waited for applause.
She forced her shoulders down. Panic had its own physics. It narrowed the world until you forgot exits.
Aurora lifted the pendant to eye level. The gemstone’s glow caught in her bright blue eyes as a dark red reflection. The warmth pulsed in time with her heartbeat.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m not here for you. I’m here for the door.”
A laugh answered her. Soft. Close. Not quite human.
Aurora spun. The laugh died out as if someone had pinched it. She stared into the thick flowers, into the dark that sat between them. Nothing stepped out. Nothing breathed. Yet her skin prickled like she stood too near a live wire.
She walked again, slower now, and counted her steps under her breath. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. She measured distance as if the grove would respect numbers.
The clearing widened without warning. The wildflowers dipped away, revealing a stretch of ground that looked smoother, almost polished. A circle of flattened stems formed a crude ring, as though a weight had pressed down and turned. The air above the ring shimmered , not like heat haze, more like water held upright.
Aurora stopped at the edge. The pendant kicked in her fist, warmth surging hard enough to sting.
“There you are,” she said.
She crouched and set her palm near the ground. The smooth patch felt warmer than the rest. Not enough to call it a fire, but enough to feel alive . Her fingers tingled as if she had brushed nettles. The flattened stems pointed inward, not crushed, arranged.
Someone had done this.
Aurora stood and stepped around the ring, careful not to cross. The shimmer followed her, like a thin membrane aware of being watched. It held no reflection. It showed nothing behind it, only a darker version of the air.
The tick-tock started again, right behind her.
Aurora whirled and brought her fist up, pendant enclosed like a knuckleduster. Her heart thumped hard. She faced only flowers and darkness.
“You’re close,” she said, teeth tight. “I’m not stupid.”
A whisper slid past her ear, so close her hair stirred.
Not Rory.
She flinched before she could stop herself. Only a few people used her full name, and fewer still used the nickname with that particular curl, that private claim. Eva did, when she wanted something. Evan did, when he wanted to hurt. This voice sounded like neither, yet it hit the same nerve.
Aurora swallowed. Her mouth dried.
“Don’t call me that.”
The whisper came again, from the other side.
Malphora.
The name landed with a strange weight , as if it belonged in her throat. The pendant’s warmth spiked. The gemstone flared faintly, deep crimson brightening. She felt the glow through her skin.
Aurora took a step back from the shimmer-ring. She scanned the ground, the flowers, the empty space. Nothing. No person. No animal. No obvious trick.
She forced herself to speak plainly, as if in a bad negotiation.
“I’m Aurora Carter. Human. I came in peace. I came with a question.”
Silence answered. Not empty. Packed tight, listening.
Aurora let her hand drop, but kept the pendant ready. She moved sideways, keeping the ring in her peripheral vision. The shimmer quivered with each step, as if responding to her presence . Her breath sounded loud. She hated that. Loud meant easy to locate.
A soft scraping sound came from the standing stones behind her.
She looked. The gap where she had entered no longer lined up the same way. Stone edges that had been clean in her memory now overlapped, as if the monoliths had shifted. The exit narrowed to a slit.
“No,” she said, and the word carried a crack she did not like .
She walked back, brisk, flowers snagging her jeans as if they wanted to keep her. The pendant tugged towards the ring with every step away, warmth resisting.
Aurora reached the stones and pressed her hands against the cold oak surface. The stone felt wrong, not chilled , not warm, more like it held a steady temperature that had nothing to do with air. She pushed. The stone did not move. She leaned her shoulder into it, the way she had shoved herself through.
The gap did not widen.
Aurora stepped back and examined the seam. No mortar. No hinges. No give. The standing stones looked unchanged, yet the space between them held only darkness, not the faint suggestion of the park beyond.
She touched the pendant to the seam, as if the gemstone could recognise the path.
Warmth, sharp and immediate. The pendant pulsed like a second heart.
Behind her, the tick-tock shifted into something else, a wet little click-click, like nails on glass.
Aurora turned slowly .
The wildflowers had bent in a line leading from the ring to her feet. Not crushed. Bowed. A neat path of submission.
Something stood at the far end of the line, half-hidden behind a thick cluster of blooms. A shape, low to the ground, too still to be an animal. Pale skin, or bark, or bone, she could not tell. It looked at her without eyes.
Aurora lifted her chin.
“What do you want?”
The shape tilted, and a sound came from it, like breath drawn through reeds.
Not you.
The whisper seemed to rise from the ground itself.
The pendant burned now, not warm, but hot . Aurora hissed and almost dropped it. She forced her fingers to hold on. Pain counted as proof. Proof meant control.
“What do you want with the door?” she shot back. “Is it yours?”
The shimmer at the ring thickened. The upright water look turned glossy, then black, like oil held on a frame.
The shape near the flowers moved, just a fraction, and the line of bent stems crept closer by a few inches, as if the grove had begun to crawl.
Aurora backed into the stones, cold at her shoulders. She scanned left and right, searching for another gap, another weakness. Stone met stone in an unbroken curve. She had entered through a choice. The grove had closed it like a jaw.
A new sound joined the tick-tock. Soft at first, then clearer. Footsteps, bare on the spongy ground. Not one set. Several. They moved out of rhythm, as if different bodies walked different distances with the same intent.
Aurora forced herself not to spin in circles. She kept her gaze on the shape in the flowers and used her peripheral vision to catch motion. Petals shivered. Stems leaned away from invisible weight . The grove filled with presence without showing faces.
The ring behind her gurgled. The sound came thick and slow, like a drain choking on hair. The black shimmer bulged outward.
The pendant’s gemstone brightened to a deeper crimson, its inner glow turning steady, like a warning light.
Aurora braced her feet, grabbed the chain, and yanked it off her neck in one swift motion. The silver bit into her fingers. She swung the pendant towards the ring as if she cast a hook.
“If you want it,” she said, voice tight, “come and take it.”
The line of bent flowers rushed forward.
Something invisible struck her ankle. Aurora stumbled, caught herself against stone, and felt cold fingers close around her scarred wrist, precise as a cuff.
The ring tore open with a sound like fabric ripping, and blackness poured out, not liquid, not smoke, but a hungry absence that swallowed the flowers nearest it whole. The grove’s silence snapped, replaced by a chorus of whispers, all speaking her name at once.
Aurora wrenched her arm free, the pendant’s chain cutting into her palm, and the standing stones behind her ground against each other as the gap sealed with a dull, final clack.