AI The last bus had grumbled its way past an hour ago. Aurora considered herself a Londoner now, though the damp chill of a late autumn night still bit sharper than anything Cardiff had thrown at her. She pulled her jacket tighter, the stiff collar brushing her jaw. Richmond Park stretched out before her, a vast expanse of darkness that swallowed the distant city glow.
She had no real reason to be here, not one she could articulate, anyway. A strange, insistent pull had started in her chest mere hours ago, a hum beneath her skin. It wasn't an instruction from Yu-Fei, or a frantic call from Eva. It was… primal. A whisper she couldn't quite catch, a flash of something crimson behind her eyes. *The Grove *, it had urged. *The Grove .*
Normally, Rory relied on logic, on the careful dissection of evidence she’d once applied to pre-law textbooks. But the past few weeks had splintered her worldview, leaving cracks for impossible things to seep through. She was here now, following an instinct that felt ancient and irreversible.
The park gates were locked, but she knew a break in the fence, a small tear in the wire forgotten by the council. A faint shimmer, like heat haze off asphalt, rippled beyond it. That was her target.
She slipped through the gap, her trainers making almost no sound on the wet grass. The air immediately thickened, pressing against her eardrums. The distant murmur of traffic, the general thrum of human existence, vanished. It was replaced by a silence so profound it felt like a physical weight , like the inside of an old tomb. Even the wind, which had been tugging at her shoulder-length black hair just moments before, died. The branches of the oak trees stood stark and unmoving against a sky suddenly devoid of stars, shrouded by a blanket of impenetrable cloud that hadn't been there moments ago.
Her bright blue eyes, quick to adapt to the dark, scanned the path. Something felt off. Not dangerous yet, just *unnatural *.
A faint light, barely there, pulsed at her throat. The Heartstone. She reached up instinctively, her fingers brushing the cool silver chain, then the smooth, thumbnail-sized crimson gem. It gave off a whisper of warmth , a faint inner glow that was little more than a trick of the eye. It usually reserved its reactions for Hel portals, for the raw tearing of reality. But here, now, it seemed to be responding to something else.
She walked deeper, the strange, heavy silence making her own breath sound too loud in her ears. The ground underfoot shifted from damp grass to a carpet of leaves, brittle and ancient, that crackled like burning paper. She searched for the standing stones, the boundary markers she’d heard about in hushed tones from Silas, her landlord, who occasionally spoke of such things with a cryptic edge when he’d had a few too many.
Then she saw them. Not a circle, but three massive oak trunks, impossibly thick and scarred, growing out of the earth as if they’d been here since the world was young. They formed a rough triangle, enclosing an inner clearing. Their bark was like wrinkled hide, black in the gloom , and from their gnarled branches hung no leaves – only a strange, translucent moss that shimmered with an eerie phosphorescence, shedding just enough light to illuminate the ground below.
The ground was the first true shock. Despite the late autumn chill that had numbed her fingers, wildflowers bloomed everywhere, pushing up through the dead leaves. Irises, bluebells, crocuses – all in impossibly vibrant colours, their petals catching the moss-light with an alien luminescence. Their scent was cloying, sickly sweet, like honey gone bad.
Rory stepped between two of the mighty oaks. The air chilled even further, a cold that bit through her jacket and sank into her bones. Her breath plumed in visible white puffs. Her left wrist, where a small crescent-shaped scar from a childhood fall resided, tingled with an unpleasant awareness, a sort of premonitory itch.
She stood in The Fae Grove, a place whispered about, a place of impossible beauty and undeniable dread. And she was utterly alone.
She took another step, then another, moving to the centre of the overgrown clearing. The ground here felt strangely soft, almost spongy beneath her trainers, as if she were walking on something living. She couldn’t shake the sense of an immense, ancient power thrumming just beneath her feet, a silent heartbeat.
Her gaze swept from the impossible flowers to the towering oaks, which seemed to lean in, their moss-draped branches like spectral arms. She couldn't see the sky above, only the dense, swirling darkness. The air was still, heavy, yet she felt a subtle shifting around her, as if something invisible was displacing the air.
*Snap *.
The sound was distinct, sharp, like a twig breaking underfoot. Rory froze. Her hand instinctively went to her pocket, where a small, sturdy utility knife nestled. She didn’t know what she expected to face, but old habits of self-preservation kicked in.
"Hello?" she called out, her voice a little louder than she intended, the single word swallowed by the oppressive silence . No echo . Nothing.
She waited, listening. Her ears strained, trying to pick up anything beyond the thumping of her own heart. The wildflowers seemed to pulse with their own inner light, their vibrant hues almost painful in the dimness. They shouldn’t be here. Not now. Not like this.
Just then, a faint, almost imperceptible whisper brushed past her ear. It wasn't words, not exactly, more like a breath. Cold and intimate. It raised goosebumps on her arms, crawling down her spine . Rory spun. Nothing. Only the leaning trees, the impossible flowers.
She was being watched. The certainty slammed into her with the force of a physical blow. Her cool-headedness, usually her greatest asset, was warring with a primal dread that gnawed at her insides. Her mind raced , sifting through every detail, every incongruity. This wasn't natural. This wasn't normal.
The Heartstone pulsed again, stronger this time, definitely warm against her skin. It cast a faint reddish glow that seemed to fight against the sickly green moss-light . *Something *. It was reacting to *something * nearby. Not a Hel portal, she thought , but something equally potent, equally… *other *.
She tried to move, to circle the clearing, to get a better vantage point, but her feet felt heavy, as if the spongy ground was exerting a subtle pull. The air, already thick, began to weigh down on her lungs. Breathing became a conscious effort.
Then she *saw * it. Or thought she did. A flicker , quick as a blink, at the periphery of her vision. A pale form, too tall, too thin, darting behind one of the massive oak trunks. She spun again, but the space behind the tree was empty. Only shadows.
"Show yourself," Rory demanded, her voice firm, despite the tremor in her hands. She hated feeling vulnerable, hated the unknown. Better to face it, whatever it was.
A rustle, deeper in the grove, beyond the circle of oaks. Not a single snap, but a sustained, slithering sound, like something enormous dragging itself through thick undergrowth. It moved with a slow, deliberate cadence that made her stomach clench.
She took a step back, her blue eyes wide, trying to penetrate the gloom . The glow from the Heartstone brightened marginally, making the crimson deeper, more insistent.
Then, a sound that made her blood run cold. A laugh. High-pitched, silvery, like bells chiming in a deep well. A child's laugh. But it ended in a dry, rasping gasp, too aged, too hollow to be truly innocent. It echoed from all sides, reverberating off the silent oaks, twisting her sense of direction.
Rory felt a prickle of sweat on her forehead despite the bitter cold. This was no prank. This was no animal. This was wrong. Fundamentally, terrifyingly wrong.
She looked down at her watch . She’d been in the grove for what felt like an eternity, surely an hour, maybe more. The face glowed: 11:17 PM. She remembered stepping through the fence at 11:05 PM. Twelve minutes. Only twelve minutes? But the cold, the creeping dread, the profound silence , the sense of timelessness… it felt like hours had passed . The grove twisted time, just as Silas had hinted. This place was truly alien.
The air around her grew colder still, a biting, raw chill that suggested the presence of death. The sickly-sweet floral scent intensified, becoming almost suffocating. The phosphorescent moss on the oaks began to pulse , not steadily, but erratically, like a troubled heartbeat, casting dancing , distorted shadows that writhed and stretched.
The periphery vision trick started again. More forms, fainter this time, like smoke in the dark, weaving through the trees beyond the circle. Sometimes they seemed almost human-shaped, elongated, gangly. Other times, they looked like tangled masses of roots, or branches, or something worse. Too many limbs. Too many eyes.
She clutched the utility knife in her pocket, her knuckles white. It was a useless gesture, she knew. If whatever was out there wanted her, a piece of folded metal wasn't going to stop it. Her mind, despite the rising panic, was still trying to process, to find a pattern, an escape.
She began to back away slowly , her eyes darting between the trees. The path she came in on, the gap between the monumental oaks, seemed to have shifted. Or perhaps the trees themselves had moved. They looked closer, their gnarled branches reaching down, almost touching the ground. The glow of the moss was now a vibrant, alien green, washing the entire clearing in a spectral light. The flowers, impossibly bright, seemed to lean towards her, their petals unfurling in slow motion, as if watching .
A guttural growl vibrated through the earth, directly beneath her feet. It was a low thrum that bypassed her ears and went straight for her internal organs, making her chest ache, her teeth feel loose. The sound was ancient, powerful, and utterly devoid of anything resembling warmth or life.
Rory gasped, stumbling back. She had to get out. Now.
She turned to run towards where she *thought * the exit was. But the trees were a dense, impenetrable wall. The gap was gone . Or, it had moved. Or, it had never been there at all. Panic, hot and sharp, finally pierced through her cool resolve .
The silvery, mocking laugh started again, closer this time, accompanied by that dry, rattling gasp. It was coming from right behind one of the oaks, directly to her left.
She pivoted, raising the knife uselessly, her bright blue eyes scanning the darkness. The moss on the tree pulsed with a violent emerald flare. For a split second, she saw it. Not a pale form. Not a shadow.
A face.
It was vast, ancient, carved into the bark of the oak itself. Its eyes were two gaping, shadowed hollows, but they glowed with the same unnatural green as the moss. Its mouth was a wide, vertical slit, lined with splintered bark that looked like sharpened teeth . And from within that mouth, the hollow, rasping laugh spilled forth, shaking the entire tree.
It was the oak. The tree itself was alive, awake, and watching her.
The Heartstone on her chest finally flared, a brilliant crimson pulse that bathed the clearing in a brief, fiery glow. It was a warning, a cry of alarm.
Then, from the glowing maw of the ancient oak, a voice boomed, deep and resonant, like stones grinding together. It wasn't words, but a sound that scraped against her very soul, a sound of immense age and cold, indifferent power. It was laughter.
Rory didn't wait. She bolted.
She didn’t know where she was going , only that she had to break free. She plunged into the deeper gloom beyond the oaks, ignoring the rustling sounds, the fleeting shapes, the cold whispers. Her legs pumped, her lungs burned, but she kept running, pushing through invisible resistance, crashing through unseen barriers. She ran until her side poked with stitches, until her vision blurred, until the mocking laughter finally faded behind her, replaced only by the ragged tearing of her own breath.
She came to an abrupt halt, collapsing against something hard and cold. She slid down its rough surface, gasping, her body trembling uncontrollably. Her eyes were still wide, darting through the darkness. Slowly, her vision cleared.
She was leaning against the iron railings of Richmond Park. Beyond them, a faint hum of distant traffic. The air, though still chilly, was clear and thin, free of the cloying floral scent. Above, through a break in the clouds, pinpoint stars glittered.
She fumbled for her phone. 11:20 PM. Only three minutes had passed since she last checked. Twelve minutes inside the Grove had been three minutes outside. The time distortion was real.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, but the profound , bone-deep dread slowly began to recede, leaving behind a cold, empty ache. She was out. She was safe.
But the image of the laughing tree, its ancient, terrible face, was burned into her mind. And the warmth of the Heartstone, though faded, still lingered, a phantom pulse against her chest. She had gone in seeking an answer, following a whisper . She had found only a deeper mystery, a darker fear, and the chilling certainty that the line between her world and the Fae was terrifyingly thin.