AI She locked her delivery bike to the iron park gate, fumbling with the combination lock even though the padlock on the gate’s hasp had rusted shut for months. Her scuffed work boots scraped against the wet tarmac, and she pulled the faded Golden Empress hoodie tighter against the November wind. An itch prickled under the cuff of her sweatshirt, at the crescent scar on her left wrist—old habit, scratching at it when her nerves spiked. She’d walked three miles off her Friday night delivery route, detoured through the side streets off Kingston Road, slipped through the gap in the hedgerow that the park’s rangers nailed over with sheet metal. No one would find her out here tonight.
The hedgerow’s brambles snagged at her hoodie sleeves as she pushed through, and when she stepped into the wooded stretch beyond, the sharp, moldy smell of fallen beech leaves and rotting wood vanished. In its place: warm honey and crushed jasmine, even though jasmine does not bloom in November. She paused, squinting through the dim starlight, and noticed the first weird thing: clover with bright, unblemished green leaves pushed through the crust of frozen leaf litter, tiny purple blooms clustered at its base. Not a flower she recognized, and none that should survive a frost.
She brought her phone flashlight, tapped the screen to wake it. 11:23pm. She left the gate at 11:19. Four minutes of walking, but she covered what felt like a mile .
She tucked the phone back into her hoodie pocket, and that’s when she heard it: a trill, like a flute but clear, sharp, not a bird she’d ever heard before. She froze, her hand still on the pocket seam, and the trill cut off instantly. Nothing but the quiet of the night, except—crickets. They chirped in the underbrush, loud, steady, even though the temperature dipped below 40 degrees. Crickets do not survive November cold.
She stepped forward again, flashlight beam cutting through the dark. The trees grew denser, their branches weaving a thick canopy that blocked almost all the starlight. Then she saw them: the standing stones, a circle of ancient oak, their bark blackened with age, moss hanging in thick, shaggy clumps. They glinted under her flashlight, the grain of the wood twisted into strange, swirling patterns she’d never noticed on oak before.
The Heartstone pendant under her hoodie heated up, seeping warmth through the fabric against her chest. She unzipped the hoodie, pulled the silver chain over her head, and held the deep crimson gem up to the flashlight. It glowed with an inner light, brighter now, pulsing in time with the beat of her heart. She stepped through the gap between two of the tallest stones, and the air shifted again. No wind, no chill , just warm summer air that fogged her breath when she exhaled, even though the pendant’s heat burned into her palm.
She turned a full circle, shining the flashlight across the clearing. Wildflowers bloomed everywhere: bluebells, daisies, yellow buttercups, even in the middle of winter. The ground under her boots was soft, damp soil, no frozen leaf litter, no frost. She’d read about this place, once, a hidden clearing in Richmond Park that locals called the Fae Grove, a pocket between worlds. She’d laughed at the TikTok videos, called them stoner folklore. Now her hands shook slightly , the pendant warm enough that she’d need to put it down soon.
She took a step towards the center of the circle, and the trill started again, closer this time, right behind her left shoulder. She spun, flashlight beam slashing through the dark, and for a split second she saw it: a figure, tall and slender, with skin that glowed pale green, hair like spun silver, wearing a dress that shimmered like dewdrops on grass. Then it was gone, like it had never been there, leaving only the hum of something too high for human ears.
Her breath caught. She told herself it was a trick of the light, the way the flashlight bounced off the moss and the stone twists. She’d worked 12-hour shifts for three weeks, surviving on energy drinks and frozen dumplings. Her eyes played tricks on her. She tightened her grip on the pendant, and the glow flared brighter, so bright she squinted.
She noticed the flowers then. They did not just sway in a non-existent wind. Each petal twisted, turned, pointed directly at her. She shone the flashlight down at a cluster of bluebells, and they curved like tiny, pointed fingers, reaching towards her boots. She stepped back, tripping over something hard buried under the soil. She fell to her knees, catching herself on a standing stone, and her left wrist scraped against the rough oak bark. The crescent scar stung, and when she pulled her wrist back, there was a thin, silver line next to it, oozing clear, honey-scented sap. She wiped it on her jeans, the smell clinging to her denim.
She stood up, and the flashlight died. No screen light, no flash—just the glow of the Heartstone in her hand, casting a tiny, crimson circle of light around her feet. She fumbled in her pocket for her portable charger, and found nothing. She’d packed it that morning, must have left it on the counter at the restaurant. Her throat went dry.
The trills multiplied, now three, four, harmonizing into a thin, high song that she felt in her bones, in the scar on her wrist, in the tips of her fingers. She shone the crimson light all around the circle, and saw them now, not just the one figure: dozens of them, darting behind the standing stones, their skin glowing in every color of the spectrum—pale green, deep blue, burnished gold, even a ghostly white. Some were tall, some were small, their forms shifting slightly when she looked away, like she could only catch them out of the corner of her eye.
She backed away towards the gap between the two stones she’d stepped through, and stopped. The gap was gone . In its place, a wall of ivy, thick and tangled, with silver leaves that shimmered under the pendant’s glow. She reached out to touch it, and her fingers sank into the soft, damp foliage, but she could not push through. The ivy was too thick, and when she pulled her hand back, her nails were coated in that same honey-scented sap.
“Hello?”
She tried to calculate how long she’d been trapped here, but the numbers did not add up. She’d left the park gate at 11:19, but it felt like she’d been in this clearing for days, not just minutes.
The song stopped. For a long, silent moment, the only sound was her own ragged breathing. Then a voice spoke, not in her ears, but in her head, clear and cold, no warmth to it: You do not belong here.
“Who are you?”
Her voice thinner than she intended, she leaned against a standing stone, her shoulders slumping. “Is this about Evan? Did he send you?”
The figure stepped out from behind the largest standing stone, the one in the center of the circle. It was taller than the others, its skin a burnished gold, its hair like long, wispy smoke that drifted in the non-existent wind. Its eyes were black, empty voids, no pupils, no irises. It raised a hand, and a thin, silver rope floated down from its fingers, coiling in the air between them. The rope glinted like the pendant’s chain, and Aurora noticed that the crescent scar on her wrist glowed again, brighter now, matching the pendant’s light. The silver rope seemed pulled towards her scar, like a magnet .
She stepped back, tripping over a pile of loose soil. She fell to her knees again, and the silver rope wrapped around her left wrist, just above the crescent scar. It did not hurt, exactly, but it pulled tight, like it was trying to yank her arm out of its socket. A strand of her shoulder-length black hair fell forward into her face, and she brushed it back, her fingers sticky with honey sap. She thought of the flat above Silas’ bar, the way Eva would knock on her door at 2pm every Saturday with coffee, the way she’d hidden her bike in the back alley for three months to avoid Evan. She could not let him find her here.
She grabbed the pendant with her right hand, squeezing it until her knuckles turned white , and the glow flared so bright it made the figure step back, its golden skin dimming slightly .