AI Her scooter skidded on frost-dusted gravel, and she kicked the stand up with the toe of her work boot before yanking off the delivery helmet. The crescent scar on her left wrist itched, a familiar prickle that had started three days prior, the second the Heartstone first pulsed against her chest while she folded takeout bags behind the Golden Empress kitchen. She’d stuffed the pendant in her jacket pocket that night, but this morning it had looped itself over her neck, the silver chain catching on the collar of her flannel shirt before she could yank it free.
The park was quiet this late. Only the distant hoot of a tawny owl cut through the crisp autumn wind. She clicked her flashlight on, and the beam sliced through the dark, catching gnarled oak trunks and piles of crusted fallen leaves. She’d mapped the hidden grove from old park ranger blogs she’d stayed up reading after closing shifts: just past the hawthorn thicket by the crumbling stone wall, a clearing ringed with oak-standing stones, left by some long-vanished community. She’d followed the trail twice during daylight, but tonight, the second she ducked under the low-hanging hawthorn branches, everything shifted.
The sharp, frost-bitten smell of park grass and dead leaves vanished, replaced by warm, sweet clover and damp loamy soil. She blinked, glancing down at her coat—she’d zipped it tight against the 38-degree wind, but now the fabric felt thin, like she stood in a spring evening. She pushed a bramble out of her face, flashlight sweeping ahead.
There were the standing stones, five of them, their bark-grown surfaces smooth with age, arranged in a rough circle. But something was wrong. Wildflowers bloomed at their bases: pale blue cornflowers and butter-yellow daisies, even though the first hard frost had killed off all the park’s flowers two weeks prior. She stepped forward, her boots sinking into soft moss instead of crusted leaves, and the Heartstone, which had simmered against her chest since she left the hot and sour soup drop-off, began to thrumming. It grew louder, warmer, until she could feel the heat spreading through her sternum, making her fingers tingle.
She reached up, fingers brushing the deep crimson gem, and the glow inside it brightened, casting a faint pinkish light over her palms. “Okay,” she muttered, her voice echoing a little too loud in the stillness. “This is the spot. The blogs said the ley lines here hum.” She’d been desperate to figure out the pendant, to stop the random pulses that woke her at 3 AM, making her leap out of her skin thinking Evan was standing at her flat window.
The tawny owl’s hoot cut out mid-call. She froze, flashlight darting to the spot where she’d heard the bird just seconds before. Nothing but dense oak branches, no movement, no sound. She listened again. The park outside the thicket was silent. No crickets, no rustle of squirrels in the leaves, nothing. Just the quiet thud of her own heartbeat, matching the pendant’s pulse .
She told herself it was just the thicket blocking the park noise. Turned back to the clearing, took another step, and heard it: a high, thin giggle, so soft she almost missed it, like a little girl hiding behind a tree. She spun, flashlight sweeping the edges of the stones. Nothing. Just the wildflowers, still and bright. “Who’s there?” she called, her voice steadier than she felt. The giggle faded, but somewhere behind her, she heard a soft scraping sound, like nails on wood.
She turned again, flashlight cutting through the dark. The tallest standing stone, the one on the north side of the circle, had a streak of dark liquid running down its side. She leaned in, flashlight focusing on it. Not sap, not moss. Dark, glossy, like dried blood. She pulled her hand back, stomach twisting. The scraping came closer this time, from the right side of the circle. She swung the flashlight that way, and caught a flash of something pale, darting behind a fern.
“Who’s there?” she said again, louder . She fumbled in her jacket pocket for her phone, flipped on the camera flash. Zero bars. She’d had full service when she pulled into the lot 20 minutes prior. She checked the battery: 79% this morning, now 31%. Impossible. She glanced at her smartwatch, the digital display blinking 11:47. Her phone said 11:22. She’d been in the grove for five minutes, max.
She’d read about the grove’s wonky time flow in the blogs, but she’d laughed it off as park ranger lore. Now her throat went dry. She’d left the lot at 11:02, per her phone’s lock screen when she arrived. Walked 12 minutes to the thicket. That should put the time at 11:14. Now her watch said 11:47, her phone 11:22. Two different timelines, colliding in the clearing.
The scraping sound started again, closer. This time, she didn’t just catch a flash. Two thin, pale fingers, ending in nails black as tar, gripped the edge of a standing stone. She froze, flashlight pointed straight at them. The fingers vanished. A soft whisper tickled her ear, clear enough to make out words:
“Go home, Carter.”
No one called her Carter except her father, her childhood friend Eva, and Yu-Fei, the owner of the Golden Empress. How did this thing know ? She stepped back, tripping over a root, landing hard on her rear. The wind knocked out of her, the pendant slipped from her neck, clattering to the mossy ground. The crimson gem glowed so bright it flooded the clearing, and she saw the wildflowers were wilting , their petals curling brown at the edges. The standing stones weren’t in a rough circle anymore. They’d shifted, closing in, forming a tighter ring that hemmed her in.
She scrambled to grab the pendant, her fingers closing around the cool silver chain. The warmth flooded back into her chest, the glow dimming to a soft pulse . The fingers reappeared, this time from two stones, pairs of tar-nailed hands reaching toward her. She yelped, yanking the pendant tight against her throat. The hands pulled back, but the whispers started again, overlapping now, a dozen voices all saying the same thing, layered like wind through dead branches:
“Go home, Carter.”
She pushed herself to her feet, backing toward the hawthorn thicket. The branches were tangled now, thorns sticking out at every angle, impossible to push through. She’d fit through them five minutes prior. Now they seemed to stretch farther, barring her escape. Movement darted between the stones, at the edge of her flashlight beam: a flash of pale skin, a flutter of tattered cloth, a pair of glowing yellow slit-pupiled eyes. She never caught a full look, always losing the sight the second she turned to focus.
The air shifted again. The warm clover scent vanished, replaced by metal and rot. Cold seeped through her coat, making her arms prickle, even as the pendant’s warmth kept her chest tight with heat. Her left wrist itched so bad she scratched at it, and then she froze. The crescent scar was glowing , a faint silver line matching the chain around her neck. She lifted her wrist, pressing a finger to the scar, and it brightened, pulsing in time with the pendant.
A figure stepped out from behind the tallest stone.
Tall, thin, at least six and a half feet tall, skin so pale it was almost translucent, stretched tight over sharp, angular bones. Its hair was a mass of writhing black thorns, each tipped with a tiny white bud. Its eyes were slit-pupiled and glowing yellow, like a feral cat’s. It wore a tattered cloak woven from dried moss and dead leaves, and its hands were the same pale, tar-nailed fingers she’d seen gripping the stones. It held a small, smooth dark crystal in its palms, glowing with the same faint crimson light as her pendant.
It didn’t move toward her. It just stood there, staring. The whispers stopped. The only sound was the thud of her heartbeat, matching the pulse of the pendant and the glow of her scar. It tilted its head, and spoke, its voice like gravel grinding together, carried on a wind that didn’t move any of the surrounding branches:
“You shouldn’t have come, Carter.”