AI Rory’s boots crunched over crusted maple leaves, the sound loud enough to echo against the trunks of the twisted oaks ringed around the clearing. She’d followed the Heartstone’s pulse , the silver chain digging into her collarbone as the crimson gem thrummed faster with every step. For ten minutes, she’d stuck to the well-worn Tamsin Trail, phone flashlight cutting through the dark, but then the signal died, and the air shifted.
She’d left her bike locked by a gnarled oak an hour prior, according to her cheap plastic watch , when a burner phone text had popped up: The crescent waits in the grove. Bring the stone. She’d deleted the sender immediately, but the words had stuck. Her left wrist—the thin crescent scar from the frozen pond accident when she was seven—had started itching the second she’d tapped the link.
She pushed through a thicket of brambles, thorns snagging the cuff of her Golden Empress delivery jacket, and stepped into the clearing.
The first thing she noticed was the flowers. Bluebells, buttercups, clover, all blooming thick across the damp earth, even though the outside park had been bare of wildflowers since September. Her phone, which had sat at 77% battery when she’d locked her bike, was now completely dead, the screen black as pitch. She fumbled for her handheld flashlight, pressed the button, and got nothing—bulb burnt out, or the batteries drained mid-hike.
The air hit her next: thick, sweet, like overripe honey mixed with the rot of fallen fruit left in the sun. She coughed, and the scent clung to her throat, made her eyes water. A high, thin whine buzzed at the edge of her hearing, a flute played out of tune, and vanished the second she leaned in to listen. She stopped, stilled her breath, and the only sound was the slow, steady thrum of the Heartstone against her chest.
She took a step forward, and the whine swelled, vibrating in her molars until her jaw ached. She pressed a palm to her cheek, feeling the vibration travel up her cheekbone, and spotted the standing stones half-hidden in the dark. Flat, weathered rocks ringed the clearing, their roots wrapped tight around their bases. Faint carvings glowed on their faces, just bright enough to make out: thin, curved lines, matching the crescent scar on her wrist.
She walked over to the nearest stone, ran a hand over its carved surface. It was smooth, worn by centuries of rain and wind, but warm under her fingers, like the Heartstone. A soft, breathless laugh echoed from behind one of the oaks, so close she jumped. She spun, hands fisted, and saw nothing but the shadow of the oak trunk against the dark. “Who’s there?” she called, her voice cracking at the end. The laugh faded, and silence settled back over the clearing, thick and heavy.
Her left wrist began to itch then, so badly she could hardly stand it. Thousands of tiny needles pricking the skin beneath her jacket sleeve. She scratched at it roughly, but the itching only worsened. She pulled up the sleeve, and stared at the scar. It glowed faintly, silver light bleeding from the edges, brighter by the second.
She looked down at the ground. The flowers were moving. Not in the wind—there was no wind, the air was too still, too thick. Their petals twisted and turned, like tiny fingers reaching for her ankles. A bluebell brushed against her calf, cold as a corpse’s hand, and she kicked at it. The flower crumbled into black dust, which stuck to her sock like static.
The breathing started next. Slow, wet, ragged, right at her ear. She spun, and caught a glimpse of it: a tall, slender figure, pale as bone, hair woven through with dark vines, hands long and thin tipped with black, claw-like nails. It vanished back into the oak’s shadow before she could scream.
She grabbed the Heartstone, pressing it tight against her chest, its thrum speeding up, growing hotter until it burned through her jacket. She turned back toward the bramble thicket she’d come through, but it was gone , replaced by a wall of smooth, unbroken dark bark. No gaps, no leaves, no way through.
Panic pricked at her ribs, but she clamped down on it. Cool-headed, smart, that’s what she was. She counted to ten, slow, and let her eyes adjust to the dark. The flowers glowed faintly now, silver and blue, and the standing stones pulsed in time with the Heartstone. She checked her watch : 11:22 PM. She’d locked her bike at 10:42 PM. Forty minutes had passed, but it felt like hours .
The whispering started then, soft at first, too quiet to make out the words, then growing louder, washing over her from all sides. Come home, crescent. Carter, join us. Her last name. Only Eva, the childhood friend who’d dragged her from Cardiff to London, and Silas, the bar owner whose ground-floor pub sat below her rented flat, knew she went by Rory. No one else called her Aurora Carter unless it was on her mortgage paperwork.
A drop of cold, sticky liquid hit her shoulder. She wiped it away with her sleeve, and the liquid left a faint silver stain. Another drop hit her cheek, sweet and iron-tinted, and she caught a whiff of the honeyed rot from the air. She looked up, and saw the figure again, standing at the edge of the clearing just beyond the stones. It was taller than her, limbs bending at wrong angles, eyes glowing a faint, yellowish green in the dark. It didn’t move, just stood there, staring.
She held her breath. The figure stepped forward, slow, deliberate, and she saw its mouth full of sharp, white teeth, like a shark’s. The Heartstone pulsed so hard it lit up the entire clearing, crimson glow turning the flowers red, the standing stones glowing bright silver. For a split second, she saw the creature clearly: skin stretched tight over sharp bones, hair replaced by black thorns, hands curled into fists. Then the glow faded, and the creature was gone .
Silence again. The whispering stopped. The flowers stopped moving. She stood frozen, heart hammering against her ribs, the scar on her wrist itching like mad. Then, a voice spoke, soft as wind through leaves, coming from the center of the clearing:
You were always meant to find this, Rory Carter.