AI The oak standing stone dug a splinter into Rory’s palm as she hauled herself over the boundary of Richmond Park’s hidden grove. She’d snuck past the park rangers’ patrol an hour prior, her scuffed white delivery boots silent on frost-crusted grass, the Heartstone Pendant heavy against her sternum. The unknown benefactor who’d left the crimson gem on her fire escape two weeks prior had said the stones marked the edge of the Grove, that only people who needed what lay inside could cross them. The pendant flared warm the second her boots hit the dirt on the other side, just as they’d said.
She brushed her straight shoulder-length black hair out of her bright blue eyes and checked her phone. 11:47 PM. Thirteen minutes until midnight, the time the text had ordered her to reach the clearing at the center. She stuffed the phone back into her jacket pocket and started walking. The air shifted the second she put one foot in front of the other. The damp, rot-heavy chill of a London November vanished, replaced by the thick, sweet scent of wild clover and her old citrus shampoo, the one she’d used back in Cardiff when she’d lived with Evan. She told herself the shampoo scent was a trick of memory, that the clover was just part of the Grove’s odd magic the benefactor had warned her about. When she glanced down at the ground, she saw lush green grass pushing up between tree roots, dotted with purple crocuses and snowdrops, wildflowers that shouldn’t bloom within a hundred miles of here in mid-November. The benefactor had said the grove grew year round. That checked out. She kept walking.
Ferns lined the path, their fronds tall enough to brush her elbows. No wind stirred them. She didn’t notice the stillness at first, too busy scanning the trees for any sign of the benefactor. After ten steps, she paused. The air had not moved once since she crossed the stones. No leaf rustled. No bird called. Even the distant hum of London’s motorways, the constant background noise of her life in the city, had vanished. She pulled her phone back out to check the time. 11:50 PM. Three minutes had passed. That lined up. She tapped the screen to make sure it hadn’t frozen, then stuffed it back into her pocket and kept moving. A shadow slid past the corner of her vision, thirty yards to her left. She spun, hand flying to the pepper spray she’d clipped to her belt. Richmond Park had fallow deer, hundreds of them, but this shadow had stood on two legs. Too tall, too thin, its arms hanging too low to its knees to be any human. When she squinted, all she saw was swaying ferns. Nothing else.
“Hello?” She called out . Her voice died before it traveled ten feet, swallowed whole by the thick air. No echo . No answer. She unclipped the pepper spray, clicked the safety off, and turned back to the path. The clearing was only a hundred yards ahead, the trees thinning to show a flat stretch of grass. She walked faster, her boots crunching on small twigs that hadn’t been there a second prior. She checked her phone again. 11:50 PM. She frowned, tapped the screen, held it up to the starless black sky. The signal bars were empty, that was expected, but the time hadn’t shifted. She’d walked at least five minutes since the last check. She waited, counting the seconds under her breath. One one thousand. Two one thousand. She counted to 120, two full minutes, her breath fogging in front of her face as the air began to seep cold into her bones. The time on the screen stayed 11:50 PM. The benefactor had said time moved differently in the Grove. An hour inside could be minutes or days outside. She’d thought that meant she’d have extra time to get to the meeting. She hadn’t thought it would stop entirely.
A soft sound dragged from behind her. A fork scraping against plastic. Slow, deliberate. She spun, pepper spray raised. The trees were just black shapes, no one stood between them. The scraping stopped. The pendant burned against her chest now, pulsing in time with her heartbeat, the faint crimson glow seeping through her t-shirt. She pressed a palm to it, the gem hot enough to leave a mark. She turned and ran for the clearing, her boots slapping the grass. She burst through the line of trees at the edge of the clearing, skidding to a halt. A flat stone altar sat in the exact center, ringed by wild roses that bloomed bright red, just as the benefactor had described. Something crinkled under her boot. She looked down. A plastic takeout container, printed with the golden dragon logo of Yu-Fei’s Golden Empress, the restaurant where she worked. She’d dropped that container . She’d been carrying an order of sesame noodles to a customer’s flat last Tuesday, when Evan stepped out from an alley, grabbed her left wrist, his fingers squeezing right over the small crescent scar she’d gotten as a kid. The pressure had split the old scar open, made her bleed, and she’d dropped the container, run as fast as she could. She leaned down, picked it up. The noodles were still warm. The soy sauce glistened, the sesame seeds still stuck to the dough, like she’d dropped it ten seconds prior. She dropped the container, it clattering against the grass, the noodles spilling out. They didn’t sink into the soil. They just sat there, glistening , untouched.
More sounds rose from the trees lining the clearing. Soft footfalls, dozens of them, dragging over grass. A voice called out from the treeline, soft and familiar .
Rory.
She spun, pepper spray raised. The voice was Eva’s, her childhood friend who’d begged her to flee Cardiff after she left Evan. “Eva? What are you doing here?” No one stepped out of the shadows. The voice came again, closer, thick with tears.
You left me. You ran and left me with him. That wasn’t Eva. That was Lila, Evan’s ex-girlfriend, the girl Rory had found living out of her car after Evan beat her, the girl Rory had lost contact with when she moved to London. Rory stepped back, her boot hitting the stone altar. The scar on her left wrist burned, she yanked her sleeve up, the crescent shape glowing the same faint crimson as the pendant around her neck.
Another shape stepped out of the trees. Seven feet tall, too thin, its arms hanging to its knees, its face hidden in shadow. Its boots were her scuffed white delivery boots, the same gash on the toe from when she’d crashed her moped outside the bar last month. A second shape stepped out next to it, its boots the steel-toe work boots Evan had worn to kick in her apartment door the night she left him. The first shape spoke, and its voice was hers, flat and unforgiving.
You always run. You think this place will save you?
The second shape spoke, and its voice was Evan’s, rough and angry, the same tone he’d used when he banged on her apartment door at 2 AM the week before she fled to London.
You can’t run from me. I always find you.
More shapes stepped out of the trees, dozens of them, all the same too-tall, too-thin build, all wearing faces and clothes she recognized. The secondary school teacher who’d told her she’d never amount to anything. The barrister father who’d pressured her to study pre-law, who’d called her dramatic for claiming Evan was abusive. The stranger who’d catcalled her on the street last month, who’d followed her for three blocks before she ducked into a convenience store. They all stepped forward, their voices overlapping, the same refrain looping through the still air. You can’t hide. You can’t run. The pendant burned so hot she gasped, yanking it over her head, holding it out between her and the shapes. The crimson gem flared bright enough to light the entire clearing, turning the wild roses to ash, turning the stone altar’s surface white hot. The shapes hissed, stepping back, but they didn’t vanish. They spread out, circling the altar, their shadows stretching across the dead grass to lap at her boots.
Rory pressed her back to the cold stone, the pepper spray still raised in her shaking hand. Her phone, which she’d dropped when she skidded to a halt, lit up. The time clicked once, shifting from 11:50 to 11:51 PM. The benefactor had said time moved differently in the Grove. An hour inside could be minutes or days outside. Rory had walked into the Grove at 11:47. She’d been in the clearing for what felt like three hours . Time hadn’t stopped. It had just started. She would spend every minute of every infinite hour inside the Grove, facing all the things she’d run from, and there was no way out. The shapes stepped closer, their shadows swallowing her feet, and the first cold brush of a too-long hand brushed her left wrist, right over the crescent scar.