AI Rory stumbled over a root that had no right to be there, her trainers sinking into soil that gave too easily beneath her soles. The Heartstone Pendant burned against her collarbone, its faint inner glow pulsing in time with her racing heart. She had come for answers, not this.
"Stupid idea, Rory," she muttered, but her feet kept moving deeper into the clearing. The ancient oak standing stones loomed around her like silent judges, their bark etched with symbols that twisted when she tried to focus on them. Richmond Park lay somewhere behind her, its familiar paths swallowed by the pocket of wrongness that had opened the moment she crossed the boundary.
She pulled the pendant free, holding it up like a torch. The deep crimson gemstone cast bloody light across wildflowers that bloomed in impossible profusion, their petals quivering though no breeze stirred the air. The chain felt heavier than it should, silver links biting into her palm.
Movement flickered at the corner of her eye. She whipped around. Nothing. Only more flowers, their stems swaying in unison like they shared a single spine.
Her mobile had died the second she stepped between the stones. No signal. No time. The bloody thing might as well have been a paperweight. Eva would kill her if she knew where she'd gone alone.
A sound slithered between the trees, low and wet, like meat dragged across stone. Rory froze, breath caught in her throat. The noise stopped the instant she did. She waited. Counted ten heartbeats. Twenty. The pendant grew warmer, almost hot now.
She forced herself to take another step. The wildflowers brushed against her jeans with deliberate gentleness, their touch too knowing. Something about their scent clawed at memories she couldn't quite grasp, sweet and metallic at once .
"Right. Answers." Her voice sounded swallowed by the grove. "That's why I'm here. The pendant brought me. The dreams brought me. So show me something useful instead of playing silly buggers."
The standing stones answered with silence . But the air changed, grew thicker, pressing against her skin like damp wool. She tasted iron on her tongue. Blood. Her own? She checked her crescent scar, the one from that childhood accident with Father's letter opener. It remained closed, yet the skin around it prickled as if fresh.
Another sound. Closer this time. A whisper that might have been her name, stretched and wrong. *Ror-y. Ror-y.* The syllables separated by something that breathed between them.
She spun again, pendant thrust out like a weapon. The crimson light caught on something pale moving between two oaks. A shape. Human? Not quite. It slipped behind a stone before she could be sure, leaving only the impression of too many joints.
Her pulse hammered in her ears. Cool-headed, that's what everyone called her. Quick thinker. The one who escaped Evan with nothing but a rucksack and Eva's phone number. But here, intelligence felt like a joke . The grove didn't care about law degrees or delivery routes or the flat above Silas' bar.
She pressed onward, deeper into the clearing that wasn't really a clearing at all. The boundary stones seemed further apart now, the space between them stretching like taffy. Time moved differently here. An hour inside could be minutes or days outside. Her watch had stopped at half past nine, the second hand twitching like a dying insect.
The wildflowers grew bolder, their stems curling around her ankles with each step. She kicked them away, but they returned, persistent as ivy. One bloom brushed her wrist, right over the scar, and she swore she felt it taste her.
"Get off." She stamped harder . Petals scattered like startled moths but regrew instantly, brighter than before.
The pendant flared, its warmth spreading down her arm. She stared at it. The inner glow had deepened to the colour of fresh bruises. Hel portal. That's what the note with the pendant had said. *It pulses near a Hel portal.* Whatever that meant. Nordic? Welsh? The handwriting had been elegant, unfamiliar.
A branch snapped behind her. She didn't turn this time. Instead she kept walking, faster now, scanning the ground for anything that might help. A weapon. A marker. Anything.
The ground grew softer, almost spongy. Her trainers made sucking noises with each step. The smell of turned earth mixed with something sweeter, like overripe fruit left in the sun. Rot. But pleasant rot, which made it worse.
She reached the centre of the grove, where a single massive oak stood alone. Its trunk bore a hollow just large enough for a person to slip inside. The pendant practically vibrated now, tugging toward that darkness like a compass finding north.
"Don't be daft," she whispered. But her hand reached out anyway, fingers brushing the rough bark. It felt warm. Alive. The wood pulsed beneath her touch in the same rhythm as the Heartstone.
Something watched her from within the hollow. She could feel the weight of its attention, heavy as wet cement. Not hostile. Not yet. Curious. Hungry in a way that suggested endless patience.
Her scar itched fiercely. She scratched at it without thinking, nails digging into the crescent shape until she drew blood. The scent of it bloomed in the air, sharp and immediate. The wildflowers around her roots shivered in ecstasy.
The whispering returned, louder now. Multiple voices overlapping, all saying her names. *Aurora. Rory. Laila. Carter. Malphora.* The last one hit like a physical blow. Malphora. She didn't know that name . Had never heard it. Yet it fit somehow, like a key in a lock she hadn't known existed.
"Show yourself." Her voice cracked but didn't waver. Good. She needed to sound sure even if her knees felt ready to buckle. "I've had enough of the theatre."
A laugh answered her. Not from the hollow but from everywhere, rising up through the soil and down from the canopy. It contained notes of her mother's laugh, her father's rare chuckle, even Evan's cruel bark. All of them twisted together into something that wore their skins.
Rory backed away from the oak, but the flowers had grown while she wasn't looking . They tangled around her calves now, holding her in place with surprising strength. She yanked at them, tearing handfuls that bled clear sap onto her fingers. The sap burned where it touched her scar.
The pendant's chain tightened around her neck, not enough to choke but enough to remind her it was there . Its glow illuminated something she hadn't noticed before, faint markings on the standing stones that matched the symbols from her dreams. The ones that came every night since the pendant arrived in her post.
She'd thought it a gift from some anonymous benefactor. Now she wondered if benefactor was the right word. The package had borne no stamp, no return address. Just her name in that elegant script and the pendant nestled in black velvet .
Another sound. Footsteps this time. Slow. Deliberate. Coming from the direction she'd entered the grove. Whatever followed her had taken its time, letting her venture deeper, letting her trap herself so neatly.
She twisted, trying to see through the darkness that had grown thicker between the stones. The path back had closed. Where there had been an opening between two particular oaks, now only more standing stones waited. Six of them. She distinctly remembered five.
"Right. New plan." She spoke aloud to steady herself, the way she used to when studying for exams. "Find the weakest point in the circle. Use the pendant as... whatever it is. Get out. Never come back to Richmond after dark."
The footsteps grew closer. She could make out the shape now, tall and thin, moving with a gait that suggested broken legs healed wrong. It stayed at the edge of the pendant's light, testing its boundaries.
Rory's clever mind raced through possibilities. The time differential might work in her favour. If she could just hold on until morning, perhaps the grove would spit her back into normal time. But morning felt impossibly far away. Days might have already passed outside. Eva might have reported her missing. Silas might have searched her flat above the bar.
The creature made a sound like wet paper tearing. Closer now. The wildflowers parted for it, welcoming it with bowed heads.
She gripped the pendant tighter, its heat almost unbearable. The crimson light strengthened, pushing back the darkness just enough to reveal the creature's face. Or what should have been a face. Instead she saw layers of features, shifting and overlapping. Her own face. Her mother's. Evan's. Strangers. All of them screaming silently.
"No." The word left her in a rush. "You're not real. None of this is. It's a pocket realm. Fae-touched. That's what the note said. Just... tricks."
But the note hadn't said that. The note had said nothing at all, had it? Only the pendant and the dreams that followed, pulling her here night after night until she finally obeyed.
The thing wearing her face smiled with too many teeth. It spoke in her own voice, cool and intelligent. "You came for answers, Rory. Here they are."
She lunged sideways, yanking free from the flowers with a strength born of pure terror. They tore at her jeans, leaving long scratches that burned like acid. The pendant flared brighter, guiding her toward one particular stone that looked slightly less solid than the others.
Behind her, the creature followed. Not running. It didn't need to. The grove belonged to it. She was simply a guest who had overstayed her welcome before even arriving.
Her shoulder slammed into the standing stone. Pain bloomed across her arm but the stone gave way like mist. She tumbled through into what should have been Richmond Park but wasn't. The path continued endlessly, lined with the same wildflowers, the same impossible trees.
The pendant cooled suddenly in her hand. Its glow dimmed to almost nothing. Whatever portal it had detected had moved. Or perhaps it had never been a portal at all.
She ran. The wrongness chased her, slithering between the trees, wearing faces she knew and faces she didn't. Her lungs burned. Her scar throbbed like a fresh wound. The crescent shape wept blood that the ground drank greedily.
A new sound joined the pursuit, high and crystalline . Laughter. Children's laughter. But wrong. So very wrong. It came from above now, from the branches, where small shapes moved between the leaves with impossible speed.
Rory didn't look up. Rule one of surviving something like this, don't look at what wants you to look. She kept her eyes on the pendant instead, willing it to pulse again, to show her the way out.
It remained cold and dark.
The ground sloped downward where it should have risen toward the park's familiar hills. She was being herded . The realisation came with sick certainty. They wanted her in the grove's heart again, back to that hollow oak and whatever waited inside it wearing all her names.
Her foot caught on something solid. She pitched forward, hands scraping against rough stone. Another standing stone, this one carved with her face. Not similar. Hers. The scar on the wrist was unmistakable. The straight black hair. The bright blue eyes that stared out with an expression she'd never seen on her own reflection.
Terror clawed up her throat but she swallowed it. No time for panic. Think. Out of the box. That's what got her out of Cardiff, away from Evan, into this mess in the first place.
She pressed her bleeding palm against the carved face's wrist. The stone grew warm beneath her touch. The pendant stirred, giving one weak pulse before falling still again.
The laughter above grew louder. The wet dragging sound circled back around. The creature with too many faces called her name in her mother's voice, sweet and concerned and utterly false.
"Come home, cariad. You've been gone so long."
Rory yanked her hand away from the stone. The carved eyes followed the movement, pupils dilating with interest. She scrambled backward, only to find the path behind her had grown wildflowers tall enough to brush her shoulders. Their petals opened like hungry mouths.
The grove had stopped pretending to be gentle.
She stood slowly , heart hammering against her ribs like it wanted out. The pendant hung lifeless now, just a pretty crimson stone on a silver chain. Whatever power it possessed had either abandoned her or never been hers to command.
The creature stepped into view fully at last. It wore her face perfectly now, down to the small scar on its left wrist. But the eyes were wrong. Ancient. Patient. They regarded her with the fondness one might show a favourite coat about to be put on.
"Malphora," it said in her own voice. The word tasted like coming home and drowning at once. "You've kept us waiting."
Rory backed away until her spine met unyielding oak. The hollow gaped beside her like an open mouth. Something inside breathed against her cheek, cold and intimate.
She lifted her chin, meeting those impossible eyes with every ounce of defiance she possessed. "My name is Aurora Carter. And I'm leaving."
The grove answered with a sound like every branch breaking at once. The wildflowers surged forward in a wave of colour and scent. The standing stones began to move, grinding across the earth with slow purpose. The thing wearing her face smiled wider, wider, until its jaw unhinged with a wet click.
Rory's hand found the pendant again. It flared suddenly , hot enough to blister her skin. The crimson light exploded outward, revealing what had been hidden in the shadows all along.
Faces. Hundreds of them. Pressed between the trees. Growing from the flowers. Staring from within the bark itself. All of them hers. All of them screaming.
The hollow oak opened behind her like an invitation she could no longer refuse.