Run: 2026-03-25-01KMJ7TTF5KCJJBFBV54QY06FC

The air in The Fae Grove didn’t move. Not really. It hung, thick and cloying, like the breath of something long asleep. Aurora stepped over the moss-cushioned root of the eastern standing stone and paused, her trainers sinking slightly into the damp earth. The silver chain of the Heartstone Pendant tapped once against her collarbone. A whisper of warmth pulsed against her skin—just once—then faded. She exhaled, slow, controlled. Her breath caught in the chill. The sky above the grove wasn’t sky at all. Not properly. It shimmered, translucent like oil on water, stars smeared in slow, lazy streaks across a dome she knew wasn’t part of Earth’s real night. Time bent here. She’d felt it before—once, when she’d come chasing Eva’s ghost of a message scribbled on a napkin: *They’re lying about the trees. Come to the grove. Before they close the way.* That was three days ago. Or maybe seven. Rory couldn’t say. Time in Richmond Park was different from time in the grove. Time here was a liar. She adjusted the strap of her satchel—Yu-Fei’s old delivery bag, still marked with the faded red dragon—and stepped forward. Her torch beam cut a narrow cone through the heavy dark, illuminating wildflowers that bloomed in impossible clusters: white foxgloves in December, scarlet poppies curled tight as fists, bluebells glowing faintly at the edges. They weren’t supposed to grow together. Not like this. Not year-round. A sound. Soft. A rustle in the undergrowth. Not wind. There *was* no wind. Rory froze. “Eva?” Her voice didn’t echo. It died fast, absorbed by the stillness. No reply. She turned the beam toward the sound. Nothing. Just tangled ferns and a fallen birch, split down the middle like it had cracked open from the inside. Moss clung to its exposed heartwood, pulsing faintly green. She blinked. The green wasn’t light. It was movement. Tiny threads, like veins, pulsing beneath the surface. The pendant warmed again. A longer pulse this time. Three beats. She touched it through her jacket. “Not yet,” she murmured. “Not unless I find her.” She moved deeper, boots crunching on frost-free ground. Her flashlight caught the next standing stone—ancient oak, wider than a car, its surface carved with marks that didn’t exist in any language she’d studied. Dymas. She remembered the word from the note that had come with the pendant, slipped under her door wrapped in dried hawthorn. *From one who remembers. Keep it close. It knows when they’re near.* Whoever “they” were. The scar on her left wrist itched. She rubbed it. Childhood accident, the doctors said. A kitchen blade, she’d been told. But sometimes, in dreams, she saw a hand—long fingers, bark-like skin—pressing something cold into her palm. A seed. A twig snapped. Left. Thirty degrees. Rory swung the torch. Light spilled over ferns, over stones, over the pale curve of something half-buried in loam. It wasn’t a stone. It was a face. She stepped closer, heart low and steady in her chest. Fear was a luxury she couldn’t afford. The face was human-shaped, but wrong—too long, eyes sunken too deep, lips pulled back from small, needle-teeth. It was frozen mid-gasp, flesh grey and mottled. Not decay. Preservation. Like it had been pressed into the soil and grown into the earth, roots threading through its jaw, ivy coiling around its temples. She didn’t touch it. She didn’t need to. She recognised the coat. Charcoal wool. Button missing near the collar. Eva’s coat. Her breath hitched. Just once. Then she forced it out. Calm. Controlled. “Eva,” she said, softer now. “If you’re playing some sick game—” A giggle. High. Childlike. From right behind her. Rory spun. Darkness. The beam swept the clearing—empty. The standing stones stood like sentinels. No movement. No sound. Then—laughter again. Not behind. *Above.* She raised the torch. In the branches of the central oak, something shifted. Not a bird. Not a squirrel. A tangle of limbs, too many elbows, bent at impossible angles. It crouched there, hunched, wrapped in what looked like woven bark and shadow. Its head tilted. No eyes. Just two pits, reflecting the torchlight like wet stone. It didn’t move. It didn’t breathe. But she felt it *watching.* The pendant flared. Hot this time. A sharp throb against her skin. She took a step back. The thing in the tree didn’t follow. Instead, the flowers moved. One by one, the blooms around her turned. Heads lifting from the soil, petals parting, facing her. The poppies uncurled into wide, red mouths. The foxgloves stretched tall, trembling. The bluebells chimed—a sound like distant glass, thin and wrong. They weren’t facing her. They were facing *it.* The thing dropped. Not fell. *Unfurled.* Limbs unfolded like a spider’s legs from a shell. It landed on all fours, too low to the ground, joints bending backward. Still no eyes. But its mouth opened—wide, too wide—and let out a breath that wasn’t breath. A ripple in the air. A smell like crushed roots and rotting apples. Rory didn’t run. She backed away, step by step, keeping the torch on it. The light seemed to irritate it—its head twitched, skin rippling. But it didn’t retreat. Then, from the edge of the grove, a voice. “Rory?” She nearly dropped the torch. “Eva?” The voice came again. From the west stone. “Rory, I’m here. I’m stuck. Please—help me.” It sounded like her. Perfect. The lilt, the rasp from too many late nights, the slight Cardiff accent she’d never shaken. But Rory didn’t turn. She knew what it was doing. “Don’t answer,” she whispered to herself. “It learns. It mimics.” The thing on the ground tilted its head again. Then Eva’s voice, from the east now, closer. “Rory, look at me. It’s me. I’m bleeding. It *hurt* me.” A sob. So real. So raw. Rory closed her eyes. The pendant burned now. Constant. Like a fever. She opened her eyes. The flowers were closing. Folding in on themselves. Going dark. The thing stepped forward. One step. Then another. Its limbs clicked. Its skin stretched and pulsed, like something moving beneath. She raised the torch higher. “You’re not her,” she said. The thing stopped. Then, slowly, it raised a hand. Not a hand. A cluster of root-like fingers, knotted and dripping sap. And in its palm—a small, familiar object. Eva’s hairpin. The silver one shaped like a raven. Rory’s breath caught in her throat. It hadn’t just mimicked her voice. It had *taken* something. “Give it back,” she said, voice steady. The thing curled its fingers around the pin. Then looked up—toward the shimmering sky. Above, the stars began to swirl. Not slowly now. Fast. Spiraling into a single point. The air hummed. The standing stones groaned. The ground trembled beneath her feet. The Heartstone Pendant flared white-hot. And Rory knew. Not a portal. A *summoning.* She took one step back. Then another. The thing didn’t follow. It only watched. As the grove began to *breathe.* And from the heart of the central oak, a new sound rose. Not giggles. Not voices. A chorus. Whispers. Hundreds of them. Voices overlapping. Names. Pleas. Laughter. Cries. And beneath it all—footsteps. Coming from inside the tree.