Run: 2026-09-23-01M36NQRFBR8EX946RDVT8A6V1

Rory reached the standing stones at 11:43 p.m., with the park shut behind her and the city’s last buses combing the roads beyond the trees. She had come to the Grove for the pendant. That was the reason she’d given herself on the walk from her flat: the Heartstone had warmed against her skin twice that evening, its deep-red surface pulsing through her shirt. The first time had been outside Silas’ bar. The second, ten minutes later, on the path beside the empty cricket ground. A Hel portal was near. If she found it before it opened, she might learn who had given her the pendant and why. She’d left a message for Eva, then erased it. There was no useful version of “I’m going into the woods to investigate the magic jewellery” that wouldn’t bring her friend running after her. The oaks stood in a crooked ring, their trunks black against the clouded sky. Rory stopped before crossing the boundary. Richmond Park stretched behind her, quiet but familiar: bare branches, a pale strip of path, the iron glint of a distant gate. Beyond the stones waited the Grove, its wildflowers bright beneath the moonless dark. The flowers shouldn’t have been there. They bloomed year-round, she knew, but the sight still turned her stomach. Tiny white faces crowded the grass, open to the night. Rory pulled the pendant from beneath her collar. Warmth seeped into her palm. Its crimson centre glimmered once. “Fine,” she whispered. “I’m here.” She stepped between two stones. The sound of traffic cut off. It didn’t fade. It stopped, as though someone had shut a door on the world. Rory looked back. The park remained visible through the gap, but the path seemed farther away than it had a moment ago. A wind stirred the oak leaves above her. None of the branches moved. She tightened her fist around the pendant and walked towards the centre of the clearing. Her boots pressed into damp grass. Each footfall made a soft, wet sound. The air carried the scent of crushed leaves and cold soil, with something sweet beneath it, like flowers left too long in a vase. She scanned the ground for signs of a portal: a seam in the earth, a pool of light, anything that didn’t belong. Nothing. The pendant’s warmth spread over her knuckles. Rory crouched and held it close to the grass. The gem brightened, staining her fingertips red. A sound came from the stones behind her. One dry tap. She stood and turned. The stones kept their dark, uneven circle. No figure waited among them. Rory watched the gaps between the trunks, then checked the one behind her. Her breath clouded in front of her face. “Is someone there?” Her voice carried across the clearing and returned from somewhere to her left. There. Rory faced the sound. A row of flowers trembled. The air above them remained still. She walked towards the shaking patch. The petals settled before she reached it. She found no footprints in the grass, though the ground held the marks of her own boots. The pendant dimmed in her hand. A second tap came from the opposite side of the clearing. Rory turned too fast. Her shoulder clipped a low branch. The leaves brushed her hair, and she fought the urge to duck away from them. “Not funny.” Her words sounded thin. She hated that they did. She took out her phone. No signal, which she’d expected. The screen showed 11:47. She opened the camera and lifted it towards the stones. On the display, the clearing looked much as it did in front of her, except the flower heads all seemed to face the phone. Rory lowered it. The flowers faced the sky. She raised it again. They faced her. Her thumb slipped on the screen. The camera closed. She shoved the phone into her coat pocket. A small noise broke the quiet: a click, like a fingernail against glass. The pendant had gone cold. Rory froze. The stone rested in her palm, its glow gone. She rubbed it with her thumb. The cold sank into the skin. The clearing shifted at the edge of her vision. A shape stood between two oaks, tall and narrow, its head bent at an angle that made her neck ache in sympathy. When she looked straight at it, only a trunk remained. She took one step backwards. The shape appeared again, closer to the centre. It stood among the flowers now, its dark outline cut against their pale faces. Rory kept her gaze fixed on it. No eyes, no hands, no clear edges. Just the impression of a person seen through deep water. “Who sent you?” she asked. The figure didn’t move. Rory pressed the pendant into her fist. A crescent scar on her left wrist caught against the silver chain. She felt each link scrape her skin. “You gave me this. You can answer me.” A whisper came from behind her. “Rory.” Her name, in Eva’s voice. Rory spun. The clearing behind her stood empty. Beyond the stones, the park path remained pale and straight. The gap between them looked wide enough to cross in three strides. “Eva?” No reply. The figure among the flowers had vanished. Rory moved towards the boundary. Her boots found the same damp ground, the same slick grass. Yet the stones seemed to slide farther apart as she approached, leaving her the same distance from the gap. She stopped. A sound came from the flowers behind her: the scrape of a shoe dragging through grass. Rory turned. The figure stood where it had been, head still bent. One hand hung at its side. The fingers reached almost to its knee. “I know you’re not her,” Rory said. “Rory,” it answered in Eva’s voice. The voice came from several places at once. One from the figure. One from the stones. One from the dark mouth of the path outside. Rory swallowed. “Then stop using her voice.” The shape tilted its head. A soft crack travelled through the clearing, like a branch splitting under snow. The pendant warmed in her fist. Rory looked down. A thin red line had appeared within the stone. It brightened, then dimmed, in time with a faint pulse she felt in her palm. Near a Hel portal. That was what the pendant did. The fact offered no comfort. She needed to know where the opening was, and whether it had formed behind her, ahead of her, or inside the figure. She stepped sideways, watching the glow. The pendant brightened as she moved towards the centre of the clearing. Its warmth gathered beneath her skin. “Is it here?” she asked. The figure’s arm lifted. Rory stopped. It hadn’t pointed at her. Its hand faced the ground, fingers spread over a patch of flowers at its feet. The petals there shone with a faint silver sheen. Between them, the earth had split along a hairline seam. Rory backed away. The seam widened by the thickness of a fingernail. No light showed beneath it. The dark looked solid, like a surface stretched tight over a hole. The figure lowered its hand. A beat later, the flowers shifted. Their stems leaned towards the crack. Rory looked for an exit. The stones remained where they stood, though the gap she’d entered through no longer appeared between them. The ring had become whole. She went to the nearest oak and pressed her palm against its bark. Rough grooves scored the trunk. The tree was real. The roots spread beneath the soil, broad and knuckled. She followed one with her eyes until it disappeared under the grass. Something touched her coat hem. She jerked away. Nothing had brushed her. The grass lay flat around her boots. Then a whisper slipped from the tree. “Rory.” This time it sounded like her father. The two syllables struck harder than Eva’s. Brendan Carter’s voice could turn a room still when he wanted it to. Here it came low and worn, as if he’d spoken from the bottom of a well. Rory kept her eyes on the bark. “You’re not my dad.” “Come here.” The sound had come from inside the trunk. Rory stepped away. Behind her, the seam in the earth widened another fraction. The air soured, losing its sweetness. Her lungs tightened against the smell. She took out her phone again. The screen showed 11:47. She tapped the home button. Nothing. She held it down. The display went black. In its reflection, someone stood behind her. Rory turned. The clearing was empty. She stared into the dark screen until her own face emerged, pale and tense, bright blue eyes fixed on nothing. A second face pressed against the reflection over her shoulder. She dropped the phone. It struck the grass without a sound. The figure stood close enough now that Rory could see the outline of its shoulders. It had no face. Where its features should have been, the night gathered in a shallow hollow. The Heartstone flared. Red light ran across Rory’s fingers and painted the grass between them. The figure’s head lifted. The voice that came from it belonged to Rory. “Give it back.” She backed towards the oak. “You never gave it to me.” “Give it back.” The words came from the stones, the tree, the split earth. The same voice, repeated with a small delay, until the clearing seemed to speak around her. Rory clutched the chain. The silver bit into her palm. “What do you want?” The figure moved. It didn’t cross the distance between them. One moment it stood beside the seam. The next, it stood at the edge of the red light. Rory hadn’t seen its feet touch the grass. She ran for the nearest gap in the stones. The clearing gave way beneath her first step, then snapped back into place. The nearest oak stood in front of her now, its broad trunk blocking the path. Rory swerved, hit the bark with her shoulder and stumbled. Pain flashed down her arm. The pendant jerked at her neck. The chain pulled tight. Something held the other end. Rory grabbed the links and twisted. They cut into her fingers. The chain loosened at once, leaving the pendant in her hand. Across the clearing, the faceless figure held out its long fingers. The red glow throbbed against Rory’s palm. The seam in the earth answered with a pulse of its own. The grass between them flattened in a slow circle, though the night air stayed still. The figure spoke in her voice. “Rory, please.” She glanced towards the stones. One gap had opened, narrow as a doorway. Through it, she saw the park path and the weak amber of a streetlamp. Her boots carried her three steps before the voice stopped her. “Please.” It came from the path outside now. Eva’s voice. A breathless plea, the sound of her friend in trouble. Rory stood with one foot turned towards the stones, the other towards the seam. The gap showed the park. The flowers bent towards the black line in the ground. The pendant burned against her palm. “Rory,” Eva called from beyond the stones. “I can’t find you.” Rory looked at the figure. Its faceless head faced her. Behind it, the seam opened wider, spreading through the soil like a mouth drawn without a hand. She tightened her fingers around the Heartstone and stepped towards the gap in the stones. The figure did not move. The voice from outside called her name again, close enough to sound at her shoulder.