Run: 2026-09-23-01M36NXYWQYCFGJV5HC1G629GY

The standing stones looked shorter in daylight. Rory had crossed their boundary at ten past midnight, when Richmond Park lay empty under a sky the colour of wet slate. Now the stones rose above her shoulders, their lichen-pocked faces turned towards the clearing as if they had shifted to watch her enter. She stopped with one hand on the cold surface of the nearest oak stone. “An hour,” she whispered. “That was the deal.” The words seemed to sink into the ground. She had come for the pendant. Not to lose it, or throw it away. She needed to know why the little crimson stone warmed whenever she passed certain streets, and why the warmth had grown strong enough tonight to wake her. It had pulsed against her skin beneath her shirt, drawing her through the park to this hidden clearing, where wildflowers opened in the dark and the air smelt of rain on soil. The Heartstone hung at her throat on its silver chain. Its faint inner glow showed through the cloth. Rory turned towards the centre of the grove. The clearing stretched farther than it should have. She knew the place from a visit with Eva, months ago, though “visit” made it sound like they had chosen to come. They had stumbled through a gap between the standing stones and found themselves in a ring of oaks, with bluebells underfoot and a woman waiting by a pool. They had spent perhaps an hour there. When they got back to the park, only minutes had passed. Tonight, the grove offered no pool. No woman. No path out that she could see. Only trees, flowers, and a narrow trail that ran into the dark. Rory checked her phone. The screen showed 12:14. No signal. The battery stood at sixty-three per cent. She put it away. “Right. Find the pull, find the reason, leave.” The pendant warmed beneath her palm. Its glow gathered into a dull red point, then faded. Somewhere among the trees, a branch snapped. Rory looked up. The sound had come from behind her, beyond the standing stones. She saw nothing through their gaps but black trunks and the dim outline of the park beyond. Wind stirred the oak leaves overhead. The flowers around her boots stayed still. She waited for another sound. A soft scrape came from the trail. Rory’s shoulders tightened. She shifted the strap of her delivery bag higher, though she had left the insulated box at home. The worn canvas bag carried a torch, a water bottle, and a small folding knife. The knife had seemed sensible before she left. Now it felt like a prop. “Eva?” she called. Her voice went no farther than the nearest trees. The trail curved through a bank of flowers. She followed it, keeping the standing stones in sight. Each step crushed damp grass. The air cooled as she moved, though the night had been mild outside the grove. At the first bend, she found a circle of bare earth where the flowers had stopped growing. A footprint marked its centre. Rory crouched. The print was narrow, the heel shallow. It faced the way she had come. She examined the earth around it. No matching print. No scuff. The ground held a skin of dew, unbroken except for that single impression. A low chuckle moved through the trees. Rory stood. The sound had carried from her left, too deep for a bird and too close to be the wind. “Show yourself.” Leaves shifted overhead. A cluster of pale petals drifted down and landed on the footprint. They quivered in place. Rory backed away from the circle. Her heel struck something hard. She spun, knife half out before she saw the object at her feet. A small, smooth stone lay in the grass. It looked wet, but when she touched it, her fingers came away dry. Its surface bore a shallow mark like a crescent moon. She knew that shape. It matched the scar on her left wrist, the thin pale curve she had carried since childhood. The pendant pulsed against her chest. Rory snatched her hand away. A sound came from behind her, then. Not a laugh. Not a branch. A measured footfall in the grass. She turned towards the standing stones. Nothing stood between them. Another footfall sounded behind her, closer to the trail. Rory took the stone and pushed it into her coat pocket. Her hand shook once, then steadied. She walked back towards the boundary, keeping her eyes on the dark between the trees. The grove changed around her by degrees. The trees pressed closer to the path. Their trunks bore pale lines in the bark, like long scratches made with a fingernail. Flowers had gathered along the trail in tight white clusters, their faces turned towards her. She stopped. The flowers turned with her. Rory swept the torch beam over them. Each blossom pointed at her boots. The light caught wet-looking eyes in their centres, black and round as beads. She shut off the torch. The eyes vanished. The path behind her had gone. She stood still and breathed through her nose. Somewhere ahead, the standing stones should have blocked the view. She ought to have seen them between the trees, or the moonlit park beyond. Instead, the trail continued into a narrow gap between two huge oaks. The Heartstone warmed. Its pulse beat through her shirt. Rory followed it. The trail sloped down. Water whispered beneath the ground, though she saw no stream. The trees grew thick enough to hide the sky. Their branches knitted overhead, and the darkness gathered beneath them in layers. “Why bring me here?” she called. The whispering stopped. She moved on. A shape crossed the path ahead. Fast, low, gone before she could turn the torch back on. Rory held the beam steady. The trail lay empty. She searched both sides. A bramble snagged her sleeve. Beneath it, something pale pressed against the earth. At first she mistook it for a fallen flower. Then it opened. A small white face stared up at her, set in the petals. It had a narrow mouth and no nose. Its eyes reflected the torch like two flecks of ice. Rory stepped back. The flower shut. The bramble shook, though nothing touched it. Rory pulled her sleeve free and kept walking. She found the pool beyond a stand of ash trees. It filled a hollow in the ground, dark and still, with no reflection of the branches above. The Heartstone burned against her skin now. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make her catch her breath. On the far bank, a woman stood among the flowers. Rory recognised the pale dress, the long dark hair, the stillness. Isolde had waited by the pool before, when Rory and Eva had wandered into the grove. The woman had given them directions back to the park and warned them not to cross the stones after sunset. Rory had remembered the warning. She had come anyway. “Isolde.” The woman’s face lifted. “Turn around,” she said. Rory gripped the pendant through her shirt. “You told me to come.” “I did not.” “You called through this.” The woman glanced at the red glow beneath Rory’s collar. “Put it in the water.” “Why?” “Because it has found you.” The pool remained motionless. Rory stepped towards it, but the soft earth gave under her boot. The water’s black surface dimpled. A pale shape moved below. Rory pulled back. Isolde held out one hand. “Come here.” “Not until you tell me what’s in there.” “Come here.” The words sounded wrong in the woman’s mouth. Her lips had barely moved. The voice came from the trees behind Rory, from the ground, from the hollow under the pool. Rory stepped away from the bank. The woman did not move, but her shadow did. It stretched over the water and climbed the nearest tree, thin as a stain. “Isolde, what’s happening?” The figure’s eyes fixed on the pendant. “Do not let it hear your name.” Rory’s throat went dry. A second voice spoke from the trees. “Rory.” It sounded like Eva. The same rasp, the same warm lilt, as if she stood a few steps away and had called across a crowded room. Rory didn’t turn. “Rory, it’s me.” Isolde’s fingers curled. “Keep your eyes on the pool.” The water trembled. The figure on the far bank blurred at the edges, as if a hand had dragged across wet paint. “Rory, I’m cold.” Eva had never said it like that. The voice had borrowed her cadence, but missed the impatience beneath it. Missed the little break in her breath when she laughed. Rory stared at the water. Her own reflection appeared there, though the pool showed no sky. Her face floated beneath the surface, pale and upside down. The reflection smiled. Rory did not. Behind her, something took another careful step through the grass. The Heartstone throbbed. Red light spilled over her fingers. Isolde spoke without lifting her voice. “Take it off.” Rory drew the chain over her head. The links snagged in her hair. She pulled free and held the pendant in her open palm. The figure in the pool’s reflection reached up from beneath the water. Its fingers brushed Rory’s reflected cheek. The skin of her real cheek prickled. “Put it in,” Isolde said. “Why did it lead me here?” “Because the door is near.” The trees behind Rory went quiet. No leaf stirred. No insect clicked. Even the water’s whisper beneath the ground stopped. Then came a voice from the far side of the pool. “Laila.” Rory’s hand closed around the pendant. Only her father had called her that. She had not heard the name in his voice since she left Cardiff. The imitation carried his accent cleanly, all the way down to the soft Welsh edge of the vowel. “Rory, come home.” Her thumb pressed into the crimson stone. Heat soaked into her skin. The woman on the bank lifted both hands. “That is not your father.” The voice behind Rory drew closer. “Laila.” Rory kept her gaze on the pool. The reflection’s smile widened. Its mouth split open, wider than any human mouth could stretch, while the rest of its face remained still. She threw the pendant. The Heartstone struck the water without a splash. It sank, red glow shrinking through the black. For a moment, the pool showed only Rory’s face. Then every flower around the hollow turned its head towards her. The ground gave a single hard shudder. The woman on the bank disappeared. The whispering returned beneath the earth, louder now, rising through the roots. Rory backed away from the pool. A hand closed around her ankle. She kicked free and ran. The trail appeared between the ash trees, though it had been gone before. She followed it, ducking beneath branches that scratched her coat and snagged her hair. Behind her, footsteps matched her pace. At the next bend, the standing stones rose ahead, dark and familiar. Rory ran towards them. One stone stood apart from the others, leaving a narrow gap. Beyond it, the park lay silver beneath the moon. Her phone rang in her pocket. She didn’t slow. It rang again. At the boundary, Rory turned to glance behind her. The grove stood empty. No woman. No moving shadow. The trail ended among the flowers. Her phone rang a third time. Rory took it out. The screen showed no signal, no caller ID, just a name in white letters. LAILA. The phone vibrated in her hand. From beyond the stones, a voice spoke in her father’s tone. “Pick up, love.” Rory stared at the screen. Her thumb hovered above the answer button. The standing stone at her shoulder held a shallow crescent mark in its lichen. The phone rang again.