Run: 2026-09-23-01M37PHF4WMF5FZV9SM38Z5WZR

The hawthorn sprig had been waiting on the seat of her delivery bike, bound with red thread. No note. Isolde never bothered with notes. Rory left the bike chained to the railings at Roehampton Gate and walked the rest. Richmond Park after dark belonged to the deer and the wind. The city glowed orange behind her, a bruise on the underside of the clouds, and the further she went, the thinner that glow became, until the only light came from the torch on her phone and the faint ember at her throat. The Heartstone had been cold all week. Now it sat warm against her collarbone, like a coin held too long in a fist. She found the oaks where she'd left them last time: nine standing stones of wood gone hard as granite, their bark worn smooth by centuries of hands. Beyond them, the Grove. She stepped between the two tallest and felt the familiar pressure in her ears, the half-second where the world forgot to breathe. Then she was through. Wildflowers carpeted the clearing, same as always. Foxglove, cornflower, meadowsweet, things that had no business blooming in November. But every one of them had closed. Petals folded tight, heads bowed toward the soil, a whole field of flowers turned away from her. "Isolde?" Her voice went nowhere. No echo. The trees swallowed it. Rory lowered the torch and let her eyes adjust. Moonlight silvered the clearing, though she couldn't see the moon itself. The canopy above was a black lattice with nothing behind it. No stars. No cloud. A painted ceiling. She checked her phone. 23:52. Signal: one bar, flickering. "I got your hawthorn. You've got my attention. Come out, then." Nothing came out. Somewhere past the oaks, a deer barked, that raw, coughing shriek that always sounded like a woman being strangled. Rory had heard it a dozen times on late deliveries through the park. It still raised the hair on her arms. She waited for the answering call. It came from inside the Grove. She turned. The clearing sat empty. Flowers, grass, the dark mouths between the trees. Nothing with hooves. Nothing with antlers. The bark faded before she could fix where it had come from, and the silence that followed pressed on her like deep water. The pendant grew warmer. Right. Hel portal. Somewhere close. That had to be why Isolde wanted her here. Rory walked the edge of the clearing, keeping the oaks at her shoulder, sweeping the torch low across the ground. Her trainers crunched on dead leaves. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. She stopped. The last one had come a beat late. Rory stood with one foot raised and listened. Her own breath. The creak of a branch. She lowered her foot, slow, onto a drift of leaves. Crunch. Then, a heartbeat after, from somewhere behind her left shoulder: crunch. She didn't turn around. Her whole spine wanted her to, and she didn't. She stared at the torch beam trembling on the grass and made herself count. One, two, three. She took another step. Crunch. Crunch. The second footfall landed closer. "Not funny." Her voice came out thinner than she'd meant it to. "Isolde, if this is one of your games, I'm going home." She spun and swept the torch across the clearing. The beam caught grass, flowers, the grey trunks of the oaks. Nothing stood behind her. Nothing had ever stood behind her. She counted the oaks. Nine. She counted them again, because her hands were shaking and she'd rushed it. Ten. Rory swallowed. She walked the torch from trunk to trunk, touching each one with light. Tallest, then the split one, then the one with the burl like a clenched knuckle. Seven, eight, nine. And there, between the ninth and the first, where she was certain there had been nothing but a gap and a view of open parkland, stood a tenth. It was narrower than the others. Paler. The bark had a wet sheen to it, and it leaned, not with the wind but toward her, the way a person leans in to hear a secret. At the edge of her vision, something shifted in the grass. She snapped the torch toward it. The flowers there had turned. A single ring of them, heads lifted, faces open, all pointed at her. The rest of the field stayed shut. Her phone buzzed against her palm and she nearly dropped it. EVA calling. Rory jabbed at the screen. "Eva? Eva, can you hear me?" "Rory?" The line crackled, stretched. "Where are you? It's been ages. You said you'd text when you got there." "I've been gone twenty minutes." "You've been gone since Tuesday." The words landed in her chest and sat there, heavy and cold. Rory looked at the clock on the screen. 23:52. It hadn't moved. "Eva, listen to me. I need you to stay on the line. Don't hang up. Just keep talking." "Okay. Okay, I'm here. What's happening? You sound strange." "The Grove's wrong. Isolde isn't here. Something else is." "Get out, then. Rory, just walk out." "I'm trying to work out which way is out." She turned in a slow circle. Ten oaks. They all looked the same now. The pale one had gone, or had changed its bark to match. "Keep talking. Tell me about your day. Tell me anything." "I— Silas has been asking about you. He kept your post. There's a parcel from your mum, I think. Welsh stamps." Rory walked toward the tallest oak. The ring of open flowers turned to follow her, a soft rustle like pages. "Rory?" The voice didn't come from the phone. It came from between the trees, off to her right. Eva's voice. Eva's exact voice, down to the London flatness she'd picked up over the years and the Cardiff lilt that still slipped into her vowels. "Rory, love, come here. I found the way out." The phone in her hand stayed silent. Then, tinny and far away: "Rory? Who was that? Is someone with you?" Rory pressed the phone hard against her ear. "You're at home." "I'm in your flat. I've been feeding your plants. Rory, who's there?" "Rory," said the trees. "It's cold. Come and get me. Please." The Heartstone burned now. Not warm. Hot, a brand against her skin, and its glow had brightened enough to paint the underside of her jaw red. She could see it at the bottom of her vision, pulsing, quicker than her own heartbeat. Quicker, and quickening. She didn't move toward the voice. She didn't move away from it. She held very still and let her eyes drift to the edges of the clearing without turning her head, the way you'd watch a wasp that had landed on your sleeve. Between two oaks, low to the ground, something pale unfolded. Too long to be an arm. Too many joints to be a branch. It stretched along the grass, patient, careful not to disturb a single petal, and where it passed, the flowers opened one by one and turned their faces toward her. "Rory," Eva whispered in her ear. "Rory, talk to me. Why've you gone quiet?" "Because it's listening." The pale thing stopped. Everything stopped. The rustle of the flowers. The creak of the branches. The crackle on the phone line. Rory's own breath hitched and died in her throat, and in the perfect silence that followed, she heard it. Breathing. Slow, and wet, and very close. Matched to hers, inhale for inhale, the way the footsteps had been matched. Only it didn't come from the trees any more. It came from just behind her right ear.