Run: 2026-10-05-01M46B797YC13M2HYSQF1VZRFY

The gate had stood open when Rory reached it. That bothered her more than a locked gate would have. She stopped with one hand on the ironwork. Beyond it, the path cut a pale strip through Richmond Park, and the trees crowded together where the lamplight ended. Nothing creaked. The gate stayed where she left it. “Good start.” Her voice carried farther than she expected. She checked the card again beneath her phone’s torch. Oak stones. Midnight. Bring the pendant. No signature. No explanation of how someone had slipped it beneath the door of her flat above Silas’ bar, or why they had addressed it to Aurora when everyone there called her Rory. The pendant lay against her chest beneath her shirt. She had spent three days examining its deep crimson stone, its silver chain, the clasp with no maker’s mark. That evening, while she carried a delivery from the Golden Empress, it had grown hot enough to leave a red patch on her skin. She had almost thrown it into a drain. Instead, she had come to ask the person who sent it what it was. Rory photographed the open gate, sent the picture to Eva, and typed: Richmond. Following up on that parcel. Ring me in twenty minutes. The message hung beneath a thin grey progress line. “Fine. Send when you can.” She put the phone in her coat pocket with the torch facing out and followed the path. Damp leaves pressed flat beneath her shoes. Her next step produced a dry crunch. She stopped. The torch showed black mud, grass, a broken twig. She scraped her sole against the ground. Mud dragged under the rubber without a sound. From somewhere to her left came another crunch. “Hello?” The trees gave her nothing back. She walked on, keeping her hands out of her pockets. The directions on the back of the card took her off the path beside an oak with a split trunk. Beyond it, bracken caught at her jeans. She pushed through, found another strip of bare earth, and reached the standing stones. They stood among ancient oaks at the edge of a clearing. Thick roots gripped their bases. Wildflowers spread through the grass beyond them, white and yellow heads raised in a season that should have left their stems bare. Rory lifted her phone. “Those are the stones. I’m at the place.” She had begun recording a voice message for Eva. Saying it into a microphone felt less foolish than saying it to the trees. “There’s no one here. I’ll give it five minutes.” Her thumb hovered over the send button. The recording showed eleven seconds. She had spoken for five, perhaps six. She tapped playback. Those are the stones. I’m at the place. There’s no one here. I’ll give it five minutes. Then a small, close sound: two taps against the microphone. She looked at her fingernails. Her hand had stayed around the phone. “Pocket noise.” She sent the recording. The same grey line appeared beneath it. Between two stones, a gap opened onto the grove. Moonlight reached the grass inside, though the cloud above the oaks had swallowed the moon before she left the path. She stepped through. The wind stopped touching her face. Not weakened. Stopped. Behind her, leaves rubbed against one another. Ahead, each flower held its position. The clearing smelt of wet bark and something sweet enough to coat the back of her tongue. The pendant warmed. Rory pulled it from beneath her shirt. A faint light lived inside the crimson stone, too weak to reach her fingers. She held it away from her chest. “All right. I brought it.” She turned in place, letting the torch pass over the roots, the flowers, the far side of the clearing. “You can come out.” A bench stood beneath an oak at the opposite edge. Its seat consisted of a grey plank laid across two stones. Beside it, a shallow bowl held water. Nobody answered. She checked the time. 11:58. She had read 11:58 at the gate. Her phone had lost reception, but it should not have lost two minutes of walking. She opened the clock app. The seconds advanced. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three. She watched until fifty, then lowered the phone. A flower moved beside her shoe. Its stem bent towards her ankle and straightened when she lifted her foot. Rory backed away from it. “A beetle. Something under the roots.” The explanation sounded thin in the still air. She swept the torch across the grass. No insect crawled there. No breeze shifted the neighbouring stems. At the far edge of the beam, something withdrew behind the bench. She brought the light back. The gap beneath the plank held dead leaves and a pale root. She kept the beam there. “If you sent the card, this isn’t funny.” A drop struck the water in the bowl. Then another. No branch overhung it. The sky remained dry. She moved nearer, stopping a few paces from the bench. The bowl sat on a flat stone. Rings expanded across its surface, reached the sides, and returned towards the centre. The next drop rose. Rory saw it leave the water, a bright bead lifting into the darkness above the bowl. She stepped back hard enough to catch her heel in a root. “No.” The word came out sharp. It steadied her. She planted both feet and turned towards the entrance. Two stones marked the gap. She had entered between three. She lifted the phone higher. There they were: one to the left, one to the right. An oak grew behind the left-hand stone, its bark furrowed in broad vertical ridges. She recognised the split low on its trunk. The third stone had stood inside that split. She walked towards it without looking at the bowl again. Dry leaves crunched behind her. One step. She stopped. Another step came after hers. “Stay there.” Her torch beam shook across the oak. She clamped her other hand beneath the phone. “I’m leaving. You can keep the pendant.” She slipped a finger beneath the chain and lifted it from her neck. The clasp snagged in her hair. She pulled a strand free, bent her head, and drew the chain over it. Warmth spread through her palm. For an instant, she heard Yu-Fei calling from the restaurant kitchen. “Rory. Order’s ready.” She swung the torch towards the sound. Nothing occupied the space between the bench and the stones. The voice had included the clatter of the kitchen door, the spring squeal Rory heard twenty times during a shift. Here, among the trees, it lasted half a second and cut off. She closed her fist around the pendant. “You’ve got a speaker.” She searched the branches with the torch. “You followed me from work. That’s it.” The next sound came from inside her coat. Two taps. She dragged the phone away from the fabric and looked at its screen. Her recording had started playing again. Those are the stones. I’m at the place. There’s no one here. I’ll give it five minutes. Two taps. Then her own voice, lower than she remembered it. “Don’t turn round.” Rory jabbed at the screen. The playback stopped. She had not recorded that. The clearing held still around her. She could see every leaf within the torch’s reach. Her breath caught against her teeth, and she forced it out through her nose. She opened the recording again. Eleven seconds. She dragged the progress marker to the end. Two taps sounded from the speaker. Nothing followed them. “Someone’s accessing the phone.” She spoke towards the trees, not the microphone. “Congratulations. You’ve made your point.” Her hand hurt. She opened her fingers and found the pendant pressed into her palm, its outline red on the skin. The small crescent scar at her left wrist stood pale beneath the torch. A mark appeared beside it. Not a cut. A pressure mark, narrow and straight, as though a fingernail had rested there. She pulled her sleeve down. The trees behind the entrance shifted in her peripheral vision. When she faced them, the gap lay where she expected it. Beyond it, she saw the strip of earth she had followed through the bracken. She took three steps towards it. Three crunches answered behind her. She stopped at the stones. The last crunch came close enough for her to feel a movement of air against her hair. Rory kept her face towards the path. “Don’t touch me.” The silver chain slid over her knuckles. She had not moved her hand. One link lifted from her skin. Another followed. The loose end drew taut towards the clearing behind her. She tightened her grip around the stone. “No. You wanted this. Take it after I’m gone.” She lowered her fist towards the grass, intending to put the pendant down rather than drop it. The chain resisted. It stretched back across her wrist, cold where the stone burned. At her feet, the flowers bent one after another. Not towards her. Towards the space behind her. The phone’s torch dimmed. She hit the brightness control with her thumb. The beam flared across the stones, revealing pale scratches at shoulder height on the nearer one. Five parallel lines. Fresh grit lay in the grass beneath them. From behind her, her own voice spoke again. “All right. I brought it.” Rory pushed her free hand against the stone. Rough grains bit into her palm. She shifted her weight towards the gap, one shoe on the bare earth beyond the flowers, the other still inside the grove. The chain tightened until a silver link pressed into her crescent scar. She braced her shoulder against the oak and opened her fist, one finger at a time.