Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YEK21174Q5T8NYJTGH2KMH

Rory found the first standing stone beneath an oak, where the park path gave way to wet grass. Its surface looked like bark until she touched it. The ridges held the cold of rock, and a seam ran down its centre like a split in old timber. Her phone showed eleven fifty-eight. The message had given her two minutes. COME TO THE GROVE AT MIDNIGHT. BRING THE PENDANT. No name. No number she recognised. She had called it twice on the bus; both times, a recorded voice had told her the number did not exist. She checked the screen again. One bar of signal had vanished. “Fine. I’m here.” The park offered no answer. A plane crossed somewhere beyond the clouds, its engines muffled by the low sky. Rory slipped her phone into her coat pocket and pulled the silver chain from beneath her jumper. The crimson stone rested against her palm, no larger than her thumbnail. A faint light stirred inside it. She had found the pendant six days ago in a padded envelope at the restaurant, tucked between takeaway menus on the counter. No note, no return address. Yu-Fei had thought it was a customer’s lost jewellery until Rory picked it up and the stone warmed in her hand. Since then, it had warmed twice more: once beside a boarded-up shop on the way home, and once at a bus stop where a woman in a red coat had stared at it until Rory covered it with her scarf. Rory wanted to know who had sent it and why. Another standing stone rose through the dark ten paces ahead. An oak root curled around its base. She followed a narrow gap between the two and entered the grove. Wildflowers covered the clearing. Their pale heads caught what little light reached through the branches, white and yellow scattered across the grass. It was February. The park had been bare on her walk from the gate. The air smelled of damp soil and cut stems. Rory looked back. The two stones stood behind her, but the path between them had disappeared beneath a carpet of flowers. She could still see the oak, its branches spread over the boundary. She took out her phone and photographed the stones. The flash filled the clearing with a hard white glare. For an instant, every flower cast a separate shadow. When the light vanished, she heard someone take a step. Rory turned towards the sound. Grass shifted near the far edge of the grove, then settled. No one emerged. “I got your message.” Her voice carried across the clearing and struck the trees. A pigeon fluttered up from a branch. She followed its flight with her eyes until it disappeared into the dark. The phone showed midnight. The photograph had caught the stones and the flowers, though the flash had washed the nearest blooms into white smears. Rory enlarged the image and studied the gap between the stones. Her boot prints marked the grass on this side. Beyond them lay a strip of bare earth and the park path. She turned to look at the same place. Flowers covered it from stone to stone. Rory walked back. Stems brushed her jeans, shedding water onto the fabric. At the boundary she crouched and parted the flowers. Roots gripped the soil beneath them, thin and tangled. She pressed one finger into the earth. It was firm and cold, with no sign of a path underneath. The sound of a step came again, close enough to make her shoulders lock. She stayed crouched. A stem scraped the back of her hand as it lifted from the soil. “Who’s there?” Nothing moved among the trees. She could see the pale trunks of birches beyond the clearing and the broad shapes of oaks behind them. None offered much cover at ground level. She stood and took three steps towards the middle of the grove. Three steps followed her. They came from behind, each one a fraction late, with the soft crush of grass under a sole. Rory stopped. So did the sound. She turned. The flowers behind her swayed, though she had crossed that patch moments before. She watched them settle and listened for breathing, a rustle of clothing, anything that might give her a direction. A small click came from her pocket. Her phone screen had woken. A message notification sat beneath the time. LOOK DOWN. The sender’s field was blank. Rory looked at her feet. Her shadow stretched across the flowers, cast by the phone screen. It ran towards the stones and ended at their bases. Another shadow lay beside it, narrow and upright, its head level with hers. She raised the phone. The second shadow moved across the ground, keeping its place beside hers. Rory swung around, holding the light out. A birch trunk stood several feet away. She shifted the phone to one side; the narrow shadow slid across the flowers. “Get a grip.” She backed away from the birch and locked the screen. The shadows disappeared. The pendant had grown warm. She pulled it free and held it away from her body. A dull red glow showed through the stone. As she turned towards the eastern edge of the grove, warmth spread into her fingers. When she turned back towards the stones, it faded. Rory took two steps east. The pendant heated against her palm. The sender had known she would bring it. She opened the message thread and typed: WHERE ARE YOU? The reply appeared before she finished lowering her thumb. AT THE TREE. A dozen trees ringed the clearing. WHICH TREE? The typing symbol appeared, vanished, then appeared again. Rory watched the screen until her reflection surfaced over the dark glass: black hair, pale face, blue eyes narrowed against the light. No answer came. She lifted the pendant by its chain and walked towards the warmth. The flower heads knocked against her legs. Halfway across the clearing, she noticed a sound beneath her steps: a thin, steady scraping, as though someone dragged a fingernail over wood. It came from the east, where a broad oak stood with its roots above the ground. Rory approached it one step at a time. The scraping stopped when she stopped. When she moved, it resumed. She held still and shifted one boot through the grass without lifting it. The scraping continued. Rory drew her foot back. A blackbird called from somewhere in the branches, three clear notes. The sound gave her a direction and a distance. She looked up. The bird called again from the same place. Then it gave the same three notes a third time. Each call ended on the same clipped breath. Rory kept her eyes on the branch, but she could find no bird. Her phone buzzed. UNDER THE ROOT. The oak had four exposed roots, each thick as her thigh. Moss covered the northern one. The pendant pulled warm against her fingers when she faced it. “I’m not putting my hand in there.” The blackbird called again. Its last note broke off with a small click. Rory circled the root. A hollow opened beneath its arch, large enough to hold a shoebox. Dead leaves filled the mouth. She found a fallen branch and used it to rake them aside. Something pale lay at the back. She reached in with the branch and hooked the object towards her. It caught on the root, then slid free: an envelope, its flap tucked in rather than sealed. Damp had softened the corners. Her name was written across the front in black ink. A crescent of old scar showed on her left wrist as she picked it up. The writing had pressed deep into the paper. She recognised none of the letter shapes, though the final stroke of the y had cut through to the back. The phone buzzed again. OPEN IT. Rory slipped a finger beneath the flap. Inside lay a single folded sheet. She drew it out and found a photograph. It showed the clearing from the western edge. The standing stones rose in the background. In the centre, Rory stood beside the oak, bent over a root. Her coat had ridden up at the back, exposing the grey hem of her jumper. She touched her waist. The jumper had caught above her belt. The photograph showed her right hand reaching into the hollow. In her left she held an envelope. Rory looked at the envelope in her left hand. The photograph had been taken before she pulled the paper out, though she had heard no shutter and seen no flash. She turned it over. On the back, in the same black ink, someone had written: YOU WERE MEANT TO USE YOUR HAND. The grass brushed against her ankle. Rory stepped away from the root. The flowers beside it folded down in a narrow line, one after another, as if a foot pressed them flat. The line stopped where she had stood. She raised the branch. “Come out.” The blackbird’s call sounded from the oak. This time the three notes came from lower down, behind the trunk. Rory moved to keep the tree between herself and the sound. The pendant burned against her palm. She dropped the chain, and the stone struck her coat, still glowing through the fabric. Her phone lit up in her pocket. She pulled it free without taking her eyes off the trunk. The message field was open. Words appeared there, one letter at a time, though her thumb rested against the side of the phone. RORY, LOOK AT THE ROOT. She backed towards the standing stones, holding the branch across her body. At the oak, the leaves she had raked aside lifted and slipped back beneath the root. The flowers along the flattened line rose with them, their stems straightening until no trace of the passage remained. Rory found the camera icon and aimed the phone at the tree. On the screen, the oak stood at the centre of the clearing. Flowers crowded its roots. The hollow showed as a black slit beneath the moss. Something pale filled that slit. Rory lowered the phone. Leaves packed the hollow from edge to edge. She raised it again. A hand rested beneath the root, palm down, its fingers spread against the soil. A small crescent scar marked the wrist. Rory tightened her grip on the branch. The hand on the screen turned over, and its fingers curled towards her.