Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YFTG29CJB56EYJ4TFWNNXN

Rory knew she had reached the grove when the rain stopped making a sound. It still fell beyond the oak standing stones, a fine silver drift across the path through Richmond Park. Inside the boundary, her coat remained wet, but no drops struck the leaves. She stood with one hand on an ancient pillar and listened to the rain on the other side. Eva’s last message was open on her phone. Richmond Park. The grove. Please come alone. There had been no answer to Rory’s calls. She had tried the police before leaving her flat, but she had little to give them beyond a message and a location she could barely describe. They had taken Eva’s details and told her to call again if she heard anything. Rory had left Silas a note, too, with Eva’s message copied on it. Then she had caught the last train she could and walked the rest of the way. She checked the time: 11:42 p.m. The phone had six per cent battery. “Eva?” Her voice carried across the clearing. Wildflowers spread between the trees, white and yellow heads lifting from the dark grass. They looked almost luminous under the clouded sky. Rory had seen them here before, but not at night, and not so many. No one answered. She took three steps into the grove and stopped. There was a sound ahead, soft and regular. A shoe brushing grass. Another shoe following it. Rory held her breath. The steps continued for a moment, then stopped too. She swung the beam of her torch over the flowers and the trunks beyond. The light found bark, wet leaves, a pale moth settled on a branch. Nothing moved. When she lowered the torch, the beam shook slightly, and she tightened her grip. “Eva, it’s Rory.” The Heartstone lay against her skin beneath her shirt. It was warm enough that she noticed it as she spoke. She drew the pendant out by its silver chain. The thumbnail-sized crimson stone held a faint glow, hardly visible against her palm. It had warmed before, near a Hel portal. Rory had hoped she would never feel it do that again. She tucked it back under her shirt and took out her phone. No signal. She had watched the bars disappear as she crossed the stones. Eva’s message had come through shortly after eleven. Rory had called immediately, then sent three texts. None had received a reply. When she reached Eva’s flat, the lights were off, and the neighbour downstairs said she hadn’t seen her since the afternoon. The message was still there, reassuringly ordinary against the white screen. Rory read it again, looking for something she had missed. Eva used full stops when she was frightened; she had done it as a girl too, in the notes they passed beneath classroom desks. But she had never asked Rory to come alone. A branch creaked above her. Rory raised the torch and caught a flicker of movement between the leaves. She kept the light there, waiting for a bird to settle or take flight. Nothing did. She put the phone away to save the battery and headed toward the far side of the clearing. There was a narrow path there, half hidden by nettles, which she remembered from an earlier visit. She had not followed it then. Eva might have done. The flowers brushed her boots. Their stems were dry. Rory crouched and touched one. Its petals were cool and firm, though rain had soaked the park all evening. Beneath the flower, the soil crumbled against her fingers. Something clicked in the trees to her right. She turned the torch on it. A row of trunks stood close together, their roots ridged above the ground. The click came again, farther back. Then another answered from somewhere to her left. Rory straightened. Her delivery bag bumped against her hip; she had brought it because it was the only bag she owned with a working zip. Inside were a bottle of water, a portable charger that no longer held much charge, and a heavy bicycle lock. She took out the lock and looped its chain once around her hand. The clicking stopped. She reached the nettled path. A dark thread hung from one of the leaves at knee height. Rory brought the torch close and saw that it was blue wool. Eva had a blue scarf. Rory had given it to her for Christmas, and Eva had worn it until it began to unravel at both ends. Rory touched the thread. It came away in her fingers. “Eva?” A faint sound came from down the path. Rory thought at first that it was an answer, then heard it again: a low hum, rising and falling without a tune. She put the wool in her pocket and went after it. The path curved between trees whose branches joined overhead. The air grew cooler. The Heartstone pulsed once against her chest, then again, with a slow, steady warmth. “Eva, if that’s you, keep making noise.” The humming ceased. Rory waited, listening. Somewhere behind her, something took a step on the path. She turned quickly, lifting the torch. The path was empty. Beyond it, the clearing shone dimly through the trees, though it looked farther away than it should have. She could no longer see the standing stones. She took one step back toward it. Another step sounded behind her, deeper in the trees. She faced forward again. “Who’s there?” No answer came, but the pendant grew warmer. Rory went on. The chain of the bicycle lock knocked softly against her wrist, just above the small crescent scar. She wrapped it tighter to keep it quiet. The path opened onto a second clearing. It was smaller than the first, with bare earth at its centre and a ring of pale flowers around the edge. Eva’s scarf lay across a low branch, one end trailing on the ground. Rory hurried to it. The wool was damp and cold, and when she lifted it she found Eva’s familiar loose stitch near the fringe. She checked the ground for footprints, but the earth was hard and scattered with fallen leaves. There were marks in it, shallow curves that might have been made by a heel. “Eva!” she called, louder now. “Rory.” The reply came from the trees opposite. Rory’s heart gave a hard kick. “Where are you?” “Here.” It was Eva’s voice. It sounded tired, and a little breathless, as though she had been running. Rory moved toward it, pulling the scarf from the branch. “Are you hurt?” There was a pause. “Rory, come here.” The words were clear, but Rory could not tell exactly where they came from. She swept the torch over the trees. The light passed across a hollow in one trunk and caught a glint deep inside it. For an instant she thought she saw an eye. When she aimed the beam back, there was only damp wood. “Talk to me,” she said. “Tell me what happened.” “Come here.” Eva had called her at two in the morning after Rory left Evan. She had stayed on the phone through the whole journey to London, asking small, practical questions when Rory could not bear larger ones. Have you got your purse? Is your coat warm enough? Can you see the station sign? Rory gripped the scarf. “What did you say when I got off the train?” Silence. Then, softly, “Come here.” The voice had not changed. Rory wished it had. She backed away from the trees, toward the path. The flowers at the edge of the clearing bent in a slow line from left to right, as if something were walking through them. No stems snapped. They rose again after it passed. The line turned toward her. Rory lifted the bicycle lock. “Stay back.” A footstep landed on the bare earth. Another followed, close enough for her to hear the grit shift. The torch showed nothing there. She retreated onto the path. Something brushed the branches overhead and sent a patter of dry leaves down around her. The pendant burned against her skin now. She pulled it free; its crimson glow had strengthened, and the silver chain was hot between her fingers. A portal, somewhere close. She could not see it. She had seen one before, though, and remembered the sick pull of it, the sense of a place waiting on the other side. “Rory.” The voice came from the small clearing. This time it sounded like Eva trying not to cry. Rory stopped. Every part of her wanted to go back. She could see the empty branch where the scarf had hung, and beyond it the trees stood black and still. “Please,” Eva’s voice said. Rory took out her phone. The screen lit her hand: 11:43. Only one minute since she had entered. She stared at the time, then at the message. She pressed and held it, bringing up the details. Received at 11:07 p.m., two days ago. Her fingers slipped on the screen. She checked again. The date remained the same. She had been working that evening, delivering food for the Golden Empress. Her phone had been in her pocket all night. The message had appeared only an hour ago, and she had called Eva straight away. A dry rustle passed through the nettles beside the path. Rory put the phone away and kept moving. She tried to remember the turns she had taken. The path bent left, then right. She passed a fallen branch she did not recognise. The clicking began again behind her, several sounds close together now, like someone tapping a fingernail against their teeth. Ahead, a pale shape appeared between the trunks. Rory ran toward it and found the edge of the first clearing. The standing stones were visible across the flowers. She counted four, then five. She remembered three at the entrance. Rain fell beyond them. It was still silent. Rory stepped out of the trees and stopped. The pendant’s heat had eased, but it pulsed again as she turned toward the stones on her left. She turned right; the warmth faded. She chose the stone farthest from the heat and walked toward it, keeping the chain wrapped around her hand. Halfway across, she heard Eva laugh. It came from behind her, the quick, surprised laugh Rory knew so well that she nearly turned. Eva had laughed that way when Rory fell off a hired bicycle into a hedge, then spent ten minutes picking leaves out of her hair. “Rory, wait.” Rory kept walking. “Rory, you can’t leave me here.” Her throat tightened. She looked down at the scarf in her hand and found the loose stitch with her thumb. If Eva was here, Rory had to find her. But she could not do it by following a voice that would not answer a simple question. “I’m going to get help,” she said. “I’ll come back.” The footsteps crossed the clearing behind her. They were quicker now, pressing through the flowers. Rory reached the stone and put her hand against its rough surface. On the other side she could see the park path, slick with rain. The pendant cooled. She stepped through. Rain struck her face and shoulders. The sudden noise was so loud she flinched. She stumbled onto the path and turned, torch raised. The flowers were visible between the stones. Something had flattened them in a broad trail leading to the boundary. As Rory watched, the last few stems bent one after another, until the trail ended at the stone beside her. She backed away. Nothing crossed into the rain. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Signal had returned, along with a string of notifications. She pulled it out with wet fingers. There were eleven missed calls from Silas, two from an unknown number, and one from Eva. Rory tapped Eva’s name. The call did not connect. She tried again and got voicemail. She looked at the time. It was 4:18 a.m. Rory stood in the rain, holding the phone to her ear until Eva’s recorded greeting ended. Then she left a message, giving the location as clearly as she could. She called Silas next. He answered before the first ring had finished. “Rory? Where are you?” “In the park. I found her scarf.” Her voice shook, and she made herself slow down. “Did she say anything when she called?” “Eva called me half an hour ago. She said she’d got out. She was trying to find you.” Rory pressed the scarf against her chest. “Where is she now?” “I don’t know. She sounded confused. I told her to stay where she was, but the line went dead.” “Call the police again. Tell them she’s here somewhere, and tell them about the scarf. I’m coming out to the road.” “You stay on the phone with me.” “All right.” She began walking, keeping the beam on the path. Behind her, from inside the grove, Eva’s voice called her name. Silas heard it too. “Was that her?” Rory looked back. Between the standing stones, the flowers had risen again. She could see no one. “I don’t know,” she said, and kept walking.