Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YFXZHJBBZVQCG972N76FR9

The gate into Richmond Park stood open, though Rory was almost certain she had closed it. She paused with one hand on the cold iron. The city sounded distant here: a wash of traffic, a siren thinning into the dark. Beyond the gate, the path vanished between trees. She had left her keys in the grove. She knew exactly where: on the flat stone beside the fallen oak, where she had set them down to photograph a cluster of white flowers. At the time she had been too busy wondering how anything could bloom in February to notice what she’d left behind. By the time she got back to the flat above Silas’ bar and found her pockets empty, the light had gone. She could have called a locksmith, but her delivery bike key was on the same ring, and she needed the bike for work in the morning. More than that, she didn’t like the thought of her keys lying in a place where an hour could slip past outside as minutes or days. She checked her phone. Eleven seventeen. Forty-three per cent battery. The beam of her torch app shook once across the path before she steadied her hand. She went through the gate and pulled it shut behind her. The latch clicked. A few steps later she looked back. The gate was closed. “Good,” she said, and felt foolish at once. The park smelled of wet leaves and cold earth. Somewhere to her left, deer moved through the bracken with the soft, practical noise of animals going about their business. Rory followed the path she had taken that afternoon, keeping the torch low. Her trainers found puddles even when the light caught them in time. The grove lay behind a stand of trees that looked unremarkable until she got close. In daylight she had found it by accident, cutting between trunks to get a better look at what she’d thought was a carved post. Tonight she found it because the air changed. The wind dropped. The distant traffic vanished. Rory stopped. She could still hear the deer, but only faintly, as though someone had closed a window. She raised the phone. Ahead stood the first of the ancient oak standing stones, its dark surface ridged and knotted. She had touched it that afternoon and felt something like old wood beneath her fingers, though it rose from the ground with the weight and stillness of stone. There were no leaves around its base. The grass was green and close-cropped, and beyond it the wildflowers showed pale faces in the torchlight. Her pendant lay cool against her chest. Rory glanced at the time again, then opened the camera and took a picture of the trees behind her. The flash startled her, whitening every trunk. When she looked at the image, she could make out the path back to the gate. She turned off the flash, put the phone in her right hand and stepped between two standing stones. The flowers stirred. There was no wind. Their stems leaned gently towards her, then settled upright. Rory stood very still, waiting for the movement to happen again. It did not. She could hear her breathing and a slow drip from somewhere among the branches. “Keys,” she reminded herself. The fallen oak lay on the far side of the clearing. She could just see the hump of its trunk beyond the flowers. The flat stone was next to it. She crossed carefully, making a narrow track through the stems. The torch picked out white petals, blue petals, a yellow bloom with its head closed tight. In daylight the clearing had seemed oddly bright for the season, but not unfriendly. She had crouched to take photographs and listened to birds she couldn’t see. She remembered thinking she ought to tell Eva about it. At night the flowers looked too clean. Their petals held no soil or torn edges. Even where Rory’s shoes bent them down, they rose behind her without a mark. The flat stone came into view. Her key ring lay on top, the little red tag from the bike shop unmistakable in the light. Relief loosened her shoulders. She reached for it, then stopped. The keys were arranged in a straight line. The ring sat at one end, the keys fanned out and overlapping neatly. She couldn’t remember how she had put them down. She had been holding her phone in one hand and brushing hair out of her eyes with the other. Perhaps they had landed like that. Rory picked them up. They were dry. The stone beneath them was wet. A twig snapped behind her. She turned, throwing the beam across the clearing. The standing stones rose among the trees. Nothing moved between them. “Hello?” The word travelled farther than it should have. She heard it once from her own mouth, then again, faintly, from somewhere beyond the oak. Not an echo. The second hello was softer, and the last syllable lifted like a question. Rory’s mouth went dry. She kept the light on the trees. A bird, she thought. Something that could mimic a voice. She had seen videos of them. She had never heard of one doing it in Richmond Park in February at half past eleven. She closed her hand around the keys, fitting the longest one between her fingers, and immediately felt ridiculous. If someone was standing out there, she had a phone and legs. She did not need to pretend a house key was a weapon. She backed towards the gap between the stones. Something breathed. It was close enough that she felt she ought to feel it on her neck. A slow intake, followed by an equally slow release. Rory spun around. The torch beam hit the fallen oak. Black hollows lay between its roots, packed with dead leaves. Nothing else. She held her own breath. The breathing continued. It came from the flowers at her feet. Rory stepped away from them. The sound stopped. For a moment she could hear the drip again. Then, from the far edge of the clearing, a stem bent down. Another followed, and another. A shallow crease travelled through the flowers towards her, as though something low to the ground was making its way across them. Rory walked quickly to the standing stones. She did not run until she reached the gap. The world beyond should have opened into the trees and the path. Instead she stepped over a patch of bare earth and found the fallen oak in front of her. She stopped so abruptly that the keys struck her palm. Behind her stood the two oak stones. Ahead, the flat stone shone wet beside the fallen trunk. She swung the phone around, trying to make sense of the angles. The clearing looked just as it had when she entered, except that she had come through from the wrong side. The crease in the flowers was gone. Rory went back through the gap. The stones passed on either side of her shoulders. She counted four paces and reached the edge of the clearing again, with the fallen oak in front of her. “No.” She turned. The gap was still there. Through it she could see tree trunks and darkness. She could even make out what looked like the path. She walked towards it slowly, watching her feet. Grass. The roots of the left-hand stone. A strip of bare soil. At the fourth step, her torch dimmed. The ground beneath her foot was no longer bare. Flowers brushed her ankle. She jerked back. The light brightened. She was standing inside the clearing, facing the stones. Her phone showed eleven eighteen. Rory stared at the time. She had spent longer than a minute finding the keys. She was sure of it. She checked the photograph she had taken outside; it had been saved at eleven seventeen. A sound came from behind her, a careful scrape against the fallen oak. She faced it with the light raised. The beam found a pale shape against the bark, about the size of a hand. It withdrew into the darkness on the other side. Rory kept watching. After a few seconds the shape appeared again, higher up. Four narrow marks curled over the trunk’s edge. She took a step backwards. The marks stayed where they were. Then one lifted and hooked over the bark again, as if testing its grip. Rory turned away and walked along the line of standing stones, looking for another gap. Her pulse hammered hard enough to make the light jump. She passed one stone, then another. Between them she could see the ordinary trees of the park. A fallen branch lay across the ground outside, silver with damp. She chose that gap and tossed her keys through it. The ring sailed between the stones and landed with a small metallic clatter on the flat stone beside the fallen oak. Rory flinched. Across the clearing, the pale marks tightened on the trunk. She went to retrieve the keys, keeping the light fixed on the oak. When she bent to pick them up, something on the other side shifted its weight. The trunk creaked. She straightened and retreated. The keys were wet now. Her pendant had begun to warm against her skin. She pulled it free of her shirt. The deep crimson stone held a faint inner glow, barely visible in the phone light. A pulse of warmth moved through it into her fingertips. She knew what that meant. Somewhere nearby was a Hel portal. The thought brought no relief, but it gave her something to work with. She held the pendant by its silver chain and walked towards the first gap. The stone grew warmer. She moved away. The warmth faded a little. At the second gap it pulsed again. She continued along the boundary, holding the pendant out in front of her. By the time she reached the far side of the clearing, it had cooled almost to the temperature of her hand. The oak creaked behind her. Rory looked over her shoulder. The pale shape was no longer on the trunk. A footstep sounded among the flowers. She turned the light towards it. The flowers stood upright, their heads facing her. Another step, nearer this time. The stems pressed down under a weight she could not see. Rory swallowed and looked at the gap ahead. The pendant remained cool. She edged between the stones, one hand against the rough surface of the nearer one. The torch dimmed. Flowers brushed her ankle. She stumbled backwards into the clearing. The pendant warmed sharply. Rory looked down at it, then towards the fallen oak. The glow had strengthened. Whatever the portal was, it was closer now. The footstep came again, just outside the reach of her light. Rory backed along the stones. The pendant cooled. She stopped and examined the ground. The flowers grew right up to the boundary here, except for a narrow strip of moss beneath one stone. Beyond it stood the ordinary trees, and a few yards farther on she could see the fallen branch. She crouched and laid the pendant on the moss. It stayed cool. She took off one trainer, set her keys inside it and pushed it between the stones. The shoe slid across the moss, tipped over and landed on the other side. The keys spilled out beside it. They did not appear on the flat stone. Rory let out a breath. She reached through the gap, retrieved the shoe and keys, and put the trainer back on with clumsy fingers. The pendant’s chain had caught on a root. As she freed it, she heard movement behind her, several quick steps through the flowers. She did not look. She tucked the pendant inside her shirt, gripped the standing stone and stepped onto the moss. The phone light dimmed. She froze with one foot beyond the boundary. Something touched the back of her coat. The pressure was light, almost a pat. Rory bit down on a cry. She kept her foot where it was and reached for the next patch of moss with the other. The hand—or whatever it was—settled more firmly between her shoulder blades. Rory lunged forward. She fell onto damp leaves. Her phone flew from her hand and struck the fallen branch, its light spinning wildly before coming to rest against a tree. The pressure left her back. She scrambled after the phone and turned it towards the gap. The stones stood side by side. Wildflowers filled the ground between them. Nothing crossed the boundary. Rory got to her feet. She backed away until the stones were hidden by trees, then turned and followed the path towards the gate, using the photograph to check each fork. Once she heard leaves move behind her and broke into a run. She did not stop until the gate appeared in her light. It stood open. Rory went through without touching it. She walked fast along the pavement, past the dark park wall, until she reached a lit bus stop. There she stopped beneath the glass shelter and checked her phone. Eleven nineteen. A bus came around the bend almost immediately. She climbed aboard and sat near the driver, her keys clenched in her hand. Only when the park had disappeared behind the buildings did she take out the pendant. Its glow was faint again, and the stone had cooled. At her stop she checked the street before getting off. The shops were shuttered, and a few people stood outside a takeaway farther down the road. Everything looked ordinary. She kept the keys in her hand all the way to the flat. Inside, she locked the door and leaned against it. She could hear music from Silas’ bar below, the bass muffled by the floorboards. She stood there until her breathing settled, then took off her coat. The fabric between the shoulders was damp. Rory laid the coat across the back of a chair. In the kitchen light she could see five narrow streaks on it, darker than the surrounding cloth. She touched one with her fingertip. It smelled faintly of wet leaves. She washed her hands, left the coat where it was and went to check the lock again.