Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YG2WW948JADW45Q903H8Z4

Rory found the note tucked beneath the strap of her delivery bag. COME TO THE OAK STONES IN RICHMOND PARK. MIDNIGHT. BRING THE RED STONE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO GAVE IT TO YOU. The paper smelled of chip fat, but that proved nothing. Half the things in the Golden Empress smelled of chip fat by the end of a shift. She had brought the note with her, folded inside her coat. She had also brought a torch, a charged phone and enough cash for a taxi. Before leaving her flat, she had written the location on a sheet of paper and left it beside her kettle. At the edge of the grove, the taxi driver’s tail lights vanished behind a stand of trees. Rory waited until she could no longer hear the engine, then switched on her torch. The beam crossed grass, a scatter of fallen leaves and the ancient oak standing stones. Their bark had split into deep ridges, though their tops ended in blunt, level surfaces, as if a giant hand had sliced through the trunks. Wildflowers crowded their bases. Rory checked her phone. Eleven fifty-seven. She had signal, though only one bar. She stepped between two of the oak pillars. The sole of her trainer pressed into wet earth. The wind stopped. Not in the way wind dropped when a gust passed. The branches beyond the entrance still moved, rubbing against one another, but the air inside the grove lay flat against her face. She lifted a hand. Her fingers felt colder than her cheeks. “Hello?” Her voice carried across the clearing without an echo. The flowers stood open under the torch beam: white stars, blue cups, a few yellow petals with black centres. They looked fresh enough to have opened that morning. The crimson pendant rested against her skin beneath her jumper. She drew it out by its silver chain and held it up. A faint light lived inside the stone. It gave off no heat. “Your message was a bit short on details.” Nobody answered. Rory swept the torch over the ground. There were no footprints she could distinguish from the marks left by roots and rain. A broad patch of moss covered one fallen trunk, but someone could have stood behind it, low enough to stay out of sight. She moved sideways until she could see the far side. Nothing there. A bird called from the trees beyond the boundary. Three notes, clipped and sharp. Another answered from deeper in the park. Then the first call came again, from the same place. Three notes. The same pause between them. The same rough scrape at the end. Rory listened. The second bird answered too, its call matching the earlier one so closely that she checked her phone for an open recording app. The screen showed her lock screen and the time. Eleven fifty-seven. She watched the minute change. It did not. She tapped the screen, opened the clock and checked the seconds. They advanced as they should. When she returned to the lock screen, the time read eleven fifty-eight. The first bird called again. Rory backed towards the entrance and found the oak pillar with her free hand. Its bark felt damp and cool. She kept her palm on it while she looked through the gap. Beyond it, the grass dipped towards the path where the taxi had dropped her. “Fine,” she murmured. She put her phone away. Whoever had sent the note might have used a speaker. There were plenty of places to hide one, and a bird call made a poor threat. She took out the note and played her torch over the writing once more. Thick black ink, block capitals, no signature. The paper had torn along one edge where someone had pulled it from a pad. “Who gave me the pendant?” A small sound came from the far side of the clearing. Not a bird this time. A dry click, followed by another, as if someone had knocked two pieces of wood together. Rory turned the torch towards it. The beam caught a low branch trembling above the flowers. Nothing else moved. She took three steps towards it, keeping clear of the fallen trunk. “Come out where I can see you.” The clicking stopped. Rory crouched beside the branch. A dead twig hung from its tip, caught in a loop of bramble. She touched the bramble with the end of her torch and the twig swung against the branch: click, click. She held it still. The wood was dry. Behind her, the two pieces clicked together again. Rory stood and turned. Her torch beam jumped over the oak pillars, the flowers and the dark mouths of the gaps between them. She kept the twig pinched between her fingers. Another click came from somewhere to her left, followed by a faint scrape across bark. She let go of the twig. It stayed caught in the bramble, motionless. Rory took her phone out and aimed its light into the trees while she held the torch on the clearing. Two narrow beams left too much darkness between them. She lowered the phone and opened her camera. The screen showed the flowers, pale and flattened by the light. At the far edge, between two trunks, a dark shape crossed from right to left. Rory swung the torch towards it. A branch lay across the gap at waist height. Nothing moved behind it. She checked the photograph she had taken. The shape had gone, but a strip of darkness remained along the bottom of the image, as though a finger had covered part of the lens. She wiped the lens on her sleeve and took another picture. This one showed her shoes and the grass. She turned the phone towards herself. Her face looked washed out, her black hair stuck against one cheek. Behind her, the oak pillars stood in a rough circle. There was a narrow space between two of them, directly over her shoulder. As she watched, something passed through it. Rory spun around. The torch beam struck bark. Beyond the gap, the park trees stood close together, their trunks broken by strips of shadow. She could see the branch that crossed the gap. Nothing disturbed it. She walked back to the pillar she had touched before. Its ridges fit beneath her hand in the same pattern, though she found a patch of pale fungus near the base that she had not noticed earlier. “Did you send the note?” The answer came from the grove behind her. “Did you send the note?” Her own voice. Every word in the same place, with the same breath before the last syllable. Rory’s grip tightened on the torch. She kept her other hand on the pillar and turned her head. “Where are you?” “Where are you?” The voice came from the same direction, but it sounded closer. The flowers between her and the fallen trunk remained still. Rory pressed her thumb against the crescent scar on her left wrist. The pressure gave her something definite to feel. “You’ve got a recording.” “You’ve got a recording.” She faced the gap. Beyond it, the grass dipped towards the path. She stepped through, keeping one hand against the oak. Her foot landed among white flowers. Rory looked down. A yellow flower leaned against her ankle, its dark centre no larger than a pea. She pulled her foot back and examined the pillar. The pale fungus climbed its base, and a strip of loose bark curled away at shoulder height. She moved around it, following the curve with her fingertips. On the other side, the same gap opened onto the same dip in the grass. The torch beam reached the path, a pale strip beyond the trees. She took a longer stride through. Flowers brushed both ankles. The fallen trunk lay ahead of her. Rory stopped. She had not turned; the pendant still hung against the front of her jumper, the note still rested in her left hand. She unfolded the paper and set it on the ground beside the pillar. Its white surface stood out against the moss. She stepped through the gap again. This time she watched her feet. Grass, then flowers. Her shoe passed over the roots without catching. When she looked up, the note lay beside the pillar on her left. A quiet breath sounded behind her. Rory swung the torch around. The beam caught the fallen trunk, the low branch and the twig hanging from its bramble. Nothing crossed the light. The breath came again. It matched the one she had just taken. She closed her mouth and held still. The silence stretched until her chest tightened. When she inhaled, the other breath followed, a fraction late. Rory took the pendant in her fist. The stone had grown warm. She opened her hand. Crimson light glimmered beneath its surface, picking out the lines of her palm. As she raised it towards the fallen trunk, the warmth strengthened. She lowered it, then turned towards the gap beside the pillar. The heat eased. The air above the flowers gave a small ripple. Rory shifted the torch. Its beam bent across a patch of darkness just beyond the trunk, leaving the bark on either side lit and a narrow strip in the middle untouched. She took one step closer. The pendant heated against her fingers. “Is that what you wanted to show me?” Her voice did not answer. Rory waited. The bird called beyond the grove, three clipped notes. No second bird replied. She picked up a fallen twig and held it out towards the dark strip. Its tip met no resistance. She pushed it farther. Half the twig disappeared from the torchlight, though her fingers still felt its full length. A voice came from beside her ear. “Bring the red stone.” Rory jerked away. The twig dropped into the flowers. She clutched the pendant against her chest and swept the torch across the space beside her. The beam fell on open ground. Then a flower stem bent, pressing flat beneath a shape the light did not catch.