Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YH76Q6C65WQZT7M0HE9SNP

The first wrong thing was the birdsong. Rory heard it as she stepped between the oak standing stones: a clear, bright chorus, the sort that should have belonged to a May morning. Beyond the grove, Richmond Park lay under a moonless sky. Her phone said 11:43 p.m. She stopped and looked back. The path she had followed through the bracken was still there, pale under her torch beam. The noise of the birds continued behind her, close enough that she ought to have seen them in the branches. When she turned, the song stopped. A single note sounded at her back. Rory faced the path again. Nothing moved except the bracken, settling where she had brushed through it. She waited until the silence grew uncomfortable, then stepped back out between the stones. The note did not come again. She could leave. There was still time to walk to the road, call a cab and tell herself that the message had been a prank. Her flat above Silas’s bar would be noisy for another hour, but the noise would be human. She looked at the folded paper in her hand. It had been pushed through the restaurant’s letterbox that afternoon, addressed to her in block capitals. Inside was a photograph of her, taken from across the street as she unlocked her bicycle. Written on the back were six words: COME ALONE. THE GROVE. BEFORE MIDNIGHT. She had shown Yu-Fei the photograph. He had wanted to call the police, but Rory had convinced him to wait while she tried to find out who had sent it. The photograph itself was not a threat, she had said, though the argument had sounded thin even to her. She had not told him she knew which grove the note meant. Now she took a picture of the standing stones and sent it to Yu-Fei with a message: Here. If you don’t hear from me by 12:30, call the police. The message failed to send. There was no signal. “Fine,” she murmured. She saved it as a draft and put the phone away. Then she went back through the stones. The birds sang once more, all at once. The grove opened before her in a shallow bowl of grass and wildflowers. White blooms nodded among purple ones, their colours oddly vivid in the torchlight. They looked fresh despite the cold. Trees crowded the edge of the clearing, their branches knotted together overhead. There was no moon to be seen through them. Rory walked toward the centre. Her trainers made a soft, damp sound in the grass, and the flowers released a sweet smell when she brushed them. Under it was another scent, like a cupboard opened after years in a shut room. The Heartstone rested beneath her jumper, a thumbnail-sized weight against her chest. She touched it through the fabric. It was warm, though the silver chain felt cool against her neck. “Hello?” she called. The birds stopped. She stood still, listening. Somewhere in the trees, water dripped. Then the birds began again, farther away this time, and she heard her own voice from the other side of the clearing. “Hello?” It was a good imitation. The speaker had caught the little lift at the end, even the breath before the word. But Rory had never heard an echo leave such a long pause. She swung the torch toward it. The beam crossed tree trunks and low branches, finding no one. “If you took the photograph,” she said, “you’ve got my attention.” Nothing answered. She pulled the pendant from under her jumper. The crimson stone held a faint inner glow, just visible against her palm. It grew warmer as she faced the trees where the voice had come from. When she turned away, the warmth eased. A Hel portal, then. Somewhere near. She had hoped whoever sent the note knew why an unknown benefactor had given her the Heartstone. Now she wondered whether the sender had merely known how to bring her here with it. Rory went to the edge of the clearing. The flowers thinned beneath the trees, giving way to dark soil and fallen leaves. She kept one foot in the grass and shone the torch into the undergrowth. At first she saw only branches. Then a patch of darkness shifted between two trunks, deeper than the shadows around it. It moved to the right, slowly enough that she could follow, and disappeared behind a tree. Rory took three steps sideways, keeping the trunk in sight. Nothing emerged on the other side. She checked behind it anyway, circling wide. There was no one there and nowhere a person could have gone without crossing the beam. The ground held a scatter of leaves, a few stones, and one small white feather. The feather was clean and dry. She picked it up by the tip. A bird called directly above her. She jerked the torch upward. The branches were empty. The feather slipped from her fingers. Before it touched the ground, something in the clearing said, “Fine.” Rory turned. The voice was hers again, quiet and matter-of-fact. She backed out from under the trees. The flowers parted around her legs. Their stems seemed to catch at her socks, though when she looked down they were ordinary stems, bending and springing upright as she passed. “Who are you?” she asked. From somewhere close to the ground came a small rustling sound. She held the torch still. A line moved through the flowers toward her, as though something low and narrow were pushing its way between them. Rory stepped aside. The line stopped where she had been standing. For several seconds nothing happened. Then the flowers there lifted and settled, one after another, until the movement reached the tree line and vanished. She looked back toward the entrance. The oak stones stood where she remembered them, the path beyond a dim strip between the bracken. She started toward them, walking quickly but refusing to run. Halfway across the clearing she checked her phone. 11:43. She had been inside for at least ten minutes. The phone was working; the torch was on, and the battery had dropped by a few per cent. She watched the time while she walked. It stayed at 11:43. The stones seemed no closer. Rory stopped. She could see the scratches in the bark of the nearer stone, a pale scar running down its side. She chose a patch of bare earth beside it and walked straight toward it, counting her steps. At thirty she looked up. The stone remained the same distance away. She turned off the torch. Darkness closed around her. She heard herself breathing and, underneath it, a second breath drawn slowly in. The stone in her hand warmed sharply. Its glow showed her fingers curled around it, the crescent scar on her left wrist, the edge of her sleeve. It did not light the ground. The other breath went out. Rory switched the torch back on and spun toward the sound. The flowers behind her were flattened in an oval, as though someone had been lying among them. By the time she reached the spot, the stems were rising. She crouched and touched the grass. It was cold and wet. Beneath it she found an impression in the earth, a shallow hollow about the width of a hand. There were no finger marks. A few inches away was another hollow, and another beyond that, leading toward the trees. The marks stopped at the foot of a trunk. Rory followed them with the beam. The bark was dark and ridged, with a split running from the roots to a low branch. The air inside the split looked blacker than the bark, and the Heartstone grew hot enough that she had to loosen her grip. She moved closer. A current of cold air touched her face. The split was too narrow for her fingers. Yet when she leaned toward it, she heard a faint sound from within: the scrape of a chair on a floor, followed by a man clearing his throat. Rory pulled back. The sound had come from the restaurant. She knew the scrape; one of the dining chairs had a loose metal cap on its leg. It caught on the tiles whenever Yu-Fei moved it. The chair scraped again. Then Yu-Fei’s voice said, “Rory?” She clamped her hand over her mouth. She had not sent the message. He did not know where she was. “Rory, are you there?” The voice was muffled, as if he were speaking through a wall. She took her hand away. “Yu-Fei?” A pause. Then, very softly, from inside the tree: “Who are you?” Her own question, in her own voice. Rory stepped back so quickly that she tripped over a root. The torch flew from her hand and landed in the flowers, its beam pointing across the clearing. For an instant it caught something standing among the trunks opposite her. It was tall and narrow. She saw a pale face, or the suggestion of one, tilted toward the light. Then the beam rolled away. Rory scrambled after the torch and seized it. When she aimed it at the trees, there was nothing there. The flowers beneath them shook, though no wind reached her. The Heartstone burned against her palm. She tucked it under her jumper, then changed her mind and pulled it out again. Its heat was unpleasant, but it told her which direction the split lay in even when she could no longer see the tree. The path between the stones had not changed. She tried walking toward it again, keeping the split behind her, and counted fifty steps. The stone with the pale scar remained ahead, neither closer nor farther away. She stopped counting and listened. The birds were still singing. Each time they reached a particular series of notes, they began again from the start. It was a short loop, perhaps twenty seconds long. She had heard it over and over without noticing. Rory waited for the final note. When it came, she called, “Hello?” The birds fell silent. The clearing seemed to widen around her. For a moment she could hear the wind in the park beyond the stones. Then her voice answered from the trees, “Hello?” and the song began again. She looked at the stone with the pale scar. She had been using it to measure her progress, staring at it as she walked. She turned the torch away and picked out a crooked patch of flowers beside the entrance instead. Then she called, “Fine.” The song stopped. She ran. Wet grass slipped under her trainers. She kept her eyes on the crooked flowers. Behind her, something moved through the undergrowth with a long, dry rush. “Fine,” her voice said. The birds resumed. Rory reached the patch of flowers and nearly fell over the nearer stone. It was suddenly right in front of her. She caught herself against its rough bark and stumbled between the pair. The rush behind her stopped. She stood on the path outside, bent over and breathing hard. The park was cold and quiet. No birds sang. Rory took another step away from the stones. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. When she pulled it out, the screen showed 12:26 and a weak signal. The message to Yu-Fei remained in drafts. She sent it with a second message: I’m out. Calling you now. The call rang twice before he answered. “Rory? Where are you?” “In the park.” She looked back at the grove. From here she could see only the trees and the dark space between the stones. “Did you get a message from me?” “Just now. What happened?” “I’ll tell you when I get back. Can you stay at the restaurant?” “Yes. Do you want me to come and get you?” “No. I’m walking to the road.” She started down the path. “I’ll call a cab from there.” The Heartstone had cooled. She kept one hand around it anyway. Yu-Fei asked her another question, but the signal broke up. Rory held the phone higher and walked faster, keeping the torch on the path. A bird began to sing behind her. She stopped. The song came again, bright and clear, from somewhere beyond the oak stones. “Rory?” Yu-Fei said. “Are you still there?” “Yes.” She listened to the bird. It was repeating the same short series of notes. “Can you hear that?” “Hear what?” The song ended. Rory waited for it to begin again, but the park stayed quiet. Then, from somewhere just off the path, her own voice said, “Yes.”