Nana Kay stepped into her garden, basket in hand. She wandered past the roses and stopped at the feeding dish — it was empty.
She knelt by the flowerbed and pressed her palm to the cold soil. Three tiny paw prints marched away toward the stone wall.
She pushed through the brambles at the garden's edge. Muddy little footprints led down the lane. A breeze carried the scent of clover.
Nana Kay crouched by the stream. Something dark moved on the far bank, but the water was too wide to cross.
She gathered flat stones and dropped them into the water, testing each one. Then she stepped onto them with her rubber boots, one by one.
She entered the old barn. A burlap sack trembled in a pile of hay, and she walked softly toward it.
She pulled back the sack, and four hedgehogs tumbled out — straw sticking to their quills, looking very cross indeed. "There you are," she whispered.
Nana Kay carried the hedgehogs home in her basket and set them down by the flowerbed.
She put down a dish of water and crumbled biscuits beside the flowerbed. The hedgehogs curled up among the lavender, happy at last.
Nana Kay sat on her garden stool with her tea, watching them breathe slow and steady in the twilight.