Miso was a sleek Burmese cat with copper-coloured eyes and very strong opinions about rocks. Her rock — the flat one by the garden wall, the one that held the sun's warmth long after dark — was *hers*. She had decided this in spring. She had never undecided it. So when Miso stepped outside on Tuesday night and pressed her nose to the rock's cool surface, she went very still. Something was wrong. Not dangerous-wrong. Different-wrong. Like someone else had been sitting here. Someone who was not Miso.
*Sniff, sniff, sniff.* Earthy. Slightly damp. A little bit like old leaves and something she couldn't name. Miso narrowed her eyes at the rock. The rock said nothing. She would have to investigate. She dropped her nose to the ground and moved slowly across the moonlit grass, one deliberate paw at a time. The soil was cool and faintly wet. She followed a small pressed trail through the moss — a circle shape, roughly the size of a soup bowl, flattened down with surprising firmness for something so mysterious. Then she found the feather. One single feather, striped brown and cream, caught on a low twig near the flower bed.
Miso sniffed it carefully. Not a bird. The feather had *ridden* here on something. Something small. Something that moved through the garden in the dark like it owned the place. *Sniff, sniff, sniff.* The trail turned toward the stone path. Miso followed it, stepping over a beetle who was having his own busy evening and did not appreciate the interruption. There, beside the lavender, she found them: tiny claw marks pressed into the soft soil, in a line, heading straight back up toward her rock. Miso's tail flicked once. So. Something had come *and gone*. And might come again.
She flattened herself behind the garden pot and waited. The night air smelled of cold stone and the faint sweetness of the mountain above the wall. A moth bumped softly against the fence. Then — a rustle. A hedgehog waddled out from under the rosemary. He was round and very solemn. He climbed onto Miso's rock, arranged himself with great ceremony, and lifted one small leg into the air. He wobbled. He tried again. He wobbled again. He appeared to be attempting, with enormous effort and very little success, to touch his nose to his knee.
Miso stared. The hedgehog did not notice her. He was concentrating very hard. His tongue poked out slightly with the effort. She watched him wobble through three more attempts. His determination was, she had to admit, remarkable. Ridiculous — but remarkable. And then she noticed something else. The wind off the mountain was cold on her left side. The hedgehog, small and round and thoroughly spiky, was blocking it almost perfectly. Miso stepped out from behind the pot. The hedgehog startled, blinked his small bright eyes, and held very still. Miso looked at him. He looked at her. She looked at the rock. It was, she observed, wide enough for two.
She stepped up beside him, turned once, and settled. The hedgehog, after a moment, went back to his wobbling. *Sniff, sniff, sniff* — rosemary, cold air, old stone still holding the last of the day's warmth underneath her paws. The mystery was solved. The rock was still hers. She had simply acquired an assistant. The garden went quiet and dark around them — one sleek cat, perfectly still, and one small hedgehog, pointing his nose at his knee with great seriousness, both low on the warm flat rock as the mountain breathed cold air above the wall.
