Wendi knelt in the dirt and stared at the soft, useless pages in her hands. Her shed guides had nothing about cottages, and the building season was already shrinking. She needed a real plan, or the badger with the bad leg would face another wet season without walls. Near the mossy outcrop, the old badger settled into his usual dip in the stone. He watched her without a sound. A small calico kitten with shimmering butterfly wings landed on the rock beside him. It tilted its head, then lifted off and fluttered toward the trees, pausing as if waiting. Wendi followed. The kitten led her through ferns to a small stone building with a peaked wooden roof and shelves stuffed with books. She stepped inside and ran her fingers along the spines until she found it: a thick guide titled simply, Cottages. She carried the book out and held it to her chest. The badger blinked at her from his stone. Wendi smiled, shaky and certain. She had her plan now. The wrong part was over.

Wendi opened the cottage book on a flat rock and her smile slipped. The guide called for sturdy timber and clean stone, stacked and ready. She had neither. She had a clearing, a tired badger, and a plan she could not start. The winged kitten landed on the page. It batted at a drawing of a log, then fluttered toward the trees. Wendi followed, because following had worked once already. The kitten led her past fallen pines the last storm had dropped. It circled a slope where pale stones poked through the moss. Wendi laughed, short and surprised. The forest had been holding her materials all along. She just hadn't looked. She worked until her arms shook. She dragged logs one by one. She rolled stones down the slope and stacked them near the clearing. By dusk she had a rough pile of timber and stone, sorted and waiting. But the badger was shivering, and the first wall would take days. Wendi could not let him sleep in the open again. She grabbed the smallest stones and shortest beams and built a low shelter against the mossy outcrop, with a stone arch and timber braces. Rough, but dry. She guided the badger inside. He settled with a slow, grateful sigh. Wendi stood in the dark beside her stacked pile. She had materials now. She had bought the badger time. Tomorrow, the first log of the real walls would go down.